"Mantel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a half-light to enter between the printed curtains. Rush-bottomed chairs, a great table, about which seven persons daily take their places, a few poor pieces of furniture, and a simple bookcase; such are all the contents. On the mantel, a clock in black marble, a precious souvenir, the only present which Fabre received at the time of his exodus from Avignon; it was given by his old pupils, the young girls who used to attend the ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... that on this particular afternoon a strange dumbness had descended on her. She had been unable to speak to George and now she could not think of anything to say to Freddie. She looked at him and he looked at her; and the clock on the mantel-piece went ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... moment. Will you give me that palm-leaf fan from the mantel-piece? It is really rather a hot morning. Thanks, dear. What was it you ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... floor to ceiling. The heavy velvet curtains that draped the arched entrance by which she had come had fallen behind her. The silence in the room where the feet fell so softly could be felt. There was not a sound but the ticking of a clock on the mantel-shelf. ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... her breath and listened. Not a sound. The silence was unbearable. She sprang to her feet in a moment's fierce rebellion against the crime of such an infamous attack. A roused lioness, she leaped to the mantel ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... few steps, and then halted in front of a basket of wonderful orchids near the window. On the mantel-piece and table tufts of violets sent forth their perfume, and in the warm, deep silence which seemed to fall from the hangings, the Baron sat down and stretched himself in one of the large armchairs, upholstered in blue satin striped with silver. He had ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... he proceeded, with facile pen, to furnish the house. There was the Log-Fire Room, with the print of George Washington over the mantel, with Jean's knitting on the table; Muffin on one side of the fire, and Polly Ann on the other. He even started to put Jean in one of the big chairs, but she made him rub it out. "Not yet, Derry. ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... immediately opposite to me, as I lay, was of black marble, and, instead of graceful Greek caryatides, bandaged mummies, or Egyptian figures, supported the heavy shelf that surmounted the polished grate. In the centre of this massive mantel-slab was placed a huge bronze clock, and candelabra of the same material ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... two windows on the south side and one on the north side, all gracefully draped with snowy muslin. A clock ticked cheerfully on a rude mantel behind a large box stove. To the left of the door, a rough stairway led to the attic, and the rear of the room was curtained off into two compartments, the spotlessly clean curtains of a pale blue ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... "Box on the mantel. Yes," he sighed, "that was really something very curious. You see, I had invented the whole history of the case from the time I got into the Back Bay car with my flowers. Absolutely nothing had happened of all I had remembered ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... the window, he saw the figure of an unhappy female whom he had betrayed, and who in consequence had committed suicide, standing in the window recess. The form approached the foot of his bed, and, pointing her finger to a dial which stood on the mantel-piece, announced that if he did not take warning and repent, his life and sins would be concluded at the same hour of the third day after the visitation. By a preternatural light in the chamber he observed distinctly everything ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... asked unexpectedly one evening, as he sat smoking beside the blue tiled mantel, "have you got ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... treasures of blue and white that it makes one ache to think of to-day, and some pieces of India china besides, brought over seas by some sea-going Rock of a former generation: and there were silver spoons in the iron box under Abby's bed, and the dragon tea-pot on the high narrow mantel-piece was always full, but not with tea-leaves. Yes, and there was no better cow in the village than Abby's, save those two fancy heifers that Jacques de Arthenay had lately bought. Altogether, she did not wonder that some of the weaker ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... engaged in knitting. The night was cold, and the huge sticks of wood were roaring and crackling in the broad fireplace, and throwing a cheerful glow and warmth through the room. The tallow candle on the mantel had not been lit, for there was no need of it, and, despite the loneliness and poverty of the sad-faced woman, there was an air of neatness and comfort about her home which would have tempted any one who could look through the narrow window ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... which on the morrow Philip was to perform the ceremony that made her his father's wife, and of the room in which she lay, its walls dimly visible in the light of an arc-lamp just outside the window, gay with saffron cupids who disported themselves among roses of the same complexion. Over the mantel-piece of black iron hung an improbably colored lithograph ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... hollow. A great window looking down the woodside filled one side of the chalet, and the others were dark with books, an occasional picture or figured jar lighting up the shadow. A small fire flickered beneath a quaintly devised mantel, though it was summer—for the mists crept up the hill at night and chilled the souls of the books. A great old bureau, with a wonderful belly of mahogany, filled a corner of the room, breathing antique mystery and refinement. At one end of it, on a small vacant space of wall, ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne
... it in that French vase on the mantel,' he said. 'I don't open the desk once in three months, and should lose the key, if I ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... any doubt, though, that the past was full and alive to him. There was only the past. And what a memory was his! He would look at the portrait of his old clipper, the Oberon—it was central over the mantel-shelf—and recall her voyages, and the days in each voyage, and just how the weather was, what canvas she carried, and how things happened. Malabar Street vanished. We would go, when he was in that mood, and live for the evening in another ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... she went away, and the room was silent again. His arms rested upon the desk, and his head slowly sank between his elbows. When he lifted it again the clock on the mantel-piece had tinkled once. It was half-past seven. He took a sheet of note-paper from a box before him and began to write, but when he had finished the words, "My dear wife and Mamie," his fingers shook so violently that he could go no further. ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... through the window, saw Mrs. Green open a closet in the library, and, from a drawer there, take out the money she had asked for. The housekeeper locked the drawer and the closet door, placing the key of the latter in a vase on the mantel-piece, and the key of the drawer under one of a row of volumes on a book shelf. All these precautions had been rendered necessary by the presence of the dishonest girl ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... Miss Fidely, brightening up, "we'll settle. If you'll just lift the lid of that old teapot standin' on the mantel-shelf, you'll find three one-dollar bills and a two. I wish 'twas ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... clock ornamented the mantel-piece representing the templar Bois-Guilbert bearing off a gilded Rebecca upon a silver horse. On either side of this frightful time-piece were placed two plated lamps ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... boasted, was fleet as the cabri, And the tall, tawny chieftain looked on, approving the boast of the mother. Then fleet as the feet of a fawn to her lodge ran the dark-eyed Winona, She brought and she spread on the lawn, by the side of the robe of the boaster, The lily-red mantel DuLuth, with his own hands, had laid on her shoulders. "Tamdoka is swift, but forsooth, the tongue of his mother is swifter," She said, and her face was aflame with the red of the rose and the lily, And loud was the roar of acclaim; but dark was the face of Tamdoka. They ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... it all! What's the difference when time's so nearly up?" responds McKay, as he goes over to the little wood-framed mirror that stands on the iron mantel. "Here's a substitute, though! How's this for a moustache?" he asks, as he turns and faces them. Then he starts for the door. Almost in an instant Stanley is up and after him. Just at the head of the iron stairs he hails ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... in the Dutch Reform Church at the foot of the high pulpit and dominie Bogardus told us the story of the Birthday of Our Lord in simple words which we could all understand. Early in the morning we ran down to the sitting room where our stockings were hanging from the mantel shelf filled by Santa Claus with Christmas gifts, with more piled on the table for our friends and for poor families. That was what an effusive writer once called the "halcyon and vociferous" beginning of ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... wainscoted in the black oak of the country, and a few other articles, of a fashion so antique, and of ornaments so ingenious and rich, as to announce that they had been transported from beyond sea. Above the mantel were suspended the armorial bearings of the Heathcotes and the Hardings, elaborately ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... she saw that the old couple was not alone. By the mantel stood Mr. Verrinder. By the door, almost touching Marie Louise, was a tall, grim person she had not seen. He closed the door behind von Groener and ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... each of the prints, at Hokusai, Toyokimi, Kuniyoshi, Kiyonaga, Kiosai, Hiroshighe, Utamaro, Oukoyo-Ye,—the doctor's taste was Oriental. And again he fell to scrutinizing the fan. It was large, ugly, clumsy. What possessed Arn to place such a sprawling affair over his mantel? Tempted to touch it, he discovered that it was as silky as a young bat's wing. At last, his curiosity excited, he lifted it with some straining to the floor. What puzzled him was its weight. He felt its thin ribs, its soft, paper-like ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... carved-wood—Italian—five and three quarter inches each; old glass on mantelpiece—seven inches. And below this, dated the third: Last night, between midnight and daylight, the candle in the glass holder on the right side of the mantel was burned down one ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... I heard the solemn ticking of the clock on the mantel behind me; I heard Mary laughing softly in her retreat beyond the table; I heard Luther, now bending over his book, mumbling to himself a ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... paintings and enlarged photographs. A victrola stood in a corner, and the upright piano near the center of the room formed a background for a precisely draped, imitation mandarin skirt and a convenient shelf for family photographs and hand-painted vases. On the mantel an elaborate ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... of the window-brush school, and a face reminding you of the BOURBONS. As, although lighting his lamp, he has, abstractedly, almost covered it with his hat, his room is but imperfectly illuminated, and you can just detect the accordeon on the window-sill, and, above the mantel, an unfinished sketch of a school-girl. (There is no artistic merit in this picture; in which, indeed, a simple triangle on end represents the waist, another and slightly larger triangle the skirts, and straight-lines with rake-like terminations ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... bead and fringed leather, who grubbed about in the earth with stoic calm. They looked almost too toylike to be true. They looked as though their right place was in a scheme of decoration on a wall or a mantel-shelf. As one lady said of them: "They're just the sort of things I want to ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... well-stuffed and of lazy or voluptuous shapes, composed the furniture of that famous room, where the most momentous and the most trivial questions were discussed with the same gravity of tone and manner. There was a beautiful portrait of the duchess on the wall; and on the mantel a bust of the duke, the work of Felicia Ruys, which had received the honor of a medal of the first class at the ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... mantel-piece ticked loudly. But it was the only sound which disturbed the quietness of the room. The representatives of the family eyed one another with guarded indifference. Circumstances had kept them apart for many years, and they now met ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... because he was too shrewd; but he made endless calculations upon the probability of drawing prizes,—provided the tickets were really all sold, and the wheel fairly managed. A dice-box was always at hand upon the mantel. He had portraits of celebrated racers, both quadruped and biped, and he could tell the fastest time ever made by either. His manipulation of cards was, as his friends averred, one of the fine arts; and in all the games ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... as the other women lighted their cigarettes, Nina stood leaning her cheek on her hand as it rested against the mantel—and for some time she gazed down into the fire, while Porter's words echoed and reechoed through her mind. When she turned away from the fire her attention was caught by an Englishwoman who had thrown herself full length on the sofa. Her person was a ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... listen. Now she invited them to her new house. She showed them the things she had and how useful they were. The chiefs looked at the door and windows. They liked them. The women looked at the clothes and at the sewing machine. They liked them. They looked at the clock on the mantel. ...
— White Queen of the Cannibals: The Story of Mary Slessor • A. J. Bueltmann
... four o'clock she started up with resolution. She had been furtively watching the onyx clock on the sitting-room mantel; she had timed herself. She had said that if Agnes was not home by that time she should demand that she be sent for. She rose and stood before Mrs. Dent, who looked up coolly ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... extent him of the spigot, whose curiosity as well as pride was aroused, for the man addressing him, judging from his speech, was a little above the usual class who frequented the tavern. Reaching for a candle which stood upon the mantel, that he might better see, and taking the letter with grudging fingers, said in a slightly more gracious tone after a moment's scrutiny, "It ill pleases me, that monkish writing, but print such as honest John Caxton did manufacture, I can decipher ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... the ticks of the clock on the mantel-piece seemed like a hammer beating on her ears. Dolores thought of the morning's flat denial of all intercourse with Flinders! Then the word give occurred to her as a loophole, and her mind did not embrace all the consequences of the denial, she ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cutting off the dining- room. She finally descends upon her husband with a flagon of cologne in one hand, a small decanter of brandy in the other, and a wineglass held in the hollow of her arm against her breast. She contrives to set the glass down on the mantel and fill it from the flagon, then she turns with the decanter in her hand, and while she presses the glass to her husband's lips, begins to pour the brandy on his head. 'Here! this will revive you, and it'll refresh you to have this cologne on ...
— The Garotters • William D. Howells
... just how to answer this. It seemed a charge that would cover both their previous lives. In a moment's silence a sweet-toned clock on the mantel ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... lecture-hall together about half-past ten. He had a most comfortably and tastefully furnished parlor, with good pictures on the walls, Indian and Japanese ornaments on the mantel, and here and there, and books everywhere-largely mine; which made me proud. The light was brilliant, the easy chairs were deep-cushioned, the arrangements for brewing and smoking were all there. We brewed and lit up; then he passed a sheet ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the now flameless embers painted the sides and back of the fireplace with its colour, and the well-polished andirons, and the old brass tongs that would not meet. The underside of the mantel-shelf was flushed with the high-coloured light, and the legs of the table nearest the fire. Tess's face and neck reflected the same warmth, which each gem turned into an Aldebaran or a Sirius—a constellation of white, ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... was a broad-shouldered, bull-necked young man, who leaned against the marble mantel-piece, turning over the pages of an almanac, and taking from time to time a stealthy peep over the top of it at the toilers around him. Command was imprinted in every line of his strong, square-set face and erect, powerful frame. Above the medium size, with a vast spread of shoulder, ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... minute—I'll come down with you!" said Beryl, and, rushing to the mirror over the mantel, began to pat her pretty cendre hair flat to her head, in unconscious imitation of Mrs. ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... fourteen feet square, and was lighted by two windows. It was covered with a neat, though well-worn, carpet; a few cane-bottomed chairs were ranged at the windows, and on each side of the table. There was a French clock on the mantel, a rocking chair for his mother, and a few inexpensive engravings hung upon the walls. There was a hanging bookcase containing two shelves, filled with books, partly school books, supplemented by a few miscellaneous books, such as "Robinson ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... clock on the marble mantel chimed the hour of four, causing a general movement of surprise. "'Pon my soul! had no idea it was that late," exclaimed Mr. Thornton, taking out his watch, while Hugh Mainwaring, touching ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... cigar-end into the fender. Then he took from the mantel a strange three-cornered black-velvet cap, with a dangling silk tassel at the side, put it on ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... tide is pushing them inward, upward. And all the while the light is getting more and more golden, shimmery, radiant. Under this light, beneath this golden mantel of color, these creatures appear still more terrible. As they bend over, their faces tirelessly held downward on a level with their hands, they seem but gnomes; surely they are huge, undeveloped embryos of women, with neither head ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... deserted-looking chamber became illuminated, bringing the pictures on the walls, the heavy satin curtains, the handsome furniture, the tables covered with costly knick-knacks, the large Japan vases, and a huge clock upon the mantel-piece, into view. All bore a gay and festive appearance, much at variance ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... home, Caroline. It is June now, and the term ends in July. Fetch her home, and invite the little governess too, and you will soon see whether or no she is the right sort of friend for Margaret." He laughed in his mellow, genial way, and leaned against the mantel-piece, stroking his yellow moustache and glancing at ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... and thin, and they all looked interesting and hard-used. One of the brothers had been to a party the night before, and on coming home had put his dress-tie about the neck of a little plaster bust of Byron that stood on the mantel. This head, with the tie at a rakish angle, drew Claude's attention more than anything else in the room, and for some reason instantly made him wish he ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... into the flame. For a while, she stood with her back to Henry, leaning on the mantel-piece, and looking into the fire. He took the chair to which she had pointed, with a strange contradiction of expression in his face: the tears were in his eyes, while the brows above were knit close in an angry frown. He ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... battalion was given the western part of the village. I was interested to know how the billeting would work out. I was put up with a brewer. The brewery was in the back yard. I was shown to my room which contained a large bed, plenty of sideboards and a pair of magnificent bronze lamps on the mantel which were never used. ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... the wall in grimmest truth, Mister and Mistress W. in their youth,— New England youth, that seems a sort of pill, Half wish-I-dared, half Edwards on the Will, Bitter to swallow, and which leaves a trace Of Calvinistic colic on the face. 310 Between them, o'er the mantel, hung in state Solomon's temple, done in copperplate; Invention pure, but meant, we may presume, To give some Scripture sanction to the room. Facing this last, two samplers you might see, Each, with its urn and stiffly weeping tree, Devoted to some memory long ago More faded than their ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... fully lit by the many candles that were upon the mantel, the Queen, dressed all in black and with the tail of her hood falling down behind to her feet, went patiently through the list of her prayers—that the Lady Mary should be reconciled with her father, that she should show at first favour to the ambassadors that sued for her hand ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... her former prosperity was ignored along with her present poverty. Of her own sorrows she, herself, made no mention. When she spoke from the depths of her bitterness of the war and the ruin it had left, her resentment was general rather than personal. Above the mantel in her room hung the sword of Julius Webb, sheathed under the tattered colours of the Confederate States. At her throat she wore a button that had been cut from a gray coat, and, once, after the close of the war, she had pointed to it before a Federal officer, and had said: ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... mantel-shelf, covered with her little knick-knacks that no one was ever allowed to touch but herself—pictures framed in pine cones, boxes of shell-work, baskets of wafer-work, cologne-bottles, watchcases, ivy-shoots and minerals, on which the dust accumulated at its own sweet ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... answered, and then all at once she got up and stood before the mantel-glass, looking at herself fixedly. "Aimee," she said, "if you were a man, ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... this rug, which Neptune thought was purchased for him, nor of the bright red carpet, nor of the nice china candlesticks on the mantel-piece, (which could not be reached without a step-ladder,) nor of the silver urn, which was Mrs. Moore's great-grandmother's, nor of the lard-lamp which lit up every thing astonishingly, because I am anxious to come ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... she gazed at the mantel-shelf, shone the light of undying fires within—fires which at a touch could blaze forth after endless years, transforming the wrinkled face, softening the sterner lines of character. And suddenly there was a new bond between the two. So used ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... room door, until Mr Swiveller was roused from a short nap, by the setting-down on the landing-place outside, as from the shoulders of a porter, of some giant load, which seemed to shake the house, and made the little physic bottles on the mantel-shelf ring again. Directly this sound reached his ears, Mr Abel started up, and hobbled to the door, and opened it; and behold! there stood a strong man, with a mighty hamper, which, being hauled into the room and presently unpacked, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... mistletoe Were bright this winter morning; One stocking filled from top to toe The mantel was adorning. A Christmas tree hung full with gifts, While underneath, reposing On an upholstered rocking chair, The Paris ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... James Parsons without telling you of two whale's teeth which stand on his parlor mantel-piece; he ornamented them himself, copying the designs from cheap foreign prints. One of them is what he calls "the meeting-house." It is the high altar of the Cathedral of Seville. On the other is "the wild-beast tamer." A man with a feeble, wishy-washy ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... called 'A Scrap of Paper.' In it a man wants to hide a certain compromising document. He knows that all his rooms will be secretly searched for it, so he puts it in a torn envelope and sticks it up where any one can see it on his mantel shelf. The result is that the woman who is ransacking the house to find it looks in all the unlikely places, but passes over the scrap of paper that is just under her nose. Sometimes the papers and packages they give us to carry about Europe are of very great value, and sometimes ...
— In the Fog • Richard Harding Davis
... grasped the helm through the whirlpool he almost expected that she would fall upon the deck. But, silently, she walked beside him, not taking his arm, wrapped closely in her shawl, and, once more inside the dark drawing-room, she proceeded to light the candles on the mantel-piece, saying that she would wait there until the others came in, smiling very faintly as she added:—"That everything may be done properly and in order." Jack walked up and down the room, his hands deeply thrust into the pockets of ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... some matters to look after," he said. "I thought I might get down before he went." A deep leathern arm-chair stood before the hearth where the young rector had been sitting, with the ladies at either corner of the mantel; Northwick let himself sink into it, and with a glance at the face of the faintly ticking clock on the black marble shelf before him, he added casually, "I must get an early train for Ponkwasset in the morning, and I still have some things ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... in a foreign uniform, arose from the sofa at my entrance. The half-extinct lamp on the mantel could ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... best for children such as he,' was Elzevir's answer, as he took two shining brass candlesticks from the mantel-board, set them on the table, and lit the candles with a burning ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... Pickering in a gloomy way. "The girls are wild over it; you can't hear anything else talked about at home. But," he broke off abruptly, "got a cigar, Jasper?" and he began to hunt the mantel among the few home-things spread around ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... exhibited at the Border Agricultural Fair, and had somewhat the appearance of brown silk. Only one such plant have I ever seen grown in Southside, and that, a bright golden brown, and nearly two feet in length, was carefully preserved for show on the parlor-mantel of the planter who ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... walls was faded and stained. Empty places where pictures had hung for years, showed in contrast to the more faded barren districts. A framed copy of the Declaration of Independence ornamented the space above the mantel. Hanging above the bed's head were those two famous chromos of "Good-Morning" and "Good-Night." A moth-eaten worsted motto and cross, "The Rock of Ages," hung above the little bureau glass. There was, too, a torn and faded slipper for matches, and a tall glass lamp that, for some reason, ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... with a jump, for she saw the parcel on the mantel shelf, crossed the room and took ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... lost the power to play it well. She turned her head away and would not assent; but two large tears rolled out of her beautiful eyes. Miss Gale, who had risen in the ardor of her appeal, saw that, and it set her off. She leaned her brow against the mantel-piece, not like a woman, but a brave boy, that does not want to be seen crying, and she faltered out, "In France I am a learned physician; and here to be a house-maid! For I won't live on borrowed money. I am ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... my statuary?" inquired the old hostess, "and my antiques? Have I not taste enough for a princess?" How soft the carpet, how rich its colors! Those marble mantel-pieces, sculptured in female figures, how massive! How elegantly they set off each end of the hall, as we shall call this room; and how sturdily they bear up statuettes, delicately executed in alabaster and Parian, of Byron, Goethe, Napoleon, and Charlemagne-two ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... one bride planned was wonderfully attractive. In one corner of the living-room an arch of woven wire was erected, and covered with graceful wild clematis vines and wild roses. On each window-sill stood a jar of wild roses, and the mantel was ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... to the fireplace. She stands there for a few seconds, clutching the mantel-shelf, and then subsides into the chair before the fire. PHILIP advances to the settee on ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... dinner was over I was intensely nervous. Katie served us our coffee in the living room, and when I took mine my hand trembled so that the tiny cup rattled against the saucer. I rose from my chair and walked to the fireplace, set the cup upon the mantel and stood looking into the blazing logs Jim had heaped against the old chimney. My guests could not see my face, and I hoped to be able to pull ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... the "villa." The carpet had been taken up in the long room, so that the young folks might have a dance. Miss Matilda's piano had been moved in, and two fiddlers and a clarionet-player engaged to make music. All kinds of lamps had been put in requisition, and even colored wax-candles figured on the mantel-pieces. The costumes of the family had been tried on the day before: the Colonel's black suit fitted exceedingly well; his lady's velvet dress displayed her contours to advantage; Miss Matilda's flowered silk was considered ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... chimney-piece, over which hung a long, low mirror about a foot wide and divided into three parts by miniature pilasters of tarnished gilt. The mirror, too, was tarnished here and there, but it had been a good glass and showed undistorted the blue Delft jars on the mantel-shelf, glimpses of flickering firelight in the room, amber hair and the tear-bedewed roses of a flushed young face. Suddenly Milly thrust the jars aside, seized the candle from the table, and, holding it near her face, looked intently, anxiously in the glass. The ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... murmured; "it had something to do with him, in a sense; but don't ask me any more." And I leaned my forehead on the high oak mantel-piece, and groaned again. ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... the stories we hear of haunted houses. A friend of mine the other day was telling me of a ghost that frequented an Australian bungalow where he was visiting last year. Said he: 'I saw vases thrown from the mantel-piece in broad daylight. I've heard invisible feet tramping all about my chair in a vividly lighted room.' I didn't believe him, of course. The fact is, we don't know our own capacity for being deceived. ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... the same breed of pup. At this point Mr. Tutt, having carefully committed his guest to an ethical standard as far removed as possible from one based upon self-interest, opened the window a few more inches, sauntered over to the mantel, lit a fresh stogy and spread his long legs in front of the sea-coal fire like an elongated Colossus of Rhodes. He commenced his dastardly countermining of his partner's advice by complimenting Payson on being a man whose words, manner and appearance proclaimed him to the world a true sport ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... came to me. I did not hear it with my ears, but more as a dream or sort of double think. It said, 'Louisa, lay down smoking.' At once I replied. 'Will you take the desire away?' But it only kept saying: 'Louisa, lay down smoking.' Then I got up, laid my pipe on the mantel-shelf, and never smoked again or had any desire to. The desire was gone as though I had never known it or touched tobacco. The sight of others smoking and the smell of smoke never gave me the least wish to touch it again." The Psychology ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... I let him out after we got home he was frantic, and jumped on the mantel, tables, and chairs, scattering things right and left. Finally he started to run up a lace window curtain back of the sewing machine. On top of the machine was a plate of warm cookies that Charlie had just brought to me, and getting a sniff of those the squirrel stopped instantly, hesitated ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... will have one distinguishing feature which will effectually prevent the discriminating from making that mistake. I intend to make the clock on the mantel go. That ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... furniture of the room. There was no carpet on the floor; on the wall were occasional square-shaped interruptions of the general tint of the plaster which betrayed that there used to be pictures in the house—but there were none now. There were no mantel ornaments, unless one might bring himself to regard as an ornament a clock which never came within fifteen strokes of striking the right time, and whose hands always hitched together at twenty-two minutes past anything and traveled in company the ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... amazement at the revelation of volcanic passions which slumbered beneath his pigmy form. For the moment, too, he was swept from his feet by the rush of emotion. And again his eye rested on the smiling face of Nan looking at him from the ivory miniature on the mantel. ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... the mantel while Patrick made ready the chair. Then, moved by some sudden sense of delicacy, she busied herself with her own wraps when the man bent down and lifted his young master in his strong arms. Since the first day of their meeting, she had never seen Billy moved, and she was struck more keenly ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... chairs and had argued over pictures. Both tired out with a day of effort, they had come near tears in a verbal battle over the best place for the sole article remaining unplaced. Gloria wanted it in the hallway; Mrs. Gaynor pleaded for it over the mantel in the living-room. Finally it was Gloria ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... them to be unworthy of respect or regard, I came home wonderfully changed in all my newly acquired sentiments, resolved never more to wound their feelings, who were so careful of ours, by such unnecessary display. And I hung my flag on the parlor mantel, there to wave, if it will, in the shades of private life; but to make a show, make me conspicuous and ill at ease, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... he ought to spank you till you'd have to eat off the mantel for a week, and then take you back to his bed and board and ...
— Class of '29 • Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings
... a year ago, A bachelor was I, Free as the winds that whirl and blow, Or clouds that sail on high: I smoked my meerschaum blissfully, And tilted back my chair, And on the mantel placed my feet, For ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... On the parlor mantel of a farmhouse stood little China Shepherdess. In one hand she held a gilt crook and with the other she shaded her eyes and gazed far away. Probably she was looking for her sheep. Her dress was of red and green, and it was trimmed with gilt. Her boots ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker
... the door, and placing the light on the mantel-shelf, stood before the astonished Algernon, like some memory-haunting phantom ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... library. A man came in for orders; I had none to give. He saw that the shutters were fixed and the curtains down, examined my hand-lamp, and placed lamps on the reading-desk and mantel-piece. Bronze busts of sages became my solitary companions. The room was long, low and dusky, voluminously and richly hung with draperies at the farther end, where a table stood for the prince to jot down memoranda, and a sofa to incline him to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... I mean! You've only to go back to your graduating June, when you were spooning day and night over a society flirt there at the hotel—a married woman at that—and your mantel-shelf was stacked high with unopened, unanswered letters from the poor girl you were engaged to. You were, Willett, in sight of God and man, so don't deny it! And she was telegraphing to me in pity to say was Harold sick—or what. She broke with you, of course, after you broke her ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... and in his agitation leaned his arm upon the mantel. Again his eyes dwelt upon her noble curves, her sumptuous figure, and the soul that shone from her eyes. Never before had he felt so utter a sense of powerlessness. Hitherto to desire a thing was with him merely the preliminary to getting it. Even when Helen Harley turned away from him, he believed ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... thought it, and, in spite of the winter's closing, as sweet as spring. She went about opening cupboard doors and looking at her china as if each piece were friendly to her, from long association, and moving the mantel ornaments to occupy the old places more exactly. Certain eccentricities of the place had been faults; now they were beauties wherein she found no blemish. The worn hollows in the kitchen floor, so hard to wash on a Monday, seemed exactly to fit her ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... kerosene can on the mantel reposes, Its contents were sprinkled all over the fire, And all that poor Kathleen O'Donohue knows is, This dull world has changed for a sphere that ...
— The New Pun Book • Thomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey
... hand; then, a little ashamed of the passionate act, he forced himself deliberately to smooth it out again, and, folding it accurately, put it in his pocket. A note for Erica remained in the envelope; he placed it on the mantel piece, then fell back in his chair ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... wood chopped and heaped away in the wood-sheds and under the back portico; the church and house made as green as spring-tide with their abundant decorations, tastefully arranged in wreaths and folds and circles, with the great green "Merrie Christmas" welcoming all comers from over the high parlor mantel. All was finished in ample time before the day of Christmas Eve arrived, though there were dozens of final touches still to be made, last happy thoughts that had to be worked out in green, red, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... everything neatly stowed. On the other was a built-in bunk. The walls had been papered with old charts, and he saw that most of them were of the New York-New Jersey area. A ship's lantern, wired for electricity, hung so low that it almost brushed Scotty's head. Ship models lined the mantel. ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... arm, the opening being upon the right one, where the brooch reposed on the shoulder, leaving the right arm free. There is a very beautiful and well-known antique statue of Diana, representing the goddess fastening her mantel in the ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... habit. Sonia complained that he never could tell her anything clear or significant of places he had seen. The room which had been secured from the landlord was the parlor of the tavern; long and low, colonial in the very smell of the tapestry carpet, with doors and mantel that made one think of John Adams and General Washington. The walls had a certain terror in them, a kind of suspense, as when a jury sits petrified while their foreman announces a verdict of death. A long ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... with an absolutely human gesture of spreading her skirt beside her. The General plumped into a chair and chuckled. The slick-haired young man politely offered Janice a cigarette and lighted Helena's for her. Dillon leaned against the mantel above the fire. ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... time for you to go home, boy," he answered me, looking at a clock upon the mantel over his large fireplace. "You are still in your evening clothes, I see. But that's easy: you climb into that pink coat and a pair of those corduroy trousers of mine you see hanging in my dressing room. I haven't hunted for two years but ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... they had stopped to look down into the room. The pictures here will make you understand the effect (Figs. 48 and 49). Beneath each of these openings or lunettes is a half-circular picture of some mythological story or personage. Upon the wall of the parlor, above the mantel, there is a picture of Diana, the goddess of the moon and the protector of young animals, which is ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... said Miss Mink in a tone that she did not recognize as her own, "the matches are in that little bisque figure on the parlor mantel. I'll get you to leave the front door open, if you don't mind. It's kinder hot ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... distinctly. For one moment Mary's eyes lit up with something like heroism, but before she could frame a sentence, the playful want of interest exhibited by Sabina, who leaned against the mantel-piece, straightening her cuffs, did the ...
— A Christmas Story - Man in His Element: or, A New Way to Keep House • Samuel W. Francis
... stood silent, staring through the fading light at the faded household gods of the house of Siward. The dim light touched the prisms of a crystal chandelier dulled by age, and edged the carved foliations of the marble mantel, above which loomed a tarnished mirror reflecting darkness. Fleetwood rose, drew a window-shade higher, and nodded toward several pictures; and Plank moved slowly from one to another, peering up at the dead Siwards ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... I'll hang my flag on the mantel. I'll not try to wave it in the face of a gentleman ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... are rushing gayly to and from the dining-room. All the rooms are dimly lighted. The President's apartment is fragrant with blossoms, and the lace counterpane turned down. Retracing his steps, Wesley enters Vincent's room on the corridor with his own. The candle is burning dimly on the mantel. He seems to know his whereabouts very well for he makes straight for a bureau between the bed and the window. He takes from the top drawer a pistol-case, which he has evidently handled before, as he touches ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... calm domestic bower, They sat together. He in manhood's prime And she a matron in her fullest flower. The mantel clock gave forth a warning chime. She put her work aside; his bright cigar Grew pale, and crumbled in an ashen heap. The lights went out, save one remaining star That watched beside the children in their sleep. She hummed a little ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... none to answer her; and she was turning away with a sickening sense of mockery at her own folly in seeking the empty shrine whence the oracle of her life had departed, when her eye fell on the engraving over the mantel-piece. It was the one thing for which Mr. Drake had begged as a memorial of Joe Brownlow, and it still hung in its old place. It was of the Great Physician, consoling and healing all around-the sick, the captive, the self-tormenting genius, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not keep his lordship waiting," said the doctor, quietly going on with his tying; and Aunt Hannah toddled back to look at the drawing-room mantel-clock. ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... remarkable fact that something was hung about or wrapped round or draped over everything. There was bright-patterned muslin round the gas-bracket in the middle of the room, round the mirror over the mantel, stuff with ball-fringe along the mantel and casing in the fireplace,—I first saw ball-fringe here—and even the lamp on the little bureau wore a shade like a large muslin hat. The table-cloth had ball-fringe and so had the window curtains, and the carpet was a bed of roses. There ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... silence the tick of the old clock on the mantel seemed to Kenny's distracted ears a perpetuity of measured taps upon a death-drum. He thought of Poe and the pit and the pendulum. He thought of Joan and told himself fiercely that he did it all for her; for her he was winding around himself a chain foredoomed to clank. And ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... indignation, would come visions of himself in his own modest rooms. He seemed to be yawning and stretching in his beautiful bed, the sun shining in, his books, foils, pictures around him, to say good morning and tempt him to rise, while the squat little clock on the mantel struck eleven warningly. ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... rooms, one below, the other above, approached by a ladder in a corner. The lower floor was parlor, kitchen, and often bedroom. The fireplace was deep and wide, surmounted, perhaps, by a broad mantel of unpainted oak, on which were a few trinkets and the violin so precious to the backwoodsman. In one corner was a spinning-jenny, in another an uncushioned settle, and opposite the fireplace a bureau or chest of drawers of native ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... the windows of the several rooms not occupied as bedrooms, that they may receive the fresh morning air before they are occupied; she prepares the breakfast-room by sweeping the carpet, rubbing tables and chairs, dusting mantel-shelf and picture-frames with a light brush, dusting the furniture, and beating and sweeping the rug; she cleans the grate when necessary, and replaces the white paper or arranges the shavings with which it is filled, leaving everything clean ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... library; a warm, attractive room, with dark woodwork, and the walls hung in crimson brocade; Dutch marqueterie furniture; blue and white china on the mantel and tops of the book shelves; carbon photographs of pictures by Reynolds, Ronney, and Gainsborough on the wall. There is a double window at the back. A door at Right leads to the hall, and another ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... of glassy black, like the other's; his red nose worked as he cocked it up, as if smelling for more cakes, in the most impudent manner; and never, during the three years he had stood on the parlor mantel-piece, had the China poodle done the surprising feats with which this mysterious dog now proceeded to astonish the little girls almost out of their wits. First he sat up, put his forepaws together, ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... forth as he spoke, spreading them out upon the table, after which he arose and touched the electric button over the mantel. ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... down his fiddle, And put his feet on the stove, And heaved a sigh from his middle That might have been fat, or love; He leaned his head on the mantel, And bent his ear to the strings, And the tender chords awakened The echoes of ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... all appearances a kitchen, for one entire side of it was occupied by a hearth full of recesses, each one of which contained a furnace fitted up with iron utensils for cooking. On the mantel, which corresponded to this immense hearth, were ranged pipkins and other vessels of different sizes, interspersed with rows of phials and flasks containing liquids of every imaginable color. On a massive oaken table, in the centre of the ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... Clavel-tack, a mantel-piece, a place where keys (claves) are kept, a shelf for keys. Holmen-clavel, an inn on Blagdon hill, so called from having a large holm-beam ...
— A Glossary of Provincial Words & Phrases in use in Somersetshire • Wadham Pigott Williams
... mother,—so small ripples did there remain from the tempestuous waves beneath which Carl Lepmann's life had gone down. Some deftly carved boxes and figures of chamois and their hunters stood on Carlen's best-room mantel, much admired by her neighbors, and longed for by her toddling girl,—these, and a bunch of dried and crumbling blossoms of the Ladies' Tress, were all that had survived the storm. The dried flowers were in the largest of the boxes. They lay there side by side with a bit of carved ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... which, Madame de Flahaut has found a new admirer. She swore eternal affection for me, but nothing here below can last forever," he went on, in his old cynical fashion. "I embarrass her manoeuvres, and 'twere well I were away and leave a fair field for my rival." As he spoke, the clock on the mantel chimed the hour ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... forward across the palm of the left, meantime following their monotonous unrest with his eyes, and rarely meeting the gaze of his interlocutor. He would stand for hours, when talking, his right elbow on a mantel-piece, if there was one near, his fingers going through their strange palmistry; and in this manner, never once stirring from his position, he would not unfrequently protract his discourse till long past midnight. An inexhaustible, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... was the great epoch of falconry. There were then so many nobles who hawked, that in the rooms of inns there were perches made under the large mantel-pieces on which to place the birds while the sportsmen were at dinner. Histories of the period are full of characteristic anecdotes, which prove the enthusiasm which was created by hawking in those ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... the bed-side and looked up at the ceiling. Beyond that, he thought, was the adored Miss Sidebottom. What a narrow space sundered them! He walked to the fire-place and looked on the mantel for a book. He selected an old copy of Burns, and opened at the pathetic ballad of 'John Anderson.' Mr. Hardesty sat down and read it once aloud. Then he read it to himself over and over again, until ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... an enormous stone fireplace with high mantel-shelf of stone and the chimney above. The fire-opening was wide enough for an old Yule log, and on either side of it were double glass doors opening into a long porch room, which also had a fireplace on the opposite side of the chimney, and was completely ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... piazza, but notwithstanding the stream of light over the carpet, I thought it somber, and out of keeping with the cottage exterior. The walls were covered with dark red velvet paper, the furniture was dark, the mantel and table tops were black marble, and the vases and candelabra were bronze. He directed mother's attention to the portraits of his children, explaining them, while I went to a table between the windows to examine the green and white sprays ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... is always after legends when he has tired of collecting antiquities. Was there a Princess born here? Perhaps. At any rate it is not a legend; history nor peasantry make mention of it. Will Herr be so kind as to carry the ladder to the mantel so ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... some of his trips to Silver City. A rude fireplace had been built in one side of the room, over which were arranged artistically two or three rifles, and the heads and horns of various animals, while on the mantel was a fine collection of ores. Altogether, it was a pleasant room, and gave more evidence of good taste, education and refinement than could have been found for more than a score of miles in that region. This was Jack's sanctum, and none but his ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... reply. Dexter drew a cigar out from a vest pocket, as he stood leaning against a decaying mantel, and lighted it. This imitation of a man smoked in silence for a few moments, during which Prescott did not offer ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... sometimes considered a type of immortality. In this world we are, like the worm, in an inferior state of existence. Our bodies are laid in the grave, but we are not dead, any more than the unmoving chrysalis—which remained so long on the mantel just where it was placed—was dead. The spirit still lives, and, after it has freed itself from the imprisoning flesh, is more beautiful than before, and is susceptible of more perfect enjoyment in the pure atmosphere ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... counsel and advise her to buy of the richest and newest mode, and what will be neatest, and where to be bought. Oh these are so skilfull in the art of ordring things, that you need not dispute with your Wife about the hanging of a Picture above the Chimney-mantel! for they'l presently say, there's nothing better in that place then large China dishes; and that Bed-stead must be taken down, and another set up in the place with curious Curtains and Vallians, ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... The floor consisted of flat rocks laid irregularly, with many spaces of earth showing between. The open fireplace appeared too large for the room, but the very bigness of it, as well as the blazing sticks and glowing embers, appealed strongly to Carley. A rough-hewn log formed the mantel, and on it Carley's picture held the place of honor. Above this a rifle lay across deer antlers. Carley paused here in her survey long enough to kiss Glenn and point to ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... this, gentlemen. One afternoon, about three weeks since, I had occasion to go to the library at an unusual hour. Crossing over to the mantel-piece for the purpose of procuring a penknife which I had carelessly left there in the morning, I heard a noise in the adjoining room. Knowing that Mr. Leavenworth was out, and supposing the ladies to be out also, I took the liberty of ascertaining who the intruder was; when what was my astonishment ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... fortygraph of him for the cabin mantel-piece, Jack," continued the wily father. "He gave it to me o' purpose. She'll see that when she won't see the clerk, an' by-and-bye she'll fall into our way of thinking. Anyway, she's going to stay ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... Having attempted every exertion for the liberty of his country, he considered it as no crime therefore to die. He resolved on suicide. With the point of the sword, with which he killed himself, he cut out on the mantel-piece of the chimney this ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... detail, except that, in conversation with his valet, he occasionally asks for something unheard-of, or fastidious to a degree. You must not walk him from one chamber to another, but manage it as follows:—"It was not until the beautiful airs of the French clock that decorated the mantel-piece had been thrice played, with all their variations, that the Honourable Augustus Bouverie entered his library, where he found his assiduous Coridon burning an aromatic pastile to disperse the compound of villanous ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... bare feet were in velvet slippers. Strong in a sense of her advantages she came in stepping softly, and put her hands over her husband's eyes. She thought him pensive; he was standing in his dressing-gown before the fire, his elbow on the mantel and one foot on the fender. She said in his ear, warming it with her breath, and nibbling the tip of it ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... said Rose, who had watched the direction of his steps from a window above. "I've come after some roses, if I can find any. Nothing satisfies Miss Webster but roses on the mantel-shelf of her sitting-room, and it does not matter to her whether they are in season or out. Roses she must have. Are there ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... heavy beam which started from the fireplace, seemed a concession tardily made to luxury. Armchairs, with their woodwork painted white, were covered with tapestry. A paltry clock, between two copper-gilt candlesticks, decorated the mantel-shelf. Beside Madame de la Chanterie was an ancient table with spindle legs, on which lay her balls of worsted in a wicker basket. A hydrostatic lamp lighted the scene. The four men, who were seated there, silent, immovable, like bronze statues, had evidently stopped their conversation ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... he opened the paper the next morning: saw it at a glance, and with a big lump in his throat and a tightening of his huge fists. Flaring headlines marked the first page; under them was a picture of the girl in a sailor hat,—she had found the original on the mantel and had slipped it in her pocket. Then followed a flash photo of the dead girl lying on the floor,—her poor, thin, battered and bruised body straight out, the knees and feet stretching the wet drapery,—nothing ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... across to the little girl, over to Bachelor Billy, who stood leaning against the mantel, and then down again into the lady's eyes. It was almost pitiful to look into his face and see the strong emotion outlined there, marking the fierceness of the conflict in his mind between a great desire for honest happiness and a stern ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... hand. Shelley said that was disgusting, and you wouldn't catch her. Leon said he bet a dollar he would; and I said if he knew he'd get beaten as I did, I bet two dollars he wouldn't tell what he saw. The mantel was white, with vases of the lovely grasses that grew beside the stream at the foot of the Big Hill. Mother gathered the fanciest every fall, dried them, and dipped them in melted alum coloured with copperas, aniline, and indigo. Then she took bunches of the colours that went together best ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... carried away the two tallow candles, which stood in large pewter candlesticks on the high mantel-shelf, and the spirit was set on fire ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... protested almost violently. "Don't you dast ter do dat, Marse Cally! You put dat key in yo' pocket, an' let it stay dar." Nevertheless, I laid it on the mantel. The negro looked at it more than once, and finally, as if taking leave of the temptation it represented, blew it a ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... have been removed and new flooring laid over the hearthstones. Some detective work around the logical locations will tell whether fireplaces have been torn out or just concealed. If mantels are missing, look for them in the attic or on the rafters of a shed. More than one fine old mantel has been rescued from such a hiding place. We know of one fireplace complete with crane and iron cooking utensils that reposed for fifty years or more behind an unsuspected opening ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... also fitted for students' apartments. In Seabury Hall, the plan of which was modified under Mr. Kimball, the American architect, are the spacious lecture-rooms, finished, as is all the rest of the buildings, in ash and with massive Ohio stone mantel-pieces; and also the other public rooms. The chapel is arranged choir-wise, after the English custom, and will accommodate about two hundred people; the wood-work here is particularly handsome. It is provided ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... the tiny parlor. She flung her wraps over a chair, storming back and forth like a little fury. Her eyes were starry with tears of anger, her face was flushed, her hands worked nervously. He leaned against the mantel, watching her through his ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... his hands behind him, retreated to the mantel-piece, and, looking on the two that stood there, with a sarcastic smile said, 'When shall we three meet again?' Lady Byron answered, 'In heaven, I trust'. And those were her last words to ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Wullie, and I will. If I hang for it I'll be even wi' him. I haena the proof, but I know—I know!" He groped his way to the mantel piece with blind eyes and swirling brain. Reaching up with fumbling hands, he took down the old blunderbuss ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... liking, for his landlady's indifference toward finicky table-furnishings; but now there came a sudden vision of her dining-room, and the spots on the table-cloth, the nicks in the crockery, the shabbiness of the lambrequin drooping from the mantel-piece, and the slovenliness of the sole handmaiden ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... him—depended on it. And if cook would do it for sixpence, he must find sixpence. By fair means or foul it must be done. He'd tried fair means, and there only remained foul. He went softly downstairs to the dining-room, where, upon the mantel-piece, reposed the missionary-box. He'd tell someone next day, or put it back, or something. Anyway, people did worse things than that in the pictures. With a knife from the table he extracted the contents—three-halfpence! ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton |
