"Chimneypiece" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were moved to the haunted room [which one?], where they slept in one large bed with its head near the chimneypiece. The elder boy, aged about thirteen, put his watch on the mantelpiece, awoke about 2 A.M., and wishing to ascertain the time, put his hand up for his watch; he then felt a deathly cold hand laid on his. For the ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... was standing, and gave me such a yerk on the side of the head, that it could be compared to nothing else but the lines written on the stucco image of Shakspeare, the great playactor, on our parlour chimneypiece, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... wished myself younger, for she was not long beyond her teens, and walking beside her I would be feeling musty and old, though I was not really old, as my picture there above the chimneypiece will show. I was not old, in heart—it pattered like a bairn's steps to every glimpse and sentence of her. I lost six months at this game, my corps calling me, but I could not drag myself away. Once ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... holly berry brightness, for Mrs. Melville, birdlike in everything, had a wonderful faculty for bursts of gaiety, pure in tone like a blackbird's song, which brought out whatever gladness might be latent in any person or occasion. As twelve chimed out they had stood in front of the chimneypiece mirror and raised their glasses above their heads, singing, "Auld Lang Syne" in time with the dancers on the other side of the wall, who were making such a night of it that several times the house had ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... chimneypiece and I expect the housemaid will commandeer them. I daren't ask for them, ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... so I rose in good temper, finding a good chimneypiece made in my upper dining-room chamber, and the diningroom wainscoat in a good forwardness, at which I am glad, and then to the office, where by T. Hater I found all things to my mind, and so we sat at the office till noon, and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the parsonage at Bemerton, but did not live long to enjoy it. He seems to have had a presentiment that some one else would have the benefit of it, as he caused the following lines to be engraved above the chimneypiece in the hall, giving good advice to the rector who was ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... her personal individuality, and forms her own atmosphere which fascinates her lover. Madame de Tecle, finding herself almost lost in this very large room, had so arranged some pieces of furniture as to make herself a little private nook near the chimneypiece, which her daughter called, "My mother's chapel." It was there Camors now perceived her, by the soft light of a lamp, sitting in an armchair, and, contrary to her custom, having no work in her hands. She appeared calm, though ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... one of the corners. If you look into the room through the window which lights it, you will see the fireplace in the middle of the wall opposite you, with the door beside it to your left; an M.R.C.S. diploma in a frame hung on the chimneypiece; an easy chair covered in black leather on the hearth; a neat stool and bench, with vice, tools, and a mortar and pestle in the corner to the right. Near this bench stands a slender machine like a whip provided with a stand, a pedal, and an exaggerated winch. ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... further word. A rifle spoke, a bullet sang, passed through the cabin and buried itself in the old-fashioned chimneypiece. Creed fell where he stood. As he went down across the threshold, Nancy whirling around to the door, bent over his ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... masterpiece of Vereschagin's, which stands on an easel by the hearth, and the massive gold "ikon," [A] encrusted with diamonds and precious stones, in the corner. A large oil painting of his Majesty the Czar of Russia hangs over the marble chimneypiece. ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... initial letters of the Vicomte Alain, A and V interlaced. The old Rohan motto, "A plus," and the escutcheon of gules, nine mascles or lozenges, occur in every part of this gorgeous front, and also on the finely-carved chimneypiece of the reception room (salle d'honneur). The whole of the chateau is in course of restoration by the Prince ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... of London," says, "In a room adjoining to the south-side of the saloon, in the manor-house, at Charlton, in Kent, is a chimney-piece, with a slab of black marble so finely polished, that Lord Downe is said to have seen in it a robbery committed on Blackheath; the tradition adds, that he sent out his servants, who apprehended the thieves." Dr. Plot makes the story ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... be alone to attend her and do all that there was to do. Then, as he suddenly began to shiver, he remarked that the room was cold, and blamed himself for not having already lighted the fire. Some logs and some small wood were piled in a corner, near the chimney-piece. ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... when heated, and there they would at once escape by a fit opening. Where there is no such opening, however, they become diffused in the upper air of the room, and can escape only slowly by diving under the chimney-piece as that air is changed. Thus the air of a room above the level of the fire-place, whenever there are people or lights in the room, must always be loaded, more or less, with impurity. The purest ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... the length of his pleasant lamp-lit library, paused to compare his watch with the clock on the chimney-piece. ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... Minister,) that he frequently saw George the Fourth in a state of extraordinary agitation at the meeting of the Council, when the fate of a criminal was under consideration. He would contend the matter with the ministers and leave the table, and lean sometimes on the chimney-piece, advocating the cause of mercy, until ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... your cognizance, and is something which I must know best after all. And it is, ... that you persist in putting me into a false position, with respect to fixing days and the like, and in making me feel somewhat as I did when I was a child, and Papa used to put me up on the chimney-piece and exhort me to stand up straight like a hero, which I did, straighter and straighter, and then suddenly 'was 'ware' (as we say in the ballads) of the walls' growing alive behind me and extending two stony hands to push me down that frightful precipice to the rug, where the dog ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... Iachimo, "is south of the chamber, and the chimney-piece is Diana bathing; never saw I figures ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... now in residence this wonderfully preserved castle may be visited, a circumstance for which the tourist in Brittany should indeed be grateful. Interest within these massy walls clings around the well, with its ornamental railings, the noble and lofty hall, the library, with its magnificent chimney-piece, repeating again, in stone, the Rohan motto, A Plus, and the equestrian statue of Clisson, by Fremiet, in ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... not for the spirit with which the youth and belles of Rat-land keep up the ball over your head. And you are more fortunate than most of your neighbours, if he does not prepare for himself a mausoleum behind your chimney-piece or under your hearthstone, retire into it when he is about to die, and very soon afford you full proof that though he may have lived like a hermit, his relics are not in the odour of sanctity. You have then the additional comfort of knowing, that the spot so appropriated ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... devices. The ceiling or cove is the colour of peach blossom; and a Chinese canopy is suspended round from the lower compartment with tassels, bells, &c.: the furniture and other decorations, such as cabinets, chimney-piece, trophies, and banners, which are in the gallery, are all in strict accordance with the Chinese taste; while on every side the embellishments present twisted dragons, pagodas, and mythological devices of birds, flowers, insects, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... its agreeable creamy hue and smooth dull polish, adapt it to decoration in low relief. The most attractive details in the palace at Urbino are friezes carved of this material in choice designs of early Renaissance dignity and grace. One chimney-piece in the Sala degli Angeli deserves especial comment. A frieze of dancing Cupids, with gilt hair and wings, their naked bodies left white on a ground of ultramarine, is supported by broad flat pilasters. These are engraved with children holding pots of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... reflecting the firelight and its rows of volumes too close to the grave to be handled. Here and there above the high wainscoting are ancestral portraits, some of them as black as a favourite pipe. Above the great stone chimney-piece is a full-length figure of the duke in a hunting costume of green velvet. The candelabra that Henri had just lighted on the long centre-table, littered with silver souvenirs and the latest Parisian comedies, now illumined the duke's smile, which he must ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... part of the wall was shattered, as if by gunpowder, and the fragments had been blown off with force sufficient to dent the wall on the opposite side of the room. The frame of a looking-glass was blackened, and the gilding must have been volatilized, for a smelling-bottle, which stood on the chimney-piece, was coated with bright metallic particles, which adhered as firmly as if they ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... the chamber, and the chimney-piece Chaste Dian bathing. Never saw I figures So likely to report themselves. The cutter Was as another Nature, dumb; outwent her, ...
— Cymbeline • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... they bustled about the room making ready. They lengthened out the table and spread and set it; more of the Good People trooped in, bringing stools and food and drink. The pipers came last, and they sat themselves around the chimney-piece a-blowing their chanters and trying the drones. The feasting began and the pipers played and never had Teig seen such a sight in his life. Suddenly a wee ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... contribution to it. The young lady, who was charming to behold, was also in deep mourning, which had a freshness, if mourning can be fresh, an air of having been lately put on. She went straight to the bell beside the chimney-piece and pulled it, while in her other hand she held a sealed and directed letter. Her companion glanced in silence at the letter; then she looked still harder at her work. The girl hovered near the fireplace, ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... and, on all subjects of taste, his delicacy of expression is pure as his poetry. If you enter his house—his drawing-room—his library—you of yourself say, this is not the dwelling of a common mind. There is not a gem, a coin, a book thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance in the possessor. But this very delicacy must be the misery of his existence. Oh the jarrings his disposition must ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... her fullest height dropped a brilliant smile on him; then her eyes turned to the portrait of the great fighting Duke set in the monumental stucchi of the chimney-piece. ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... chairs of horsehair seemed stuffed with flies. There was an air of heated discomfort in the thick, solid moreen curtains, in the gaudy paper, in the bright-staring carpet, in the very looking-glass over the chimney-piece, where a strip of mirror lay imprisoned in an embrace of frame covered with yellow muslin. We may talk of the dreariness of winter; and winter, no doubt, is desolate: but what in the world is more dreary to eyes inured to the verdure and bloom ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... did insist—that the hall was to be the principal room. What do you think of it? And tell me if you like the chimney-piece. There are going to be seats in the windows. Of course, I haven't half finished furnishing." And she took him round the room, telling how lucky she had been picking up that old oak dresser with handles, everything complete for five pounds ten, ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... Hall the first thing in the morning. The good woman, however—having no particular wish to oblige such a strange puppy, whom she was only too glad to get rid of, and having moreover a good deal to attend to—laid the letter aside on the chimney-piece, and entirely lost sight of it for nearly a fortnight. Shortly after the lamentable tidings concerning the impending misfortunes of the Aubrey family had been communicated to the inhabitants of Grilston, she forwarded ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... their tiny hands waved to her to go back. 'Go back! little Virginia,' they cried, 'go back!' but the Ghost clutched her hand more tightly, and she shut her eyes against them. Horrible animals with lizard tails, and goggle eyes, blinked at her from the carven chimney-piece, and murmured 'Beware! little Virginia, beware! we may never see you again,' but the Ghost glided on more swiftly, and Virginia did not listen. When they reached the end of the room he stopped, and muttered some words she could not understand. She opened her eyes, and saw the ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... parlor of a public-house in Fleet Street, there used to be written over the chimney-piece the following notice: "Gentlemen learning to spell are requested ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... Eliot says, unite all contrasts—offering a visible link between the modern conceptions of torture and of luxury. There are fireplaces nowhere but in the kitchen, where a couple of sentry-boxes are inserted on either side of the great hooded chimney-piece, into which people might creep and take their turn at being toasted and smoked. One may doubt whether this dearth of the hearthstone could have raged on such a scale, but it's a happy stroke in the representation of an Italian dwelling ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... chintz-covered sofa where he now lay practically completed the inventory of the room. Three or four bronzes, a Narcissus, a fifteenth-century Italian St. Francis, and a couple of Greek reproductions stood on the chimney-piece, but the whole room breathed an atmosphere ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... my host the quarryman, reaching down the relics from their hook in the wall over the chimney-piece; "they've hung there all my time, and most of my father's. The women won't touch 'em; they're afraid of the story. So here they'll dangle, and gather dust and smoke, till another tenant comes and tosses 'em out o' doors for ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... as the great panelled and pictured room next the dining-room was called. "I don't think there is any similar case on record—no pulse, no more than the poker; no respiration, by Jove, no more than the chimney-piece; as cold as a lead image in the garden there. Well, you'll say all that might possibly be fallacious; but what will you say to the cadaveric stiffness? Old Judy Wale can tell you; and my friend Marcella—Monocula would ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... to commence a domestic war with the "pleasant men of Teviotdale," as the song calls them; so I e'en spent three days (very agreeably) in cleaning my gun, and disposing it upon two hooks over my chimney-piece. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... bar-room of this tavern were posted up written advertisements, the smoked chimney-piece being thus made to serve for a newspaper: "I have rye for sale," "I have a fine mare colt," etc. There was one quaintly expressed advertisement of a horse that had strayed or been ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... proprietor bestows most praiseworthy care on the house, which was formerly one of considerable extent and importance. Mr. Allison says there can be little doubt that the grounds extended into Wardour Street. Once, while removing a chimney-piece in the drawing-room, a number of cards tumbled out—slips of playing-cards, with the names of some of the most distinguished persons of Hogarth's time written on the backs; the residences were also given, proving that the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... design, decorated with gold, and the shelves for books which lined the walls were likewise of oak, richly carved. In the centre of the wall facing the windows was a massive and elaborately designed oak chimney-piece, reaching up to the ceiling, and having in the middle panel over the mantel a fine three-quarter length portrait of George Washington. The room was furnished sumptuously yet quietly, and fully in keeping with the rich collection of classic and modern authors that filled the bookcases, ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... ecclesiastical language), the red tape dangling limp and dejected, the pasteboard boxes covered with traces of the gambols of mice, the dirty floor, the ceiling tawny with smoke. A frugal allowance of wood was smouldering on a couple of fire-dogs on the hearth. And on the chimney-piece above stood a foggy mirror and a modern clock with an inlaid wooden case; Fraisier had picked it up at an execution sale, together with the tawdry imitation rococo candlesticks, with the zinc beneath showing through ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Adrian, and he sat down in her parlour and looked appraisingly (as was his habit) round the room. The grandfather clock in the corner was genuine, but he was beyond grandfather clocks. There was nothing else of any value: three china dogs and some odd trinkets on the chimney-piece; a ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... similar epitaph for my wife, though still living, in which I extolled her prudence, oeconomy, and obedience till death; and having got it copied fair, with an elegant frame, it was placed over the chimney-piece, where it answered several very useful purposes. It admonished my wife of her duty to me, and my fidelity to her; it inspired her with a passion for fame, and constantly put her ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... rusticating from choice. The corridors look brown and simple, like the rest of the house, and lack the white statuary of Osborne, and the superb vases, cabinets, and pictures of Buckingham Palace and Windsor. By the chimney-piece in the entrance hall rest the tattered colours once borne through flood and field by two famous regiments, one ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... the charge of his prisoner to Geraldine and Brackenbury, he crossed the room and set his back against the chimney-piece. As soon as the lamp had kindled, the party beheld an unaccustomed sternness on the Prince's features. It was no longer Florizel, the careless gentleman; it was the Prince of Bohemia, justly incensed and full of deadly purpose, ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... marble slab; there is a very handsome Brussels carpet, a large round table, at which I am now writing, a very handsome bronze and ormolu lustre, with six gaslights, and two ormolu candelabra on the chimney-piece. The chimney-piece is of white marble, and over it is a most gorgeously carved mirror. The room is about fourteen feet high; the ceiling slightly alcoved and painted in medallions of flowers on a blue ground, with a great deal of ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... other variety. I have not made sufficient experiments to judge certainly, but in some cases the difference in the growth of the young plants is highly remarkable. I have taken every kind of precaution in getting seed from the same plant, in germinating the seed on my own chimney-piece, in planting the seedlings in the same flower-pot, and under this similar treatment I have seen the young seedlings from the crossed seed exactly twice as tall as the seedlings from the self- fertilised ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... the corner of the chimney-piece, near which his friend sits, and talking to him directly over the register: "I think you'll have to get along without the name for the present. I'll tell you by and by." As Mr. Ransom pronounces these words, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... wooden steps and entered, to find himself in a most homelike and charming place. There was a huge fireplace opposite the door, with a thin whiff of blue smoke going up, a few old books on the high chimney-piece, a pair of fine portraits with damaged frames, some old tables and chairs of different patterns, with a couch by the square window covered with a piece of fine tapestry folded together and still showing its beauty, however raveled and worn. By the opposite window, curtained only by vines, ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Joe Irving, the undergardener at Clomley lodge, brought me, as a present, a large nosegay of dahlias and china-asters. I carried them upstairs, and while Mrs. Rodney was in church, I put them into jars, on the table, and on the chimney-piece, and very bright and pretty they looked. So when she came in, she noticed them and thanked me, and spoke quite cheerful. As she was standing a-talking to me about them, an insect ran out from between the leaves, and I tried ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... that it was Smith's habit to compose standing, and to dictate to an amanuensis. He usually stood with his back to the fire, and unconsciously in the process of thought used to make his head vibrate, or rather, rub sidewise against the wall above the chimney-piece. His head being dressed, in the ordinary style of that period, with pomatum, could not fail to make a mark on ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... he stood, with his hand on the knob, as he closed the door behind him, Thor could see into the huge, old-fashioned, gilt-framed mirror over the chimney-piece in the drawing-room. The two women were standing, separated by a small table which supported an azalea in bloom. His stepmother, in a soft, trailing house-gown, her hands behind her back, seemed taller and slenderer than ever in contrast ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... grand trees, the beautiful green turf, the sunlight and shadow, caught her eye for a minute; and then it came back to the view within the windows. Opposite this row of windows was an enormous marble chimney-piece; the family arms, which Dolly was getting to know, blazoned upon it in brilliant colours. Right and left of the fireplace hung old family portraits. But when Dolly turned next to give a look at the side of the hall from which she had entered, she found that the whole wall was of a ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... over, it became so dark that it was found necessary to illuminate the great lamp suspended from the centre of the roof, while other lights were set on the board, and two flaming torches placed in sockets on either side of the chimney-piece. Scarcely was this accomplished when the storm came on, much to the surprise of the weatherwise, who had not calculated upon such an occurrence, not having seen any indications whatever of it in the heavens. But all were too comfortably sheltered, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... by Ralph, who succeeded to him in a share of that paper; and Sir Joshua Reynolds, when it came into his hand, found his attention so powerfully arrested, that he read it through without changing his posture, as he perceived by the torpidness of one of his arms that had rested on a chimney-piece by which he was standing. For the Life of Savage [5], he received fifteen guineas from Cave. About this time he fell into the company of Collins, with whom, as he tells us in his life of that poet, he ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... besides the big kettle and a few crocks and wooden bowls. Yet whereas all was clean, it had an air of comfort and civilisation beyond any of the cabins in the neighbourhood, more especially as there was even a rude chimney-piece projecting far into the room, and in the niche behind this lay the little girl in her clothes, ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... room. When he gained the lower apartment his father was standing by the chimney-piece, the sailor having gone. The trumpet-major went up to the fire, and, grasping the edge of the high ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... might go out. She faced him a moment; then went away with her straight, proud carriage. The doctor finished something he was at, then got his pipe and filled and lighted it, backed up against the chimney-piece, and stood eying Windham with something ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... pulling up his slender height before the chimney-piece as he turned to face his short ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... a large apartment of polished stone. There were three doors; one on each of three sides; all similarly curtained with tapestry. The fourth side was occupied by two large windows and a great stone chimney-piece, carved with the arms of the Maletroits. Denis recognised the bearings, and was gratified to find himself in such good hands. The room was strongly illuminated; but it contained little furniture except a heavy table and a chair or two, the hearth was innocent ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... banner of triumph had floated and many a knightly pennon. Bishop Brent was fond of this room, and carefully maintained its ancient character in the style of its furniture and general surroundings. The wide angle-nook and high carved chimney-piece, supported by two sculptured angel-figures of heroic size, was left unmodernised, and in winter the gaping recess was filled with great logs blazing cheerily as in olden times, but in summer, as now, it served as a picturesque setting for masses of rare flowers which, growing in pots, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... wrote Sir George Sinclair, "an appointment not less creditable to the ministry than honourable to yourself. I cannot help contemplating with affectionate sorrow the portrait of our dearest friend, Sir Francis Burdett, now suspended over the chimney-piece, and thinking how happy he would have been had he witnessed this most welcome and delightful consummation." "Permit me the honour," wrote Admiral John White, "to bear testimony to the high gratification ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... breakfasted, and he was leaning in his favorite attitude against the chimney-piece. She had taxed him with looking ill, but he had smilingly declared that there was nothing amiss ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... for some years as a tenement dwelling, crowded with more families than it should have held. It was rescued from that indignity by its present possessor, Mr. Lowther Bridger. Heavy beams, oak panels, and a fine chimney-piece remain, relics of the Stuart days when John Bradshaw, President of the Council, had the house. Tradition, certainly wrongly, says that Bradshaw signed Charles's death-warrant in the hall. Bradshaw, no doubt, signed it at Westminster. But the association of his name would be enough for village ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... Bounderby, getting up to lean his back against the chimney-piece. 'What are you talking about? You took ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... Hesper thought of her complexion, and pushed her chair back. Then she rose, and, having taken a hand-screen from the chimney-piece, was fanning herself with it, when the door opened, and a servant asked if she were at home to Mr. Helmer. She hesitated a moment: what an unearthly ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... thigh-bones which lay close to his hand, and which, when he was talking in that den of his own, he was in the constant habit of handling with much energy; nor was she frightened out of her propriety even by the little child's skull which grinned at her from off the chimney-piece. ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... he stamped angrily with his foot, approached the chimney-piece, and pulled the bell so violently that the bell-rope remained in his hand. A servant hastened to attend to this precipitate summons. "Did you not tell Dagobert that I wished to speak ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... dogs in the stone-paved hall; a hen too, finding its food on the floor and strutting here and there as if it had never known another home. On the left of the door, an oak table stood laid for the mid-day meal; on the right, before a carved stone chimney-piece, under which a huge log smouldered on the andirons, two or three men were seated. These rose on the entrance of the young mistress-they were dependants of the better class, for whom open house was kept at Morristown ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... that night, I found my fowling-piece in one corner, my game-bag in another, and my hundred crowns on the chimney-piece. Captain Tonino was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... was a long, rather narrow room, once the drawing-room of the Georgian mansion. Only a carved Adams' chimney-piece, now painted over in imitation of oak remained of its former adornment; the tall windows were eighteenth century, and with that air they looked upon the terrace. The walls had been lined by the nuns with plain wooden ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... chilly, magnificent apartment, where all the blinds were closed, and all the shades pulled down, and all the furniture shrouded in linen covers. Even the picture frames and mirrors were sewed up in muslin to keep off flies; and the bronzes and alabaster ornaments on the chimney-piece and etagere gleamed through the dim light in a ghostly way. Katy thought it very dismal. She couldn't imagine anybody sitting down there to read or sew, or do any thing pleasant, and probably it was not intended that any one should ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... merely desires to remark that the family diamonds, lost many years ago, were never really taken abroad by the valet and sold. He only had time to conceal them in a secret drawer behind the dining-room chimney-piece. Now she can get no nearer expressing herself than producing a spirited imitation of the music of the bagpipes, which wails up and down the house, and frightens the present Sir Robert Wadham and his people nearly out of their ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... corner cupboard, a brass- strapped sea-chest fixed to the wall and floor, R.; cutlasses, telescopes, sextant, quadrant, a calendar, and several maps upon the wall; a ship clock; three wooden chairs; a dresser against wall, R. C.; on the chimney-piece the model of a brig and several shells. The centre bare of furniture. Through the widows and the door, which is open, green trees and a small field ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... up—had its elaborate silk or satin curtains, heavily fringed, a canopy (is it?) above, its completely white shutters folding into the deep thickness of the wall. At either end of that great still place was an immense marble chimney-piece; the end by the bookcase showed the wolf and Romulus and Remus, with Homer and Virgil for supporters; the design of the other end I have forgotten. Frederick, Prince of Wales, swaggered flatly over the one, twice life-size, but mellowed by the surface gleam of ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... received it until the morning. He immediately rang for the messenger, and ordered me to be sent for. Being in a very bad humour, he pulled the bell with so much fury that he struck his hand violently against the angle of the chimney-piece. I hurried to his presence. "Why," he said, addressing me hastily, "why was not my letter delivered yesterday evening?"—"I do not know: I put it at once into the hands of the person whose duty it was to see that it was sent."—"Go and find the cause of the delay, and come back quickly." Having ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... were a bed and furnishings of rich, crimson velvet, once belonging to Queen Anne, and presented by George III. to the Warwick family. The walls are hung with Brussels tapestry, representing the gardens of Versailles as they were at the time. The chimney-piece, which is sculptured of verde antique and white marble, supports two black marble vases on its mantel. Over the mantel-piece is a full-length portrait of Queen Anne, in a rich brocade dress, wearing the collar and jewels of the Garter, bearing in one hand a sceptre, and in the other a globe. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... when they begin, I look about me. A chorus of virgins, indeed! why, there's nothing but ten or a dozen fiddlers! not a soul beside! it's as true as I'm alive ! So then, when we've stood supporting the chimney-piece about two hours, why then, if I'm not called upon, I shuffle back out of the room, make a profound bow to the harpsichord, and ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... up and walked to the chimney-piece. He was very pale, but his eyes were bright and sparkling. When she looked up at him at last she saw that her task was done. His scorn—his resentment—were they not the expiation, the penalty she had looked forward to all along?—and with that determination to bear them calmly? Yet, now that ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... (if he said it) that he was LA MISERE HUMAINE, cureless misery - unless perhaps by the gallows. Death is a great and gentle solvent; it has never had justice done it, no, not by Whitman. As for those crockery chimney-piece ornaments, the bourgeois (QUORUM PARS), and their cowardly dislike of dying and killing, it is merely one symptom of a thousand how utterly they have got out of touch of life. Their dislike of capital punishment and their treatment of their domestic ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... motto!" exclaimed Ben, when he read the following words, which were written in large characters over the chimney-piece, in his uncle's ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... cupboard, a brass-strapped sea-chest fixed to the wall and floor, R.; cutlasses, telescopes, sextant, quadrant, a calendar, and several maps upon the wall; a ship clock; three wooden chairs; a dresser against wall, R.C.; on the chimney-piece the model of a brig and several shells. The centre bare of furniture. Through the windows and the door, which is open, green trees and a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... police, Mrs. Lecount took a large green paper fan from the chimney-piece, and seated herself ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... in a brown study. The room was silent save for the ticking of a Louis Seize clock on the chimney-piece; and Mr. Simeon, standing attentive, let his eyes travel around upon the glass-fronted bookcases, filled with sober riches in vellum and gilt leather, on the rare prints in black frames, the statuette of Diane Chasseresse, the bust of Antinous, the portfolios ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I, "I put aside the setting altogether: it is a little too large for the present fashion; and have the portrait of my uncle framed and placed over my chimney-piece, next to ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... through this door?' she asked. 'There is a singular chimney-piece in the kitchen, which is considered a unique example of its kind, though I myself don't know enough about it to have an opinion on ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... foliage can be distinguished. Perhaps a thorough cleaning might bring out paintings like those discovered on the plank ceilings of Tristan's house at Tours. If so, it would prove that those planks were placed or restored in the reign of Louis XI. The chimney-piece is enormous, of carved stone, and within it are gigantic andirons in wrought-iron of precious workmanship. It could hold a cart-load of wood. The furniture of this hall is wholly of oak, each article bearing upon it the arms of the family. Three English guns equally suitable for chase or war, three ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... large barely furnished room, and yet not without evidence of luxury, or at all events of ornament. The great carved chimney-piece was surmounted by an old mirror with sconces containing candles; a leathern chair was drawn up to the hearth; on the table itself was a silver standish with writing materials, and a tall goblet of Venetian glass, ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... he upset the block for wood-chopping. Jendrek laughed, but his father unbuckled his belt and did not stop beating him till the boy crept, bleeding, under the bench. With the belt in his hand Slimak waited for his wife to make a remark. But she remained silent, only holding on to the chimney-piece ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... his room up to two o'clock in the morning. He would come back there no more: so much the better! And yet, in order to leave behind something of himself, he printed his name on the plaster over the chimney-piece. ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... grimy and forbidding with its iron bars and chains. An iron kettle stood on the chimney-piece, ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... standing in the door gazing anxiously toward the river, when they dashed out of the bushes and, scudding past her, stood dripping on the hearth-stone. Her husband was just hanging his gun over the chimney-piece, and the noise of their entrance was drowned out by a clap of thunder; so when he turned about and saw the three drenched figures it was no wonder that for an instant he was too ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... in his debt, still owed him money at his death. Jacques and his son Philippe undoubtedly worked together in the "Appartement du Dauphin" at Versailles, and although much of their contribution to the palace has disappeared, the decorations of the marble chimney-piece still remain. They belong to the best type of the Louis XV. style—vigorous and graceful in design, they are executed with splendid skill. It is equally certain that father and son worked together upon the gorgeous bronze case of the famous astronomical clock made by Passement and Danthiau ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... is a new purchase of a 'Holy Family,' supposed to be by Andrea del Sarto. It has displaced the Glover over the chimney-piece in the drawing-room, and dear Stormie and Alfred nearly broke their backs in carrying it upstairs for me to see before the placing. It is probably a fine picture, and I seem to see my way through the dark of my ignorance, to admire the grouping ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... that moment engaged in the contemplation of an ill-painted portrait of a girl, that was attached by a pin over the chimney-piece. It was without a frame, for the respectable gilt one that had formerly encircled it, had been taken off, and sold to buy bread. Nothing could be coarser than the execution of the thing, but as is not unfrequently the case with such productions, the likeness ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... lunged itself at those two innocents, like a catapult designed for their destruction, harmlessly retiring when within an inch of their heads. The room was clean and neat. It had a brick floor, and a window of diamond panes, and a flounce hanging below the chimney-piece, and strings nailed from bottom to top outside the window on which scarlet-beans were to grow in the coming season if the Fates were propitious. However propitious they might have been in the seasons ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... reader will apply to his ear the sea-shell on his chimney-piece, he will be aware of what is alluded to. If the text should appear obscure, he will find in Gebir the same idea better expressed in two lines. The poem I never read, but have heard the lines quoted, by a more recondite reader—who seems to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... the chimney-piece, jumped on the bed according to orders and looked earnestly at ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... head-laundress—a personage of unknown antiquity, and who had been in the family ever since it was a family—addressing the fine powdered gentleman in silk stockings, and pink, white, and silver livery, who leaned negligently against the chimney-piece. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... Hermione lifted the top of an ormolu box on the chimney-piece of a boudoir and showed Amy and me, under the rose as it were, some cigarettes, with a laugh. "Mamma's," she said: "she has a faiblesse ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... money. A few years back, in assisting at the harvest, he had strained himself internally, and induced an atrophy. On asking the wife whether they were badly off, her sole reply was to take a cup from the chimney-piece, and show me, in heart-breaking silence, a sixpence and three half-pennies! Cows, money, and orchard—all had disappeared during a lingering illness,—and the poor old woman's inevitable fate was now to await the fast approaching death of a good husband, and then retire, for her few remaining ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... door opened, and Madame de Maintenon, who had probably anticipated some tragic scene, sprang upon the wretched woman, seizing the knife with one hand, and with the other thrusting the child away. The maniacal marchioness was seized by her attendants. The king tottered to the chimney-piece, buried his face in his hands, and, from a complicity of emotions not easily disentangled, ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... water into the drawing-room and fill the vase on the chimney-piece," he said. "The sooner you put those flowers into water," he added, turning to his wife, "the longer ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... recurred with the mournful iteration of some dolorous refrain; and yielding to the spell she leaned her forehead against the chimney-piece, and repeated them sadly ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... timbered ceiling, to the walls with cedar scantlings showing, to the crude look of everything-the head of a moose, the skins hanging down the sides of the walls, the smell of the cedar, and the swift movement of a tame red squirrel, which ran up the walls and over the floor and along the chimney-piece, for Denzil avoided the iron stove so common in these new cold lands, and remained faithful to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... point of the sword, passing the blade over so that the hilt rested beyond his right shoulder; and, using the keen point as a graver, he marked-out, breast high upon one of the supporters of the chimney-piece, which happened to be a massive half-nude figure, the shape of a heart—the figure being about four inches in diameter. Apparently satisfied with his work, he drew back a few feet, turned up his ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... clutched it and hurried to the bureau to examine it by the light of the candles he had taken from the chimney-piece and placed there to assist ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... discovered three worldly publications among them—Domestic Cookery, Etiquette for Ladies, and Hints on the Breeding of Poultry. An ugly little clock, ticking noisily in a black case, and two candlesticks of base metal placed on either side of it, completed the ornaments on the chimney-piece. Neither pictures nor prints hid the barrenness of the walls. I saw no needlework and no flowers. The one object in the place which showed any pretensions to beauty was a looking-glass in an elegant gilt frame—sacred to vanity, ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... leaning against a tall chimney-piece, no longer wearing his cardinal's robe and hat, but a doublet of black velvet slashed with satin of the same colour. One hand toyed mechanically with his gloves, while the other rested an the handle of a poisoned dagger which never left his side. This was the dress he kept for his nocturnal ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... back, looking up at him as he leaned against the chimney-piece. He had leaned there so often that the attitude touched a pulse which set up a throbbing in her throat. "Oh, my ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... a large room furnished with the traditional stool which is to be seen in all these dens of law-quibbling. The stove-pipe crossed the room diagonally to the chimney of a bricked-up fireplace; on the marble chimney-piece were several chunks of bread, triangles of Brie cheese, pork cutlets, glasses, bottles, and the head clerk's cup of chocolate. The smell of these dainties blended so completely with that of the immoderately overheated stove and the ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... An exquisitely wrought chimney-piece from the finest Sienite marbles in Italy was presented to Washington for his Mount Vernon home by Mr. Vaughan, of London. Upon three tablets of the frieze are pleasing pastoral scenes, so fitting ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... of a departing carriage, the Vicomtesse looked up, saw that no one was present save her brother and a friend of the family finishing their game of piquet, and went across to her daughter. The girl, standing by the chimney-piece, apparently examining a transparent fire-screen, was listening to the sounds from the courtyard in a way that justified ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... table—I've seen him handle many a hundred thousand pounds' worth of notes in my time, paying or receiving! And, as I said, the mere picking up of a hundred pound note from his desk is—why, it's no more than if I picked up a few of those coppers that are lying there on my chimney-piece!" ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... to generation by poets & painters with some help from philosophers and theologians. I wished for a world where I could discover this tradition perpetually, and not in pictures and in poems only, but in tiles round the chimney-piece and in the hangings that kept out the draught. I had even created a dogma: 'Because those imaginary people are created out of the deepest instinct of man, to be his measure and his norm, whatever I can imagine those mouths speaking may be the nearest I can go to truth.' When I listened ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... called out, as Oliver sent the ray of the lighted candle upward. "'Tis easy enough to see how our prisoner escaped. Fool that I was not to have searched this place," and he let himself down again, where the bewildered group stood around the chimney-piece. ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... red-elbowed woman stood, a pikel in her strong outstretched hands. The sergeant of dragoons, with his back to a roaring fire, was pinned against the hearthstead by the pitchfork, the tines of which were stuck in the oak lintel of the chimney-piece, so that a ring of steel encircled his throat like the neckhole of a pillory, and held him there helpless and roasting. When I first caught sight of him he was making a frenzied attempt to wrench the prongs out, but, finding it hopeless, drew his tuck, and lashed out at the woman. She ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... hospital into "a fair mansion and park," in the same year in which he was married to Anne Boleyn, who was commemorated here with him in love-knots, now almost obliterated, upon the side doors of the gateway, and in the letters "H.A." on the chimney-piece of the presence-chamber or tapestry room. Holbein is sometimes said to have been the king's architect here, as he was at Whitehall. Henry can seldom have lived here, but hither his daughter, Mary I., retired, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... cousin, who mounted the slope again and crossed the promenade. Pascal, as he passed along, picked up Macquart's carbine which Silvere had thrown down; he knew it, as he had seen it hanging over aunt Dide's chimney-piece, and he thought he might as well save it from the hands of the victors. He had scarcely entered the Hotel de la Mule-Blanche, whither a large number of the wounded had been taken, when a band of insurgents, chased by the ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... waved his hand to Nicolas, approached the chimney-piece, took the half-dried cloaks on his arm, tossed a coin on the table and, holding in his hands a covered cage in which several birds were fluttering, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... pull it about, they would not know whether to laugh at its strange appearance or to swear at its weight. It was built for wear, like Noah's ark, and it is entirely covered with leather, elaborately decorated with patterns, composed of the round heads of small nails. The high stone chimney-piece, plain and solid like the character of the man who did so much lasting work in this room, remains, together with the fire-dogs, as it was ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... was that young figure of a man, which the same Fairy Cricket set so near Her stool, and which remained there, singly and alone? Why did it linger still, so near her, with its arm upon the chimney-piece, ever repeating 'Married! ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... caused heartburnings in the Form. It was felt that Maudie was unduly raising the standard. Miss Gibbs had suggested that other botany papers might contain diagrams, and had placed upon the class-room chimney-piece a book of poetical extracts suitable for use ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... Ablewhite did, what all animals (human and otherwise) do, when they find themselves caught in a trap. He looked about him in a state of helpless despair. The day of the month, recorded on a neat little card in a box on the money-lender's chimney-piece, happened to attract his eye. It was the twenty-third of June. On the twenty-fourth he had three hundred pounds to pay to the young gentleman for whom he was trustee, and no chance of raising the money, except the chance that Mr. Luker had offered to him. But for this miserable obstacle, he might ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... beyond the possibility of any scandal; but his mind was made up - he was determined to fulfil the sphere of his offence. He signed to Innes (whom he had just fined, and who just impeached his ruling) to succeed him in the chair, stepped down from the platform, and took his place by the chimney-piece, the shine of many wax tapers from above illuminating his pale face, the glow of the great red fire relieving from behind his slim figure. He had to propose, as an amendment to the next subject in the case-book, "Whether capital punishment be consistent ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... burned under the splendid carved chimney-piece, and Brigit, turning from the cool moonlight to the interior, watched it with a certain sense of artistic pleasure. It was a dear old house, Kingsmead, and with money—oh, yes, oh, yes, money! When Tommy was grown, what kind of a man ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... fall, quite an' clane, with the shakin' iv it. All av a suddint the storm stopt, as silent an' as quite as if it was a July evenin'. Well, your honour, it wasn't stopped blowin' for three minnites, before he thought he hard a sort iv a noise over the chimney-piece; an' with that my father just opened his eyes the smallest taste in life, an' sure enough he seen the ould squire gettin' out iv the picthur, for all the world as if he was throwin' aff his ridin' coat, until he stept out clane ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... at that!" He pointed upward to an ancient sword with belt and trappings, which gleamed on the panelled chimney-piece—crossed by an old queen's arm. Evesham had given up his large sunny room to Dorothy's mother, but he had not removed ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... out of an exquisite ulster, sauntered up to the fire, and asked where Sir George Danvers was. As he stood inside the wide fireplace, leaning against one of the pillars which supported the towering white stone chimney-piece, covered with heraldic designs and coats of arms, he looked a worthier representative of an ancient race than ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... and more puzzled]. Yes—oh, yes. They have always been—[His eye catches that of Constance, first Lady Bantock, looking down at him from above the chimney-piece. His tone changes.] Well, yes, ...
— Fanny and the Servant Problem • Jerome K. Jerome
... wreathed her arms round Olive's slight frame, but the deadly embrace was such as never sister gave. With the marvellous strength of fury, she lifted her from the floor, and dashed her down again. In falling, Olive's forehead struck against the marble chimney-piece, and she lay stunned and ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... general's uniform, with a quantity of stars and orders, and the ribbon of the Grand Cross. In another life-sized picture this personage figured in the robes of some unknown military order, and appeared a third time as a bronze bust in a corner, on a black marble pedestal. The chimney-piece was adorned by a strange and wonderful clock, a painfully accurate copy in gilt and colored enamel of the Mihrab of the Mosque in Cordova. Between the windows, on a high buhl cabinet, stood a marble ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... as might be anticipated,—and as they slowly climb the steep under the clear gray sky and the paling morning star, she stops to gather a spray of the red-rose berries or a feathery tuft of dead grasses for the chimney-piece of the log-house, or a handful of brown ones for the child's play,—and of these quiet, happy folk you would scarcely dream how lately they had stolen from under the banner and encampment of the great King Death. The husband proceeds a step or two in advance; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... back of the chair. My first impulse was, of course, to rise and go to her. I had barely got to my feet, when some indescribable dread paralyzed me on the instant. Supporting myself against the chimney-piece, I stood perfectly incapable of advancing a step. The effort to speak was the one effort that I ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... order, and her room had a very cheerful window. It was prettily furnished with fresh pink and white dimity, and choice-looking earthenware, but to London eyes like those of Dolores it seemed very old-fashioned and what she called 'poked up.' The paper was ugly, the chimney-piece was a narrow, painting thing, of the same dull, stone-colour as the door and the window-frame. And then the clear air, the perfect stillness, the absence of anything moving in the view from the window gave the city- bred child a sense of ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and the baroness immediately improvided a mise-en-scene, so that when the duke entered, he perceived the marchioness seated as usual in her easy chair, the baroness standing near the chimney-piece, and Claire with her back to the light. He bowed low before the noble woman who had been ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... bluish shade was burning on the chimney-piece, behind a book, whose shadows plunged more than half the chamber in darkness. There was a quiet gleam of light cutting across the round table and the couch, streaming over the heavy folds of the velvet curtains, and imparting an azure hue to the mirror of the ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... lady-helps, each warming a towel at a glowing fire, to be ready against the baby should come out of its bath; while in the right-hand foreground we have the levatrice, who having discharged her task, and being now so disposed, has removed the bottle from the chimney-piece, and put it near some bread, fruit and a chicken, over which she is about to discuss the confinement with two other gossips. The levatrice is a very characteristic figure, but the best in the chapel is the one of the head-nurse, near the middle of the composition; she has ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... blind frenzy took hold upon her. Alarming and inexplicable sounds drew her sisters from below; they found her, armed with something heavy, smashing every breakable object in her bedroom—mirrors, toilet-ware, pictures, chimney-piece ornaments. ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... carefully on the chimney-piece of the kitchen. "I reckon it's somethin' mo' 'bout the taxes," she thought, "or maybe somebody wants to buy one er my lots. Rena'll be back terreckly, an' she kin read it an' find out. I'm glad my child'en have be'n to school. They never ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Mara left the room with the children, my eyes fell on the white leopardess: I thought we had left her behind us, but there she was, cowering in a corner. Apparently she was in mortal terror of what she might see. A lamp stood on the high chimney-piece, and sometimes the room seemed full of lamp-shadows, sometimes of cloudy forms. The princess lay on the settle by the wall, and seemed never to have moved hand or foot. It ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... sofa of the same uncomfortable material, cold and slippery, on which it was impossible to rest. The carpet was nearly threadbare, and the curtains of dark-red moreen were very dingy; the mirror over the chimney-piece seemed to have been made purposely to distort my features, and produce in me a feeling of depression. My bedroom, which communicated with this agreeable sitting-room by folding-doors, was still smaller and gloomier; and opened upon a dismal back-yard, where a ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... with an indignant start, "why that there clock have hung over chimney-piece for nigh upon farty year! That ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... sitting on the arm of his chair. He leant his head against her wearily. In the glass above the chimney-piece, tilted towards them, she saw his face and was frightened. Were the purple shadows really there, or did she ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... cobwebs in every direction. In the centre of the ceiling hung a quicksilver globe, a common ornament in those days, but the major part of it had lost its brilliancy, the spiders' webs enclosing it like a shroud. Over the chimney-piece were hung two or three drawings, framed and glazed, but a dusty mildew was spotted over the glass, so that little of them could be distinguished. In the centre of the mantelpiece was an image of ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... fireplace now covered for the warm season by a screen of flowered wallpaper. They were in the plain old dining-room with its smaller fireplace and its big old-fashioned cupboards built into the wall on either side of the projecting chimney-piece. "There ain't much," resumed Sallie. "But I reckon ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... had gone, she closed the window and bolted it, and, going to the chimney-piece, placed the letters, one by one, in the flame of the candle until they were consumed. I would not have the reader think, that, during this painful operation, she was unmoved. Her hand trembled, and—not being a brute—for some minutes (perhaps longer) she felt very badly, and ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... blinds pulled down, sitting in a low chair, with her elbow on the small work-table, and her cheek resting on her hand—not a speck of any thing white about her but the cambric handkerchief, and the face that was paler than the marble chimney-piece. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... refined home. It was not so grand or gorgeous of course as her father's princely palace opposite the Louvre, a wreck now, since it was annexed by the Committee of National Defence, for the housing of soldiery. But the Derouledes' home was essentially a refined one. The delicate china on the tall chimney-piece, the few bits of Buhl and Vernis Martin about the room, the vision through the open doorway of the supper-table spread with a fine white cloth, and sparkling with silver, all spoke of fastidious tastes, of habits of luxury and elegance, ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the Exhibition in Philadelphia, 1876, a chimney-piece on which were sculptured "Children and the Yule-Log and Fireside Spirits." This was purchased ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... four flights to my own room. Although I could not deny that I was drunk, I was at the same time lucidly rational and practical. I had but one preoccupation—to be up in time on the morrow for my work; and when I observed the clock on my chimney-piece to have stopped, I decided to go down stairs again and give directions to the porter. Leaving the candle burning and my door open, to be a guide to me on my return, I set forth accordingly. The house was quite ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... dressing-gown, which, though clean, was particularly ugly in pattern; and the room, for all its tidiness, had a dismal look, with the chairs set up against the wall, and a row of medicine-bottles on the chimney-piece. ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... till the girl returned. Sir Henry paced the room backward and forward, and George stood leaning with his back against the chimney-piece. "Mr. Bertram says that he'll see Sir Henry, if he'll step ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... roasted, occupied the whole of one of the sides of the room; opposite to it was a trellised window, the painted glass of which toned down the brightness of the sunbeams. In an antique frame above the chimney-piece appeared the portrait of some worthy man, attributed to Memling, which no doubt represented an ancestor of the Van Tricasses, whose authentic genealogy dates back to the fourteenth century, the period when ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne |
