"Piece of furniture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... breakfast dishes, and what not; a typewriter occupied a chair, and all about the floor were scattered documents where the wind had blown them. Shoes and articles of clothing were piled in the corners; there was not a sound piece of furniture in the place, and through an open door leading to another room at the rear could be seen a cheap iron bed, sagging hammock-like, its head and foot posts slanting like tepee poles, doubtless from the weight ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... dark. He pulled her down onto the floor as she sat near him, and together they began playfully rolling on the ground, stopping now and again and smothering their laughter with kisses whenever they struck their bare feet against some piece of furniture. Far away, on the road to Gumieres, Count Muffat walked slowly home and, hat in hand, bathed his burning forehead in the freshness and silence of ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... on the floors, the pewter and porcelain rattled on the shelves, the chamber-bells rang, and the whole of this commotion was attended by a clap of noise resembling that produced by the fall of some heavy piece of furniture. The shock extended through the cities of London and Westminster, and was felt on both sides of the river Thames, from Greenwich to the westward of London; but not perceptible at a considerable distance. On the very same day of the next month, between ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... take the candle and explore the large closets. He watched him examine the spaces behind the window curtains. He could smile a little as Graham stooped, peering beneath the bed, as he moved each piece of furniture large ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... the good dame's rocking-chair, with its gay patchwork cushion; and her Bible, spectacles, and work-basket lay on the window-seat beside it. In another was a huge leather arm-chair, which Hilda rightly supposed to be the farmer's, and a wonderful piece of furniture, half desk, half chest of drawers, with twisted legs and cupboards and pigeon-holes and tiny drawers, and I don't know what else. The third window Hilda thought was the prettiest of all. It faced the west, and the full glory ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... coat in a flash, and using it as a ram, smashed the window. He reached up, found the catch, and opened the sash. In ten seconds he was in the room, and a great clatter told him that he had overturned some piece of furniture. ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... Kirk discovered, was the lowboy beside the library door. It was a most satisfactory piece of furniture. From its left-hand corner you could make a direct line to the window-seat. It also had smoothly graceful brass handles, and a surface delicious to the touch. When Kirk, stumbling in at the library door, failed ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... see this strange piece of furniture," said Euphra to Hugh, who had kept by her side since they entered ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... and its circumadjacent real estate belong not to me, but to Alice and to her heirs and assigns forever. I have no proprietary rights in that house or upon that expansive lawn; If I am there, it is simply as a piece of furniture, like the stove, or the clock, or the centre-table. I am simply tolerated, perhaps as an object of ornament, perhaps as an object of use. This is a humiliating confession; the thought that it is actually true pains ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... so long, with Joe away, and Mrs. Glenn (that's his mother) sitting there like an image knitting socks for the heathen. The only caller we ever had was the Baptist minister, and he never took any more notice of me than if I'd been a piece of furniture. I believe he was afraid to ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... woman, the noiseless drapery of woman, are mere figures of speech in this day. Her skirts (and well if they do not throw down some piece of furniture) will at least brush against every article in the ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... except the violin case—were thrown pell-mell on to a piece of furniture in the entrance-hall. Monsieur Foa, instead of being in evening dress, was in exactly the same clothes as he had worn at his first meeting ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... stray away from God. There is the sheep that wanders. That is partly conscious, and voluntary, but in a large measure simply yielding to inclination and temptation. Then there is the coin that trundles away under some piece of furniture, and is lost—that is a picture of the manner in which a man, without volition, almost mechanically sometimes, slides into sins and disappears as it were, and gets covered over with the dust of evil. And then there is the worst of all, the lad that had full knowledge ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... varied more widely in form. In the beginning the buffet was a tiny apartment, or recess, little larger than a cupboard, separated from the room which it served either by a breast-high balustrade or by pillars. It developed into a definite piece of furniture, varying from simplicity to splendour, but always provided with one or more flat spaces, or broad shelves, for the reception of such necessaries of the dining-room as were not placed upon the table. The early buffets were sometimes carved with the utmost elaboration; the Renaissance ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... the tour of his cell. There was no piece of furniture adapted to sleeping purposes, except a tolerably long wooden coffer; and its cover was carved, to boot; which afforded Gringoire, when he stretched himself out upon it, a sensation somewhat similar ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... so nervous and appeared so badly Kate was sorry for her; but she could not help noticing how she kept watch on her son. She seemed to keep the width of the room and a piece of furniture between them, while her cooking was so different that it was not in the least necessary for George to fix things for Kate himself, as he had suggested. Everything was so improved, Kate felt better. ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the recitation room three times. Then I got a dusting cloth and I dusted it four times. All the woodwork around the walls, every bench, table, and desk, I went over four times with my dusting cloth. Besides, every piece of furniture had been moved and every closet and corner of the room had been thoroughly cleaned. I had the feeling that, in a large measure, my future depended upon the impression I made upon the teacher in the cleaning ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... and rendered as in the mould prepared for the casting of a bronze statue. Such cavities had often been observed. In some of them remnants of charred wood, accompanied with bronze or other ornaments, showed that the object inclosed had been a piece of furniture; while in others, the remains of bones and of articles of apparel evinced but too plainly that the hollow had been the living grave which had swallowed up some unfortunate human being. In a happy moment the idea occurred to Signor Fiorelli of filling up these cavities with liquid plaster, and ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... the operator took the sack in the tips of his fingers, and holding it aloft, walked up the runway to the stage where a cord hung from a screw-eye fastened in the ceiling above. The other end of the cord was attached to a piece of furniture on the stage. The manager now attached the black bag containing the envelopes to the end of this string, and then taking the other end, drew the bag up to the ceiling near the screw-eye, where it remained in full ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... go up a ladder—not a staircase, mind!—to the sleeping deck. There we see two long rows of chests, which represent the wardrobe, chest of drawers, washing place, private locker, every piece of furniture, in fact, which ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... stood before her mirror between eight and nine—it was nine-fifteen before she was really ready—and pondered over what she should wear. There were two tall pier-glasses in her wardrobe—an unduly large piece of furniture—and one in her closet door. She stood before the latter, looking at her bare arms and shoulders, her shapely figure, thinking of the fact that her left shoulder had a dimple, and that she had selected ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... curiously for a moment, and then rose from his place and went deliberately to a huge, dark piece of furniture that stood between the windows. He brought back a polished mahogany case, unlocked it and set it beside his brother upon the table, under the ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... room—moved every chair, the table, the desk. He dusted each piece of furniture four times. He polished each rung and followed around the ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... with a great flourish. All of these things made quite a little fleet, and the effect was very imposing; but by this time the water was quite up to the window-ledge, and as the sideboard was a fatherly-looking piece of furniture with plenty of room to move about in, Dorothy stepped aboard of it as it went by, and, sitting down on a little shelf that ran along the back of it, sailed away in ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... repeated with a degree of regularity that argued, on the part of the person making it, a desire of attracting his attention. Herrera rose from his seat, and obeying a sort of instinct or impulse, for which he would himself have had trouble to account, masked the lamp behind a piece of furniture, and hastening to the window, which opened inwards, cautiously unlatched it. A man, whose features were unknown to him, was supporting himself on the ledge outside, his legs gathered under him, and nearly the whole ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... breathe, the four raiders advanced. They made no noise on the thick carpet, but a collision with a piece of furniture or a false step might have ruined all their chances for success. Sergeant Riley was in the lead, quick flashes from his pocket torch ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... sooner feels the prick than he bucks down, and flings me over his head into the mire. I get up and look about me; there stands the donkey staring at me, and there stand the whole gypsy canaille squinting at me with their filmy eyes. 'Where is the scamp who has sold me this piece of furniture?' I shout. 'He is gone to Granada, Valorous,' says one. 'He is gone to see his kindred among the Moors,' says another. 'I just saw him running over the field, in the direction of -, with the devil close behind him,' says a third. In a word, I am tricked. I wish to dispose ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... it the instant he lay still in bed after the shuffling process known generally as "cuddling down." And he knew that it was approaching because of the assistance the hall clock brought to his bewildered ears. For the hall clock—a big, dignified piece of furniture with a deep note—happened just then to strike the hour of two in the morning, and there was a considerable interval between the two notes. He first heard the step far below in the act of leaving the flagged ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... particular requirements, or has received an unusually well-built one as a gift. One old frame worthy of mention was made of cherry with elaborate scroll designed ends, cherry side bars, and a set of cogwheels also made of cherry; all finished and polished like a choice piece of furniture. ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... tone and they walked on in silence out of the wood and across the brook and down the lane that brought them to the back of Rose House where the Club boys and girls were busy making a piece of furniture of some sort. Mrs. Schuler was talking ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith
... He must have his own people safely at his back first of all, and then have a thorough settlement of the past. But this was not easy, for little Boy Comfort staggered about everywhere, warped himself toward him from one piece of furniture to another with his serious eyes fixed steadily upon him, and crawled the last part of the way. Whenever he was set down, he instantly steered for Pelle; he would come crawling in right from the kitchen, and would not stop until he stood on his feet ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... The wretched piece of furniture gave the most alarming creak; this was immediately succeeded by a sound in the next room of the sudden closing of a box, and the movement of some person. I could not be sure that it was not Lady Baker, who had perhaps ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Lively household was in extreme commotion. Every bedstead was stripped naked, and each article of bedding was separately shaken in the middle of the room; the contents of every drawer were turned out; every piece of furniture was moved; every floor was carefully swept. The house, in short, was turned inside out. Advertisements were put in the papers; handsome rewards were offered; the police were notified of the loss. The detectives were of opinion that the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... old piece of furniture they regretted that they had not lived at the period when it was used, though they were absolutely ignorant of what period it was. In accordance with certain names, they imagined countries only the more beautiful in proportion ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... she cried, when she had turned the piece of furniture over and inserted her hand in the rent. "It wasn't found, after ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... the copies being effected more rapidly than would be possible by hand, where there are numbers of letters of which duplicates are requisite, the labour of one clerk at least must be saved. M. Poirier has them executed in so beautiful a manner that they really are quite a handsome piece of furniture, some of which are as high as 350 fr. but the prices gradually descend to even as low as 10 fr. which are so contrived for travelling that they contain pen, ink and paper and only weigh one pound. I here subjoin the opinion of the Central Jury addressed to M. Poirier. "These ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... was alone she seated herself on her accustomed chair and opened the old desk with a key that had now become familiar to her hand. It was a huge piece of furniture,—such as is never made in these days, but is found among every congregation of old household goods,—with numberless drawers clustering below, with a vast body, full of receptacles for bills, wills, deeds, and waste-paper, and a tower of ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... a summer night Mark Rivers sat on the porch in a rocking-chair, which he declared gave him all the exercise he required. It was the only rocking-chair at Grey Pine, and nothing so disturbed the Squire as Mark Rivers rocking on that unpleasant piece of furniture and smoking as if it were a locomotive. It was an indulgence of Ann Penhallow, who knew that there had been a half-dozen rockers in ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... been these three weeks procuring two trifles to send you; but am at length out of all patience with the stupidity and procrastination of those employed; especially as the principal article is a piece of furniture, a personal convenience, which, when done, will not cost five dollars. The other is something between a map and a picture. Though they will not arrive at the season I wished, they will at any season be ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... he took the other half of the little dumpling sofa which had seemed to her an appropriate piece of furniture for Flirtation Alcove, and which, with a rug on the floor, formed so far its only decoration. In the clear, bare morning light of outdoors, which bathed them, she still looked triumphantly fresh, but ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... controlled herself quickly. Then something beyond the easel caught her eye—a mass of flowers, freesias, narcissus, tulips, tumbled on a table; then a pile of new books; and finally, a surprising piece of furniture. ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground-floor. But if a man hasn't got plenty of good common sense, the more science he has the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... towards a piece of furniture standing near the left panel of the saloon. Near this piece of furniture, I saw a chest bound with iron, on the cover of which was a copper plate, bearing the cypher of ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... proper number of stars. A magnificent spread-eagle was procured, not without difficulty, as this, once the eyrie of the king of birds, is now a rookery rather, full of black, ominous fowl, ready to eat the harvest sown by industrious hands. This eagle, having previously spread its wings over a piece of furniture where its back was sustained by the wall, was somewhat deficient in a part of its anatomy. But we flattered ourselves he should be held so high that no Roman eye, if disposed, could carp and criticise. When lo! just as the banner was ready to unfold its young glories in ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... I haven't been to a good sale for several years. That old man has knocked his fist upon every chair and table, has tested every piece of furniture, has opened all the bureau drawers, even the case of the old clock, and just a moment ago he rocked the cradle furiously to convince himself that it is in good working condition. Here he comes with a pewter plate in his hand—let's hear ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... crushed look of a neglected woman, her listless movements, her slow speech, her indifference for everything but the passion that was consuming her, moved him so deeply. For the last week, perhaps, she had not put a chair in its place, or dusted a piece of furniture; she left the place to go to wreck and ruin, scarcely having the strength to drag herself about. And it was enough to break one's heart to behold that misery ending in filth beneath the glaring light from the big window; to gaze on that ill-pargetted shanty, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... an outraged sense that there was no attempt to prevent him from hearing. He might have been a servant or a piece of furniture for any restraint these men put upon their speech. He was troubled with the fear of what absurdity Mrs. Wilson might intend. Now that he was here, however, he would go on. The natural obstinacy of his temper asserted itself, and if there was little pious ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... to meet our instalments every month first, Jimmie. That's what we want—no debts and every little darling piece of furniture paid up." ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... greater Pleasure and Advantage than ever he did in a Glass. In a word, a Piece of Cloth, after having officiated for some Years as a Towel or a Napkin, may by this means be raised from a Dung-hill, and become the most valuable Piece of Furniture in ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... overflowed with the wine of Shiraz; the effeminate were satiated with musky odours, and the thirst of avarice was quenched by the bowl of abundance. The wondering spectators exclaimed: "This is no bowl, but a boundless ocean of mystery! It is not what it appears to be, a piece of furniture, but ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... small. So he brought out the kettle, which had resumed its former shape and had got rid of its head and tail, and showed it to the tinker. When the tinker saw the kettle, he offered twenty copper coins for it, and the priest was only too glad to close the bargain and be rid of his troublesome piece of furniture. But the tinker trudged off home with his pack and his new purchase. That night, as he lay asleep, he heard a strange noise near his pillow; so he peeped out from under the bedclothes, and there he saw the kettle that he had bought in the temple covered ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... That son was Richard. Charles left Richard all his property and Vernons on the condition that I always lived here—till I died, and that's how it is. I'm not Richard's aunt, it's only a name he gives me—I'm only just an old piece of furniture left with the house to him. I'm so fond of the place, it would kill me to leave it; places grow like that round one, though I'm sure I ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... some material alteration of this kind was effected in one or more of the rooms. A change in the position of a bed, or the abstraction or introduction of a chest of drawers, a wardrobe, or other bulky piece of furniture, causes in the mind of the child an effect much deeper, and more extensive, than in the adult. The former picture of the place never having been observed or contemplated in any other aspect, is painted by the imagination, and fixed ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... unconscious dust into a human being, when He knows that human being will sin; and He knows that human being will suffer eternal agony? Why not leave him in the unconscious dust? What right has an infinite God to add to the sum of human agony? Suppose I knew that I could change that piece of furniture into a living, sentient human being, and I knew that that being would suffer untold agony forever. If I did it, I would be a fiend. I would leave that being in the unconscious dust. And yet we are told that we must ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... from unexpected lockers, of such artful mechanism, that it made one's head ache to see them opened one after another, and rendered it quite a distracting circumstance to follow her proceedings, and to find that every nook and corner and individual piece of furniture was something else besides what it pretended to be, and was a mere trap and deception and place of secret stowage, whose ostensible purpose was its ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... the movement of the atmosphere in the very close room to which the privacy of his feelings sometimes drives him. He was reclining upon a sofa when I entered, but immediately arose and motioned me to take a seat. I had scarcely occupied a comfortable looking stuffed back-piece of furniture, when a pricking sensation in the region of my coat-tails caused me to resume the perpendicular with amazing rapidity, and, upon looking down, I observed the point of a pin protruding through the cushion of the chair. The Secretary did not lose his gravity, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... chair had been the never-to-be-forgotten piece of furniture with the music box beneath it and that box had started to play, Isaiah could not have risen more promptly. He literally jumped to his feet and the paper flew from his hands. He whirled upon ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... did not change that habit of taking "only a glass." Will Somers was unhappy. He saw his mistake, and knew that the community frowned upon him. He rarely whistled now. As for the musical instrument he once loved to perform upon, it was a silent piece of furniture. He had some fine qualities of character, and his vulnerable side was his susceptibility to outside influence. The enemy had found a weak wall on that side of his character, and there successfully assaulted him. Will knew that his misconduct grieved Aunt Stanshy. The club felt ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... that she had left the book open to all comers and goers, instead of putting it carefully away, as was her wont. She set down the child softly on the trussing-bed, (the curious name given by our forefathers to a piece of furniture which formed a sofa or travelling-bed at pleasure), and quietly opening the door into her bower, she saw—her husband standing on the hearth, with the book in his hand, and a very decided frown gathering on his countenance. ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... had been busy all the afternoon, and the clock still indicated fifteen minutes short of the time at which he had intended to leave. He leaned back in his chair, and, yielding to the slight rotatory movement of that active piece of furniture, indulged in the first twirl for three days. Bassett or no Bassett, it was exhilarating, and, having gone to the limit in one direction, he obtained impetus by a clutch at the table and whirled back again. A smothered exclamation from the door arrested ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... expect a very important letter in a few days, and much would depend on it, and next year there will be a big removal, and a large lumbering piece of furniture, and I shall go a journey over water. It's quite right, you know. I suppose the letter's from grandma; I hope it is, anyway. And ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... Mr. Fabian explained, carefully, about the times and customs of the purchases that represented certain people. He wove a tale of romance about each piece of furniture the girls had delighted in, and enhanced their interest in the dishes and other small objects they had collected that summer, until the three disappointed owners felt a renewed attraction ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... look; we took them, and before noon every handsome piece of furniture from all over the house had been placed in our suite; flowers were everywhere, and servants fairly ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... take a keen pleasure in the novelty of the situation, and ran up-stairs and down with hammer and broom, laughing and joking over the settlement of every picture and piece of furniture with contagious good humour. Alec could not understand it. Even his Aunt Eunice was not as downcast as he had pictured her in the night, over the loss of her old home. With patient, steady effort, she moved ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... its pardon, floundered into the adjoining bedroom, and dived under the bed. He reappeared with his arms full of human bones, and shot across the room, muttering something like thanks. As he fled down the dark hall, he collided with a piece of furniture, his burden fell, and with a terrific clatter rolled from the top of the stairs to the bottom. John rushed out to help gather up the fallen, and Elizabeth ran across the room and hid her face shudderingly in the folds ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... naturally or unnaturally, may be produced by many of the objects and implements of daily life that do not normally come in direct contact with the sexual organs. Children sometimes, even when scarcely more than infants, produce sexual excitement by friction against the corner of a chair or other piece of furniture, and women sometimes do the same.[203] Guttceit, in Russia, knew women who made a large knot in their chemises to rub against, and mentions a woman who would sit on her naked heel and rub it against her. Girls in France, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... shuddered at the first hint, she received of her sister's desire to possess this piece of furniture; because she knew it was not to be purchased; and the lady's character, which was none of the most amiable in point of humanity and condescension, forbad all hopes of borrowing it for a season: she therefore attempted to reason down this capricious appetite, as an extravagance of ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... things can you do? Not one. I can make a bow or an arrow, catch fish, kill game, and go to war; but none of these things is of any use here. To learn what is done here would require a long time. Old age comes on. I should be a useless piece of furniture, useless to my nation, useless to myself. I must go back to my ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... was an old-fashioned piece of furniture, and had a drawer beneath it. My uncle had searched it carefully for the papers in the daytime; but the silent figure pulled the drawer quite out, pressed a spring at the side, disclosing a false receptable behind it, and from this he drew ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... Roth himself nor his worthy better half, formerly saleswoman in a shop, possessed the slightest knowledge of the art of manipulating such an instrument. But there was a story connected with this showy piece of furniture—a story that even now, years after the events themselves occurred, brought tears of rage to the eyes of the "Vice." To the young corporal of his own squadron who on Sunday afternoons strummed on the piano, he ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... cross, and worked as though she had a personal grudge against every dish and piece of furniture she touched. The twins and Molly were actually scared into silence, and forbore to make their usual demands on her time and patience. Charlotte, who understood, kept them and herself as much out of the way as possible, ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... say not!" the girl returned with cruel frankness. "You talk as though I were a piece of furniture you could just walk into a store and select and buy and then own! You've been taking immeasurably much for granted if you have been thinking all those things ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... her well when it was done. The cover was stuffed, old-fashioned brown binding was lapped over the edges and seams, and fastened off with rows of brass-headed nails; which made it altogether an odd, handsome, antiquated-looking piece of furniture. With this, when her morning work was done and her exercise prepared, Faith went up to Mr. Linden's room; to see it brought in and ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... no answer, but she was evidently tugging at something which appeared to be a heavy piece of furniture braced against the door. At last the bolt was slipped back, and there in the doorway she swayed, ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... means consist in withdrawing the senses and the powers of the soul from everything disturbing the soul's converse with God; in guarding against any too absorbing interest in worldly affairs, so that the mind is unmanageable and cannot be fixed on sacred things. St. Francis of Assisi, working at a piece of furniture before saying Terce, was, during the saying of that hour disturbed by the thought of his manual work. When he re-entered his cell he took the bit of work and threw it in the fire saying, "I wish to sacrifice to the Lord the thing which hindered my ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... an aggressive movement towards the divan which nothing could check. That piece of furniture was not exactly in the line of the open door. But Madame Leonie, coming back wrapped up in a light cloak and carrying a lace shawl on her arm for Adele to hide her incriminating hair under, had a swift impression of her brother ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... to be taken on board the vessels. He showed the greatest surprise at all he saw around him, but nothing astonished him so much as a large steel mirror which was presented to him. "The giant, who had not the least idea of the use of this piece of furniture, and who, no doubt, now saw his own face for the first time, drew back in such terror, that he threw to the ground four of our people who were behind him." He was taken back on shore loaded with presents, and the kind welcome which he had ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... keyhole of the lock of the escritoire, which had been previously opened by a locksmith summoned by us, and closed again by the said locksmith——" And so the magistrate and his clerk went from one piece of furniture to another, duly specifying in the report each instance in which ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... and the 'force' was much greater and more active than before, probably because of the psychic's growing confidence. A small table floated in the air 'while we watched it in amazement,' he says. One levitation lasted long enough to count fifty. 'We all had time to observe that the piece of furniture was quite isolated,' he adds. Furthermore, a big black hand came from the curtain and touched Madame Bottazzi on the cheek, and frightened her from her place beside ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... he agreed, moodily. "So far as that goes people have a right to move a piece of furniture without stirring up the neighbors, I suppose, even by daylight. I don't suppose OUR neighbors are paying much attention just now, though I hear Sheridan was back in his office early the ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... an entirely new order comes into experience, it takes a little time to be assimilated. It is as when a large piece of furniture is brought into a room; all the rest of the furniture takes upon itself a different value. A picture that did very well up to then over the fire-place must perhaps be moved. Values, relations, and ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... rotary, from left to right. He particularly noticed that the girl's feet did not touch the frame, and that, when it was repulsed, she seemed drawn irresistibly after it, stretching out her hands, as if instinctively, towards it. It was afterwards remarked, that, when a piece of furniture or other object, thus acted upon by Angelique, was too heavy to be moved, she herself was thrown back, as if by the reaction of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... Tib came from under a piece of furniture, where he had apparently been lying, and rubbed himself familiarly against ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... he said, and began making a quick search of the room, running from one piece of furniture to another, pulling out bureau drawers, drawing the bed out from the wall, and crawling along the base-board with a lighted match in his hand. He gave a shout of triumph finally, and reappeared from behind the bed with the broken end of my knife in ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... room, D'Harmental saw that his neighbor's was lighted up; he placed his candle behind a piece of furniture, and approached the window, so that, as much as the muslin curtains allowed, he could see into her room, while she ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... into the house, which was quite desolate: not a piece of furniture was remaining. She inquired if Miss Damer had any relations or friends to take care of her. "No, indeed, madam," said the nurse; "her mother's sister is the only near relation, and she has married somebody. It was a sad day for my poor young lady! she was ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... of the orbicularis oris and ievatores labiae superioris et inferioris. If either of them have got any tin, I shall try and get all right with them; but if the brads don't flourish I shall leave it alone, for a wife is just the worst piece of furniture a fellow can bring into his house, especially if he inclines to conviviality; although to be sure a medical man ought to consider her as part of his stock in trade, to be taken at a fair valuation amidst his stopple-bottles, mortars, measures, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... a dim corner (for the room had no light save that which came through the doorway where I stood) lay the form of a woman under a fallen piece of furniture. Her skirts and distended arms alone were visible; but no one who saw the rigid outlines of her limbs could doubt for a moment that ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... and at about four o'clock Randolph found himself in front of Medora Phillips' house. Medora and her young ladies were out strolling, as was inevitable on such a day; but in her library he found Foster lying on a couch—the same piece of furniture which, at a critical juncture, ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... in a gentleman taking notice of his own sister's child," returned nurse testily; "the wonder is that he should hold her at arm's length as he does, and treat her as if she were a dog or a piece of furniture, without any feelings, and she his own flesh and blood, too. There's no 'coming down' to have a spark of humanity in ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... tricks which many children practice even in families counted well-bred. Such, for example, are drumming with the fingers on some piece of furniture, or humming a tune while others are talking, or interrupting conversation by pertinacious questions, or whistling in the house instead of out-doors, or speaking several at once and in loud voices to gain attention. All these are violations ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... was more intimate, and across which it was possible to talk with greater ease. Forbes was a man of fixed ideas and devoted to his mistress. Though absent her wishes were faithfully carried out. Mrs. Craven had decreed that for less than four people the family board was an archaic and cumbersome piece of furniture, consequently tonight the little round table was there, and brought home to Craven even more vividly the sense of her absence. It seemed almost a desecration to see Peters sitting opposite in her place. He grew impatient of the lengthy ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... conceive it to be proper that Mie Mie should wait upon Mrs. Bacon till an opportunity had been offered of her being presented to her, but I shall be desirous of bringing about that acquaintance. Mrs. Webb is now with us, which is a piece of furniture here, not without its use, and which I am in a habit of seeing with more satisfaction than perhaps Mie Mie, who begins to think naturally a gouvernante to have a mauvais air. I am not quite of that opinion dans les ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... calm again—upon the surface. True to her word, Grandmother refused to communicate directly with Rosemary. She treated the girl as she might a piece of furniture—unworthy of attention except in times ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... in good spirits, and had it placed in his cabin. It was hardly a pleasant piece of furniture for his visitors to be confronted with, so he was prevailed upon to have it put below until it was required. A few more raging battles, and a few more years of momentous anxieties, and the prodigious hero was to become its occupant. It ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... their hearts' content; and Miriam says the sympathy of all was extraordinary. A strange gentleman picked up a piece of mother's mirror, which was as thick as his finger, saying, "Madame, I should like to keep this as a memento. I am about to travel through Mississippi, and having seen what a splendid piece of furniture this was, and the state your house is left in, should like to show this as a specimen ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... round the four cardinal points! You need not be told this; "blind man's buff" will have imparted to you the idea, long ere now. You will remember that, after having made a turn or two, you could not tell to which side of the room you were facing, unless you laid your hand upon the piano, or some piece of furniture, and ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... thought the advocate bitterly, "she never loved me. She would be delighted to be forever free of me. She will not regret me, for I am no longer necessary to her. An empty coffer is a useless piece of furniture. Juliette is prudent; she has managed to save a nice little fortune. Grown rich at my expense, she will take some other lover. She will forget me, she will live happily, while I—And I was about to go ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... veux-tu?" We are satisfied with what the present affords, and what new masters shall appear or what new instruments be invented we know not. Always the epochs will have their own interpreter. One hundred years ago who had imagined a Weber or Steinway piano, that piece of furniture with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... I never should think that," said she. "Being with two women so very beautiful as my mother and Annie so much makes me quite sure that nobody is thinking of me. It is only sometimes that I feel a little like a piece of furniture, only chairs can't walk into rooms." She ended with a girlish laugh. Then her face suddenly sobered. "Doctor Elliot, I want you to tell me something," said she. "Uncle Tom wouldn't if I asked him, and I don't dare ask him anyway. ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... we get a lesson from nature in the massing of colour. It should not be broken into patches and neutralised by divisions, but used in large enough spaces to dominate, or bring into itself or its own influence all that is placed in the room. If this rule is disregarded every piece of furniture unrelated to the whole becomes a spot, it has no real connection with the room, and the room itself, instead of a harmonious and delightful influence, akin to that of a sun-flushed dawn or a sunset sky, is like a picture ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... rooms on the floor, of which the doors were open; but though in one I found a magnificent veneered chest of drawers, and large looking-glass, neither of the above articles were discoverable. Again the savage passion for ornament occurred to me as I looked at this piece of furniture, which might have adorned the most luxurious bedroom of the wealthiest citizen in New York—here in this wilderness, in a house which seemed but just cut out of the trees, where a tin pan was brought to me ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... remaining piece of furniture was a queer kind of book-shelf nailed against the wall. It was fully five feet long and protruded a foot out above his bed. In its thirty-odd pigeonholes was jammed a collection of stuff that was evidently the accumulation of years. There were ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... very dreary houses. She entered one of these, put down her wet umbrella in the shabby little hall, and opened the door of a barely furnished room, the walls of which were, however, lined with books. Beside the fire was the one really comfortable piece of furniture in the room, an Ikeley couch, and upon it lay a very wan-looking invalid, who glanced up with a smile of welcome. "Why, Erica, you are home ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... found yourself in your bedroom. What a fascinating way of getting there, and how very, very silly people are now to have wide staircases and straight passages and stupid doors, which you know will open, instead of never being sure if the trap-door had not stuck, or some enemy had not placed a heavy piece of furniture ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... stooping down, placed the candle on an upper flight of stairs, exactly opposite to the room door. This done, he led the way into the apartment; which was destitute of all movables save a broken arm-chair, and an old couch or sofa without covering, which stood behind the door. Upon this piece of furniture, the stranger sat himself with the air of a weary man; and the Jew, drawing up the arm-chair opposite, they sat face to face. It was not quite dark; the door was partially open; and the candle outside, threw a feeble reflection on the ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... is—or rather the remains of it are—quite in the modern style of domestic architecture. The rooms are large, lofty, and commodious;—yet nothing but the shells of them remain. The revolutionary patriots completely gutted them of every useful and every valuable piece of furniture; and even the bare walls are beginning to grow damp, and threaten immediate decay. I made several memoranda upon the spot, which have been unluckily, and I fear irretrievably, misplaced; so that, of this once vast, and yet commanding and interesting edifice, I regret that ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... piece of furniture of black oak, with drawers all down the front. These were elaborately carved in foliage, of which ivy formed the chief part. The nearer end of this table remained just as it had been, but on the further end a singular change ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... up a sword. It was one of his favorite rapiers. Sometimes people came out of the books—sometimes shadowy forms came back to claim the weapons that had been theirs—and Cleggett fought them. There was not an unscarred piece of furniture in the place. He bent the flexible blade in his hands, tried the point of it, formally saluted, brought the weapon to parade, dallied with his imaginary ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... in the world, Roberto!" And she really felt herself to be so. Thoughtful love could have devised nothing more likely to bridge pleasantly and surely over the transition between the past and the coming life. Every fresh piece of furniture unpacked was a new wonder and a new delight. With her satin skirts tucked daintily clear of soil, and her mantilla wrapped around her head and shoulders, she went from room to room, interesting herself in every strip of carpet, and ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... Saint Cloud, caught by Josephine in the arms of another woman, he runs after the unlucky interrupter in such a way that "she barely has time to escape";[1206] and again, that evening, keeping up his fury so as to put her down completely, "he treats her in the most outrageous manner, smashing every piece of furniture that comes in his way." A little before the Empire, Talleyrand, a great mystifier, tells Berthier that the First Consul wanted to assume the title of king. Berthier, in eager haste, crosses the drawing-room ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... room, and every piece of furniture in it, were cleaned; even the cobwebs and dust were cleared away, and the sofa and table brought from the corner to the centre of the room; the melancholy little prisons were removed; and when Amine's work of neatness was complete, and the ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... and walked across to the writing-table; and I went on very slowly clearing the cloth, for Sir John always treated me as if I was a piece of furniture; but I felt uncomfortable, for it seemed to me that there was going ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... A man was brought before him charged with stealing a small but very valuable jewelled table. The prisoner denied the charge. He said that he was weak and feeble with long illness. For that reason it was impossible for him to have carried off a piece of furniture. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... one of the cells had been a little cleared; a bucket (the last remaining piece of furniture of the three caitiffs) stood full of water by the door, a half cocoa-nut shell beside it for a drinking-cup; and on some ragged ends of mat Huish sprawled asleep, his mouth open, his face deathly. The glow of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had finished his work that very morning, and the enormous canvas, with its life-size subject, had already been hung, lighted from above and below by electric bulbs, the battery for which was cleverly hidden behind a piece of furniture. ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... great way through a sea of a regular pattern, like a lady's collar. A benevolent, elderly gentleman of the last century, with a powdered head, kept guard, in oil and varnish, over a most perplexing piece of furniture on a table; in appearance between a driving seat and an angular knife- box, but, when opened, a musical instrument of tinkling wires, exactly like David's harp packed for travelling. Everything became a nick-nack in this curious room. The copper tea-kettle, ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... her thick, red hands, and making the diamonds flash in the sunlight; "Lor' bless me! them fingers is too stiff to play the pianner now. I've got a splendid pianner, though, with an oleon 'tachment, three pedals, and pearl keys—cost eight hundred dollar; and a nice piece of furniture it is, you may believe. I let it be out of tune all the time. That's an excuse for not playing when anybody asks me to, ye know. I don't mind tellin' you this, because you'll be sure to find it ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton |
