"Fireplace" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... comfortable and intimate conversation. The cat is fast asleep. The spinster's mantelpiece, which is decorated with pictorial advertisements of such highly inappropriate commodities as baby's food and tobacco, wears an aspect which I am content to regard as social. And the cupboard beside the fireplace, although the bottom floor is used as a coal-cellar, suggests, with its crowded shelves of dishes, egg-cups, plates, biscuit-boxes, and paper bags, that we are in for a little friendly banquet, which, if not good enough for his Grace ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... catch a glimpse of something moving under the roof of the shed next the buttery. To his amazement he saw Miss Kitty Cat slip through an old stove-pipe hole that pierced the great chimney which led down into the buttery, where there was an ancient fireplace which hadn't been used for years and years. Miss Kitty Cat crept along a tiebeam and hid herself in a pile of odds and ends that somebody had stowed high up under the roof and left there to gather dust ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the fireplace sat Miss Nickall, her arm in splints and in a sling. She was very thin and very pallid, and her eyes brightly glittered. The customary kind expression of her face was modified, though not impaired, by a look of ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... only one picture, and that was placed over the great fireplace. It was the portrait of a beautiful woman—waves of gray hair above a young face and bright black eyes. The face laughed at them and at the rows upon rows of somber books that ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... either side of the deep fireplace, and found but a half-charred hedge-stake with which I punched a black log ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... exercise. His dress was a blue coat buttoned to his chin, and buckskin breeches. Though the instant he took off his hat I could not avoid the recognition of familiar lineaments, which indeed I was in the habit of seeing on every sign-post and over every fireplace, still I failed to identify him, and to my surprise I found that I was an object of equal speculation in his eyes." The actor evidently did not have the royal gift of remembering faces, but the stranger possessed that quality, for after a moment's pause he said, "Mr. Bernard, ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... front of the fireplace, with his face toward the door of entrance. The visitor was conducted to him, and he required to have the name so distinctly pronounced, that he could hear it. He had the very uncommon faculty of associating a man's name and personal appearance so durably in his ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... breath of onion from the cover as a youth may taste dreamily from the lips of love. But oh, instead of this, he met his father, spread out and yet solid across the doorway, with very large arms bare and lumpy in the gleam of a fireplace uncrowned by any pot. Dan's large ideas vanished, like ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... of the room was brown and gold, enlivened discreetly with red, and the chairs and lounges were deep and comfortable. A large davenport stood before the fireplace, which had been rebuilt for logs. There was a victrola in one corner, for Miss Dwight was amenable if her guests were seized with the desire to jazz, and a grand piano stood near the lower windows. The only evidence ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... conceals the entry into a washing place which is further fitted with a gas stove for cooking and cupboards for crockery and provisions. At the opposite end of the room is a door which opens into a small bedroom. The fireplace in the main room is fitted with the best and least smelly kind of ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... a camp—cooking utensils, Dutch ovens, canvas pack covers, worn-out saddles, and ropes. On the other side the rooms were more pretentious, one of them even having a board floor. First came the large living-room with a stone chimney and a raised hearth before the fireplace; whereon, each on its separate pile of ashes, reposed two Dutch ovens, a bean kettle, and a frying-pan, with a sawed-off shovel in the corner for scooping up coals. Opening into the living-room were two bedrooms, which, upon exploration, turned out to be marvellously ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... the curtain Stephen Murray is discovered sitting in a chair in front of the fireplace, left. Murray is thirty years old—a tall, slender, rather unusual-looking fellow with a pale face, sunken under high cheek bones, lined about the eyes and mouth, jaded and worn for one still so young. His intelligent, large hazel eyes have ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... whose boundaries were constantly shifting and altering in temperature as gusts of air ran across them to strike freshly upon my face, from the corners of the room, or from parts near the window or far from the fireplace which had therefore remained cold—or rooms in summer, where I would delight to feel myself a part of the warm evening, where the moonlight striking upon the half-opened shutters would throw down to the foot of my bed its enchanted ladder; where ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... that young whipper-snapper up to?" Lionel said to himself, after a particularly bad night (and morning) as he sat staring into the dead ashes of his fireplace. "He wanted to take my life—until my good angel interfered and saved me. Now does he want to break me financially? By Jove! they're coming near to doing it among them. I shall have to go to Moss to-morrow ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... parlor again, and when the candles were lighted in the old-fashioned mirror over the fireplace, everything wore a festive appearance. The guitar was brought out, and Edgar sang college songs till Mrs. Oliver grew so bright that she even hummed a faint second from her cosy place ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... arm over her shoulders and led her to the big chair before the fireplace. Io let herself be thrust into it, stiff and unyielding as a manikin. Any other woman but Camilla Van Arsdale would have asked questions. She went more directly to the point. Picking up the newspaper she opened it. Halfway across an inside page ran ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... have used, but it is far worse to breathe air other people have breathed. Air does not flow in and flow out of the same opening at the same time any more than water does, so you want two openings in a room—an open window to let the good air in, and a fireplace and chimney to let the stale air out, or, where there is no fireplace, a window open both at top and bottom. The night air in large towns is purer than the day air, and both in town and country you should sleep with your window open if you want to be healthy. Draughts ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... drawing-tables, many cases of drawing-instruments, and a host of workman-like designs and specifications. Thence you might pass, still wondering, into an apartment of soft divans, thick rags, and open fireplace, a smell of incense, double windows ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... finest houses of the rue Neuve-des-Mathurins, at half-past eleven at night, two young women were sitting before the fireplace of a boudoir hung with blue velvet of that tender shade, with shimmering reflections, which French industry has lately learned to fabricate. Over the doors and windows were draped soft folds of blue cashmere, the tint of the hangings, the work of one of ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... best known to himself he had sought honours in the Mathematical Tripos and narrowly missed the Wooden Spoon, had clearly no claim to the title. Whence in the world did the boy derive this gift? "His mother—" Miss Bracy began, and broke off as a puff of smoke shot out from the fireplace. It was late September; Deborah had lit the fire that morning for the first time since May, and the chimney never drew well at starting. Miss Bracy took the tongs in hand, but she was not thinking of the smoke; neither was Mr. Frank, while he watched her. They were both thinking of the ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Dorothy. The ladies were together in the back drawing-room as the restored Mr. Harley, with brow of Jove and warlike eye, strode into their startled midst. Establishing himself in mighty state before the fireplace, rear to the blaze, he gazed with fondness, but as though ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... in his abrupt, decisive way. He threw the cigarette into the empty fireplace and stood up. "I think I'll take your advice ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... streamed in through the holes in the tops of the shutters I distinguished the green painted chairs backed up stiffly against the wall, the striped homespun carpet, andirons crossed in the fireplace, with shovel and tongs to match, the big Bible on the table under the glass, a waxwork on the high mahogany desk in the corner, and a few shells and other ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... having just finished his well-earned dinner, and relaxing his mind for the moment in a fresh research into the Manchester Guide, an individual, who had also been dining in the same apartment, rose from his table, and, after lolling over the empty fireplace, reading the framed announcements, looking at the directions of several letters waiting there for their owners, picking his teeth, turned round to Coningsby, and, with an air of ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... filed papers at the land office, built cabins, and moved their few possessions to the claims. Their houses were made of logs mud-chinked, with dirt floors and shake roofs instead of the usual flat dirt ones. They expected later to whipsaw lumber for the floors. A huge fireplace in one end of each cabin was used for cooking as well as for heat until such time as they could get stoves. Already they planned a garden, and in the evenings were as likely to talk of turnips, beets, peas, beans, and potatoes as of the ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... the interior they had in several places observed numerous trees which had deep holes burnt into them at the upper end of the foot while the earth had here and there been dug out with the fist so as to form a fireplace; the surrounding soil having become as hard as flint through the ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... for a moment after the prayer, and then Fanny suggested that they should prepare their breakfast. Ethan had brought with him a shovel and a sharp axe, and while Fanny was peeling the potatoes and cutting the bacon, he dug out a kind of fireplace in the side of the hill. Some dead branches from the tree supplied them with dry fuel. Fried ham and fried potatoes were soon provided, and they sat down to ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... said he to several of us one chilly evening, as we sat around the open fireplace, "is the greatest treatise on humanity ever written. Go with me to-day to any city in any country in Christendom, and I'll show you a man walk up the steps of his church on Sunday who thanks God that he's better than his neighbor. But you needn't go so far if you ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... for a glance about him. Never had he heard or dreamed of such magnificence. It was appalling, beyond belief! The great entrance hall went up to the roof; and there was a broad staircase of white marble, with galleries of marble, and below a marble fireplace, big enough to hold a section of a tree. Beyond this was a court with fountains splashing, and visions of palms and gorgeous flowers; and on each side were vistas of rooms with pictures and tapestries and furniture which Samuel thought must be ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... only this, and if any one has anything better to offer, I'm only too glad to hear about it. I thought that you girls could all dress up in your ceremonial costumes. In the meantime, I'll have a fire made in the living-room fireplace and then I'll ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... Marseilles in 1720. To the left, St. Roch before the Virgin, by David. Fronting the windows, "The frigate Justice returning from Constantinople with the plague on board," "l'an 4 de la Rpublique." Opposite the fireplace, "The cholera on board the Melpomene," by Horace Vernet. Next it, by Guerin, "The Chevalier Rose assisting to bury those who had died of the plague." Between them is a Crucifixion by Auber. Between the two windows is a portrait of Bishop Belsunce. (Fee, ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... rocky bed for their cauldron, near the hut, with an ingeniously constructed fireplace beneath it which had a cross-cut trench for creating a draught, in the way Fritz noticed that the soldiers made their camp fires during the war—the whole affair when finished looking like one of those "coppers" ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... always loaded, there was not much powder in the horn and there were not more than a dozen bullets in the pouch, but they would last him until he could get far away. No more would he take, however, than what he thought he could get along with—one blanket from the bed and, from the fireplace, a little bacon and ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... the hall is the Holden Library. A picture of the Rev. J. Holden, who not only founded it, but left a small endowment to keep it in good order, hangs over the fireplace. Here the clergy of the diocese may come and consult the volumes. It is a fine room, and its outlook upon the rising ground of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... filled the room. By the fireplace the puppies—how big they were!—were sitting with Mrs. Spaniel. Joyous uproar greeted him: they flung themselves upon him. Shouts of "Daddy! Daddy!" filled the house, while the young Spaniels stood ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... the door. He was aware of a wide hallway carpeted with matting and extending deep into the dwelling. There was also an old walnut hatrack and a little marble-topped table with a vase and two books upon it. Farther back was a great, venerable fireplace containing dreary ashes. ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... that Barents' old winter quarters on Nova Zembla were discovered. "There stood the cooking-pans over the fireplace, the old clocks against the wall, the arms, the tools, the drinking vessels, the instruments and the books that had beguiled the weary hours of that long night, two hundred and seventy-eight years ago." Among the ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... the wide-mouthed fireplace singing fragments of songs such as his fathers before him had sung in their orchards in sunny France, and Evangeline was close beside him at her wheel industriously spinning flax for her loom. Up-stairs there was a chest filled with strong white linen which Evangeline ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... sumptuous Venetian lustre depending from the ceiling: a darkling mass of icy pendants catching a spark here and there from the candles of an eight-branched candelabra standing on a little table near the head of a sofa which had been dragged round to face the fireplace. The faintest possible whiff of a familiar perfume made my ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... at the far side of the big room was thrown open not five minutes after the disappearance of Mary Hood, and her father entered. He came with a brow as black as night, tossed a sharp word here and there in reply to the greetings, and going to the fireplace leaned against the mantel and rolled a cigarette. While he smoked, from under his shaggy brows he looked over ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... such as in any civilized country would have indicated the direst poverty. Two beds of the rudest description stood in opposite corners, and one end of the room was almost wholly occupied by a stone fireplace of primitive construction, over which the owner now hovered in ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... as though over some private joke of his own, then at last laid down his pipe and crossed his legs. Oliver leaned back against the wall and Polly curled up on the bench by the fireplace. ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... entered his study and caught sight of Paklin's poor, feeble little figure meekly leaning up against the door between the wall and the fireplace, he was seized by that truly ministerial sensation of haughty compassion and fastidious condescension so characteristic of the St. Petersburg bureaucrat. "Heavens! What a miserable little wretch!" he thought; "and lame ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... Eve and Philip became one of the circle around the fireplace in the front room. Again Eve's roses and Winifred's cloak gave color to the group. There was also the leaping golden flame of the fire, and, in the background, a slight blue haze where some ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... inhabited a tiny room, without windows or fireplace, and so low that it was impossible to stand upright. I was given sewing to do, but my first piece of work proved my incapacity, and my extremely short-sight made me equally helpless in waiting on the Duchess. I was astonished at the patience with which she bore my awkwardness, but my fellow-servants, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... another, with portefeuille, pens, and ornamental ink stand, stood by the wall, and over this last was a collection of books ranged upon shelves of red cedar-wood. A handsome clock adorned the mantelpiece; and in the open fireplace was a pair of small "andirons," with silver knobs, cast after a fanciful device, and richly chased. Of course, there was no fire at that season of the year. Even the heat caused by the mosquito bar would have been annoying, but that the large glass-door on one side, and the window ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... attended divine service in the chapel of Pahia; part of the service being read in English, and part in the native language. Whilst at New Zealand we did not hear of any recent acts of cannibalism; but Mr. Stokes found burnt human bones strewed round a fireplace on a small island near the anchorage; but these remains of a comfortable banquet might have been lying there for several years. It is probable that the moral state of the people will rapidly improve. Mr. Bushby mentioned one pleasing anecdote as a proof ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... are so many holes and corners which it would be impossible to reach by ordinary means. All this time the smoke was pouring in volumes from the cupboard on the other side, and from under the nursery fireplace. The floors were pulled up, and the partitions were pulled down, until at last the flames were got under. The holds were next examined. No damage had been done there; but the cabin floor was completely burnt through, and the lead from the nursery ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... walnut paneling she had hung loose folds of faded blue Italian velvet, with old silver candle sconces at irregular intervals along the walls. The great table and high-backed chairs were likewise Italian, and the old-fashioned white marble fireplace had been given an over-mantel, also white, enclosing an old tapestry. For warmth of color there were always flowers, and that night there ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... her usual seat by the fireplace, seemed to have withdrawn from the others, absorbed as she was in contemplation of the chair which the absent Morano still stubbornly left unoccupied. Chatting and laughing in front of the sofa on which sat Benedetta and Celia were Dario, Pierre, and Narcisse Habert, the last of whom had begun ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... by the methods just referred to entails quite an expense, and for the further reason that they require coal for satisfactory operating, they have not been employed in the rural districts of America to any considerable extent. The farmer, for the most part, depends on the old open fireplace where wood is plentiful and the weather does not become excessively cold, while in those portions of the country where the temperatures in winter go very low, the stove is generally employed. Of the two methods, the former ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... massive gilt frame, hung upon the wall opposite door and fireplace, reaching from the ceiling to ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... rate, lived happily in his Appledore, and imagined myself drinking prime (and cheap) French brandy in the Beaver Inn; while Lieutenant Perkins, who commanded the "preventive men," sat in his tall-backed chair by the fireplace and kept his eyes and ears open to detect anything that was suspicious. But he was not foolish enough to ask many questions about the French brandy. An excellent ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... loved to compound her own dinners. She had a salver which Angelique placed before her on the bed; and the old child played in pastry or salads, or cut vegetable dice for her soup. The baking or boiling or roasting was done with rigor at her own fireplace by her blacks, the whiplash in her hand hovering over their bare spots. Silence was the law of the presence-chamber when she labored with her recipes, of which she had many, looking like spider tracks on very yellow paper. These she kept locked up with many of the ingredients for creating ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... fearfully interrupted, for the door of that room DID slowly open and there entered a being of so terrible an aspect, that all the assembled guests recoiled from its presence with horror and affright. It advanced towards the fireplace, seated itself in an unoccupied chair, and surveyed the company with ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... if you are fortunate enough to find one with a real fireplace and a simple mantel shelf you will be far on the way toward making a home of your group of rooms. Of course your apartment is heated by steam, or hot air, or something, but an open fire of coal or wood will be very pleasant on chilly days, ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... moulded ceiling graces the interior. This apartment is panelled with the most delightful carvings of scenes from the Old Testament, and with birds, animals and heraldic designs above the noble fireplace. The back of this house is even more charming than the front and the visitor should pass through the porch and passage-way for the sake of a glimpse at its old gables and mellow walls. The Choughs Inn at ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... Fifteen Hundred Sixty-three. The place was furnished complete, done by those who had been dust a hundred years. The rafters overhead were studded with handmade nails, where used to hang the flitches of bacon and bunches of dried herbs; the cooking would have to be performed in the fireplace or in the Dutch oven; funny little cupboards were in the corners; and out behind the cottage stretched a God's half-acre of the prettiest flower-garden ever seen, save the one at ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... make their cake by cooking up other people's troubles. Sit down. Let's talk it out." He settled himself in a corner of the ragged old horsehair sofa which faced the empty fireplace and motioned Maurice to a chair. "I thought it wasn't all headache; ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... money was lost. Monsieur Choisnel, the procureur-du-roi, and two ladies went into the boudoir for a game at backgammon. The glass lustres were lighted; and then the flower of Mademoiselle Cormon's company gathered before the fireplace, on sofas, and around the tables, and each couple said to her as ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... looked round the vast hall, which, when he had before known it, was ever filled with signs of life, and felt at once that it was empty and deserted. It struck him as intolerably cold, and he saw that the huge fireplace was without a spark of fire. Dinner, the servant said, was prepared for half-past seven. Would Mr. Finn wish to dress? Of course he wished to dress. And as it was already past seven he hurried up stairs to his room. Here again everything was cold and wretched. There was ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... is a medallion by Luca della Robbia set into the wall at the place where it makes a bend. Before you come into the drawing-room you stand a moment in a great vaulted place hung round with faded tapestry, paved with bare tiles, and furnished only with three chairs. In the drawing-room, above the fireplace, is a superb Andrea del Sarto. The furniture is covered with ...
— The Diary of a Man of Fifty • Henry James
... two yards in thickness, a barred window lighted this room, which was to serve as sitting-room, kitchen and dining-room at the same time; but lighted it so imperfectly that to see plainly even in the daytime one had to leave the door open. On one side was the fireplace, and on the other the wooden staircase that led to the upper floors; under the staircase was a trap-door firmly closed by ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... having been a heavy rain yesterday, a nest of chimney-swallows was washed down the chimney into the fireplace of one of the front-rooms. My attention was drawn to them by a most obstreperous twittering; and looking behind the fire-board, there were three young birds, clinging with their feet against one of the jambs, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... before—just after you left. I reckon he was waitin' for you to go. I'm glad you went first." The man looked up at the rifle resting on the pegs above the fireplace. "Laban, don't!" she cried. "I looked at it when he was walkin' away, and I know ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... shriek was the first result; and the second, that Alice and he sat looking at each other across the old man's hump, from which the cat-a-mountain had vanished. Their host sat staring at the blank fireplace, without ever turning round, pretending to know nothing ...
— Cross Purposes and The Shadows • George MacDonald
... last, in a spacious room where everything was either white, or gilded, or of gold, the walls, the furniture, the big fireplace, the heavy carpet spread on the marble floor, where the Pope sat in his gilded chair, himself all in white, with a small white silk skullcap set far back on his silvery hair. His face was almost white, too, and the short beard on his chin was like snow, for he was over eighty years ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... seized me when I heard This sad story, and I sprang From my couch and took a seat By the fireplace and spake: ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... the upper cornice into a coved ceiling, which would appear from the rendering of the drawing to form an apse above the semi-circular stage. Behind the proscenium is a large space with staircases of approach, two windows at the rear, and apparently a fireplace for the comfort of the waiting players. Communication with the front of the house is provided by a door in the proscenium wall opening into the stage door lobby, whence the outside of the building may ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... the fireplace, crying, "A penny, a penny, twopence, a penny and a half, and a halfpenny!" At his call the fire shot forth tall flames, and Sesphra entered these flames as a man goes between parted curtains, and instantly the fire collapsed ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... had grown chilly, and we had a fire in the clean-swept fireplace. The old brass dogs sparkled in the blaze, and the shadows flickered and danced on the walls, and across the faces of De Rance portraits; the pleasant room was full of a ruddy, friendly glow. My mother sat in her low rocker, making something or other ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... nothing to warrant his conviction that Reginald Clarke had been with him only a few moments ago, plying his horrible trade. The large mirror above the fireplace only showed him his own face, white, excited,—the face of ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... burrowed in the bank, but made homes in all the chinks of stone and brick river walls, and sides of locks, and in the wood of the weiring, where they sat ensconced as snugly as crickets round a brick farmhouse kitchen fireplace. They were regularly caught by the families of the riverine population of boatmen, bargees, and waterside labourers, and sold in the Oxford market. A dish of crayfish, as scarlet as coral, was not unfrequently seen at a College ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... me about you, Peacocke," he said, standing up with his back to the fireplace, as soon as the other man had shut the door behind him. The Doctor's face was always expressive of his inward feelings, and at this moment showed very plainly that his sympathies were not ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... stuck his hands into his pockets, and stood in front of the fireplace in a horribly British manner while she turned over her songs. Estelle sang rather prettily. She preferred songs of a type that dealt with bitter regret over unexplained partings. She sang them with a great deal of expression and a slight difficulty ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... middle of the right wall there is a wide-mouthed fireplace, with black andirons, several iron pots, and a skillet. Above the hearth strips of leather nailed to the wall serve as holders for empty powder- horns, knives, etc. There is a pine bench by the hearth, placed so that those sitting on ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... Lord Arthur Savile had remained standing by the fireplace, with the same feeling of dread over him, the same sickening sense of coming evil. He smiled sadly at his sister, as she swept past him on Lord Plymdale's arm, looking lovely in her pink brocade and pearls, ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... chairs and tables, the press-beds, large red-checked linen curtains, the 'rock and its wee pickle tow,' the reel, the bowls on the shelves—each and all recalled my native country; and I positively should have ended by believing myself there in a dream, if not in reality, had not a glance at the fireplace undeceived me: there was no fire—all was dim, dusky, and dark; no glowing embers and cheerful pipe-clayed hearth, but iron dogs and wood-ashes where blazing coals should be. Even here, however, I could not but think of 'Caledonia stern and wild,' for there stood a real Carron 'three-leggit pat,' ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... clear, at this point, that when I say that I saw these things, I mean only that mental images of them penetrated my consciousness. I visualized them just as I could close my eyes and visualize, for example, the fireplace in the living ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... furniture van has departed, and the painters' bill has been receipted, one feels that one can now settle down to enjoy one's new surroundings. But no. The discoveries begin. This door wants a new lock on it, that fireplace wants a brick taken out, the garden is in need of something else, somebody ought to inspect the cistern. What about the drains? There are a hundred ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... night of his being at home, he wore the kilts; and he had hung his broad blue bonnet, with its sprig of juniper—the badge of the clan—on the top of one of many pikes and halberds that stood by the great fireplace. Opposite him, on the old lady's left hand, sat his cousin, or rather half-cousin, the plain-featured but large-hearted Janet, whom the poor people about that neighborhood regarded as being something more than any mere mortal woman. If there had been any young artist among that Celtic peasantry ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... so). Lady Thrum, whose figure is something like that of the shot-tower opposite Waterloo Bridge, makes a majestic inclination and a speech to signify her pleasure at receiving under her roof two of the children of Sir George's best pupils. A lady in black velvet is seated by the old fireplace, with whom a stout gentleman in an exceedingly light coat and ornamental waistcoat is talking very busily. "The great star of the night," whispers our host. "Mrs. Walker, gentlemen—the RAVENSWING! She is talking to the famous Mr. Slang, of ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and Princess of Wales in the banqueting hall at luncheon, when the boar's head and peacock in pride were carried in, and formed part of the fare, as in olden days: while once more musicians filled the minstrels' gallery, great logs blazed in the huge fireplace, and scarlet hangings were spread ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... family of domestic children, that gathers around the fireplace of his peaceful homicide in tumultudinous consanguinity, and cry with screaming and rebounding pertinacity for bread, butter, and molasses. Such is the glowing and overwhelming character and defeasance of my client, who ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... point, the evening's amusements were thoroughly successful. Richard took his smoking boots from the fireplace, and was called upon for various entertainments ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... down the hall. The drawing-room was on the ground floor, a long, dim room that would have looked like a converted studio but for the absence of bright light. A girl was sitting at the far end by the fireplace. She rose: ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... hall, to the other reception-rooms of the house. A corresponding door on the left hand gives access to the billiard-room, to the smoking-room next to it, and to a smaller hall commanding one of the secondary entrances to the building. On the left side also is the ample fireplace, surmounted by its marble mantelpiece, carved in the profusely and confusedly ornate style of eighty years since. To the educated eye the dining-room, with its modern furniture and conservatory, its ancient walls and doors, and its lofty mantelpiece (neither very old ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... Admiral Wager,(26) Sir Richard Temple,(27) Methuen,(28) etc. I was weary of their company, and stole away at five, and came home like a good boy, and studied till ten, and had a fire, O ho! and now am in bed. I have no fireplace in my bed-chamber; but 'tis very warm weather when one's in bed. Your fine cap,(29) Madam Dingley, is too little, and too hot: I will have that fur taken off; I wish it were far enough; and my old velvet cap is good for nothing. ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... stains made by rain-water. A relic, saved no doubt from the wreck of the Abbaye de Chelles, stood like an ornament on the chimney-piece. Three chairs, two boxes, and a rickety chest of drawers completed the list of the furniture, but a door beside the fireplace suggested an ...
— An Episode Under the Terror • Honore de Balzac
... white horsehair stuff out of the fireplace," said Philip, pointing to the empty grate. "It made a ...
— The Gap in the Fence • Frederica J. Turle
... only he didn't know some of the prettiest ones; I had to have books for them, and I was studying to learn enough that I could find out. Or I had ridden on the wagon with Laddie and Leon when they went to bring wood for the cookstove, outoven, and big fireplace. But to walk! To go all alone! Not that I didn't walk by myself over every other foot of the acres and acres of beautiful land my father owned; but plowed fields, grassy meadows, wood pasture, and the orchard were different. I played in them ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... cheerfully of the exams. I don't suppose you dread them much." Van lapsed into a moody silence, kicking the crumpled wrapping-paper into the fireplace. "You don't need to worry, Bob. But look at me. I'll be lucky if I squeak through at all. Of course I've never really flunked, but I've been so on the ragged edge of going under so many times that ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... experiences of the last nine hours made him actually dizzy. His thoughts rushed to one thing, then to another. Elizabeth? No, no; he could not think of her yet. His mother? No, he could not think of her, either. It occurred to him that he was cold, and getting up abruptly, he went to the fireplace, and kicked the charred sticks of driftwood together over a graying bed of ashes. Then he heard a chair pushed back overhead and a soft, tired step, and he wondered vaguely if his mother's room was comfortable. ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... fireplace looked 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)
... they said Masse, for he was no bigoted papist." The old Manor House at Dinsdale-upon-Tees has a secret room, which is very cleverly situated at the top of the staircase, to which access is gained from above. The compartment is not very large, and is between two bedrooms, and alongside of the fireplace of one of them. "It would be a very snug place when the fire was lighted," writes a correspondent of "Notes and Queries," "and very secure, as it is necessary to enter the cockloft by a trap door at the extreme end of the building, and then crawl along under the roof into the hiding-place by a second ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... fine-looking room, or so it looked to Rose after the places she had been seeing lately; evidently, from a beam across the middle of the ceiling, cut out of two. There was a fireplace with a fire in it, a big oak table and a number of easy chairs. There were two or three good rugs on the floor, and the walls were completely lined with books; the familiar buckram and leather-bound, red-labeled law-books that ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... and one of those bedsteads which turn up half way, and leave the bottom legs sticking out for you to knock your head against, or hang your hat upon; no bed, no bedding. There was an old sack, by way of rug, before the fireplace, and four or five children were grovelling about, among the sand on the floor. The execution was only put in, to get 'em out of the house, for there was nothing to take to pay the expenses; and here I stopped for ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... could look in from the street to the interior of what had evidently been a comfortable country house. It was now like an uncovered box, in the centre of which there was a conical shaped heap of ashes as high as the top of the fireplace. We could see where the stairs had been, but its entire contents had been burned down to a heap of ashes—burned as thoroughly as wood in a fireplace. I could not have believed in such absolute destruction if I had ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... a corner on a sofa a rather pretty woman, a cigarette between her jewelled fingers, was reading an evening newspaper. Two others in the adjoining room, young and attractive, their feet on the fireplace fender, conversed together over a sandwich, a glass of the widely advertised Dubonnet, and another of the equally advertised Bon Lait Maggi—as serenely and as comfortably as though they ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... house. Some three hundred years ago it had been a farm, but in the intervening years successive owners had so altered it by pulling down and building on, that, when it passed into the possession of Hartley Parrish, little else than the open fireplace in the lounge remained to tell of the original farm. It was a queer, rambling house of only two stories whose elongated shape was accentuated by the additional wing which ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... Lanarth stood Pocahontas, an expression of comical dismay upon her face, a pile of dusty volumes on the floor at her feet. The bookcase in the recess by the fireplace, with yawning doors and empty shelves, stood swept and garnished, awaiting re-possession. In a frenzy of untimely cleanliness, she had torn all the books from the repose of years, and now that the deed was beyond recall, she was a prey to disgust, and given over to repentance. ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... on her temples, staring upon the fire that flared and flickered in the deep fireplace. She had seen a wild, wicked vision there once before. It came again, as things evil never fail to come again at our bidding. Good may delay, but evil never waits. The red fire turned itself into shapes of lurid dens and caverns, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... arranged, and candles had been lit, Chris returned to stand by the fireplace beside his master, who was turning the rope lightly ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... from his as if his touch had hurt her. Her smile was the still, bloodless smile that comes with pain. She drew her chair back out of the sunlight, in the recess by the fireplace. He stood beside her then, looking at her with eyes that loved her the more for the sad hurt to her beauty. His manner recalled the shy, adolescent uncertainty ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... laughed Pilar. "I heard an American girl give a friend of hers a description of families she knew in Seville. 'You go to call,' said she; 'and if the ladies are at home (they won't be if they can help it), you're shown into a shut-up drawing-room smelling of mustiness. In front of the fireplace, if there is any, or else the brazier-table, a hard yellow or red satin sofa is drawn up, an armchair on each side. All the rest of the furniture's ranged in a straight row round the wall. It's in the afternoon, but you wait ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... tinkling wires, exactly like David's harp packed for travelling. Everything became a nick-nack in this curious room. The copper tea-kettle, burnished up to the highest point of glory, took his station on a stand of his own at the greatest possible distance from the fireplace, and said: 'By your leave, not a kettle, but a bijou.' The Staffordshire-ware butter-dish with the cover on, got upon a little round occasional table in a window, with a worked top, and announced itself to the two chairs accidentally placed there, as an aid to ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... was a tree Still growing, and on one a stake and prop, These latter about to fall. I thought that only Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks Could so forget his handiwork on which He spent himself, the labour of his axe, And leave it there far from a useful fireplace To warm the frozen swamp as best it could With the ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... had a little home of my own with the girl I love on the other side of the fireplace, and perhaps a baby in her arms—" Tribbledale as he said this looked at her ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... fragments of woolen cloth. Some of our company, whom we found in the prison, donated us the three sticks necessary to make tent-poles —wonderful generosity when the preciousness of firewood is remembered. We hoisted our blanket upon these; built a wall of mud bricks at one end, and in it a little fireplace to economize our scanty fuel to the last degree, and were once more at home, and much better off than most of ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... evening in question I had been at work on this cigar for about two hours, and had smoked one side of it three-quarters of the way down to the end, when I concluded that I had smoked enough—for one day—so I rose up to cast the other side into the fire, which was flickering fitfully in my spacious fireplace. This done, I turned about, and there, fearful to see, sat this thing grinning at me from the depths of my chair. My hair not only stood on end, but tugged madly in an effort to get away. Four hairs—I can prove the statement if it be desired—did ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... and Churchill, squatting down by the fireplace and poking the burning papers with old-fashioned irons, not until then, when there began a conversation and other pairs conversed on certain points all around the room, did I gain a clear idea of just what had happened. What they said, ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... begins, the baron, who, according to ancient custom, had finished dining by four o'clock, fell asleep as usual while his wife was reading to him the "Quotidienne." His head rested against the back of the arm-chair which stood beside the fireplace on the garden side. ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... compartments with open communication—or rather, perhaps, of a single chamber composed of recesses. One small rock they included quite: Steenie would make it serve for a table, and some of its inequalities for shelves. In one of the compartments or recesses, they contrived a fireplace, and in another a tolerably well concealed exit; for Steenie, like a trap-door-spider, could not endure the thought of only one way out: one way was enough for getting in, but two were needful for getting out, his best refuge ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... Beside this chair stood the smaller table, polished, and upon it blue and white tea things. Near the large window stood the other table, with Stefan's palette, paint tubes, and brushes in orderly array, and a plain chair beside it, while centered at that end was the model-throne. Opposite the fireplace the divan fronted the wall, obscured by Mary's steamer rug and green deck cushion. At the end of the room the heavy chest of drawers, with its dark walnut paint, faced the window, bearing the gilded mirror and a strip of embroidery. On the mantlepiece stood Mary's traveling clock and ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... cold. And the food steams in the icy air of the dining room, and you can't imagine how different it all is—with the servants bundled up like the rest of us. We keep your father warm by burning wood in the fireplace of his room, and we have given half the coal in the cellar to ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... in her manner, she arose, fumbled in her deep pocket for an ancient bunch of keys, and unlocked a cupboard on one side of the fireplace. One by one she drew them out, unrolled the soft yellow tissue-paper that enfolded them, and ranged them in a stately line on the old cherry center-table—nineteen sterling silver cups and goblets. "Abram took some of 'em on his fine stock, and I took some of 'em ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... girl—a profile brought out distinctly against the dark-red silk background of a screen, much as we see a cameo stand out in sharp relief from the glittering stone from which the artist has fashioned it. Marien looked at her from a distance, leaning against the fireplace of the farther salon, whence he could see plainly the corner shaded by green foliage plants where Jacqueline had made her niche, as she called it. The two rooms formed practically but one, being separated only by a large ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... is untouched. No restorer has laid a hand on the mouldering baize which lines the pews; no one has knocked down the hideous galleries; nobody has broken into the gallery pew in which, warmed by a fireplace and chimney in winter, the little Princess Victoria of Kent used to sit when she was allowed to visit Claremont. You may see at Esher, better than in any other Surrey church, the surroundings in which our Georgian ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... was Mr. Johnsen's first visit to Sandsgaard, Mr. Martens took him round and introduced him to each guest in succession, beginning with the ladies. When they came to the fireplace, Uncle Richard received them with his usual affability; but Rachel only gave a momentary glance at the new acquaintance, and, almost without turning her head, continued her conversation with her uncle. To her astonishment, however, she remarked that the ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... house proved very attractive. The large square hall opened into a parlour on one side and a library on the other. Back of the library was a little conservatory, and beyond that a large, light dining-room with an open fireplace. ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... the Squire's smoking-room was changed into the smoking-room of an English gentleman. There were deep easy-chairs covered with leather; there were racks for pipes, and great brass dogs before the fireplace; on the floor was a thick carpet. Nora felt as if she longed to ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... man's light overcoat, a gray fedora hat; a stick leaned below. When the master of the house went out of it this time, he hadn't needed these. Abruptly Worth turned and led the way into what I knew was the living room, with a big open fireplace in it. ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... of a plan to cheat the Devil, and the day before All-Hallowe'en he cut a very small round hole in the floor of his study, just near the fireplace, right through down to the cellar. Then he got a number of things that do great harm (newspapers, legal documents, unpaid bills, and so forth) and ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... was at once the symbol and the scene of his new life. A stranger entering would have beheld a fair-sized room, a narrow bed, two chairs, an old-fashioned table, a new wardrobe, an old dressing-table, a curious carpet and hearthrug, low bookshelves on either side of the fireplace, and a few prints and drawings, not all of them framed, on the distempered walls. A stranger might have said in its praise that it was light and airy. But a stranger could not have had the divine vision that Edwin had. Edwin looked at it and saw clearly, and with ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... here to stay. "As long as you live, father," she said; and in that very letter she told me I should always have an open fire, and how she wouldn't let Jacob put in the air-tight in the sitting-room, but had the fireplace kept on purpose. Mary Ann was a good girl always, if I remember straight, and I'm sure I don't complain. Isn't that a pine-knot at the bottom of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... good-humour in the slightest degree. In a frivolous mood he even took a feather from the dismembered hat on the table and stuck it in his hair. He took the stump of a strong cigar from his lips and, exhaling a final cloud of smoke, tossed it into the fireplace. ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... I was 'bout thirty years old. She was a bright skin nigger, much brighter than I is. She was high tempered and high spirited, too. She was sho' smart, and de best cook I has ever seen. Just plain corn bread, dat she cooked in de hot ashes of de fireplace, taste sweeter and better than de cake you buy now. But de least thing would git her temper 'roused. I has knowed her to complain wid de old hound dog us had, 'cause he didn't run some rabbits out de woods for me ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... how, on Christmas eve, as usual, she and Elsbeth's father filled the stockings of the little ones, and hung them, where they had always hung, by the fireplace. They had little heart for the task, but they had been prodigal that year in their expenditures, and had heaped upon the two tiny boys all the treasures they thought would appeal to them. They asked themselves ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie |
