"Mantel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... screening shadows, it would unbare a desolate, shabby home. She knew; struck with the white leprosy of poverty; the blank walls, the faded hangings, the old stone house itself, looking vacantly out on the fields with a pitiful significance of loss. Upon the mantel-shelf there was a small marble figure, one of the Dancing Graces: the other two were gone, gone in pledge. This one was left, twirling her foot, and stretching out her hands in a dreary sort of ecstasy, with no one to respond. For ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... Windows extending to the floor opening on the piazza, but notwithstanding the stream of light over the carpet, I thought it somber, and out of keeping with the cottage exterior. The walls were covered with dark red velvet paper, the furniture was dark, the mantel and table tops were black marble, and the vases and candelabra were bronze. He directed mother's attention to the portraits of his children, explaining them, while I went to a table between the windows to examine the green and white sprays ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... cleanliness, showing purity was there. The walls were papered with newspapers. That was to keep out the winter's wind, but over the windows were curtains of white muslin, and a scarf of it ran the length of the simple board mantel-shelf, and in season the blossom of some flower swayed there. Within the home, no angry words were heard, but often there was laughter and song, and when the formulas for conduct were not followed, even the words of correction ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... in a while do. Right away I washed my hands with soap, in our bathroom, came back and grabbed the towel off the rack by the range, and started in carefully wiping the dishes, not exactly wanting to, on account of the clock on our mantel-shelf said it was one o'clock, and the gang was supposed to meet on Bumblebee hill right that very minute, with our sleds, and we were going to have the time of our lives coasting, and rolling in the snow, and making huge balls and ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens
... was ransacked from top to bottom, and the robber was about to abandon the search, when a sudden thought occurred to him. On the mantel-piece ticked a wooden American clock, about two feet high. The man opened the door in the case, and fumbled about with his finger. Next moment he had drawn out the nugget. He bent over the fire to get a better look at it, and then proceeded to weigh it in the palm of ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... charming lattice windows, set in deep square bays. One window faced the fireplace, the other the door. The effect was slightly irregular, but for that very reason all the more charming. The walls of the room were painted light blue; there was a looking-glass over the mantel-piece set in a frame of the palest, most delicate blue. A picture-rail ran round the room about six feet from the ground, and the high frieze above had a scroll of wild roses painted on it in bold, ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... half-light to enter between the printed curtains. Rush-bottomed chairs, a great table, about which seven persons daily take their places, a few poor pieces of furniture, and a simple bookcase; such are all the contents. On the mantel, a clock in black marble, a precious souvenir, the only present which Fabre received at the time of his exodus from Avignon; it was given by his old pupils, the young girls who used to attend the ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... a small earthenware jar from a side shelf, dusted it carefully and placed it upon the mantel. From a knotted cloth about her neck she took a ruble and dropped the coin into the jar. Big Ivan looked at ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... stood with his arm on the mantel. From his superior height he looked down on her dainty insolent perfection, answering not too seriously the challenge of her eyes. No matter what she meant—how much or how little she was wonderfully ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... Ein schwarzer Mantel schlaegt die Lenden, 105 Sie schwingen in entfleischten Haenden Der Fackel duesterrote Glut, In ihren Wangen fliesst kein Blut. Und wo die Haare lieblich flattern, Um Menschenstirnen freundlich wehn, 110 Da sieht man Schlangen hier und Nattern ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... stage is a small platform, on which a number of painted vases, ready for the oven, are placed. KARL is engaged in examining them. At the rear of the stage is the entrance to the room—a large open door—on each side of which are rows of shelves, filled with vases, bowls, plates, jars, mantel ornaments, and the like, put there to dry. The whole representing the painting-room of the Royal Porcelain Factory. Through the doors the furnaces are seen, on which the porcelain is placed to set the colors, and which several WORKMEN are attending. The curtain rises slowly ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... room some winter evening, the lamp swarming shadowy seductions, the grate glowing with siren invitation, the cigar box within easy reach for that moment when the pending sacrifice between his teeth shall be burned out; his feet upon the familiar corner of the mantel at that automatically calculated altitude which permits the weight of the upper part of the body to fall exactly upon the second joint from the lower end of the vertebral column as it rests in the comfortable ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... of Gothic design in it; there were inlaid marble mantel-pieces and cut-steel fenders; there were stupendous wall-papers, and octagonal, medallioned Wedgwood what-nots, and black-and-gilt Austrian images holding candelabra, with every other refinement that Art had achieved ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... century was the great epoch of falconry. There were then so many nobles who hawked, that in the rooms of inns there were perches made under the large mantel-pieces on which to place the birds while the sportsmen were at dinner. Histories of the period are full of characteristic anecdotes, which prove the enthusiasm which was created by hawking in those ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... nervous tension seemed relaxed by the warm common-sense atmosphere of this trim little room, and his brother's composure. His lips were beginning to tremble, and he half turned and gripped the mantel-shelf with his right hand. Ralph noticed with a kind of contemptuous pity how the heavy girded folds of the frock seemed to contain nothing, and that the wrist from which the sleeve had fallen back was slender as a reed. Ralph felt himself so infinitely his brother's superior that he ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... chairs were placed, the darkened parlor, the faded flowers on the mantel-piece, and the brooding silence said it—said that ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... wall. Instantly an uncontrollable desire seized her to look at that face. She had always supposed it to be his wife's likeness, and longed to gaze upon the features of one whose name her husband had never mentioned. The mantel was low, and, standing on a chair, she endeavored to catch the cord which supported the frame; but it hung too high. She stood on the marble mantel, and stretched her hands eagerly up; but though her fingers touched the cord she could not disengage it from the hook, and, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... Higgins fairly jumped into the room as the portal fell in. Storg followed after him, with his hand on his revolver, ready to use it should occasion arise. But there was no need, for the room was deserted, though a candle burning on a mantel showed there had recently been an occupant ...
— Larry Dexter's Great Search - or, The Hunt for the Missing Millionaire • Howard R. Garis
... June 5th—3:80 p.m.... I stayed with my brother Ronald last night, and he and Van Cortlandt came down to see me off. I barely caught the steamer, for I forgot my watch—left it on the mantel-piece in Ronald's chambers—and did not remember it until we were half-way down town. Ronald said, in his chaffing way, that I left my head somewhere when I was a boy, and that I have been going around ...
— A Temporary Dead-Lock - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... woman making dry automatic sounds of assent. She looked cool—Maw—Luke thought; but she wasn't. Not by a darn sight! There was a spot of pink in each cheek and she stared hard every little bit at Grampaw Peel's funeral plate on the mantel. Luke knew what she was thinking of—poor Maw! She was burning in a fire of her own lighting. She had brought it all on herself—on the whole ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... room in which she lay, its walls dimly visible in the light of an arc-lamp just outside the window, gay with saffron cupids who disported themselves among roses of the same complexion. Over the mantel-piece of black iron hung an improbably colored ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... he proceeded, with facile pen, to furnish the house. There was the Log-Fire Room, with the print of George Washington over the mantel, with Jean's knitting on the table; Muffin on one side of the fire, and Polly Ann on the other. He even started to put Jean in one of the big chairs, but she made him rub it out. "Not yet, Derry. You see, I am not living in it yet. I ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... toddled off in great excitement, and brought back their Sunday stockings, which Jimmy proceeded to hang along the edge of the mantel shelf. This done, they all trooped obediently off to bed. Theodora gave another sigh, and seated herself at the window, where she could watch the moonlit prairie for Mrs. Martin's homecoming and knit at ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... time lost her reckoning amidst our tears and kisses, and when my brain at last made known to me the existence of other souls than ours, I looked up and found that we were alone. A saucy little clock ticked rhythmically on a mantel. I felt an absurd desire to smash it, for the impudent thing had been ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... before her. The room had been freshly swept and dusted, the rugs had been relaid, the furniture rearranged skilfully, and the table stood at the best angle to be lighted either by day or night. On the table and the mantel stood big bowls of lovely fresh flowers. Linda was quite certain that anyone entering the room for the first time would have felt it completely furnished, and she doubted if even Marian would notice the ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... my life watching people die, not of their disease, but of another bad and incurable complaint—the want of money," said the doctor. "How often it happens that so far from taking a fee, I am obliged to leave a five-franc piece on the mantel-shelf when I go—" ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... him and his footsteps, taking him steadily, not too fast, not too slowly, from the house, diminished until the only sound audible in the room was the ticking of the clock on the mantel of the fireplace. ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... parlor mantel," advised Mrs. Pawket. "The twins is comin' up the road. I can hear them hollerin' at that echo down by the swamps. Leave it be; they'll ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... into which the door opened, was a kitchen or common room. On one side, was a large fire-place, the mantel-piece or shelf, of which was filled with brass candlesticks, large and small, some queer old-fashioned lamps, snuffers and trays, polished to a degree of brightness, that was dazzling. A dresser was carried round ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... vociferate their accusations, to which Herod hardly listened, being intent solely on gratifying his curiosity by a close examination of Jesus, whom he had so often wished to see. But when he beheld him stripped of all clothing save the remnant of a mantel, scarcely able to stand, and his countenance totally disfigured from the blows he had received, and from the mud and missiles which the rabble had flung at his head, the luxurious and effeminate prince turned ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... another crow wi as mich impudence as if he'd been on his own middin. Sam made a grab at it, an it flew to th' winder-bottom, upsettin two plant-pots, an we all made a rush for it, but it slipt past an swept all th' chany ornaments off th' mantel-shelf an made a dive at th' chimley, an away it went aght oth seet. Th' lass skrikt wi all her might, an Sam shaated, an aw made as mich din as aw could tryin' to keep 'em quiet, an th' cock screamed ith chimley wor nor a railway whistle. Bi this time ther wor a craad o' thirty or forty fowk ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... as those worn in the dance, being wrapped and carefully stored away in another apartment. Work of all kinds goes on in this large room, including the cookery, which is done in a fire-place on the long side, made by a projection at right angles with the wall, with a mantel-piece on which rests the base of the chimney. Another fire-place in a second room is from six to eight feet in width, and above this is a ledge shaped somewhat like a Chinese awning. A highly-polished slab, fifteen or twenty inches in size, is raised a foot above ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... had often made him a butt for her bitter wit. Now, however, when she had shown that his presence was not required, he was gallantly withdrawing. When he went out she sat down and Gladwyne rose and stood with one hand on the mantel, waiting for her to begin. Instead, she glanced round the room, which always impressed her. It was lofty and spacious, the few articles of massive furniture gave it a severe dignity, and there was no doubt that ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... sacred alike to the seats and the shelves of libraries; the aesthetic bookcases, low and topped with bric-a-brac; the etchings and prints on the walls, which the elder Mavering went up to look at with a mystifying air of understanding such things; the foils crossed over the chimney, and the mantel with its pipes, and its photographs of theatrical celebrities tilted about over it—spoke of conditions mostly foreign to Mrs. Pasmer's memories of Harvard. The photographed celebrities seemed to be chosen chiefly ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... one more fastidious than Christie. For the rest, the chairs were of some common wood and painted brown, the sofa was covered with chintz to match the window-curtains, and there was a pale blue paper on the walls. For ornaments, there were two or three pictures on the walls, and on the mantel-piece a great many curious shells and a quaint old vase or two. There was a bookcase of some dark wood in the corner, which was well filled with books, whose bindings were plain and dark, not to say dingy. There were few of Christie's favourites among them; so that the charm ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... by way of a room: a little oak panelling; faded green brocade walls; some nice old pastels; furniture of the Stuart period; pretty bright chintz; a few old Chelsea figures on the mantel and in a cabinet; quantities of red and white roses in Chinese bowls. Aline ached to snap, "If you've never seen anything as pretty as this, where have you lived?" But that was not the way of Somerled's ideal ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... in," Guy said, and folding his arms he leaned against the mantel, watching her as she hunted ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... to that. The opening, which included a Dutch oven, was fully seven feet wide, and the chimney-breast no less than ten. The long, narrow mantel-shelf was scarcely a foot below the ceiling. It took our breath a little—it was so much better than anything we had hoped for. We forgot that this was a haunted house. It had become all at once a sort of a dream house in which mentally we began placing all the ancient furnishings we had been ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... gaudy little prints, tempting spoil of pedlars, in honour of George Barnwell, the Prodigal Son, the Sailor's Return, and the Death of Nelson, decorate the walls, and an illuminated Christmas carol is pasted over the mantel-piece: which, among other chattels and possessions, conspicuously bears its own burden of Albert and Victoria—two plaster heads, resplendently coloured, highly varnished, looking with arched eye-brows of ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... minute—I'll come down with you!" said Beryl, and, rushing to the mirror over the mantel, began to pat her pretty cendre hair flat to her head, in unconscious imitation of ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... and inelegant drawing-room of Miss Caroline. No vividly flowered carpet decked the floor; only a time-toned rug that left the outer edge of the floor untidily exposing its dull stain; no gilt and onyx table bore its sculptured fantasy by the busy Rogers. The mantel and shelves were bare of those fixed ornaments that should decorate the waste places of all true homes; there were no flint arrow-heads, no "specimens," no varnished pine cones, no "Rock of Ages," no waxen lilies, not even a china cup goldenly ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... successfully that Charley and he were very much the same breed of pup. At this point Mr. Tutt, having carefully committed his guest to an ethical standard as far removed as possible from one based upon self-interest, opened the window a few more inches, sauntered over to the mantel, lit a fresh stogy and spread his long legs in front of the sea-coal fire like an elongated Colossus of Rhodes. He commenced his dastardly countermining of his partner's advice by complimenting Payson on being a man whose words, ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... the house abstractedly. Baron was sitting in a chair, smoking hard. Neither men spoke at first. Hagar went over to the mantel and adjusted the mirror, thinking the while of Mrs. Detlor's last words. "You haven't read your letters this morning," he repeated to himself. He glanced down and saw the letter which ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... youre lif and honour save." 3550 Thei weren bothe loth to rise, Bot for thei weren bothe wise, Up thei arisen ate laste: Jason his clothes on him caste And made him redi riht anon, And sche hir scherte dede upon And caste on hire a mantel clos, Withoute more and thanne aros. Tho tok sche forth a riche Tye Mad al of gold and of Perrie, 3560 Out of the which sche nam a Ring, The Ston was worth al other thing. Sche seide, whil he wolde it were, Ther myhte no peril him dere, In ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... sweet and kind' and 'Weep you no more, sad fountains' and 'Hark, hark, the lark.' And the small painted yellow faces and the little wicked hands and perfumed fans would vanish and I would see again the gay beauty of the lady who hung above the mantel in the long drawing-room, the lady who laughed across the centuries in her white muslin frock, with eyes that matched the blue ribbon in her wind-blown curls—the lady who was as young and lovely as England, for all the years! Oh, I would remember, I would remember! It was twilight, and I was ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... faculties will be wanting, and lacking them your immortal part will be dizzied, stunned by the monotony of the scrubbing-brush, and poisoned past the remedy of perfume by yellow soap. Your wife and children, too, will have their faces continually shining like the holiday saucers on the mantel-piece. Now consider the conceit, the worse than arrogance of this; the studied callous forgetfulness of the beginning of man. Did he not spring from the earth?—from clay—dirt—mould—mud—garden soil, or composition ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... chose that looking northward—for we had built our cabin fronting the east. We wedged the logs precisely as we had done with the door, and then sawed away the space between—up to the height of an ordinary mantel-piece. Behind this, and altogether outside the house, we built a fireplace of stones and clay—laying a hearth of the same materials, that completely covered the sleeper—in order to prevent the latter from being burned. On the top of this fireplace, the chimney was still to be ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... backbone; keystone; axle, axletree; axis; arch, mainstay. trunnion, pivot, rowlock[obs3]; peg &c. (pendency) 214[obs3]; tiebeam &c. (fastening) 45; thole pin[obs3]. board, ledge, shelf, hob, bracket, trevet[obs3], trivet, arbor, rack; mantel, mantle piece[Fr], mantleshelf[obs3]; slab, console; counter, dresser; flange, corbel ; table, trestle; shoulder; perch; horse; easel, desk; clotheshorse, hatrack; retable; teapoy[obs3]. seat, throne, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... while; but,' he added with a ceremonious bow, 'I shall not break my heart if I must needs go on with Madame la Baronne. The right which you have given me to use a dearer name is so precious to me '—he drew out his watch and pretended to compare it with the fairy pendule on the mantel-shelf—'is so precious,' he continued, 'that I cannot resign it, and if I am absolutely driven to it in self-defence, I shall have to ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... adjoined the nursery. At one end of the room a fire of large logs was burning. Susy was at the other end of the room, her back to the fire. A log burned in two and fell, scattering coals around the woodwork which supported the mantel. Just as the blaze was getting fairly started a barber, waiting to trim Mr. Clemens's hair, chanced to look in and saw what was going on. He stepped into the nursery bath-room, brought a pitcher of water ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... upon that funeral couch, as upon a velvet armchair; he had not abdicated one title of his majesty. God, who had not punished him, cannot, will not punish me, who have done nothing." A strange sound attracted the young man's attention. He looked round him, and saw on the mantel-shelf, just below an enormous crucifix, coarsely painted in fresco on the wall, a rat of enormous size engaged in nibbling a piece of dry bread, but fixing all the time, an intelligent and inquiring look upon the new occupant of the cell. The king could not resist ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and guttered upon the mantel, and by this flickering light he saw an overturned chair, and, beyond that, a litter of scattered papers and documents and, beyond that again, Jasper Gaunt seated at his desk in the corner. He was lolling back in his chair like one asleep, and yet—was ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... a wonderful little old inn, the only one in the place, and took my meals in a dining-saloon fifteen feet by nine, with a portrait of George I (a print varnished to preserve it) hanging over the mantel- piece. On the second evening after dinner a young gentleman came in— the dining-saloon being public property of course—and ordered some bread and cheese and a bottle of Dublin stout. We presently fell into talk; he turned ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... room. The furniture dark and cumbersome. Down stage R., a door. Up stage, R., C, capacious fireplace, with solid mantel-piece above it. At back R., and L., two substantial casement windows. The windows are in deep recesses, about two steps above the stage level. These recesses are sheltered by heavy draperies. Between the windows, up stage, C., a ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... ceiling washed with milk-white chalk through which shone a soft touch of blue; and this bright cleanliness contrasted soberly with the things that hung on the wall. The chairs and furniture stood placed with care, as though nailed to the floor; over the mantel hung the copper Christ, a thin, elongated figure of Our Lord, with its sharp projections which shone when the sun touched them: a little figure which, so long dead, hung there so firmly nailed and looked so calmly from out of the small dark shadow-lines ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... took a quart glass fruit jar, and bought a cork to fit it for a few cents. He could not get a solid bar of zinc, but had a piece of zinc folded which answered the purpose. Then following the rest of the directions, he placed the jar on the mantel-piece. The next day; the formations began, ...
— Harper's Young People, September 28, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Mrs. Shongut redusted the mantel, raising each piece of bric-a-brac carefully; ran her cloth across the piano keys, giving out a discord; straightened the piano cover; repolished ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... the library. A man came in for orders; I had none to give. He saw that the shutters were fixed and the curtains down, examined my hand-lamp, and placed lamps on the reading-desk and mantel-piece. Bronze busts of sages became my solitary companions. The room was long, low and dusky, voluminously and richly hung with draperies at the farther end, where a table stood for the prince to jot down memoranda, and a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Whistler one day, "how-is it now in America? Do you find there, as you do in London, that in houses filled with beautiful pictures and superb statuary, and other objects of artistic merit, there is invariably some damned little thing on the mantel that gives the whole thing away?" Mr. Chase replied, sadly: "It is even so, but you must remember, Whistler, that there are such things as birthdays. People are not ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... selected a tie, at the strange request he had received at the telephone. He glanced at the French clock on the mantel. His father, he knew, had been at his desk ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... it was so littered with books, papers, maps, and pamphlets, so overgrown with piles of dusty blue-books, reports, dictionaries and works of reference, thick and antiquated, thin and modern, local and foreign, standing on end, on tables, on the mantel-shelf, extending into the old-fashioned cupboards minus doors, taking up a ragged sofa, a couple of arm-chairs, and a dilapidated armoire, and even the greater portion of a bed, that almost every gleam of sunlight was ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... on the floor, and in vases on the table and mantel were some prairie flowers. On the walls of the one big room, which seemed to take up most of the house, were oddly colored cow skins, mounted horns, and the furry pelt of some animal that Bert thought ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... again from the edge of the mantel, and we went out with the sergeant, happy enough to get off so easily, for they might have shot us as deserters ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... of the silence, hammering on my eardrums, burst the loud ticking of the little alarm-clock that I had left on the mantel of the bedroom. I heard that, and it must have been ticking minutes before the sound reached me; perhaps if I waited a little longer I ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... faint, musty aromas. Carpets covered the floors; an old-fashioned hat rack flanked the door on one side, a tall clock on the other. I saw in passing framed steel engravings. The room beyond contained easy chairs, a sofa upholstered with hair cloth, an upright piano, a marble fireplace with a mantel, in a corner a triangular what-not filled with objects. It, too, was dim and curtained and faintly aromatic as had been the house of an old maiden aunt of my childhood, who used to give me cookies on the Sabbath. I felt now too large, and too noisy, and ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... were telling about last night when that little tongue told us to stop? The little tongue in the Clock-with-the-Wise-Face on the mantel? ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... series of right angles will in time arrive at the same point as the tangent, but less quickly. Each angle in such an ascent produces the parity of both horizontal and vertical. The tangent expresses their synthesis. In Fortuny's "Connoisseurs," the right angle formed by the line of the mantel and the statue takes the eye to the same point as the tangent of the shadow. Again, the principle allows the modification of any arm of the cross, maintaining only the fact of the cross itself. When a line passes through the first or necessary ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... walls, breaking the silence with a perpetual "chuck-chuck" as they chased each other. Joicey looked as though he was dreaming evil dreams, and nothing of his surroundings was real to him. The room became another room, the tables and chairs grew indistinct, the face of a small Gaudama on the mantel-piece became a living face that menaced him, and the "chuck-chuck" of the lizards, the rattle of dice falling on to a board at some remote distance miles and miles away, and yet strangely audible to his dull ears. Still he sat there, and flashes of fancies came and went. Sometimes he stood in an ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... of an hour. With sleepy, slow, half-closed eyes, the wicked, smile just curving the ripe-red mouth, Mme. Blanche wandered in the land of meditation, and had her little plot all cut and dry as the toy Swiss clock on the low mantel struck up a lively waltz preparatory to striking eleven. Ere the last silvery chime had ceased vibrating, the door of the boudoir opened and ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... talk about the confidence young novelists seem to have in their ability to upset the Christian religion by a fictitious representation of life, but her visitor was too preoccupied to join in it. He rose and stood leaning his arm upon the mantel-piece, and looking into the fire, and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... looks as good as new, but is subdued to a tone of sober maturity, and chimes in so well with the general effect that one scarcely notices it. The polished table is mounted in dark morocco; behind the horsehair-covered arm-chair is a gray marble mantel-piece, overshadowing an open grate with polished bars and fire-utensils in the English style. During the winter months a lump of cannel-coal is always burning there; but the flame, even on the coldest days, is too much on its good behavior to give out very decided ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... the gold-embroidered band that hung by the mantel, clinging to it for a moment, then releasing it suddenly. Like a priestess she looked, unconscious, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... danced cheerily before them, and the clock on the mantel ticked steadily as the two sat for some time in silence, gazing thoughtfully upon the ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... She saw a huge fireplace where the flames were dancing. Above it, on a wide mantel, was a disarray of books, cigar-boxes, pipes and papers, the papers weighted oddly with a jar of ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... leave James Parsons without telling you of two whale's teeth which stand on his parlor mantel-piece; he ornamented them himself, copying the designs from cheap foreign prints. One of them is what he calls "the meeting-house." It is the high altar of the Cathedral of Seville. On the other is "the wild-beast tamer." A man with a feeble, wishy-washy expression holds by each ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... hours since dinner, and the house-floor is perfectly clean again; as clean as everything else in that wonderful house-place, where the only chance of collecting a few grains of dust would be to climb on the salt-coffer, and put your finger on the high mantel-shelf on which the glittering brass candlesticks are enjoying their summer sinecure; for at this time of year, of course, every one goes to bed while it is yet light, or at least light enough to discern the outline of objects after you have bruised your shins against them. Surely ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... assigned him, the three windows of which opened on the public square and on the Semoy, was the typical tawdry bedroom of the provincial inn with its conventional furnishings: the chairs covered with crimson damask, the mahogany armoire a glace, and on the mantel the imitation bronze clock, flanked by a pair of conch shells and vases of artificial flowers under glass covers. On either side of the door was a little single bed, to one of which the wearied aide-de-camp ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... up my mind, so far, the next thing to do (with the clock on the mantel-piece striking midnight) ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... criticize. The cabin was a small three-room affair, set back from the street, between two vacant old storehouses. Zeke had whitewashed it without and calcimined it within, and with the free air that circulated the place this treatment was enough to make the front rooms passable. Over the iron mantel hung Zeke's "Knights of Macabre" sword in its scabbard. Mary Louise looked for the white-plumed hat but it had evidently been put away. On the left wall, in a brilliant gilt frame, hung a coloured portrait of Admiral Dewey. The artist had in some ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... that was! Never had the antique andirons on the hearth, the pewter plates and dishes upon the walls, the brass-bound blunderbuss above the mantel seemed so bright and polished before, and surely never had they gleamed upon a merrier company. To be sure, the Imp's remarks were somewhat few and far between, but that was simply on account of ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... trees, creeping into the corners of Hagar's room, resting upon the hearthstone, falling upon the window pane, creeping up the wall, and affecting Hagar with a nameless fear of some impending evil. This fear not even the flickering flame of the lamp, which she lighted at last and placed upon the mantel, was able to dispel, for the shadows grew darker, folding themselves around her heart, until she covered her eyes with her hands, lest some goblin shape should spring ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... but the roar of the flooded stream on one side of the old narrow building and the dripping of rain on the other. Their low voices were amply covered by these sounds. The night lay before them, safe and undisturbed. Candles burned on the mantel-piece, and on a table behind Kitty's head was a paraffine lamp. She seemed to have ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was an enormous stone fireplace with high mantel-shelf of stone and the chimney above. The fire-opening was wide enough for an old Yule log, and on either side of it were double glass doors opening into a long porch room, which also had a fireplace on the opposite side of the chimney, and ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... stove, his corduroy trousers thrust into greased laced boots, and a black cotton shirt open on a chest and throat like pink marble. And David supported his lanky length, in a careless and dust-colored garb, with a capacious hand on the oak beam of the mantel. ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... gaze rested on the claw-footed mahogany table, bearing a family Bible and a photograph album bound in morocco; on the engraving of the "Burial of Latane" between the long windows at the back of the room; on the cloudy, gilt-framed mirror above the mantel, with the two standing candelabra reflected in its surface—and all these familiar objects appeared to her as vividly as if she had not lived with them from her infancy. A new light had fallen over them, and it seemed to her that this light released an inner meaning, a hidden ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... is now a full sixty minutes by the clock on the kitchen mantel, M'sieu le Capitaine," she would say, her colour mounting, "and your soldier has not returned my bucket. If he does not bring it back, when can we ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... was enormous and his black velvet coat was embroidered all over with yellow silk designs, flowers, and patterns. It was like the silly mantel-borders and things that Mrs. Pont, the housekeeper, did in her leisure time. ("Cruel-work" she called it, and the ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... another of his mother—this last by Rembrandt Peale—a dear old lady with the face of a saint framed in a head of gray hair, the whole surmounted by a cluster of silvery curls. There were quaint brass candelabra with square marble bases on each end of the mantel, holding candles showing burnt wicks in the day time and cheery lights at night; and a red carpet covering both rooms and red table covers and red damask curtains, and a lounge with a red afghan thrown over it; and last, but by no means least—in fact it was the most important thing in the sitting-room, ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... another blood, no doubt, had been justified in looking upon the hazy landscapes in the great tapestries as their own: and children's children had knelt, in times gone by, beside the carved stone mantel. The big, gilded chairs with the silken seats might appropriately have graced the table of the Hotel de Rambouillet. Would not the warriors and the wits, the patient ladies of high degree and of many children, and even the 'precieuses ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... listened. Not a sound. The silence was unbearable. She sprang to her feet in a moment's fierce rebellion against the crime of such an infamous attack. A roused lioness, she leaped to the mantel to seize the shotgun. ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... random, all well-stuffed and of lazy or voluptuous shapes, composed the furniture of that famous room, where the most momentous and the most trivial questions were discussed with the same gravity of tone and manner. There was a beautiful portrait of the duchess on the wall; and on the mantel a bust of the duke, the work of Felicia Ruys, which had received the honor of a medal of the first class at ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... interesting was the large room. The chinks between the logs had been plastered up with clay and then the walls covered with white birch bark; trophies of the chase, Indian bows and arrows, pipes and tomahawks hung upon them; the wide spreading antlers of a noble buck adorned the space above the mantel piece; buffalo robes covered the couches; bearskin rugs lay scattered about on the hardwood floor. The wall on the western side had been built over a huge stone, into which had been cut ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... think Mr. Justin is like a shepherd. On the whole, more like a large cloisonne jar. Now Guy would do. As a pair they're beautiful. Pity they're brother and sister. Curious how that boy manages to be big and yet delicate. H'm. Mixed mantel ornaments. Sir Godfrey, how old is Mrs. Roperstone?... You never know on principle. I think I shall make Mr. Stratton guess. What do you think, Mr. Stratton?... You never guess on principle! Well, we're all very high principled. (Fresh exploratory movements of the lorgnette.) ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... chill and rainy twilight of an autumn day darkening down upon the garden, while the preceding occupant of the house (evidently a most unamiable personage in his lifetime), scowled inhospitably from above the mantel-piece, as if indignant that an American should try to make himself at home there. Possibly it may appease his sulky shade to know that I quitted his abode as much a stranger as I entered it." The same note is struck ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... should receive the necessary food. M. Herisson, the mayor, with some functionary holding an influential post, had been to inspect my ambulance. The important personage had requested me to have the beautiful white Virgins which were on the mantel-pieces and tables taken away, as well as the Divine Crucified—one hanging on the wall of each room in which there were any of the wounded. I refused in a somewhat insolent and very decided way ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... its every other chime as usual setting up a sympathetic vibration in the pewter vase that stood upon the mantel. ...
— The Street That Wasn't There • Clifford Donald Simak
... the room looked like a valentine shop, with its flowers and gifts and cupids and valentines, and the big heart standing in front of the mantel. ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... the bedrooms possessed every imaginable luxury except boot-jacks and pens that would write. In Sponge's room for instance, there were hip-baths, and foot-baths, a shower-bath, and hot and cold baths adjoining, and mirrors innumerable; an eight-day mantel-clock, by Moline of Geneva, that struck the hours, half-hours, and quarters: cut-glass toilet candlesticks, with silver sconces; an elegant zebra-wood cabinet; also a beautiful davenport of zebra-wood, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Edna's round mahogany would have almost filled it. As it was there was but a step or two from the little table to the kitchen, to the mantel, the small buffet, and the side door that opened out on the ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... dusting a parlor. No information was vouchsafed as to the manner of going about this work, but she had often swept out the cabin, and this part of her task was successfully accomplished. Then at once she took the dusting cloth, and wiped off tables, chairs and mantel-piece. The dust, as dust will do, when it has nowhere else to go, at once settled again, and chairs and tables were soon covered with a white coating, telling a terrible tale against Harriet, when her Mistress came in to see how the work progressed. Reproaches, and savage words, fell upon the ears ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... easy call. He established himself there with a book, returning at short intervals to look at his patient. Selma had resumed her seat. It was dark save for a night lamp. In the stillness the only sounds were the ticking of the clock on the mantel-piece and Wilbur's labored breathing. It seemed as though he were struggling for his life. What should she do if he died? Why was she debarred from tending him? It was cruel. Tears fell on her hand. She stared into the darkness, twisting her fingers, ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... ticks of the clock on the mantel-piece seemed like a hammer beating on her ears. Dolores thought of the morning's flat denial of all intercourse with Flinders! Then the word give occurred to her as a loophole, and her mind did not embrace all the consequences of the denial, she only saw one thing ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... quire of "common noose" paper, Mr. Diry, so you needn't put on so menny airs over your cleen wite dress, wot only needs a morocker lether mantel and gilt braceletts to make you look like you b'longed to the Astor ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... order and heard the Russian woman's inquiries. "'Tis two of 'em I found mesilf on the floor when I cleared up the mess from the fireplace this morning. 'Twas two bits of brass. See, I saved 'em," and she shook from a scooped-out gourd which served as an ornament on the mantel two ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith
... that French vase on the mantel,' he said. 'I don't open the desk once in three months, and should lose the key, if I carried ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... was standing by the fire sipping coffee. The fire crackled and blazed pleasantly There was a score of candles sparkling round the mantel piece, in all sorts of quaint sconces, of gilt and bronze and porcelain. They lighted up Rebecca's figure to admiration, as she sat on a sofa covered with a pattern of gaudy flowers. She was in a pink dress that looked as fresh as a rose; her dazzling ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... so," said Pickering in a gloomy way. "The girls are wild over it; you can't hear anything else talked about at home. But," he broke off abruptly, "got a cigar, Jasper?" and he began to hunt the mantel among the few home-things spread around to ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... the soldier, who meanwhile had drawn off his riding gloves, placed them on the mantel, and stood facing the fire, with his back to the other guest. As he spoke he turned deliberately and bent his penetrating glance on ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... winter is especially trying to the moral character of our young men, because some of their homes in winter are especially unattractive. In summer they can sit on the steps, or have a bouquet in the vase on the mantel; and the evenings are so short that soon after gas-light they feel like retiring. Parents do not take enough pains to make these ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... five wooden stools were placed; one of these was overturned; on another a violin in its baggy green baize cover was lying. Straight high-backed chairs were pushed against the walls on either side; in front of an open fireplace with a low wooden mantel two small cushioned divans were drawn up, with a claw-footed table between them. A silver salver filled with tall glasses was set carelessly on one edge of the table; a half-open fan of sandal-wood lay beside it; a man's ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... that Kathleen almost suspected that bloodshed was included in Nancy's plan. It must be explained that when young Ensign Carey and Margaret Gilbert had been married, Cousin Ann Chadwick had presented them with four tall black and white marble mantel ornaments shaped like funeral urns; and then, feeling that she had not yet shown her approval of the match sufficiently, she purchased a large group of clay statuary ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Bertie,—he was six then,—he listened to the account of the children walking the streets, crying because they hadn't a roof over them or anything to eat. He didn't say a word, but he climbed up to the mantel and took down ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... window and looking at clock on mantel). Ten minutes past nine and Emma not here yet. It does seem too bad that she should worry Ed so much just for independence' sake. I am quite sure I should never want to ride a wheel anyhow, and ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... young man took a turn about the room and came back to the fire. Standing by the mantel he lit another cigarette before going on with ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... divided into three parts by miniature pilasters of tarnished gilt. The mirror, too, was tarnished here and there, but it had been a good glass and showed undistorted the blue Delft jars on the mantel-shelf, glimpses of flickering firelight in the room, amber hair and the tear-bedewed roses of a flushed young face. Suddenly Milly thrust the jars aside, seized the candle from the table, and, holding it near her face, looked intently, anxiously in the glass. The anxiety vanished in a ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... the mantel shelf and the window—the blinds were up now—and the Larkins sisters clustered about him. He battled with the oncoming depression and forced himself to be extremely facetious about two noticeable rings on Annie's hand. "They ain't real," said Annie coquettishly. ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... down the muslin curtains as if they grew there. The flowers were not made into stiff bouquets, but here and there was a handful of roses or sweet-scented violets. The old fireplace lost itself in callas, ferns, and ivies, while the mantel blossomed out into tube-roses and mosses. One of the recesses formed by the large chimney was turned into a leafy bower, the bells of white lilies ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... attractive room, with dark woodwork, and the walls hung in crimson brocade; Dutch marqueterie furniture; blue and white china on the mantel and tops of the book shelves; carbon photographs of pictures by Reynolds, Ronney, and Gainsborough on the wall. There is a double window at the back. A door at Right leads to the hall, and another on the Left side of the room leads to JINNY's own room. MRS. TILLMAN sits at a pianola ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... steal some chickens, 'cause we didn't have 'nough to eat, and I don' think I done wrong, 'cause the place was full of 'em. We sho' earned what we et. I'd go up to the big house to make fires and lots of times I seed the mantel board lined with greenbacks, 'tween mantel and wall and I's snitched many a $50.00 bill, ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... she says. But she's determined to go through the outward form of it, at least. So she's made herself some new black dresses, and she's bought a veil. She's taken Mr. Fulton's picture (she had one cut from a magazine, I believe), and has had it framed and, hung on her wall. On the mantel beneath it she keeps fresh flowers always. She says it's the nearest she can come to putting flowers on his grave, ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... cabinet between the two windows, one of its legs propped up with a dingy faded paper. The coarse green carpet was threadbare, but still whole. There were half-a-dozen plain chairs with green and white rush seats in various parts of the room. On the narrow white marble mantel-shelf stood two china candlesticks, in one of which there was a piece of candle that had guttered when last burning. In the middle a cheap American clock of white metal ticked loudly, and the hands pointed to twenty minutes before nine. In one corner was the clothes-horse, ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... and noble figure, in a foreign uniform, arose from the sofa at my entrance. The half-extinct lamp on the mantel could not conceal ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... of the consternation caused by these words, the clock on the mantel behind his back rang out the hour. It was but a double stroke, but that meant two hours after midnight and had the effect of a knell in the hearts of ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... before, a quiet room, where Nelson's Prayer stands on the mantel-shelf, saw the ripening of the plans that sent these sturdy sons of Britain's four kingdoms marching all through the night. Sir John French met the army corps commanders and unfolded to them his plans for the offensive ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... in the dining-room was in the form of a trident, with the closed end at the rear and the three prongs pointing to the prow. Opposite the centre prong was a false mantel with a mirror, where was posted the elegant figure in blue livery of Mr. Pfundner, the head-steward. He was a man of between forty and fifty. With his white, artificially curled hair, which gave the impression of being powdered, he resembled a major-domo of Louis XIV's ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... queer if I say none of them, but after Venice, the little ones, like Assisi, Perugia, and Sienna. I'm so glad we took the time for them. Oh, Sylvia—" And he was off. The little clock on the mantel struck several times, unnoticed by either of them, and it was after one, when, glancing inadvertently at it, Austin sprang to his feet, apologizing for having kept her awake so long, ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... kerosene can on the mantel reposes, Its contents were sprinkled all over the fire, And all that poor Kathleen O'Donohue knows is, This dull world has changed for ...
— The New Pun Book • Thomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey
... an' lit eight candles. Four she set 'pon the table, an' four 'pon the mantel-shelf. You could see the blaze out in the street, an' the room lit up, wi' the flowers, an' fruit, an' shinin' glasses—red and yellow dahlias the flowers were, that bein' the time o' year. An' over each candle she put a little red silk shade. You ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... richer wine would'st give to me, thy guest, Than Roman Sylla pour'd out at his feast. I came, 'tis true, and looked for fowl of price, The bastard ph[oe]nix, bird of paradise, And for no less than aromatic wine Of maiden's-blush, commix'd with jessamine. Clean was the hearth, the mantel larded jet; Which wanting Lar, and smoke, hung weeping wet; At last, i' th' noon of winter, did appear A ragg'd-soust-neat's-foot with sick vinegar: And in a burnished flagonet stood by, Beer small as comfort, ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... wonder when my mother, coming out of the parlor into the hallway, called me and said there was someone inside who wanted to see me. Feeling that I was being made a party to some kind of mystery, I went in with her, and there I saw a man standing leaning with one elbow on the mantel, his back partly turned toward the door. As I entered, he turned and I saw a tall, handsome, well-dressed gentleman of perhaps thirty-five; he advanced a step toward me with a smile on his face. I stopped and looked at him with the same feelings ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... to mantel L. and gets keys from up stage end.) Here, take my keys. (Coming back to C. above trunk where EEL meets her putting on coat and hat.) To make sure, we'd ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... lecture-hall together about half-past ten. He had a most comfortably and tastefully furnished parlor, with good pictures on the walls, Indian and Japanese ornaments on the mantel, and here and there, and books everywhere-largely mine; which made me proud. The light was brilliant, the easy chairs were deep-cushioned, the arrangements for brewing and smoking were all there. We brewed and lit up; then he passed a sheet of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... clock right?" asked Eleanor, whose eyes had been straying restlessly towards the mantel-piece for some little time; "lunch is usually so punctual in ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... the library. He was taking no pains to be silent. Stepping over Ambrose he crossed to the mantel, where he fumbled for matches, and striking one made believe to ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... was a drawing-room poet, one of those fanatics in dress coat and grey kid gloves, who between ten o'clock and midnight, go and recite to the world their ecstasies of love, their raptures, their despair, leaning mournfully against the mantel-piece, in the blaze of the lights, while seated around him women, in full evening dress, listen entranced ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... strewn with bundles, and the mantel-piece adorned with letters, directed to Springfield, Hartford, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... dining-room. Lute was nowhere in sight, but Dorinda was standing by the mantel, dusting, as usual, where there was no dust. I did not speak but walked toward the door leading to the stairs. Dorinda ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... mantel and filled his pipe from the tobacco-jar. He sat smoking for a little while, his ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... had moulded the doors and window-frames; the ceilings were imitated from the middle-ages or those of a Venetian palace; marble veneering abounded on the outer walls. Steinbock and Francois Souchet had designed the mantel-pieces and the panels above the doors; Schinner had painted the ceilings in his masterly manner. The beauties of the staircase, white as a woman's arm, defied those of the hotel Rothschild. On account of the riots ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... said Ishmael, pointing to the clock on the mantel-piece, which was upon the stroke ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... interested in sports and athletics, and he confided to Frank that he was bound to make a try for both the baseball and football teams. He had brought a set of boxing gloves, foils, and a number of sporting pictures. The foils were crossed above the mantel and the pictures were hung about the walls, but he insisted on putting on the gloves with Frank before hanging them up ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... mantel-piece, a place where keys (claves) are kept, a shelf for keys. Holmen-clavel, an inn on Blagdon hill, so called from having a large holm-beam ...
— A Glossary of Provincial Words & Phrases in use in Somersetshire • Wadham Pigott Williams
... with the piano assured and with the aid of the guests who were to arrive we should not fail for music at least. A log cabin on the side of the hill, complete except for the roof, was large enough to accommodate a hundred or more guests. On one end was a high fireplace and mantel, there were old fashioned chairs and rockers, tables were placed there for the card players, settees along the sides, and across the corner between two windows was a place for the piano. After I was informed that I was to have charge of this ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... Standing by the mantel-piece, smoking their cigars, they conversed with considerable animation, but not loud enough to enable her to hear all they said. It was only when M. Saint Pavin spoke that she understood that they were ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... house on the left-hand side called Fulham House. It stands back on the east side of the road behind a wall. Some of the carving on the fireplaces and doors is very elaborate. In a large room upstairs a sumptuously carved wooden mantel encloses a coloured marble block with a white marble centre. The door of this room is also very fine. The cellars are extraordinarily large and massively built. This used to be called Stourton House. Faulkner mentions that in 1449 John ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... They were sitting in a large front bedroom that had been made ready for boarders, but looked inexpressibly grim and cheerless, with its empty mantel and blank, marble-topped bureau. Georgie cried constantly and silently, Virginia's lips moved, Mary Lou alone persisted that Ma would be herself again ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... heart John saw the comb with a curling cloud of her brown hair among its teeth. Some unusual hurry and perturbation must have possessed her, for she always carefully placed these combings in the little blue vase on the mantel to be some day formed into the ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... him to retire for the night, her father picked up the violin again, and placed it beneath his chin as if to play; but he did not touch the strings, and soon hung the instrument in its place above the mantel. Then, going to the doorway, he lighted his pipe, and, for a full hour, sat, looking up the Old Trail toward the Matthews place, his right hand thrust into the bosom of his hickory shirt, where the button ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... the top of a mantel-piece in the room, and the dog required to bring it, which he almost immediately did, although in the search he found a number of articles, also belonging to his master, purposely strewed around, all which he passed over, and brought the ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... which the "black lily" returned his amorous squeeze of her hand, he ventured to raise it to his lips, and imprint a kiss upon the short, thick fingers. At this critical and rapturous moment the door flew open, and the real Mary entered, bearing a lighted glass mantel-lamp in each hand. With a profound curtesy she placed her lamps upon the mantel-piece, and gravely asking pardon for her intrusion, flew into the room which she had just left, and which immediately echoed with her laughter, lively and joyous, but ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... to Plank, who stood silent, staring through the fading light at the faded household gods of the house of Siward. The dim light touched the prisms of a crystal chandelier dulled by age, and edged the carved foliations of the marble mantel, above which loomed a tarnished mirror reflecting darkness. Fleetwood rose, drew a window-shade higher, and nodded toward several pictures; and Plank moved slowly from one to another, peering up at the dead Siwards in ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... walls hung with several old portraits in oil, ferrotypes and silhouettes. A magnificent crystal chandelier depended from the high and lightly frescoed ceiling and there were side brackets beside the doors and the low mantel piece. Mrs. McLane may not have been able to achieve beauty with the aid of the San Francisco shops, but at least she had managed to give her rooms a severe and stately simplicity, vastly different from the helpless surrenders of her friends to ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... young man of twenty-three or four stood beside the fireplace, his elbow on the ancient mantel, his shapely legs crossed. There was a moody expression in his handsome face, albeit he smiled in quiet enjoyment of the vivacious conversation that went on around him. Half a dozen girls chatted eagerly, excitedly, ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... tip-toe and shading the candle lest it should betray their presence through the shutterless windows, they went first into the big dining-room. There was not a stick of furniture to be seen. Bare walls, ugly mantel-pieces and empty grates stared at them. Everything, they felt, resented their intrusion, watching them, as it were, with veiled eyes; whispers followed them; shadows flitted noiselessly to right and left; something seemed ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Another is "Christopher Columbus," and he has just finished an important tragedy entitled "OEdipus," dealing artistically with a horrifying story, which has been accepted for early production by Mr. Robert Mantel. Mr. Seibel has published a monograph on "The Mormon Problem." Charles P. Shiras wrote the "Redemption of Labor," and a drama, "The Invisible Prince," which was played in the old Pittsburgh Theater. Bartley Campbell ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... risen and gone to the fireplace. The mantel came almost on a level with her shoulder, which gently rested against it, and Barnet laid his hand upon the shelf close beside her shoulder. 'Lucy,' he said, 'better late than never. ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... coarser folk can judge, to hurt the better feelings of the most exquisite purist. A cherry-red half window-blind kept up an imaginary warmth in the cold room, and threw quite a glow on the floor. Twelve cockle-shells and a half- penny china figure were ranged solemnly along the mantel-shelf. Even the spittoon was an original note, and instead of sawdust contained sea-shells. And as for the hearthrug, it would merit an article to itself, and a coloured diagram to help the text. It was patchwork, but the patchwork of the poor; ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... same struggle, and the church tells them to fix their eyes on a symbol of faith, and if their eyes wander, scourges them for it." As he talked, he took up the little carved ivory crucifix which stood on the mantel-piece among other bits of studio furniture, and holding it up before her, said: "There! How many people do you think, have come to this Christ of yours that has no meaning to you, and in their struggle with doubt, have pressed it against their hearts till ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... furniture of the Stuffed Animal House was unchanged, even the pictures, hanging rather near the ceiling, had not been removed—steel-engravings of Landseer's dogs, and old and very good colored prints of Audubon's birds. The mantel-piece of black marble veined with yellow was supported by fluted columns; on it were two blown-glass vases of decalcomania decoration, then two gilt lustres with prisms, then two hand-screens of woolwork, and in the middle an ormolu clock—"Iphigenia in Aulis"—under ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... she was still grieving about the lost one hundred dollars and could sympathize in that, for he also grieved and puzzled. He made up his mind to ask her about it at the first opportunity; meanwhile, there was the obliging girl already tuning her violin and asking from her place beside the mantel piece: ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... time, singularly enough, in very carefully setting her room to rights, adjusting and readjusting the few ornaments on the mantel-shelf and walls, winding the clock that struck ship's bells instead of the hours, and minutely sorting the letters and papers in her desk. It was the same as if she were going upon a long journey or were preparing for ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... a tiny clock on the mantel began pealing the hour of eight. As though this were a signal for entrance, the door at the end of the bookcase opened noiselessly and a man, smooth faced, his hair brushed low across his forehead, stepped quietly in. As his eyes surveyed the grewsome object by the table, they dilated ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... bending over the tables charged with knick-knacks and the cushions embossed with princely arms. When Madame Merle came in she found him standing before the fireplace with his nose very close to the great lace flounce attached to the damask cover of the mantel. He had lifted it delicately, as if he were ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... workstands, seem bright of regularity and taste; and the window curtains of lace and damask, and the scroll cornices from which they flowingly hung, and the little landscape paintings that hung upon the satin-papered walls, and the soft light that issued from two girandoles on the mantel-piece of figured marble, all lent their cheering aid to make complete the radiant picture of a happy home. But Montague sat nervous with anxiety. "Mother won't be a minute!" said a pert little fellow of some seven summers, who played ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... swiftly back across the room, moving as if goaded. He took his tumbler from the mantel-piece and drank the contents almost at a gulp. "Go on!" he said, with his back to Larpent. "May as well finish now you've begun. ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... added to Lakelands at the period during which the property was out of the possession of the Bowers family, but the remainder of the house is of the original building, and the carved wooden doors and mantel-pieces within testify to the skill of old-time workmanship in Cooperstown. The wide stretches of lawn shaded by venerable trees, and the long sweep of lake shore commanded by Lakelands make it ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall |
