"Staircase" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Street to the front of the house, entered the postern gate, passed to the rear of the house, placed a plank against the house, climbed to the window, opened it, entered the house alone, passed up the staircase, opened the door of the sleeping-chamber, approached the bedside, gave Mr. White a heavy and mortal blow on the head with a bludgeon, and then with a dirk gave him many stabs in his body. Crowninshield said, that, after he had "done for the old man," he ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... a room up there,' I answered, as steadily as my indignation would let me, and unheeding the idea of compromising myself I went up the dark staircase in front of him. Naturally the idea that our stormy interview was to have a witness would have been the last thing to enter my mind; it never occurred to me to make sure no one was already in the room when ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... wide staircase, strangely silent now, they entered a long narrow passageway leading to a remote wing of the Palais de Justice. First went the guard with Groener close beside him, then twenty paces, behind came M. Paul and the magistrate and last came the weary clerk with Maitre ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... footman, cared little for Monsieur Lepitre and would have aided me; but on the day I chose for my adventure that luckless dinner was longer than usual,—either because the jaws employed were worn out or the false teeth more imperfect. At last, between eight and nine o'clock, I reached the staircase, my heart beating like that of Bianca Capello on the day of her flight; but when the porter pulled the cord I beheld in the street before me Monsieur Lepitre's hackney-coach, and I heard his ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... some with callings, some with none, all apparently needy, and glad of the chance of hiding in so economical a tenement. A list of the occupants was hung on the door, by order of the Convention, and the names of Lestrange, femme, et domestique, duly figured upon it. A common staircase led to all the floors, but I encountered no one as I toiled to the top of all, where stood Biddy, with her finger up, motioning ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... visit to a near relation of the Shah's, who was the guest of the local Head Mullah. The approach to the Mullah's palace was not attractive. I was conveyed through narrow passages, much out of repair, until we arrived in front of a staircase at the foot of which lay in a row, and in pairs, shoes of all sizes, prices, and ages, patiently waiting for their respective owners inside the house. A great many people were outside in the courtyard, some squatting down and smoking a kalian, which ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... among the walls as I walked about the court. I entered the keep by a low and frowning doorway: the lower floor consisted of a large dungeon-like room, with a vaulted roof; on the left hand was a winding staircase in the thickness of the wall; it looked anything but inviting; yet I stole softly up, my heart beating. On the top of the first flight of stairs was an arched doorway, to the left was a dark passage, to the right, stairs leading still higher. I stepped under the arch ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... heavy swell of sea for the operations in hand. A landing was, however, made this morning, when the artificers were immediately employed in scraping the seaweed off the upper course of the building, in order to apply the moulds of the first course of the staircase, that the joggle-holes might be marked off in the upper course of the solid. This was also necessary previously to the writer's fixing the position of the entrance door, which was regulated chiefly by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lifted him down; his mother took his hand. They seemed to wade together up that stream of light. Then came a staircase and room with a bed in it, which, oddly enough, turned out to be his own. He stared at the pink roses on the curtains. Yes; certainly it was his own bed. And satisfied of this, he nestled down in the pillows and slept, to the long ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... meantime Margaret, with the little babe, to-morrow to be her godchild, lying gently in her arms, came out into the matted hall, and began to mount the broad shallow-stepped staircase, protected by low stout balusters, with a very thick, flat, and solid mahogany hand-rail, polished by the boys' constant riding up and down upon it. She was only on the first step, when the dining-room door opened, and there came out a young man, slight, and delicate-looking, with ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... Psmith and Mr Bickersdyke belonged was celebrated for the steadfastness of its political views, the excellence of its cuisine, and the curiously Gorgonzolaesque marble of its main staircase. It takes all sorts to make a world. It took about four thousand of all sorts to make the Senior Conservative Club. To be absolutely accurate, there were three thousand seven hundred and ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... this copying for her employment, sitting at the pleasant open window, and losing herself in dreamy out-looks into the gardens and woods, quivering in the noontide heat. The house was so still, in its silence it might have been the 'moated grange;' the booming buzz of the blue flies, in the great staircase window, seemed the loudest noise in-doors. And there was scarcely a sound out-of-doors but the humming of bees, in the flower-beds below the window. Distant voices from the far-away fields in which they were making hay—the scent of which came in sudden wafts ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of the entrance lay the staircase leading to the bed-rooms on the second floor, and to the left a door opened into the school-rooms, a recent addition to the dwelling, and in which the Rabbi's fifty-odd pupils were daily instructed ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... the public library. The stale baked air of the place almost made them gasp. But, anyway, it was quiet and altogether deserted. They could hear themselves think in here, he said, and led the way to a marble bench alongside the staircase. ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... could assume on the occasion. But while his son was in this state, Sir Austin considered that he would hardly be brought to see the virtues of the act, and did not make the requisition of him, and heavy Benson remained drawn up solemnly expectant at doorways, and at the foot of the staircase, a Saurian Caryatid, wherever he could get a step in advance of the young man, while Richard heedlessly passed him, as he passed everybody else, his head bent to the ground, and his legs bearing him like random instruments of whose service he was unconscious. It was a shock to Benson's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of autumn now stole with its own peculiar power to soften and subdue. As these recollections came across her, her step faltered and her colour faded from its glow: she paused a moment, cast a mournful glance round the room, and then tore herself away, descended the lofty staircase, passed the stone hall, melancholy with old banners and rusted crests, and bore her beauty and her busy heart into ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to her cousin, as she opened the door in a little closet, and showed a dusky room which had no window but a small one high up in the wall of a back staircase, "here is one room into which I never could get Poldie without the greatest trouble. I gave it up at last, he always trembled so till he got out again. I will show you such a curious place at the other ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... ball-room in the Castello, and the wedding fetes, and the tournaments in which Messer Galeazzo sought his help. And in this year—1492—we find Leonardo at Vigevano with the Moro in March, making designs for a new staircase for the Sforzesca, and studying vine-culture, and later in the summer drawing plans of a bath-room for Duchess Beatrice, and of a pavilion with a round cupola for the duke's labyrinth in the gardens of the Castello. ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... time manifest volcanically at the bottom of the staircase, but before he comes in Lord Pellew has time to say so is his nasturtium granddaughter a good swimmer. He has thirteen, and has christened each of them after a flower. He hopes thirteen isn't unlucky, and then Major Roper comes in apologetic. Sally can just recollect having seen him before, and ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... the furniture in cottages has been picked up at the sales of farmers on quitting their tenancies. Such are the old chairs, the formal sideboards and eight-day clocks standing in tall, square oaken cases by the staircase in the cottage. Such, too, are the great wooden bedsteads of oak or maple upstairs; and from the same source come the really good feather-beds and blankets. The women—especially the elder women—go to great trouble, and pinch ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... the splash of a horse and buggy through the mud, a monotonous voice mingling with the steady tick of the telegraph machine, some distant barnyard chatter, and the mysterious, invisible stir of spring shaking out upon the air damp sweet odours calling the earth to colour and life. Descending the staircase which connected the railroad station with the hill road on which it was perched, I joined a man who was swinging along in rubber boots, with several farming tools, rakes and hoes, slung over his shoulder. A repugnance I had felt in resuming my toil-worn clothes ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... pictures, including Wilkie's Duke of Wellington, Van Somer's James I. and Charles I., and Kneller's Peter the Great; (3) Great Banqueting Hall; (4) Summer Dining Room, near the foot of the great staircase; the bust of Burleigh, in white marble, is above the door; (5) the Armoury, full of treasures "rich and rare," suits of armour, relics of the Spanish Armada, various arms, etc. Other pictures in various parts of the house include (1) William III., and Lady Ranelagh, by Kneller; (2) half-length ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... legality of every importation. I therefore resolved to try my chance, and—entered the body of Augustus Tomlinson, as a piece of stolen goods. Faith! the first night I was shy,—I stuck to the staircase, and ogled an old maid of quality, whom I had heard announced as Lady Margaret Sinclair. Doubtless she had never been ogled before; and she was evidently enraptured with my glances. The next night I ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... conducted into a great hall, up a noble staircase, through several elegant rooms, filled with beautiful and costly things, strange enough to poor Robert, but his eyes were too full of tears and his heart of grief to notice them. A chamber door was opened softly before him, and Robert saw his friend lying on a couch by the window, with ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... grease they could find, and making it an easy matter for the fire to catch and hold. The smoke, driven along in front of the flames, quickly became so intolerable that they had to fly for relief to the staircase at the farther ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... our pride, has been converted into barracks for the German soldiers. A small part of it, becoming smaller every day, is reserved for the courts. The Magistrates and lawyers have access to it by a small private staircase. ...
— The Case of Edith Cavell - A Study of the Rights of Non-Combatants • James M. Beck
... the room, treading softly. A little way up the staircase that led from the landing to the upper parts of the house a light flickered down to them, and they perceived the pale face of the housemaid diligently regarding them. Julian ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... men's conversation was abruptly ended. A loud, strident voice was heard from the head of the wide oak staircase, which was at some distance from ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... if you'll go up The staircase, you will find her; She won't look round: she never does, So you can ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... deep flush of satisfaction dyes her cheeks; all her natural self-reliance and determination return to her; with a little laugh at her own image (on which she builds her hopes), she defies fate, and, running down the staircase with winged feet, finds herself on the last step, ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... time the manoeuvre gave him any pleasure, and an association was thus established which led to shoe-fetichism (Hammond, Sexual Impotence, p. 44). A government official whose first coitus in youth took place on a staircase; the sound of his partner's creaking shoes against the stairs, produced by her efforts to accelerate orgasm, formed an association which developed into an auditory shoe-fetichism; in the streets he was compelled to follow ladies whose shoes creaked, ejaculation being thus produced, while to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Staircase 8 contained a stand of coarse pottery and a small coarse saucer (XII, 31, 44), the rough handmade vase (XII, 23), fragments of large water-jars of better ware, and two alabaster bowls, one of the sharp-edged type (XI, 33), the other of the common ...
— El Kab • J.E. Quibell
... is at the further end of this passage, on the left facing the main staircase. Good-night, sir. I am extremely obliged. I will bring you your shaving-water when ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... adapted by Alan de Walsingham. 14. Tomb of Bishop Kilkenny (1250). 15. Tomb of Bishop Redman (1505). 16. The Reredos, designed by Sir G.G. Scott, presented by John Dunn Gardner, Esq., in memory of his wife (1851). 17. The spiral Staircase leading to the organ loft: the organ was built by Hill and Son, of London. 18 and 19. The Stalls—very ancient, though the carved panels above them are modern; the north side represents a series of pictures from the New Testament; on the south side are illustrations of the Old Testament; they were ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... lock it now, unseen and unheard before the nearing step should pause! But the very attempt were folly; no, I must stand my ground and—Ah! the step has paused, but not at my door. There is a third one on this hall, communicating, as I knew, with a covered staircase leading to the attic. It was at this she stopped and it was up this staircase she went as warily and softly as its creaking boards would allow; and while I marveled as to what had taken her aloft so late, I heard her steps over ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... there's one of her party, anyway," interposed Falfani, and he called his attention to a female figure standing a little aloof in the shadow of the staircase, and ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... with eager words and tender hands, Kate was made ready for the evening meal, and went down, clinging on one side to Mary, on the other to Sylvia—a matter of no small difficulty on the narrow staircase, and almost leading to a general avalanche of young ladies, all upon the head of little Lily, who was running up to greet and be greeted, and was almost devoured by Kate when at length they did ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... little group of men to the far end of the hall, where the staircase screened us from the light of the candle. How to begin, what to say, I did not know. With one arm about her slender form, I pressed kisses on her ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... but when I gave them this air of barbarous bas-reliefs, they succeeded to a miracle: it is impossible at first sight not to conclude that they contain the history of Attila or Tottila, done about the very aera. From hence, under two gloomy arches, you come to the hall and staircase, which it is impossible to describe to you, as it is the most particular and chief beauty of the castle. Imagine the walls covered with (I call it paper, but it is really paper painted in perspective to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... nature of the tumult, called out to Francisco de Chaves, an officer high in his confidence, and who was in the outer apartment opening on the staircase, to secure the door, while he and his brother Alcantara buckled on their armour. Had this order, coolly given, been as coolly obeyed, it would have saved them all, since the entrance could easily have been maintained against a much larger force, till the report of the cavaliers who had fled had ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... his bended knees, By the pale spectre pushed, And, wild as one whom demons seize, Up the hall-staircase rushed; Entered his chamber—near the bed Sheathed steel and fire-arms hung— Impelled by maniac purpose dread ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... gilt], beasts and birds, knights and idols, and sundry other subjects. And on the ceiling too you see nothing but gold and silver and painting. [On each of the four sides there is a great marble staircase leading to the top of the marble wall, and forming the approach to the Palace.] ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... in his pocket and advanced stealthily across the room. His feet were encased in list slippers and his tread was perfectly noiseless. As he approached I backed away, and grasping the newel-post of the staircase gave it a sharp pull, whereat the whole of the balusters creaked loudly. Then I slipped behind the curtain that partly divided the hall, poised the concussor as a golf-player poises his club, and gathered in ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... slowly she went from them, Went down the staircase grim, With trembling heart and limb; Her footfalls echoed In the silence vast and dead, Like the notes of a requiem, ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... The staircase, she remembered, was at her right; and feeling out before her with her hands, she reached the stairs, and began to mount them. She went slowly, very slowly. They were bare, the stairs, and unless one were extremely careful they would creak ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... passages and remote lobbies. One morning, Cecilia, on her way to the china closet, found Kenelm gazing very intently upon a female portrait consigned to one of those obscure receptacles by which through a back staircase he gained the only approach from the ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... granite cornices. The upper story consisted entirely of small arches, forming a gallery; between the arches were iron gratings enriched with escutcheons; whilst upon the gables of the house more coats-of-arms were displayed. The broad external staircase, of tinted bricks, abutted on the square. At the foot of it sat guards, who with one hand held their halberds upright, and with the other supported their drooping heads, and in this attitude more resembled apparitions ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... Paris. By a somewhat whimsical coincidence, the Count de Stedingk, who, from having been one of the intended hunting-party, had been admitted into the antechamber, rushing down-stairs in his haste to spread the intelligence, met the Countess de Provence on the staircase. "It is a dauphin, madame," he cried; "what a happy event!" The countess made him no reply. Nor did she or her husband pretend to disguise their mortification. The Count d'Artois was a little less open in the display of his discontent, which was, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... tempered by mixing with the warmer air of the room—Stoves in halls and staircases are useful, because they warm the air before it enters the rooms; and they prevent the hurtful chills often felt on passing through a cold staircase from one warm room to another. It is important to admit no more cold air into the house than is just required for the fires, and for ventilation; hence there is great error in the common practice of leaving all the chimneys that are not in use, quite open; for each admits as much ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... quarter of an hour, which was spent up-stairs in perfect silence, there came a message. Would Lady Anna have the kindness to go to the Serjeant in the dining-room. In silence she left the room, and in silence descended the broad staircase. The Serjeant and Mrs. Bluestone were sitting on one side of the fireplace, the Serjeant in his own peculiar arm-chair, and the lady close to the fender, while a seat opposite to them had been placed ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... humours of that memorable entertainment! How, when the company were assembled, it was discovered Mr. Pilkington was missing, and a party, headed by Lawless, proceeded to his rooms, which were on the same staircase, and brought him down, vi et armis, in a state of mind bordering on distraction, picturesquely attired in a dressing-gown, slippers, and smoking-cap, of a decidedly oriental character; and how, when they had forced him into a seat of honour ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... each other's shoulders, they descended the broad staircase, just as Mrs. Power, in answer to William's summons, was crossing the ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... court. Besides, heaven help the foreigner who tries to learn all the German tongues to be found in the empires of the Hohenzollern and Hapsburg. Luncheon will be served to you in the dining hall; the first door to the right at the foot of the grand staircase. I shall send you a ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... away and walked into the house. I leant against the wall, and remained buried in thought till my uncle returned. He was in a hurry to go, and desired me to look for Alice. Not finding her in the rooms below, I went up the narrow staircase, opened the door of what had once been her bed-room, and looked into the closet within. There was the view of the church, such as she had once shown it me from that window: she was on her knees, and her head was resting on her hands; the sound of a deep sigh caught my ear. I looked at ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... which, under other circumstances, might hardly have entered into it as a principle of education at all. The rooms M. Linders had taken were on the third floor of a large palazzo with many occupants, where a hundred feet daily passed up and down the common staircase, the number of steps they had to tread increasing for the most part in direct proportion to their descent in the social grade which, with sufficiently imposing representatives on the first floor, reached its minimum, in point of wealth and ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... consisted of a landing from which a lift and a staircase descended, a waiting-room for clients, pleasantly furnished, a room in which two female clerks worked, and off this a small room tenanted by an office boy. You may also add in imagination an excellent lavatory for the clerks, two telephones (one in the partners' room), ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... romance, that not even my Chartism can quench. Once, and once only, I remember creeping, under the guidance of an elder boy, up to the 'dark room' in the turret; but the fear that we should really see the ghostly Lady caused us to run down the staircase, with beating hearts, as soon as we had reached the door and ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... Justice, Force, Prudence, etc. The outer hall, the "Salle des Pas-Perdus," is surrounded by 16 columns of red marble. The Prfecture is a splendid edifice in the Renaissance style, 300 ft. long by 260 ft. wide, adorned with statues and bas-reliefs, and furnished with a grand staircase, escalier d'honneur, communicating with handsome ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... she said, 'it needs a woman to see. It is but two o'clock. Let us ascend the glacier, like a staircase; and presently we shall stand upon the summit of the mountain. Those last little peaks above the ice can ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... but no historical remembrance being attached to this mountain lake, I rather suppose that it was the sacred lake of Guatavita, on the east of the mines of rock-salt of Zipaquira, into which the gilded lord was made to enter. I saw on its banks the remains of a staircase hewn in the rock, and serving for the ceremonies of ablution. The Indians said that powder of gold and golden vessels were thrown into this lake, as a sacrifice to the adoratorio de Guatavita. Vestiges are still found of a breach which ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... made some of the proper cake to pacify the lions, and one night went up to her room very early, pretending that she was going to bed; but instead of that, she wrapped herself in a long white veil, and went down a secret staircase, and set off all by ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... Jim between his teeth. 'Gang upstairs wi' ye.' And he pointed to a door in the wall concealing a staircase to the upper storey. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that even one God-fearing but not God-loving old man should think him unfit to sit in the church in which his father and mother had been married, from which they had been carried side by side for their long rest. It was midnight when he went up the broad staircase to ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... broad lawns, wide-spreading shade trees and splashing fountains, it was a conspicuous landmark for miles. The interior was full of architectural beauty. The stately entrance hall, hung with ancestral portraits, was of noble proportions and a superb staircase, decorated with statuary led off to tastefully decorated reception rooms above. To-night the house was brilliantly illuminated and there was considerable activity at the front entrance, where a footman in smart livery stood opening the doors of the ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... and splendour. The apartments were in general furnished with all the cheerful ease and brilliancy of the modern mansion of a noble, but the grand gallery of the seventeenth century was still preserved, and was used on great occasions as the chief reception-room. You ascended the principal staircase to reach it through a long corridor. It occupied the whole length of one of the wings; was one hundred feet long, and forty-five feet broad, its walls hung with a collection of choice pictures rich in history; while the Axminster carpets, the cabinets, carved tables, and ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... slipped quickly from the room, feeling her way down the dark staircase to the kitchen. It was dusky and quiet there. Mahailey sat in a corner, hemming dish-towels by the light of a smoky old brass lamp which was her own cherished luminary. Mrs. Wheeler walked up and down the long room in soft, silent agitation, both hands pressed tightly to her breast, where there ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... Heaven to witness the truth of her words, that there is nothing to eat in the house—that the Germans have eaten up all her store of food, and that her old mother is already beginning to starve. Yet certain appetizing smells, which come down the staircase from upstairs when the door is opened, lead me to believe she is deceiving us. I do not blame her for treasuring what she has for her own flesh and blood; but I certainly could enjoy a couple of ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... saw a sign lettered HOTEL. Brett went up to the revolving door, pushed inside. He was in a dim, marble-panelled lobby, with double doors leading into a beige-carpeted bar on his right, the brass-painted cage of an elevator directly before him, flanked by tall urns of sand and an ascending staircase. On the left was a dark mahogany-finished reception desk. Behind the desk a man stood silently, waiting. Brett felt a wild surge ...
— It Could Be Anything • John Keith Laumer
... having eaten and drunk as much as she could by her single self, and growing wearied with efforts from which so little resulted, proposed to Fanny to retire to rest. She opened a door to the right of the fireplace, and lighted her up a winding staircase to a pretty and comfortable chamber, where she offered to help her to undress. Fanny's complete innocence, and her utter ignorance of the precise nature of the danger that awaited her, though she fancied it must be very great and ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... darker end of the outer cave there was a staircase, partly natural, and partly improved by art, which led upward into ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... difficult to match Rowardennan Castle for a scene of beauty and revelry. Everything went merrily till we came to Hynde Horn, the concluding tableau, and the most effective and elaborate one on the programme. At the very last moment, when the opening scene was nearly ready, Jean Dalziel fell down a secret staircase that led from the tapestry chamber into Lady Ardmore's boudoir, where the rest of us were dressing. It was a short flight of steps, but, as she held a candle and was carrying her costume, she fell awkwardly, ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... never shall forget his effort to ascend the staircase of the Commissioner's house on Friday morning after his victory at Milwaukee the night before. The veteran Warrior had to rest his head and hands on the rail and pray 'My Lord.' It was clear to me that the chill he had sustained ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... the door, nor had long to wait before a serving-maid appeared, who seemed to be of English nativity; and in reply to his request for Doctor Portsoaken bade him come in, and led him up a staircase with broad landing-places; then tapped at the door of a room, and was responded to by a gruff voice saying, "Come in!" The woman held the door open, and Septimius saw the veritable Doctor Portsoaken in an old, faded morning-gown, and ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... gables. The ground floors had once had trellised porches, but these had been found inconvenient and were removed, and the lower story consisted of a large hall, and strong vault, with a spacious room behind it containing a baking-oven, and a staircase leading to a wooden gallery, where the family used to dine. It seems they slept in the room below, though they had upstairs a ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... find the dead body of Arnold Armstrong, the son of the owner, on the circular staircase. Following the murder a bank failure is announced. Around these two events is woven a plot of ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... passed into the chamber of the mourners, and thence to the head of the staircase, to make the funeral prayer. It was a tender and heart-dissolving prayer, full of sorrow, yet so imbued with celestial hopes that the music of a heavenly harp swept by the fingers of the dead seemed faintly to be heard among the saddest accents of the minister. ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... upon the table, and followed Comus. He conducted her and her companion, who was only a confidential maid, down a back staircase, used as an exit, and leading into a different street from that by which the two women had come in; but the coachman, who had been told beforehand of this circumstance, was awaiting them at the door, and they had only to step into their carriage, which bore ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... unquestionably the finest was the Fairy Garden, with a quite beautiful back-cloth by R. MCCLEERY and a bewildering (and, to tell truth, largely bewildered) bevy of butterflies, decked by COMELLI, fluttering in a flowery pleasaunce. And there was also a clever variation on the now inevitable staircase motif as a finale. But the Harlequinade of happy memory has deplorably declined to something like a mere display of advertisements—a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... my earliest recollections. It stood upon the staircase at home (I call it home still mechanically), nigh sixty years ago. I like it for that; but it is not on that account, nor because it is a quaint old thing in a huge oaken case curiously and richly carved, that I prize it as I do. I incline ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... mansion. But one day, clad in deep sables, she went with George to visit the deserted house which she had not entered since she was a girl. They went into the great blank rooms, the walls of which bore the marks where pictures and mirrors had hung. Then they went up the great stone staircase into the upper rooms, into that where grandpapa died, as Georgie said in a whisper, and then higher still into George's own room. The boy was still clinging by her side, but she thought of another besides him. She knew that it had ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... round to a small entrance at the side of the house, and presently the door opened and Jane beckoned him to enter. A staircase close to the door led direct to one end of the painted gallery, which was close to Maud's room, and here Harry sat down in the broad window-seat to wait her coming. He did not have to wait long. In a minute or two her chamber-door opened, and the young ...
— Hayslope Grange - A Tale of the Civil War • Emma Leslie
... continued to beat with smothering violence, and an intolerable desire for action of any sort had possessed itself of his spirit. He was in deadly peril, he believed. What could be more natural than to mount the staircase, lift the curtain, and confront his difficulty at once? At least he would be dealing with something tangible; at least he would be no longer in the dark. He stepped slowly forward with outstretched hands, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... through the flowery paths of the hanging-gardens. He stopped at the parapet end cautiously opened a hidden trap-door, admitting to a secret staircase which wound down through one of the huge pillars supporting the hanging-gardens, and which had probably been intended by their original designer as a means of reaching his wife's apartments unobserved from the shores ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of how they had sailed the seas and seen many people and many lands. There was the story of the old house within the iron gates—built by convicts more than fifty years ago—and of how the sea-captain had bought it and built a tower and spiral staircase and a roof promenade, which he called his "deck." And of how he and his small daughter settled down in the great house together; and how her wardrobe was always full of beautiful clothes and her purse full of real sovereigns; and two ponies she had to her name, and a great ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... and into the room where they slept; but they were up and out of the room. The ball come through the window, which it mashed to pieces, with part of the framework; went through the opposite wall near the head of the bedstead; crossed the staircase to another room; but meeting with a beam in the wall, came back and went a part through the side wall, and then dropt down on the stairs. A thirty-two pounder, supposed coming from the Powlis Hook battery, fell into Sr. Barnard's garden, just before her door. ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... into the dark depths of the building. Is it possible to climb to the top of the great Minars, and thence to look down on the city? At all events the attempt is worth making, and the chances are that the door of the staircase will be unlocked. Unlocked it is; but a deeply sleeping janitor lies across the threshold, face turned to the Moon. A rat dashes out of his turban at the sound of approaching footsteps. The man grunts, opens his ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... held charge of the property for the King before the Duke of Marlborough possessed it. The keeper opened the door for us, and in the entrance-hall we found various things that had to do with the chase and woodland sports. We mounted the staircase, through several stories, up to the top of the tower, whence there was a view of the spires of Oxford, and of points much farther off,—very indistinctly seen, however, as is usually the case with the misty distances of England. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... windows of the hotel to its historic associations to the purity and the grandeur of its architecture, to the Venetian sumptuousness of its halls and chambers (including the green saloon of the Doges) to the magnificence of its Atrium and staircase—preserved in its original XVth cent. condition, must now be added the important works of restoration and embellishment just completed by the present proprietors who by the aid of clever architects, artists and decorators, have studied the means of bringing into requisition all ...
— A Summary History of the Palazzo Dandolo • Anonymous
... the desert. And, indeed, the desert was near—that realistic desert which suggests to the traveller approaches to the sea, so that beyond each pallid dune, as he draws near it, he half expects to hear the lapping of the waves. Presently, when, having ascended that marvellous staircase of the New Year, walking in procession with the priests upon its walls toward the rays of Ra, I came out upon the temple roof, and looked upon the desert—upon sheeny sands, almost like slopes of satin shining in the sun, upon paler sands in the ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... seize the King, which they immediately obeyed by forcing him into the next room. They forgot, however, when they locked the door, that there was a private entrance, out of which the King immediately escaped, and appearing on the staircase, below which the Author was standing, he called loudly for help. Some of the conspirators, however, with great presence of mind, called to the soldiers on duty, "The King is mad;" on which they again secured him, and in the evening he was removed to Drottningholm, ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... eventually executed in colour was an incident in the foreground which dealt with the "Battle of the Standard." One of the many supposed copies of a study of this mural painting now hangs on the south-east staircase in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It depicts the Florentines under Cardinal Ludovico Mezzarota Scarampo fighting against the Milanese under Niccolo Piccinino, the General of Filippo Maria Visconti, on ...
— Leonardo da Vinci • Maurice W. Brockwell
... rustle attendant upon her ascent of the staircase had died completely out, the colonel turned toward Pen. He spoke quietly enough, but with an emotion ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... timberwork trailing behind her. It was in itself, without picking up another plank, more than sufficient to supply all the carpenter's needs for the roof of the house, "besoides making the ladies a prisint of a staircase for the front door," as Mr ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... with outside grilles, either of bars or of wrought-iron scrollwork. From this patio, which in the wealthier houses is paved with marble, the doorways of the lower apartments open. The houses are of two storeys, and access to the upper is gained by a broad staircase which terminates on a wide balcony, or, rather, gallery, above the patio. From this gallery the doors of the upper rooms open. A balustrade runs round the outer side of the gallery, and this is generally covered with flowering plants, ferns, and palms, in ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... sense of rhythm is entirely dominated by the sense of colour. He manipulates the French language with a freedom sometimes barbarous, 'dragging his images by the heels or the hair' (in the admirable phrase of Leon Bloy) 'up and down the worm-eaten staircase of terrified syntax,' gaining, certainly, the effects at which he aims. He possesses, in the highest degree, that style tachete et faisande—high-flavoured and spotted with corruption—that he attributes to Goncourt and Verlaine. And with this audacious and barbaric profusion of words—chosen ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... kitchen, now dark and deserted. The flickering light of the candle was reflected here and there on the curves of the copper pots and glass bowls. The house was sleeping. We crossed the hall, and went up a broad wooden staircase, polished ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... scampered from room to room, uttering little cries of contentment. Often as she had seen and admired the house during the last few weeks, it had never seemed so perfectly delightful as it did to-day: with its low-ceiled cozy little rooms at the back, its high and imposing rooms in front, its broad staircase and square landing, it would be quite a little palace when all had ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... just it," replied I. "Now it puts all my fear in action, and imagination works indescribable horrors in my mind, to stand even upon a moderate elevation, or to see a little child take the first steps at the head of a staircase; and I think it would be the height of cruelty for you to go and stand where it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... exercises as the fox trot and the one step. Further, let me draw your attention to the old Elizabethan dormer window from which it is reported that the celebrated Sir Walter Raleigh hung his cloak to dry, after the lady had trodden on it. On the staircase can be seen the identical spot where the dog basket belonging to the aged pug dog of the eighteenth Countess of Forres was nightly placed, to the intense discomfiture of those ill-behaved and rowdy guests who turned the hours of sleep ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... the passage. Mr. Fentolin bade his guest a somewhat restrained good night, and Gerald mounted the staircase to his room. Hamel, however, had scarcely reached his door before Gerald reappeared. He had descended the stair-case at the other end of the corridor. He stood for a moment looking down the passage. The doors were all closed. Even ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... treble doors, padded with leather to exclude the cold and guarded by two 'proud young porters' in severe cocked hats and formidable batons, into a broad hall,—threw off our furred boots and cloaks, ascended a carpeted marble staircase, in every angle of which stood a statuesque footman in gaudy coat and unblemished unmentionables, and reached a broad landing upon the top thronged as usual with servants. Thence we passed through an antechamber into a long, high, brilliantly lighted, saffron-papered room, in which a dozen card-tables ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... absence, from her own scanty store of edibles across the hall, she prepared a meal for him. Absorbed in this occupation she gave little heed to the steady tramp of feet ascending the staircase. A peremptory knock recalled her from her world of ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... decorated with a dunce's cap, placed upon his yellow head by a jovial matron, found himself fated, by a final effort of penalising fancy on the part of another matron, to select "a young lady," to conduct her to the topmost step of the staircase, and there, on his knees, to kiss either her shoe-buckle or her lips; "whichever he likes best!" ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... stands, in a fat, flat country about ten miles from Cologne, to which city it bears much the same relation that Hampton Court bears to London, or Versailles to Paris. Stucco and whitewash had been lavished upon it inside and out, and pallid scagliola did duty everywhere for marble. A grand staircase supported by agonised colossi, grinning and writhing in vain efforts to look as if they didn't mind the weight, led from the great hall to the state apartments; and in these rooms the bad taste of the building ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... But the staircase was full of people, and I dived under to go below and find my cabin, which I now resentfully remembered ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... the main staircase into the hall! Everybody in the place knows it by this time—she took good care they should. I don't know how she can have been robbed—so far as I can learn she's scarcely been out of these rooms since she came into them yesterday afternoon. ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... fullest extent. She may intertain missionaries in the attics and hold meetings of the Dorcas Society in the basement. She may give reformed burglars the run of the silver-closet, and allow curates and chorus-girls to mingle in sweet companionship on the staircase. But she must leave the library alone, and neither she nor her following must overflow through its double doors during ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... four eyes, which for forty minutes had scarcely left the entrance staircase, were rewarded. She came, in furs, gleaming white kid gloves, gold chains, a gold bag, and ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... rustic staircase which leads from the garden, WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE takes you past the library into the drawing-room, in the upper parts of the leaded windows of which are inserted panels of rare old glass, cunningly obtained by melting superfluous Welsh ale bottles. He leads you to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... writing "Sans souci" over the gate; but where is the gate through which Care has not slipped? She perches on the shoulders of the sentry in the sentry-box: she whispers the porter sleeping in his arm-chair: she glides up the staircase, and lies down between the king and queen in their bed-royal: this very night I dare say she will perch upon poor old Goody Twoshoes's meagre bolster, and whisper, "Will the gentleman and those ladies ask ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the bell, the girl drew off her wooden gloves, laid them on the keyboard, turned slowly in her seat, listening. A slight sound coming from the spiral staircase of stone set her heart beating violently. Had the suspected man violated his word? She drew the automatic pistol from her holster, rose, and stole up to the stone platform overhead, where, rising tier on tier into the darkness, the great carillon ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... of that gallery. Did you know that? At the other end, in exactly the same position, hidden in the deep arch, there is a second door. There is also a winding staircase, which leads to the street on the opposite side of the mosque. Foreigners are never admitted by that side, but it is barely possible that the door may have been open. Alexander Patoff may have gone down that way, ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... a defeat for Eric, formally recorded by Barbara with that glint of triumph which was beginning to fill him with misgiving. They drove in silence to a side street off Shaftesbury Avenue and groped their way through the stage-door down a cork-screw staircase and along several short passages which branched disconcertingly to right or left as soon as Barbara fancied that she could walk ahead with impunity. From above came the mechanical runs and flourishes ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... Don Pietro Casale's house, the last on the right, with the steep staircase running up outside the building to the second story. And the staircase has an iron railing, and so narrows the lane that a broad shouldered man can just go by to the cabbage garden beyond without turning sideways. On the landing at the top, ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford |
