"Parlour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that he was three years old he read incessantly, for the most part lying on the rug before the fire, with his book on the ground, and a piece of bread and batter in his hand. A very clever woman, who then lived in the house as parlour-maid, told how he used to sit in his nankeen frock, perched on the table by her as she was cleaning the plate, and expounding to her out of a volume as big as himself. He did not care for toys, but was very fond of taking his walk, when he would hold forth to his companion, whether ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... one o'clock a.m., and we go down six steps into what is facetiously termed a "breakfast parlour"; here we find a man and woman about sixty years of age. The woman is seated at a small table on which stands a small, evil-smelling lamp, and the man is seated at another small table, but gets no assistance from the lamp; he works in comparative gloom, for he is almost ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... the way into a neat parlour, where two ladies were seated at table; one evidently his wife, the other very young. I looked from her to the elder lady, then, springing forward, I put out my hand and exclaimed, ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... children dwelt in a city, and had no wider play-place than a little garden before the house, divided by a white fence from the street, and with a pear-tree and two or three plum-trees overshadowing it, and some rose-bushes just in front of the parlour-windows. The trees and shrubs, however, were now leafless, and their twigs were enveloped in the light snow, which thus made a kind of wintry foliage, with here and there a pendent icicle ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... servant swaggering with the scullion-girls and kitchen-people. 'The Englishman's still there, Master Redmond,' said one of the maids to me (a sentimental black-eyed girl, who waited on the young ladies). 'He's there in the parlour, with the sweetest fillet of vale; go in, and don't let him ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... but noticing in the mirror his stately figure neatly clad with a frock-coat, and his swarthy, serious face in a frame of a downy black beard, set with large dark eyes—he raised his shoulders and confidently stepped forward through the parlour. Strange sounds of a string instrument were calmly floating to meet him; they seemed to burst into quiet, cheerless laughter, complaining of something, tenderly stirring the heart, as though imploring it for attention ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... night which he was permitted to spend in the capital. When Hervagault arrived at the Rue des Ecrivains, where the Jewess lodged, she was not at home; but a pastry-cook and his wife, who had a shop close by, invited the dejected caller to rest in their parlour until his friend returned. The couple were simple; Hervagault's plausibility was as great as ever, and, little by little, he told the story of his persecution, and passed himself off as a distressed royalist. The sympathies of the honest pastry-cook ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... lordship interrogates me—I looked, idly and imprudently, into that rich buffet; and I saw, unless the haze of the weather has come into the parlour, or my sight is the worse for last night's reading, no fewer than six silver pints. Surely, six tables for company are laid only ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... I reached the great hall I heard steps approaching and, having a guilty conscience, I slipped aside into the blue parlour and hid me behind the curtains lest my ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to be on a long and wearisome journey, and to have arrived at an Inn, in which I was offered shelter and rest. The apartment given me consisted of a bedroom and parlour, communicating, and furnished in an antique manner, everything in the rooms appearing to be worm-eaten, dusty and out of date. The walls were bare and dingy; there was not a picture or an ornament in the apartment. An extremely ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... as the door stood open, in walked boldly, This child, whose name was Silverlocks, I'm told; There was nobody there to treat her coldly, No friend to call her back, no nurse to scold. She found herself within a parlour charming; And there upon the table there were placed Three basins, sending up a smell so warming, That she at once felt hungry, and must taste. The largest basin first, but hot and biting The soup was in it, and the second too; The smallest ...
— Mother Hubbard Picture Book - Mother Hubbard, The Three Bears, & The Absurd A, B, C. • Walter Crane
... which she partly withdrew, and then there was a scream from Mrs Machin, and the hat-box rolled with a terrific crash to the tiled floor, and she was ankle-deep in sovereigns. She could see sovereigns running about all over the parlour. Gradually even the most active sovereigns decided to lie down and be quiet, and a great silence ensued. Denry's ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... adjoining chairs in the parlour car, and after supplying them with picture papers and candies, he seemed to consider his responsibilities at an end, and taking his own seat, immediately buried himself ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... on the subject of certain fitnesses had changed. At Jersey Villas (it was near midnight, and Mrs. Ryves, scratching a light for her glimmering taper, had said: "Oh, yes, come in for a minute if you like!"), in her precarious parlour, which was indeed, after the brilliances of the evening, a return to ugliness and truth, she let him stand while he explained that he had certainly everything in the way of fame and fortune still to gain, but that youth and love and faith ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... "but we'll give you another invitation." She looked disappointed, and a little inclined to pout, but she waved her hand as she ran down the steps and joined the group of lace and flowers now fluttering down the side-walk towards the ice cream parlour. ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... apartment awaiting their entry. It was a sort of combination bed and sitting-room, and the table was prettily spread with high tea in the bow-window, a bunch of flowers in the midst, and a best-parlour chair on each side. Here they shared the meal by the ruddy light of the vanishing sun. But though the view had been engaged, regardless of expense, exclusively for Baptista's pleasure, she did not direct any keen attention out of the window. ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... hour when even those whose business it is to attend to the wants of others have a moment or two for themselves. In the housekeeper's room Audrey Stevens, the pretty parlour-maid, re-trimmed her best hat, and talked idly to her aunt, the cook-housekeeper of Mr. Mark ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... warder in the hall; but an old-fashioned country establishment where they cook your breakfast exactly as you like it, and give you sound ale and a four-poster. At least, so thought Arthur, as he sat in the private parlour smoking his pipe and reflecting on the curious vicissitudes of existence. Now, here he was, with all the hopes and interests of his life utterly changed in a single space of six-and- twenty hours. Why, six-and-twenty hours ago, he had never met his respected guardian, nor Sir John and Lady Bellamy, ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... of the whole family succeeded in dragging Mrs. Meyer from the hall into the parlour, where they compelled her to sit down, and made her understand, at last, that she was to live there. At first she insisted upon sleeping on the floor; then, in the kitchen among the servants; finally, she begged and prayed that, if they were ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... unknown paths of viciousness. The average New Yorker would hear with surprise from the Rockefeller Report on Commercialized Prostitution in New York City that the commission has visited in Manhattan a hundred and forty parlour houses, twenty of which were known to the trade as fifty-cent houses, eighty as one-dollar houses, six as two-dollar houses, and thirty-four as five-and ten-dollar houses. Yet the chances are great that essentially persons with serious interests in ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... dashed Memyrandum. A look In his heye seems to tell me that he too enjoys bringing BUMBLE to book, As the Times—I'm serprised at that paper!—most pleasantly puts it to-day. My friend BONES the Butcher too! Moses! wot would my old parlour-chum say If he saw me a nailing a Notice—but no, that's too horrid a dream. I must be a 'aving a Nightmare, and things cannot be wot they seem. I could do with mere Laws—bye or hother-wise—Hacts, jest like Honours, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... parlour that was Mrs. Page's bedroom was a rather dim and dreary place; such light as it had fell through one long, high window that gave only upon a narrow air shaft; it was only in mid-July that the actual sunlight—a bright ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... Occasionally, he went out to a near-by eating house for a lonely feast. His rooms usually reeked with the odour of boiled coffee, burnt cabbage and grease, pungent chemicals and long-suffering bed linen. Of his "front" room, it may be said that it was kitchen, dining-room, parlour, library, workshop, laboratory and conservatory. Four flower-pots in which as many geraniums existed with difficulty, despite Droom's constant and unswerving care, occupied a conspicuous place on the window-sills ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... contributed classic literature to our book-shelves. He worked hard—wrote thirty-five books. There is genius in hard work alone. I have often thought that women pursue more of it than men. They work night and day, year in and year out, from kitchen to parlour, from ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... enough in to cover the bulb one-third of the way up, less rather than more; let the water be soft, change it once a week, and put in a pinch of salt every time you change it. Keep the glasses in a place moderately warm, and near to the light. A parlour window is a very common place for them, but is often too warm, and brings on the plants too early, and causes them ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... of it!" he added, his face brightening. "There's a shell in Mr. Scraper's parlour, on the mantelpiece, and sometimes when he goes to sleep I can get it for a minute, and hold it to my ear, and then I hear the sound, the ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... 'will you tell me if this is a new parlour game, or are these actual troopers who are a little more idiotic than ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... one's self, who had land very much hir's part. It want to have not any indulgence towards the bat buffoons. Have you seen already the new tragedy? They praise her very much. It is multitude already. Never I had seen the parlour so full. This actor he make very well her part. That piece is full of interest. It have wondered the spectadors. The curtains let down. ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... hour later there was a knock at the front door, and a few minutes after his mother called him down. He ran down to the parlour, ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... Marcia's parlour. Rosalind was an orphan, and lived in turn with her three aunts. She said the other two were less unendurable than Aunt Marcia, and I believed her. I consider, to begin with, that a person is not ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... inviting hall, with its glimpse of cheerful dining-room beyond, and a large cool parlour opening at the side, I felt that Trent might well have sought quarters in this roomy, airy house; and when the 'lady of the house,' a woman small, elderly, delicate, and refined, appeared before me, ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... other members of the family arrived, Mary and Alice and their brother Mark, a young man of thirty, who looked hard-working and reticent, and had large moustachios. They stopped almost on the threshold as they perceived there were strangers in the parlour, then they recognised their long-lost sister; but, embarrassed by the presence of the strange gentleman, as well as by the startling fact of her presence, they stood hesitant and rather shame-faced. Cleo smiled at them encouragingly, whereupon her sisters came tripping over ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... curtains, an arrangement of some carefully selected antique ornaments in porcelain and bronze, new coverings, and mirrors, and dressing-cases, for the toilet tables, answered the end: they looked fresh without being glaring. A spare parlour and bedroom I refurnished entirely, with old mahogany and crimson upholstery: I laid canvas on the passage, and carpets on the stairs. When all was finished, I thought Moor House as complete a model of bright modest snugness ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... she, taking a key from her pocket, and unlocking a door on the landing, led him into a room to which his back-parlour was a paradise. She offered him the only chair in the room, and took her place on the edge of the bed, which showed a clean but much-worn patchwork quilt. Charley slept on the bed, and she on a shake-down in the corner. The room was ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... events than she had done in the town; and she had made such rapid progress under Madam Beck's tuition, that the latter's supervision was in many things no longer required. One part in particular, the one which she might have been expected to find the most difficult of all—that of parlour-maid—she filled to perfection; and her upright figure and expressive face attracted many an admiring glance on Sundays, when in her becoming striped chintz dress and white apron, and with her luxuriant hair turned up in the simplest manner, she carried the tea ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... a proportion of these simple democratic cars are inscribed with the word "White," whereby nine million people are excluded. But to this original even-handed treatment there was speedily added a more sumptuous type of car, the parlour car, accessible to extra dollars; and then came special types of train, all made up of parlour cars and observation cars and the like. In England nearly every train remains still first, second and third, or first ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... could my old friend Sir Charles mean by recommending his son as the modestest young man in town? To me he appears the most impudent piece of brass that ever spoke with a tongue. He has taken possession of the easy chair by the fire-side already. He took off his boots in the parlour, and desired me to see them taken care of. I'm desirous to know how his impudence affects my daughter. She will ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... great physical strength. He enjoyed several years of quiet domestic life before the end came, and lingered for some months after the fatal illness seized him. At times he would rally, so that he could walk abroad a little, or sit up in the small parlour of the house in Willow Lane, wearing an old regimental coat, and with his dog at his feet. He used to have long talks with George on such occasions, and would relate to him stories of his past life, and the distinguished people he had met. "He had frequently conversed—almost on terms of ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... these comestibles, we made the adjournment to a luxuriously upholstered parlour, circled with plush-seated chairs and adorned with countless mirrors, and there we began to beg the question at issue, to-whit, "To what extent has Ibsen (if any) contributed towards the cause of Female Emancipation?" which was opened by a weedy, ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... Wild gave Turner the account of how the burglary was committed, which he afterwards explained to the witnesses. When the L500 was all brought, Wild and White carried it to Turner's house, and threw it down on the floor of his parlour, promising to bring the rest of the money and the jewels the next day. White then objected that the men who had them would not come into the city, and it was arranged that they should bring them to ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... benignantly, and would have said something no doubt worth hearing, but at that moment the door opened, and his old cook and elderly parlour-maid—no breath of scandal ever troubled the serene fair fame of his household, and everyone allowed that, in the prudential virtues, at least, he was nearly perfect—and Sleddon the groom, walked in, with those sad faces which, I suppose, were first learned in the belief that ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... I am sure she will see you on business; she will only be too proud. If you will be kind enough to step in here for two minutes." Then Miss Anne, having deposited the major in the little parlour, ran upstairs with her message to her sister. "Of course it's about Grace Crawley" she said to herself as she went. "It can't be about anything else. I wonder what it is he's going to say. If he's going to pop, and the father in all this trouble, he's the finest fellow that ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... the Superior's parlour one day for something, and found Jane Ray there alone, looking into a book with an appearance of interest. I asked her what it was, but she made some trifling answer, and laid it by, as if unwilling to let me take it. There are two bookcases ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... unwillingly that Tom consented, but I overruled his entreaties, and he remained. I walked to Mary's house and entered. She was up in the little parlour, dressed in deep mourning; when I entered she was looking out upon the river; she turned her head, and perceiving me, rose ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... pulled at the wire rope, and they mounted together. On the way up he had time to explain that the clerk, who usually ran the elevator when they had no elevator-boy, had kicked, and they were just between hay and grass, as you might say. He showed Lemuel into a grandiose parlour or drawing-room, enormously draped and upholstered, and furnished in a composite application of yellow jute and red plush to the ashen easy-chairs and sofa. A folding-bed in the figure of a chiffonier attempted to occupy the whole side of the wall ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... Emeline yesterday. I saw her in the parlour, and asked her to excuse Emeline, as she was a little indisposed. It is true, I had to fib a little. But that was better than a renewal of an acquaintance that ought now to cease. She seemed a little hurt, but ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... following lines on a scroll within a kind of wreath, which hung over the chimney, the whole parlour being decorated with branches of ivy, which were made to run down the walls and hang down every pannel in festoons, at a ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various
... kind—ploughing or digging, for instance, with a very moderate allowance of beer; nothing hut bread and cheese for dinner; no papers nor muffins in the morning; no sofas nor magazines at night; one small room for parlour and kitchen; and a large family of children always in the middle of the floor. If we think we could, under these circumstances, enact Socrates or Epaminondas entirely to our own satisfaction, we shall be somewhat justified in requiring the same behaviour ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... administrations conducted in this spirit the whole South was given up to plunder. The looting went on persistently and on a scale almost unthinkable. The public debts reached amazing figures, while Negro legislators voted each other wads of public money as a kind of parlour game, amid ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... after a night of little sleep. Very cautiously, with one hand feeling the wall, and in the other carrying his boots, lest he should wake the Penhaligons, he stole downstairs to his parlour. The day being Sunday, he could not dare to risk outraging public opinion by carrying shovel or visgy through the open streets. To be sure nobody was likely to be astir at that hour: for Polpier lies late abed on Sunday mornings, the fishermen ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... fast disappearing. One of my near relatives was locked into a first floor parlour in Whitechapel, without hat or shoes, to prevent his going to hear Mr. Whitefield; but, at the risk of being turned out of doors by his parents, he escaped out of the window, by clinging to the rain water-pipe, and enjoyed the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... beyond the languid pleasure of sitting on the grass after a burning day and listening to the plash of water and the tuning of instruments; the same thought and emotion, the same interest and pleasure, being equally obtainable from an inn-parlour oleograph. Then, as regards scientific interest and pleasure, there may be days when the diarist will be quite delighted with a hideous picture, because it affords some chronological clue, or new point of comparison. "This dates such or such a style"—"Plein Air ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... came, and then, to his great delight, he found that instead of being banished to a room somewhere away upstairs, he was to be put in a curious bed, that filled a corner of the parlour in which the family sat. Bert had never seen anything like that bed before. It looked just like a closet, but when you opened the closet door, behold, there was a bed, and a very comfortable one, too. Just behind the parlour, with a door between, was the ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... he said, pushing past her, and looking first into the parlour and then into the kitchen. 'Is she upstairs, mother? ...
— Poppy's Presents • Mrs O. F. Walton
... are so bad, you see, Miss Mohun,' she added, as she ushered them into a somewhat stuffy little parlour, carpeted and bedecked with all manner of knick-knacks, photographs, and framed certificates of various societies of temperance and providence on the gaily-papered walls. The girl lay on a couch near the fire, a sallow creature, with a big overhanging ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... can step in here if you like," said Tanner very discourteously; "there's only my wife:" and he led the way to the inner room, a small close parlour adorned with portraits of Tom Paine, Cobbett, Thistlewood, and General Jackson; with a fire, though it was a hot July, and a very fat woman affording still more heat, and who was drinking shrub and water and reading the police reports. She stared rudely ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... frightened sister and his daughter, and ran for the doctor.... Meantime it was nearly morning; Kolosov was almost dropping with fatigue. With the permission of Matrona Semyonovna, he lay down on the sofa in the parlour, and slept till eight o'clock. On waking up he would at once have gone home; but they kept him and gave him some tea. In the night he had twice succeeded in catching a glimpse of the pale face of Varvara Ivanovna; he had not particularly noticed her, but in ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Yes, and you're gettin' as much as my husband is, and your wife left you seven years ago and you livin' on the fat of the land; Steinwitz's pool parlour ...
— The Gibson Upright • Booth Tarkington
... act, too," I said. "I am now going over to invite the Starkweathers. I heard a rumor that their cook has left them and I expect to find them starving in their parlour. Of course they'll be very haughty and proud, but I'll be tactful, and when I go away I'll casually leave a diamond ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... BLACK were in chapel, too. They were Dons, older than BOB, but his intimate friends. They had but little belief, but BLACK often preached, and BRIGHAM held undecided views on life and matrimony, having been brought up in the cramped atmosphere of a middle-class parlour. At Oxford, the two took pupils, and helped to shape BOB's life. Once BRIGHAM had pretended, as an act or pure benevolence, to be a Pro-Proctor, but as he had a sardonic scorn, and a face which could become a marble mask, the Vice-Chancellor called upon ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... sentiment about feeding the birds (Les Petits Oiseaux is the title of the old French piece, if I remember rightly) in a rather too forcedly ingenuous manner, but behaving most naturally in the interrupted courtship scene, and being generally very sympathetic. I mustn't omit Miss HUNTER, pink of parlour-maids, not the conventional flirty soubrette nor the low-comedy waiting-woman, but a self-respecting, responsible young person, conscious of her own and her young man's moral rectitude, and satisfied with quarter-day and the ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... over to Troop's eighteen-hundred-dollar, white house, with a retired dory full in the front yard and a shuttered parlour which was a museum of oversea plunder. There sat a large woman, silent and grave, with the dim eyes of those who look long to sea for the return of their beloved. Cheyne addressed himself to her, ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... Eights must have suggested the blue ribbon which the University Crew wear on their straw hats. Thus the diabolical forces of heredity were roused to fever-heat, and the great-great uncle, with his blue ribbon, whose photograph hung in GEORGE's home over the parlour mantelpiece, became a living ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 13, 1890 • Various
... was clad in gray armozine, a sort of corded stuff, with red buttons, and he wore a red turban. As my aunt was gone to drive, on a visit to that Madam Penn who was once Miss Allen, I was in no hurry, and was glad to look about me. The parlour, a great room with three windows on the street, afforded a strange contrast to my sober home. There were Smyrna rugs on a polished floor, a thing almost unheard of. Indeed, people came to see them. The furniture was all of red ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... recognized the voice, and with a loud cry of delight threw her arms round his neck. The cry brought Carry out from the parlour. "Why, Harriet," she exclaimed, "have you ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... her heart on the day when he "went into trousers." Then it was the big boy in her father's shop who gave her chocolates one day and snubbed her cruelly the next. Then it was the young man who came to tune the piano in the back parlour. Then the arithmetic master in the little boarding-school they sent her to. And then (for Maggie's infatuations rose rapidly in the social scale) it was one of the young gentlemen who "studied" at the Vicarage. He was engaged to Maggie for a whole term; and he went away and jilted ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... in lieu of window framed and glazed it had a great black wooden flap or shutter, nearly breast high from the ground, which turned back in the day-time, admitting as much cold air as light, and very often more. Behind this shop was a wainscoted parlour, looking first into a paved yard, and beyond that again into a little terrace garden, raised some feet above it. Any stranger would have supposed that this wainscoted parlour, saving for the door of communication by which he had entered, was cut off and detached from all ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... thinking, worthy, as he claimed, to be called Copernican; our cultural habits change until marooned communities in the Kentucky mountains, "our contemporary ancestors," having let the stream of human life flow around and past them, seem as strange to us as a belated what-not in a modern parlour. The perception of this fact of progressive change is one of the regnant influences in our modern life and, strangely enough, so far from disliking it, we glory in it; in our expectancy we count on change; with our control of life we seek ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... in a week as would pay his rent for a year. There was also a small garden, with several pretty flowers; and the "tallest rose tree," was not failed to be pointed out, which "peeped at the chamber window," (and which has been honoured with some beautiful lines). I observed, however, that the parlour, from my perverted taste, looked rather awkward in being only whitewashed, and the same effected in rather the "olden time;" to remedy which fanciful inconvenience, on my return to Bristol, I sent an upholsterer[8] ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... many people in England are not daunted but depressed by the military successes of the enemy. Our soldiers in the field are not depressed. But we who are kept at home suffer from the miasma of the back-parlour. We read the headlines of newspapers—a form of literature that is exciting enough, but does not merit the praise given to Sophocles, who saw life steadily and saw it whole. We keep our ears to the telephone, and we forget that the great causes ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... a loss what to do, and led the lady with evident uneasiness to a chair in the entrance hall. "If you will give me leave," he then said, "I will attend you into the parlour, and order ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... pulled the person, whom he welcomed so cordially, into a sort of kitchen, which served also upon ordinary occasions the office of parlour. Its ornaments were trenchers of pewter, mixed with a silver cup or two, which, in the highest degree of cleanliness, occupied a range of shelves like those of a beauffet, popularly called "the bink." A ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... smoking room and then went to his own quarters. In reality he was Somewhat puzzled in his mind by a projection of the beauties of Nora Black upon his desire for Greece and Marjory, His thoughts formed a duality. Once he was on the point of sending his card to Nora Black's parlour, inasmuch as Greece was very distant and he could not start until the morrow. But he suspected that he was holding the interest of the actress because of his recent appearance of impregnable serenity in the presence of her fascinations. If he now sent his card, it was a form ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... and so again loved something of him. For there was nothing at all about him not to be beloved. Ah! I think how interested he would have been with all this Persian: and how we should have disputed over parts and expressions over a glass of his Shiraz wine (for he had some) in his snug Parlour, or in his Cornfields when the Sun fell upon the latest Gleaners! He is dead, and you will go where he lived, to ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... been so recently translated from the kitchen to the parlour, pricked up her ears at this, not doubting that the letter would contain something very grand and wonderful, and exclaimed, "Gude safe's, let's hear't—I'm unco fond to ken about London, and the king and the queen; but I believe ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... Spong has long ceased to have dealings. She hangs a certain piece of cardboard, with 'Lodgings to Let,' printed in school-girl print, unconscious of straight lines, across it; and this act of public notification, coupled with anxious peepings over the blinds of the parlour front, is all the intercourse which she and the world of men hold together. Every now and then, indeed, a mangy cab may be seen driving up to her worn-out step; and dingy individuals, of the kind who travel about with small square boxes, covered with marbled paper, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... unlucky Londoner and his tawdrily-dressed wife, appeared to have toiled up the hill, with their family of four children, to a friend's cottage, the door of which is opened by an old housekeeper, with "Master's out," while the host himself is peeping over the parlour window-blind at the disappointment of his would-be visitors. The annoyance of the husband at the inhospitable answer, and the fatigue of his fine wife, are cleverly managed; while the mischievous pranks of the urchin family among the borders of the flower-garden remind ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... and the elder came in. He had called for her on his way home; for he liked the society of the young and beautiful, and there were many hours in which he thought Joanna fairer than her sister. Then tea was served in a pretty parlour with Turkish walls and coloured windows, which, being open into the garden, framed lovely living pictures of blossoming trees. Every one was eating and drinking, laughing and talking; so Katherine's unusual silence was unnoticed, except by the elder, who indeed saw and heard ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... some more admirable examples of the English Eighteenth Century School. Faithful to my promise, I pronounced every one of them to be little gems, unsurpassed by anything in the private collections of America or Europe. We passed into the drawing-room and parlour with the same success. In the latter apartment the Colonel, grasping my arm, said impressively: "Now you will see our great treasure, the Brodie Vandyck, of which Flora has so often told you. I have never lent it for ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... because it talks about real people, not ideals; it does not muse of the Prince Charming meeting the Fairy Princess, and forget the devoted wife meeting her husband on the villa doorstep with open arms and a nice dinner in the parlour. Sentiment must be based on reality if it is to have worth. This is the strong point, for our ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... have to say will only take a minute. I reckon she won't mind, even if she has got company. It—well, I've got to see her some way." And taking the tray of frail, dainty cups and saucers Cassy brought her, she started with it to the parlour. ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... the convent was assembled about some business of their chapter, she heard Gillian announce that the kinsman of the Lord Constable desired to speak with her. She snatched up the veil, which she wore in compliance with the customs of the house, and hastily descended to the parlour, commanding the attendance of Gillian, who, nevertheless, did not think ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... minute they were seated alone in the parlour, and Jerry guardedly stretched out his hand to touch ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... yourself at home, Miss; then I'll serve tea in the sitting parlour; all quite your own and no fear of intrusion. I'm host and servant to my guests. I never trust ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... few days after these events that the presence of Lady Agnes de Clarenham was requested in the parlour of her nunnery, which was some miles distant from Bordeaux, by a person who, as the porteress informed her, was the bearer of a message from the Princess of Wales. She descended accordingly, but her surprise was great on beholding, instead of one of the female attendants of her mistress ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tells us this story in the late autumn evenings. Now the harvest is in, huge haycocks shelter the gable, the honey is strained and put by in jars, the apples are ripened and stored; the logs begin to sputter and sing in the big parlour at evening, hot cakes to steam on the tea-table, and the pleasant lamp-lit hours to spread themselves. Indoor things begin to have meaning looks of their own, our limbs grow quiet, and our brains begin to work. The moors beyond the ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... the parlour-maid announced to Brodrick in his study that Miss Winny and Mr. Eddy had called. They were in the dining-room. When Brodrick asked if Mrs. Brodrick was with them he was told that the young gentlemen had said ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... 17th, by a note of invitation, we met a number of noblemen and gentlemen, interested in the progress of African Regeneration, in the parlour of Dr. Hodgkin, F.R.G.S., among whom were the Lord Alfred S. Churchill, Chairman; Right Hon. Lord Calthorpe; Hon. Mr. Ashley, brother of the Earl of Shaftesbury; Colonel Walker; Charles Buxton, Esq., M.P.; ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... arrived here safe—it is a wonderful place, a small city of palaces amidst hills, rocks, and woods, and is full of fine people. Please to carry up stairs and lock in the drawer the little paper sack of letters in the parlour; lock it up with the bank book and put this along with it—also be sure to keep the window of my room fastened and the door locked, and keep the key in your pocket. God bless you ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... crinolines archly accepting tea, or refusing sips of shrub (whatever that may be) with whiskered gentlemen. There was a large cage full of Persian pheasants with gorgeous Indian colouring, which always suggested to Vaughan—he didn't know why—the Crimean War. There was a parlour covered with coloured prints of racehorses and boxing matches, and in which was a little round table painted as a draught-board, and furnished with a set of Indian chessmen of red and white ivory. The whole thing, though only twenty minutes' drive from Mayfair, was ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... leave unasked I quit the barrack, Ever behind I dread that he will call, Speed up the street in some avenging Darracq Or on the Underground retrieve his thrall; Nor in my home can quite escape the spell But freeze with horror at the front-door bell, For fear the parlour-maid may speak my knell, May knock and say that he is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various
... was not a publisher by nature. He had drifted into the trade and success, but beneath a polish of acquaintance retained a fine awe for a book as such. In early life he had had such shining things on a shiny table in a parlour. He had a similar awe for his daughter, who had been born after his entry into the trade, and who had the literary flavour—a flavour so pronounced that he dragged her by the heels into any conversation with us who hewed his raw material, expecting, I suppose, to cow us. For the greater ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... window-frames in one continuous stream. A thick mist hung upon the panes of glass like a gauze veil, intersected by innumerable channels of water, which looked like a pattern of open work left in the dingy material. The shutters of our once populous parlour were half-closed; and admitted into the large, deserted apartment only a portion of this obscure light. The hearse destined to convey the remains of my dear mother to their last, long resting-place, was drawn up at the door. I saw it looming through the ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... had set up lodgings in the suburb of Putney, where he enjoyed a parlour and bedroom and the sincere esteem of the people of the house. To this remote home he found himself, at a very early hour in the morning of the next day, condemned to set forth on foot. He was a young man of a portly habit; no lover of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... but clean, and his own little girl was playing on the hearthrug with her cups and saucers. And before we were aware of it two little tongues were cackling and gobbling together, and the little back-parlour was rippling over with a merry twitter. The doctor stood and looked down at the children, and his eyes shone with a glassy light. 'You are very good, sir,' he said, 'but she is good too, and she'll be a great comfort and joy to you ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... better begin by hiring an increased apartment, ma'am," said Sukey, in a dubious voice. "I don't say nothing against this parlour, but it ain't to say large. How will you ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... She then gently works a punkah, which we have not hitherto observed, and stands at attention. No doubt she is in hopes that the Gov. will enter into conversation with her, but she is too good a parlour-maid to let her hopes appear in her face. We may watch her manner with complete approval. There is not one of us who would not give her L26 ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... again, her father had married another wife. This new wife had two daughters of her own, that she brought home with her: they were fair in face but foul at heart, and it was now a sorry time for the poor little girl. "What does the good-for-nothing thing want in the parlour?" said they; "they who would eat bread should first earn it; away with the kitchen maid!" Then they took away her fine clothes, and gave her an old frock to put on, and laughed at her and turned ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... door and started at first with my old astonishment, with which I had woke up, so strange and beautiful did this interior seem to me, though it was but a pothouse parlour. A quaintly-carved side board held an array of bright pewter pots and dishes and wooden and earthen bowls; a stout oak table went up and down the room, and a carved oak chair stood by the chimney-corner, now filled by a very old man dim-eyed ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... King was in his counting house Counting out his money, The Queen was in the parlour ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... to our work on board—days when we rowed the big boat through the Narrows to Port Stanley and idled about the 'town,' while the Old Man and Mr. Fordyce were transacting business (under good conditions) in the bar-parlour of the Stanley Arms. We made many friends on these excursions. The Falklanders have warm hearts, and down there the Doric is the famous passport. We were welcome everywhere, though Munro and I had to do most of the talking. It was something for the Islanders to learn ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... sir," answered Malcolm, and went to find Miss Horn. He was shown into the little parlour, which, for all the grander things he had been amongst of late, had lost nothing of its first charm. There sat ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... it that our fervours Did quite fail Of future consummation - Being made quail By the weird witchery of the parlour's hidden tale, ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... am I to tell you to leave my matches on the mantel-shelf?" snapped Lancelot. "You seem to delight to hide them away, as if I had time to play parlour ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... external appearance, and particularly in those dialects of the English language which are used by the terrestrial animals of this kingdom. He desired the ostler to take his horse in tow, and bring him to his moorings in a safe riding. He ordered the waiter, who showed them into a parlour, to bear a hand, ship his oars, mind his helm, and bring alongside a short allowance of brandy or grog, that he might cant a slug into his bread-room, for there was such a heaving and pitching, that he believed he should shift his ballast. The fellow understood no part of this address ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... home by Miss Evelyn shaking me to rouse me up. I stumbled up, but though partially stupefied, I fancied Miss Evelyn's eyes shone with a brilliancy I had never before observed, and that there was a bright hectic flush on her cheek. She refused to go into the parlour, but hurried to bed on ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... Westminster, and was slowly returning to my 'parlour near the sky,' in Plowden Buildings, in no very enviable frame of mind. Another added to the long catalogue of unemployed days and sleepless nights. It was now four years since my call to the bar, and notwithstanding a constant attendance ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... they begged I would quickly enter the house, and, as usual, make them welcome. This intelligence afforded me the liveliest satisfaction. In fifteen minutes, after a hearty shaking of hands, I was seated with them in the parlour; all of us admiring the unusual splendour of the evening sky, and, in consequence, partaking of the common topics of conversation with ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... days, those august shocks of experience and insight of which any man who loves and worships art, however fitfully, can register a few. There is a little picture of Keats, done, I think, after his death by Severn, which represents him sitting in the tiny parlour of Wentworth Place, with the window open to the orchard, where, under the plum-tree, he wrote the Ode to the Nightingale. He sits on one chair, with his arm on the back of another, his hand upon his hair, reading a volume of Shakespeare with ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... hurried in. Mr Squeers, having bolted the door to keep it shut, ushered him into a small parlour scantily furnished with a few chairs, a yellow map hung against the wall, and a couple of tables; one of which bore some preparations for supper; while, on the other, a tutor's assistant, a Murray's grammar, half-a-dozen cards of terms, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... become so engrossed in her pleasant occupation, as to take little heed of what was going on about her, and all Fanny's exclamations of discontent were lost on her. Graeme was writing letters in the back parlour, and Mrs Snow was supposed to be taking her after-dinner's rest, up-stairs, but she came into the room in time to ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... her commiseration had by this time entered the dining-parlour, where his appearance gave great surprise. He was mud up to the' shoulders, and the natural paleness of his hue was twice as cadaverous as usual, through terror, fatigue, and perturbation of mind. "What on earth is the meaning of this, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... the Citizen was at home, a servant, not in livery, informed us Monsieur was dressing, but that if we would walk in, he would let Monsieur know we were there. We passed through a dining parlour, where we saw the remains of a dessert, coffee, &c. and were assailed by the odours of a plentiful repast. As we entered the saloon, we heard the servant call at the door of an adjoining parlour, "Monsieur, voici deux Citoyennes et un Citoyen qui vous demandent." ["Sir, here ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... interest you. You are to scheme to surprise gossip about the private lives, dress, and talk of artists, men of letters, politicians. Your professional work will sink below the level of servants' gossip in a public-house parlour. If you happen to meet a man of known name, you will watch him, will listen to him, will try to sneak into his confidence, and you will blab, for money, about him, and your blab will inevitably be ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... From out the past she comes again; The westering sunshine in a pool Floats in her parlour still and cool; While the slim bird its lean wires shakes, As into piercing song it breaks; Till Peter's pale-green eyes ajar Dream, wake; wake, dream, in one brief bar; And I am sitting, dull and shy, And ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... how is he? Not much the matter, I hope?" said the doctor, as he shook hands with the titled mistress of Boxall Hill in a small breakfast-parlour in the rear of the house. The show-rooms of Boxall Hill were furnished most magnificently, but they were set apart for company; and as the company never came—seeing that they were never invited—the ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... much facilitated, for the doors were left open for the workmen, and thus he easily managed to enter the otherwise inaccessible inclosure, making his way, now to the choir, now to the refectory, now to the parlour grate, and everywhere announcing his presence by the plaintive cry, "Give me back my mother! Give me back my mother!" She tried to appease his childish grief by little presents given her for the purpose, but the tempest ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... countenance; he wore a laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with roses in them. The whole group reminded Rip of the figures in an old Flemish painting in the parlour of Dominie Van Shaick, the village parson, which had been brought over from Holland at the time ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... in the little square parlour of a country inn where the floor was only polished boards, and where long wooden trestles ran on two sides of ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... many such houses are yet to be found, monuments of the "Bad Old Times"—memorials of the "Dark Ages"—when lath and stucco existed not, and the "Jerry-builder" had no being. But where, among them all, might be found such another parlour as this at Dapplemere, with its low, raftered ceiling, its great, carved mantel, its panelled walls whence old portraits looked down at one like dream faces, from dim, and nebulous backgrounds. And where might be found two such bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked, ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... proportion to the living rooms as Falstaff's gallon of sack to his halfpennyworth of bread. No doubt there are persons whom this style of house exactly suits, the portico represents their pride, the parlour their economy. What was intended for the Walsall public library consists of a thin closet behind a gigantic Ionic portico, now tottering to its fall; and in like manner a perfectly dungeon-like effect has been given to the principal hotel by another portico, which affords ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... the streets—run the chance of being seen with such a friend? Respectability confabulating with offal?—disgrace! And Jasper had on the last two or three visits been peculiarly disagreeable. He had talked loud. Poole feared that his wife might have her ear at the keyhole. Jasper had seen the parlour-maid in the passage as he went out, and caught her round the waist. The parlour-maid had complained to Mrs. Poole, and said she would leave if so insulted by such an ugly blackguard. Alas! what the poor lady-killer has come to! Mrs. ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dinners, sleeping on truckle beds, stalking from desolation to desolation, and fully prepared to believe the strangest things that could be told him of a people, wild and extravagant enough to be attached to scenery so extraordinary. But the same worthy person, when placed in his own snug parlour, and surrounded by all the comforts of an Englishman's fireside, is not half so much disposed to believe that his own ancestors led a very different life from himself; that the shattered tower, which now forms a vista ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... farmhouses which seem always to be in danger of falling into the neighbouring horse-pond. As it crept downwards from house to stables, from stables to barns, from barns to cowsheds, and from cowsheds to dungheaps, one could hardly tell where one began and the other ended! There was a parlour in which my father lived, shut up among big books; but I passed my most jocund hours in the kitchen, making innocent love to the bailiff's daughter. The farm kitchen might be very well through the evening, when the horrors of the school were over; but it all added to the cruelty ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... waiting for her. "This way," he said excitedly, when she would have gone into the kitchen, and he flung open the door of what had been his warping-room. The warping-mill was gone—everything that had been there was gone. What met the delighted eyes of Elspeth and Tommy was a cozy parlour, which became a bedroom when you opened that other door. "You are a leddy now, Elspeth," Aaron said, husky with pride, "and you have a leddy's room. Do ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... in Killesky. If the old people remembered Julia Dowd's little public-house with its thatched roof, the low ceiling and the fire of turf to which you could draw a chair while you had your drink, the little parlour beyond which was reserved for customers of a superior station, they did not talk ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... horses should return, was the only remedy; the host, assuring the travellers that he expected four horses every moment, invited them within. The morning was cold, and the fire not unacceptable to Mr. Cleveland; so they went into the little parlour. Here they found an elderly gentleman of very prepossessing appearance, who was waiting for the same object. He moved courteously from the fireplace as the travellers entered, and pushed the "B——-shire Chronicle" towards Cleveland: Cleveland bowed urbanely. "A cold ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book V • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... sxelo—ajxo. Parish parohxo. Parishioner parohxano. Parish-priest parohxestro. Parity egaleco. Park parko. Parley paroladi. Parliament, house of parlamentejo. Parliamentary parlamenta. Parlour parolejo. Parochial parohxa. Parody parodio. Parole parolo je la honoro. Paroxysm frenezo, frenezado. Parricide patromortiginto. Parroquet papageto. Parrot papago. Parry lerte eviti, skermi. Parsimony ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... around. The elevator had just gone down at its usual rate of a mile every two hours. In the convalescent parlour, where private patients en negligee complained about the hospital food, the nurse in charge was making a new cap. Over all the hospital brooded an ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... way, what a delightful Series will be these views of European cities for the walls of a cheerful breakfast parlour, or to alternate with well-filled cases of books. How pleasant it will be to sit in one's arm-chair, and look around upon "the principal cities of Europe." We say "for the walls," since these Prints are too valuable to be hid in folios, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... find, but soon they stood stupefied in front of some charred timbers which were once their house. They did not weep, but just stared in a dazed way. They picked over the ashes and found burnt bits of former treasures— the baby's cot, the old grandfather's chair, the parlour clock. Or they went into houses still standing neat and perfect, and found that some insanity of rage had smashed up all their household, as though baboons had been at play or fighting through the rooms. The chest of drawers had been looted or its contents tumbled out ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs |
