"Threshold" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brisk wakefulness was excellent company when he rattled the change of halfpence down upon that metal table of his, like a man who defied the night, with all its sorrowful thoughts, and didn't care for the coming of dawn. There was need of encouragement on the threshold of the bridge, for the bridge was dreary. The chopped-up murdered man, had not been lowered with a rope over the parapet when those nights were; he was alive, and slept then quietly enough most likely, and undisturbed by any dream of where he ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... concerning his treatment of her, familiar to every ear in the neighbourhood but his own. He believed political and religious differences alone separated him and Mr. Yorke. Had he known how the case really stood, he would hardly have been induced by any persuasion to cross his former rival's threshold. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... sound, listening to the lightest footfalls: strong and clear, Basilio; light and irregular, Crispin—thus she mused. The kalao called in the woods several times after the rain had ceased, but still her sons did not come. She put the fishes inside the pot to keep them warm and went to the threshold of the hut to look toward the road. To keep herself company, she began to sing in a low voice, a voice usually so sweet and tender that when her sons listened to her singing the kundiman they wept ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... They took the management at the very threshold of our government, and, excepting the rigidly just administration of Washington, they have kept it ever since. They claimed slave representation and obtained it. For their convenience the revenues were ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... extent, a true phonetic writing—one in which the figures refer not to the thought, but to the sound of the thought. Others are not ready to concede that point. They could not have been further along than the threshold of the discovery, at all events. The Spanish missionaries were very desirous of teaching the Indians the Pater-noster, the Ave-Maria, and the Credo. Either the Indians themselves, or the priests (probably the latter), hit on the device of using painted symbols for the words and ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... single night here, if thou wilt spend the second, the events of the night will be different from those that have happened to thee in the day-time, O most righteous of Bharata's race! Today we shall spend the night at this very spot. O scion of Bharata's race! this is the threshold of the field of the Kurus. O king! At this very spot, the monarch Yayati, son of Nahusha, performed sacrificial rites, and made gifts of an abundance of gems. And Indra was pleased with those sacred rites. This is an excellent holy bathing-place on the river ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... at the threshold of his house, with a smiling face, glad to see him once more, "clothed and in his right mind," for she, too, had feared for his reason. She accompanied him in, and then, when seated at his side, gently chided him for his last night's fears, and what she called "superstitious fancies." "I hope ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... yet ingenious and skilful way. The day happens to be Lady Windermere's birthday, and at the beginning of the act her husband has given her a beautiful ostrich-feather fan. When he sends off the invitation, she turns upon him and says, "If that woman crosses my threshold, I shall strike her across the face with this fan." Here, again, many a dramatist might be content to bring down his curtain. The announcement of Lady Windermere's resolve carries forward the interest quite clearly enough for all practical purposes. ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... flaxen-haired, plump, and blue-eyed, sat knitting, and Larry's eyes grew a trifle wistful when he glanced at her. It was a very long while since any woman had crossed his threshold, and the red-cheeked fraeulein gave the comfortless bachelor dwelling a curiously homelike appearance. Nevertheless, it was not the recollection of its usual dreariness that called up the sigh, for Larry Grant had had his dreams like other men, and Miss Muller was not the woman he had now ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... another word till they reached the threshold of their own house. It was a narrow one, consisting of a ground-floor and two floors above, in the rue Belle-Normande. The maid, Josephine, a girl of nineteen, a rustic servant-of-all-work at low wages, gifted to excess with the startled, animal ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... substitute relationship is a going back to the dreamlike stage of late adolescence, putting new promises ahead of present performance, and attempting to make life stand still, so that one may continue on the threshold of maturity without ever stepping over into the place where one must make ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... depressed to the point of despair. She was tremendously lonely. This home had meant so much to her. When she first came here and neighbors had begun to drop in she had imagined herself on the threshold of a great career, that some day, possibly, Lester would marry her. Now, blow after blow had been delivered, and the home and dream were a ruin. Gerhardt was gone. Jeannette, Harry Ward, and Mrs. Frissell ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... on the threshold of the hall, She "Thomas" cried, with many a sob; And thrice on Bobtail did she call, Exclaiming sweetly—"Bob! ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... don't give way in this fashion. You have stood manfully by me through every step of the road; don't desert me on the threshold of—" ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Gerrard Street, is a beer-shop, but the memory of the great orator hallows the abode, and an inscription upon it proudly announces that here he lived. Dr. Johnson's house, in Gough Square, bears (or bore) a mural tablet, and standing at its time-worn threshold, the visitor needed no effort of fancy to picture that uncouth figure shambling through the crooked lanes that afford access to this queer, somber, melancholy retreat. In that house he wrote the first dictionary of the English language ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... crossed his humble threshold and sat down, when Robin clambered on his knee and put the puzzling question.—"Fasser, what ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... sitting in his shop making a golden chain, and when he heard the bird, who was sitting on his roof and singing, he started up to go and look, and as he passed over his threshold he lost one of his slippers; and he went into the middle of the street with a slipper on one foot and only a sock on the other; with his apron on, and the gold chain in one hand and the pincers in the other; and so he stood in the sunshine ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... boundary of Washington city to be fairly in the country, and ten minutes' walk in the country brings one to real primitive woods. The town has not yet overflowed its limits like the great Northern commercial capitals, and Nature, wild and unkempt, comes up to its very threshold, and even in many ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... yesterday And left the glad voice of his loved one dumb. To him the living now will come And cross his threshold in the self-same way To clasp his hand and vainly try to say Words that shall soothe the heart that's ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... dread of my incomprehensible tempter. Rather, a hundred times, front and defy those seven Eastern slaves—I, haughty son of the Anglo-Saxon who conquers all races because he fears no odds—than have seen again on the walls of my threshold the luminous, bodiless shadow! Besides: Lilian—Lilian! for one chance of saving her life, however wild and chimerical that chance might be, I would have shrunk not a foot from the march of ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... the Concord grave-yard to a new and picturesque burying-ground a mile southwest of Petersburg, called Oakland cemetery. The old grave, though marked by no stone, was easily identified from the fact that Ann was buried by the side of her younger brother, David, who died in 1842, upon the threshold of what promised to be a brilliant career as a lawyer. The removal was made by Samuel Montgomery, a prominent business man of Petersburg. He was accompanied to the grave by James McGrady Rutledge and a few others, who located the grave beyond doubt. In the new cemetery, the grave occupies ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... were late as well as we. Ten minutes after the hour the hearse was still standing at the door of the house, and even as our foaming horse came to a halt the coffin, supported by three men, appeared on the threshold. Holmes darted forward ...
— The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax • Arthur Conan Doyle
... all intents and purposes the village aristocrat, and when the mysterious door of Ethie's room, which had been closed so long, was opened, and the bridegroom told that he might go in, he started in surprise at the beautiful tableau presented to his view as he stepped across the threshold. As was natural, he fancied that never before had he seen three young girls so perfectly beautiful as the three before him—Ethie, ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... the threshold of this second period when she rode out of Rheims all brilliant in the summer weather, her banner faded now, but glorious, her shining armour bearing signs of warfare, her end achieved—yet all the ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... governess by that time—what he had left to do, he could best do alone—and they came back, upon a rain night, to the scene of her long preparation. She turned to him upon the threshold, as the rain was dripping from the ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... that it was the city of Sana'.[FN19] So he journeyed with all speed, till he drew near his father's capital and, making an airy circuit about the city, alighted on the roof of the King's palace, where he left his horse, whilst he descended into the palace and seeing its threshold strewn with ashes, though that one of his family was dead. Then he entered, as of wont, and found his father and mother and sisters clad in mourning raiment of black, all pale of faces and lean of frames. When his sire descried him and was assured ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... John Graham of Claverhouse and his bloody crew, officers or men it matters not, to cross our threshold and break bread within our walls—I, a daughter of the house of Cassillis and the widow of your faithful son? May my hand be smitten helpless forever if I write such a word, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I welcome this slayer of the saints ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... door in his wagon, got down with all the care that the successful support of his burden of years demanded, and chained Dolly to the much-gnawed post which was fixed for the purpose on the edge of the sidewalk. He ascended the steps, and was met by Abbie on the threshold. He removed his hat with old-fashioned courtesy, and gave her cold hand a quiet, ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... gaped in front of us. We stepped, as it were, right out of the carriage and into the hall, so that I failed to catch the most fleeting glance of the front of the house. The instant that I had crossed the threshold the door slammed heavily behind us, and I heard faintly the rattle of the wheels as the carriage ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... that threshold in the sun, Assault the old king smiling there . . . Such grace had ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... were fixed upon the sky, and her arms were entwined about the lamb, who lay with its head in her bosom. The vicar knelt down, and prayed. He could not bear to lose the light of his household, though he knew that the angels were waiting for her on the threshold of heaven. When he arose she slept. Ages have passed since then, and she still sleeps; and will sleep till the heavens and the earth shall have passed away. The next day was the Sabbath, and they bore her to the little churchyard where her mother was buried. Their ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... he and Davidge were presently conducted by a trim and somewhat surprised-looking parlour-maid, was one which might have been bodily lifted from the stage of any theatre devoted to work of the melodramatic order. The detective and the reporter found themselves on the threshold of a handsomely furnished dining-room, vividly lighted by lamps which threw a warm pink glow over the old oak furniture and luxurious fittings. On one side of the big table sat Professor Cox-Raythwaite and Selwood both looking a little ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... Blackwood, that Nelson would have consented now to deprive of his "birthright" the man who so far had been doing the work; but the petition was never preferred. Entering the cabin, the officer paused at the threshold, for Nelson was on his knees writing. The words, the last that he ever penned, were written in the private diary he habitually kept, in which were noted observations and reflections upon passing occurrences, mingled with occasional self-communings. They followed now, without ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... architect divine, Where vast Olympus' starry summits shine: So tell our hoary sire"—This charge she gave: The sea-green sisters plunge beneath the wave: Thetis once more ascends the bless'd abodes, And treads the brazen threshold of the gods. ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... castle, we must "do" it, after the set fashion. Reminders meet us at the threshold that it is in form a real place of defence, contemplative of wars and rumors of wars, and not a mere dwelling by any means in original design. A roadway, crooked and raked by frowning embrasures, leads up from the peaceful town to the particularly inhospitable-looking ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... began to ascend the stairs. Gray followed, Sir Lucien standing aside to give him precedence. On the second floor was a door painted in Oriental fashion. It possessed neither bell nor knocker, but as one stepped upon the threshold this door opened noiselessly as if dumbly inviting the visitor to enter the square apartment discovered. This apartment was richly furnished in the Arab manner, and lighted by a fine brass lamp swung upon chains from the painted ceiling. ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... slumbering in their sheaths O'er my threshold clamber, And the honeysuckle wreathes Its translucent amber Round the gables of my home: How is it thou ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... to undo the door. He started up and armed himself, and told them to go away. But the thieves defied him, and with a great boulder broke down the door. Then Havelok, hearing the din, rose up, and seizing the bar of the door stood on the threshold and threw the door wide open, saying, "Come in, I am ready for you!" First came three against him with their swords, but Havelok slew these with the door bar at a single blow; the fourth man's crown he broke; he smote the fifth upon the shoulders, the sixth athwart the neck, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... gathered in the singing house he used to lie in the passage and peep over the threshold. Now and then a man would take him by the nose and lift him into the house and make him carry out a jar of water. It was so large and heavy that he had to take hold of it with both hands and his teeth. Because he was so often lifted by his nose, it grew very large, ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... threshold he found a soft stone and with that he wrote upon the head of the long table the name of the dead man, and Mendes, his native city. Under this he wrote further to the villagers, charging them, in the ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... recovers your antagonist may be in a tighter," Bell chuckled. "And if the man gets well and that brain injury proves permanent—I mean if the man is rendered imbecile—why, we are only at the very threshold of the mystery. It seems a callous thing to say, but this is the prettiest problem I have ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... heard proceeding slowly down a shrubbery-path on the other side of the yard wall. At any rate, that was the effect produced; for next moment, before Philip could think of escape, had he wished to escape, a door in the wall was opened, and a gentleman, pausing on the threshold, surveyed the whole scene, with the assistance of a gold-mounted eye-glass, with some evident surprise and little ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... not commonly cause insanity properly so called. The organ of the mind is a composite, or aggregate of cells, or molecules, any number or series of which may be affected with disease while the rest remain healthy. At present we are only on the threshold of investigation concerning the physical causes of insanity, and have scarcely done more than recognize the possibility of molecular disease of the brain. Hereafter science will, probably, succeed in unveiling the obscure facts of molecular ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... a given receptor has a low threshold for only one, its own specific stimulus, and a high threshold for all others; that is, the doors that guard the nerve-paths to the brain are opened only when the proper password is received. According to Sherrington's law, the individual as a whole ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... later Eli Joseph's tired step sounded on the veranda, and Rose hurried to admit him, lifting a silencing hand as soon as he had crossed the threshold. "Hannah has just gone to sleep," she whispered. "No—no, she's not sick at all." He placed an arm around her and drew ...
— The Little Mixer • Lillian Nicholson Shearon
... present in his pocket, arrived at the "Bootjack Hotel," Little Bunker's Buildings, Berkeley Square (for it must out—that was the place in which Mr. Crump's inn was situated), he paused for a moment at the threshold of the little house of entertainment, and listened, with beating heart, to the sound of delicious music that a ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... festoons of gray moss such as hangs from forest boughs. This was tied with knots of red bittersweet berries; the feathers of sea-birds were also displayed on the walls, and chains of their delicate-coloured eggs were hanging there. Caius had not stepped across the threshold before he began to suspect that he had passed from the region of the ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... opening of the door. Andy Gilgallon stood on the threshold and looked in with amazement. He had not expected to find the lady ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... step in, bright and cheerful, holding out her apron, with her head thrown on one side, and a smile on her lips. Her thick, long chestnut hair fell over her shoulder and across her breast. But we, ugly, dirty and misshapen as we were, looked up at her—the threshold door was four steps above the floor— looked up at her with heads thrown back, wishing her good-morning, and speaking strange, unaccustomed words, which we kept ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... fool, Tom," she said decisively, as he crossed the threshold. "There's not enough silver in Sark to make a ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... making good progress, checking sometimes to carve our way through some obstacle. At last we were getting a return for the precious coal expended. The sky was overcast, the outlook from the masthead flat and dreary, but hour by hour it became more obvious that we neared the threshold of the open sea. At 1 A.M. on Friday, December 30 (lat. about 711/2 deg. S., noon observation 72 deg. 17' S., 177 deg. 9' E.) Bowers steered through the last ice stream. Behind was some 400 miles of ice. Cape Crozier was 334 miles ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... the threshold of the bookshop, and, unwitting, heedless, left for ever behind him the first period of ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... building belonging to some denomination. A conference of that denomination was being held just outside the door, and the ministers wanted me to come and take part. I looked toward the door through which I must pass, and I saw two large worms with their heads together, lying directly across the threshold. In order to enter the room, I would have to step over the worms and would be in great danger of receiving a deadly bite. I said to myself, "I will not run the risk for any man's notions or ways"; and, turning on my heel, I ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... Charlie Stuart and his Highlandmen. Down the narrow way, in the drizzly dusk, ran a slight figure, entirely muffled up. Fleet of foot was the runner, and blindly she held her course. Twice she came in contact with intervening obstacles—water-stoups on a threshold, gay ribbons fluttering from a booth. She was flying from worse than death, with dim projects of begging her way to the North, to the brother she had parted from when a child; and ghastly suggestions, too, like lightning flashes, of seizing ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... with him. Then another of his startlingly sudden moves told her that she had reckoned too quickly. This move was to put her firmly aside so he could pass; and Madeline, seeing he would not hesitate to lift her out of the way, surrendered the door. He turned on the threshold. His face was still working, but the flame-pointed gleam of his eyes indicated the ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... boatbuilder, he stepped briskly across the room, pulling open the door of a cupboard. Taking out a broom, he began to sweep very carefully where the Melville group had sat or stood, and continued his sweeping across the threshold of the doorway. Then, returning, he tossed the broom into the cupboard. Stepping springily over, he dropped into his desk chair, ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... out a name as they passed the door of the concierge, a name that was not Conway, and her hand pulled Betty up flight after flight of steep stairs. On the fifth floor she opened a door with a key, and left Betty standing at the threshold till she had ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... more for the last time he went tripping down the lawn radiantly happy, turning now and again to throw back with his fingers a message from his lips to the one being in all the world for him, who stood on the threshold, adding poetry and grace to ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... virtuous life. In 1661, after his wife's death, he entered the Hermandad de la Caridad, later becoming superior of that order. In his will he endowed the brotherhood with all his wealth and requested that he be buried under the threshold of the chapel of San Jorge. His sole epitaph was to be "Here repose the bones and ashes of the worst man who ever existed in the world." Don Miguel's biography was written by his friend the Jesuit Juan de Cardeas and was added ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... word, nor boisterous laughter was heard from this crowd. Each one spoke in low and earnest tones to his neighbor; every one was conscious of the deep significance of the hour, and feared to interrupt the religious service of the country by a word spoken too loud. In silent devotion they crossed the threshold of the armory, with light and measured steps the crowd circulated through the rooms, and with solemn calmness and a silent prayer in their hearts, the people received from the hands of the veteran soldiers the weapons for the ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... had been absent three years. This man invited me to go with him to his house; at the gate of which his friends met him with many expressions of joy, shaking hands with him, embracing him, and singing and dancing before him. As soon as he had seated himself upon a mat, by the threshold of his door, a young woman (his intended bride) brought a little water in a calabash, and kneeling down before him, desired him to wash his hands; when he had done this, the girl, with a tear of joy sparkling in her eyes, drank the water; this being considered as the greatest ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... nature, which might be attended to by-and-bye, and could wait his perfect leisure. But, being now in the streets again, it occurred to him as just coming within the bare limits of possibility that Mr Tapley might, in course of time, grow tired of waiting on the threshold of the Rowdy Journal Office, so he intimated to his new friend, that if they could conveniently walk in that direction, he would be glad to get this piece of business ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... in her voice evidently affected the young man also. He came, hurrying, and when he had entered stayed upon the threshold, warm-hued with work and bringing with him the odor of the soil. His brown eyes went from one of them to the other, ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... across the threshold, and for the first time looked at the other man who had been on the point of entering. He was slight and somewhat sallow, with very high forehead and small deep-set eyes. He was dressed in ordinary evening clothes, the details ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... through which they had escaped opened before him. Grateful even for this doubtful protection, he crossed the threshold and trudged wearily along with his precious burden. Blindly trusting in the miraculous powers of Dantor, he followed the orange beacon which now seemed to smile cheerfully as it lighted his way through the ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... back upon cottons and linens for inexpensive hangings, and in all the thousand forms in which these two fibres are manufactured it would seem easy to choose those which are beautiful, durable, and appropriate. But here we are met at the very threshold of choice with the two undesirable qualities of fugitive colour, and stiffness of texture. Something in the nature of cotton makes it inhospitable to dyes. If it receives them it is with a protest, and an evident intention of casting them out at the earliest ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... pressed the hand of the last guest, and said to him at the threshold, that there was absolute need for the commercial company of which they had been talking to gain a broader foundation of activity by obtaining more and surer sources ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... the hall when she came down with her hat and coat on, and he motioned her to precede him into the cab, but giving her head a little shake, Eleanor opened the drawing-room door and, after hesitating for a moment on the threshold, went in. Mrs. Murray was sitting before the fire crying silently. At the sight of her tears Eleanor's hesitation vanished and she ran across the room and flung herself on her knees and put both her arms in a protecting fashion round the old ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... dwelling with a circle of fire. After a pause, Baker rode to the kitchen door on the side, and dismounting, rapped and halloed lustily. An old man, in drawers and night-shirt, hastily undrew the bolts, and stood on the threshold, peering shiveringly into ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... threshold of the hall door I was stopped, to my great amazement, by a procession of three of the farm-servants, followed by Morgan, all walking after each other, in Indian file, toward the spiral staircase that led to the top of the tower. ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... I'll play her that sonata of Beethoven that dear papa was so fond of; it is wonderful how calming it is. Adieu, doctor," she said again, pausing on the threshold of the door. "Adieu, kind doctor!" And she sent ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... Rome against the three Curiatii, who smote for Alba and lost the day—Tullus Hostilius, grandson of that first Hostus who had fought against the Sabines; and always more legend, and more, and more, sometimes misty, sometimes clear and direct in action as a Greek tragedy. They hover upon the threshold of history, with faces of beauty or of terror, sublime, ridiculous, insignificant, some born of desperate, real deeds, many another, perhaps, first told by some black-haired shepherd mother to her wondering boys at evening, when the brazen pot simmered on the smouldering fire, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... through the darkness till a thread of light marked the threshold of a door. A knock and an answer opened it, and Martin found himself shaking hands with Kreis, a handsome brunette man, with dazzling white teeth, a drooping black mustache, and large, flashing black eyes. Mary, a matronly young blonde, was washing dishes in the little ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... later he stumbled across his threshold like a drunken man. Another draught of water revived him somewhat, and, after resting a little in the Windsor chair, he mounted the tiny staircase and ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... mother, opened the door of the room and stood upon the threshold. The scuffling of Sam and Penrod ceased instantly, and they stood hushed and stricken, while fear fell upon them. "Boys, ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... his mother and himself, might have placed affairs in a happier position. Most persons, under these circumstances, would have become bitter, but Montacute was too tender for malice, and so he only turned melancholy. On the threshold of manhood, Montacute lost his mother, and this seemed the catastrophe of his unhappy life. His father neither shared his grief, nor attempted to alleviate it. On the contrary, he seemed to redouble his efforts to mortify his son. ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... military measures adopted under power from Congress by General Grant, only suppressed organized violence in its more rampant form. It was impossible to imprison a commonwealth or to place bayonets at every threshold, and while the negro might be upheld in his right of suffrage, Federal protection could not supply him with work and bread. The intellect and the property of the South were on the side of the whites, and the blacks began to find that their choice was between submission ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... point at any time," said Sir Lulworth, "and certainly not when we're on the immediate threshold of lunch." ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... Polish story, if a witch lays a girdle of human skin on the threshold of a house in which a marriage is being celebrated, the bride and bridegroom, and bridesmaids and groomsmen, should they step across it, are transformed into wolves. After three years, however, the witch will cover them with skins with the hair. turned outward; immediately they will recover ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... stepped across the threshold and entered the room. He proceeded slowly to pull off his mittens; then looking up at the pastor's face, upon which a vague sheen fell from the stove, he ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... surprise, the door of the dining room was open. It had been opened. I paused on the threshold, staring about me. I think I fully expected to see a figure blocked in the shadows against the heavy sideboard, or looming on the other side beneath his portrait. But the room was empty; I felt it empty. Through the wide bow-windows ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... any one of my readers ever be impelled to visit the prairies, and should he choose the route of the Platte (the best, perhaps, that can be adopted), I can assure him that he need not think to enter at once upon the paradise of his imagination. A dreary preliminary, protracted crossing of the threshold awaits him before he finds himself fairly upon the verge of the "great American desert," those barren wastes, the haunts of the buffalo and the Indian, where the very shadow of civilization lies a hundred leagues behind ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... heard, and it was that and the door—But I have already told you about the door which she was still looking for, when her two companions suddenly halted, and she found herself on the threshold of the library, in full view of Mr. Van Broecklyn and ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... escape of the royal youth; and, in the disguise of a common sailor, he eluded the search of his enemies, passed the Hellespont, and found a secure refuge in the Isle of Sicily. After saluting the threshold of the apostles, and imploring the protection of Pope Innocent the Third, Alexius accepted the kind invitation of his sister Irene, the wife of Philip of Swabia, king of the Romans. But in his passage through Italy, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... there, it had been broken up, and many of them lost; yet still it must have been a noble library, for he tells us that it was "scarcely equalled in all Britain;" and adds, in the spirit of a true bibliomaniac, that he no sooner passed the threshold than the very sight of so many sacred remains of antiquity struck him with awe and astonishment. The reader will naturally wish that he had given us a list of what he found there; but he merely enumerates a selection of thirty-nine, among which we find a Grammatica Eriticis, formerly ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... life that entangles me. In my isolation I have time enough for mental inversion—for self-exploration—for idle fancies, if you will. And so I have lifted the veil for you; uncovered my inner life; taken you into the sanctuary over whose threshold no foot but my ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... half-a-dozen pairs of talon-like hands clutched frantically at her skirts, the door behind her was quickly opened. She felt her arm seized firmly, and herself dragged swiftly within the shelter of the threshold. ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... be lodged objection that she dare not disregard—her uncle's will. One other girl there was, that night at Frayne, who marked her going and sought to follow and was recalled, restrained at the very threshold by the sound of a beloved voice softly, in the Sioux tongue, calling her name. One other girl there was who knew not of her going, who shrank from thought of meeting her at any time,—in any ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... time in three years, for the first time since she had crossed the threshold of "Old Jack Means" and come under the domination of Mrs. Old Jack Means, Hannah talked cheerfully, almost gayly. It was something to have a companion to talk to. It was something to be the victor even in a spelling-match, and to be applauded ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... bright Presence, smiling, pointed where Ali towards the outer gate drew near, Upon the threshold shaking off his shoes And giving "alms of entry," as men use. "Yea!" spake th' Archangel, "sacred is the sound Of morning-praise, and worth the world's wide round, Though earth were pearl and silver; therefore I Stayed ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... was so impressed with the well-known legend of "The Bloody Footstep" that he, in three separate instances, founded fictions upon it. In his romance of "Septimius" he gives this graphic account of what he saw: "On the threshold of one of the doors of Smithells Hall there is a bloody footstep impressed into the doorstep, and ruddy as if the bloody foot had just trodden there, and it is averred that on a certain night of the year, and at a certain hour of the night, ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... on the threshold, leaning on his rifle, a brace of wild turkeys hanging over his shoulders, half a dozen rabbits dangling from his belt, stared at her through the dull, red glow of the fading fire ...
— Who Crosses Storm Mountain? - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... goobers to sell now an' them boys won't show her a step of the way an' she couldn't get here so quick all herself without bein' showed so I may as well rest a minute," said Glory to herself, and sat down on the narrow threshold to get cool and to decide ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... guiltless suffering with the guilty, and because of their connection with the guilty, until the palaces of the Henries and the Edwards become as haunted with horrors as were the halls of the Atridae. The "pale nurslings that had perished by kindred hands," seen by Cassandra when she passed the threshold of Agamemnon's abode, might have been paralleled by similar "phantom dreams," had another Cassandra accompanied Henry VII. when he came from Bosworth Field to take possession of the royal abodes at London. She, too, might have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Berlin will be entirely a new scene to you, and I look upon it, in a manner, as your first step into the great world; take care that step be not a false one, and that you do not stumble at the threshold. You will there be in more company than you have yet been; manners and attentions ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... picking her way over the debris of the porch. At any other time its demise would have occupied the minds of the Vicarage household for days. But, until this moment, it had hardly claimed the tribute of a sigh. Mrs. Gresley did sigh as she crossed the threshold. That prostrate porch meant expense. She had understood from her husband that Dick had wantonly torn out the clamp that supported it, and that the whole thing had in consequence given way under the first snowfall. "He meant no harm," Mr. Gresley had added, ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... good night to Marable, and followed her father from the laboratory. As they crossed the threshold a stout, red-faced man in a gray uniform, a watchman's clock hanging at his side, raised his hat and smiled at the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... hall to the room in which he had found Nur-el-Din asleep on his arrival. His nerves were strung up tight for the impending encounter with this Mortimer, whoever, whatever he was. Desmond did not hesitate on the threshold of the room. He quietly opened the door and ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... of a farmer his poultry frequently go to roost at noon-day, instead of at the usual time. When the cock struts up to the door and sounds his clarion on the threshold, the housewife is warned that she may soon expect a stranger. In what is technically termed "setting a hen," care is taken that the nest be composed of an odd number of eggs. If even, the chickens would not prosper. Each egg is always marked ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various
... the cabin. Jerry paused on the threshold, and wheeled around. He was frightened to see the catamount within six feet of him. But he kept a cool head, and lifted his rifle, which he had meanwhile reloaded. There was no time to hesitate. He ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... the drinking glass offered them. This dog was much afraid of the glass, and I had only to present it to him at lunch time to make him keep his distance. I used to keep my door open at lunch, for the amusement of observing how I could make him stop exactly at the threshold without stepping over it. If he had passed over it I could always send him back by casting toward him a few drops of water from the bottom of the glass after drinking. Sitting, as was his habit, on the sill of the door, with the tip of his muzzle ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... guardian of morality, to listen to him. And you, who receive on the 20th of each month a few kopeks' gratuity for your wretched business, you get into your uniform, and in good spirits proceed to torture—bully people whose threshold you're not clean enough to pass. Then when you've had your fill of showing off your wretched power, oh, then you are satisfied, and sit and smile there in your damned ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... Dr. Burney). Westhamble, March 22, 1800. Day after day I have meant to write to my dearest father 'but I have been unwell ever since our return, and that has not added to my being sprightly. I have not once crossed 'the threshold since I re-entered the house till to-day, when Mr. and Mrs. Locke almost insisted upon taking me an airing. I am glad of it, for it has done me good, and broken a kind of spell that made me ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... of Ballinger House was long and narrow and from its bow window commanded a view of the Bay. It was as uncomely with its black walnut furniture and brown walls as the rest of that aristocratic abode, across whose threshold no loose fish had ever darted; but its dingy walls were more or less concealed by paintings of the martial Virginia ancestors of Mrs. Ballinger and her husband, the table linen had been woven for her in Ireland, the cut glass blown for her in England; the fragile china came from ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... Temple of Fame. The door is open by day and by night, and a tall, thin, sallow boy turns his back upon a log cabin in Illinois and seeks entrance. But the angel at the threshold asks hard questions: "Can you eat crusts? Can you wear rags? Can you sleep in a garret? Can you endure sleepless nights and days of toil? Can you bear up against every wind that assails your bark? Can you live for liberty and God's truth, and can you die for ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... course was liberal—when one considers how long Mrs. Siddons had appeared upon the stage before she got a firm footing on the London boards, one cannot but be astonished at the rise of this lady at one leap from the threshold to the top of her profession. It is worthy of observation that the real children of nature generally burst at once upon the view in excellence approaching to perfection; while the mere artists of the stage lag behind, labouring for years, before they attain the summit of their ambition; ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... there. He stood on the threshold of the inn, waiting for me, as it seemed, although it was not yet the hour of my appointment. As they drew me up to the door, I saw his tall, straight figure and his red hair by the light of the hall lamps. By Heaven, I felt as a lost child must on sight of his mother! I stretched ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... opinions it upheld, and the practical theatrical innovations it introduced into the theatre, like the double stage for the little Madison Square playhouse, in New York, which was the precursor of such modern paraphernalia as came later with the foreign revolving stages. He always stood on the threshold of modernism, advocating those principles which were to fructify in the decades to follow him. Such pioneer spirit was evident in his ardent advocacy of Delsarte methods of acting; his own work as an actor was coloured and influenced by the master whose pupil he became in the ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Paul Kauvar; or, Anarchy • Steele Mackaye
... waited at the threshold of an opening door, and like a child his fancy gathered door-step flowers, recking nothing of the widening space behind, the beckoning hands, the strange chambers into which shortly he must go. Some faint and far monition, some breath of colder air may have touched him, ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... "Madame Mila!" This announcement was presently followed by the entrance of little Randolph Miller, who stopped in the middle of the room and stood staring at Winterbourne. An instant later his pretty sister crossed the threshold; and then, after a considerable interval, Mrs. ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... awkward, anomalous. The servants were disconcerted, and scarcely knew how to take her fluttery yet imperious orders. For Raymond himself, as any one could see, it was all purgatory—or worse. Every room had its peculiar and disagreeable memories. There was the chamber-threshold over which they had discussed her tendency to out-mode the mode and to push every extreme of fashion to an extreme still more daring—for that black gown with spangles, or whatever, had been but the first ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... youth, thy foot unbrace, Here, youth, thy brow unbraid; Each tribute that may grace The threshold here be paid. Walk with the stealthy pace Which Nature teaches deer, When, echoing in the chase, The hunter's horn they ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... crossed the threshold, wriggling forward at top speed. We followed, peering fearfully around ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... little gimcrack shanty had become to him, Mahony grasped only when he once more crossed its threshold and Polly's ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... prepare one for any such astonishing spectacle as awaits one. The rushing, foaming water amid the tumbled confusion of huge granite rocks and the open V-shaped valley, are nothing very remarkable or unusual. Then suddenly you are on the threshold of this hall of the elder gods. Demons and furies might lurk in the valley below, but here is the abode of the serene, beneficent Olympian deities. All is so calm, so hushed, so friendly, yet so towering, so stupendous, so unspeakably beautiful. You are in a mansion ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... followed the fall of the old broker in the Stock Exchange the storm seemed to be gathering for a still more destructive sweep. A few friends took up the old man and bore him out. No sooner had they passed over the threshold than a roar like that of an angry sea burst forth. Bulls and bears seemed on the verge of personal violence. The price went up and down in momentary fluctuations, and men dropped out and flew from ...
— Halsey & Co. - or, The Young Bankers and Speculators • H. K. Shackleford
... difficulties leading to a successful career, and do not decide to add one more musician to the world until you are confident of your suitability for the work. Remember that this moment of decision is a very important time and that you may be upon the threshold of a dangerous mistake. Remember that there are thousands of successful and happy teachers for ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... in them that we can compare to the exquisite idyll of Nausicaa or to the Titanic humour of the episode in the Cyclops' cave. Penelope has not the glamour of Circe, and the song of the Sirens may sound sweeter than the whizz of the arrows of Odysseus as he stands on the threshold of his hall. Yet, for sheer intensity of passionate power, for concentration of intellectual interest and for masterly dramatic construction, these latter books are quite unequalled. Indeed, they show very clearly ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... faded blue eyes were gazing past me, hopelessly sad, supremely mournful. What the deuce ailed him? I wondered angrily. The thing was almost weird. Of a sudden, with irritation, yet with dread, too, I felt myself on the threshold of a house of tragedy. The man might, from the look of him, have been watching some loved ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... hall-door. It was wide open, and the hall lined with servants, male and female, in black. In the midst, between these two rows, stood Griffith Gaunt, bareheaded, to welcome the guests. His arm was in a sling. He had received all the others in the middle of the hall; but he came to the threshold to meet Kate and her father. He bowed low and respectfully, then gave his left hand to Kate to conduct her, after the formal fashion of the day. The sight of his arm in a sling startled and affected her; and with him giving ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... recently been done, it must not be forgotten that we have scarcely advanced beyond the threshold, and that it is only by numerous and frequently repeated experiments that it is possible to arrive at satisfactory results. Agricultural inquiries are liable to peculiar fallacies due to the perturbing influence of climate, season, and many ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... of the barns a winnowing-machine was working, sending out clouds of dust. On the threshold stood Aliokhin himself, a man of about forty, tall and stout, with long hair, more like a professor or a painter than a farmer. He was wearing a grimy white shirt and rope belt, and pants instead of trousers; and his boots were ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... kicked at the nursery door, slung in his bag of books, and stood on the threshold, pouting and glaring ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... Joel, twitching away. "I said peek, Dave. Mr. Tisbett didn't say not to do that." So both boys got as far as they could on the threshold of the big sweet-smelling barn, without stepping over the sill, and craned their necks to get a sight of ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... the romance of life is most splendid. But just because it is that, and because the issues of that hour are so far-reaching, what could be more seemly than that they should pause for a moment on the threshold and ask the Giver of all love to bless and guide them! To kneel first together before Him, and then to pass on—to acknowledge His goodness as the author of love, and then to go up on to love's high places, what could ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... one morning when his attention was arrested by a heavy step outside his door. It had something familiar in it. Then he heard his name spoken in a loud voice. Some one was asking for him, and the next moment the door opened and Squire Rawson stood on the threshold. He looked worn; but his face was serene. Keith's intuition told him why he had come; and the old man did not leave it in any doubt. ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... Yet I feel that I shall stand Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore Alone upon the threshold of my door Of individual life shall I command The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand Serenely in the sunshine as before, Without the sense of that which I forbore— Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine With pulses that beat double. What I ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... less he felt her presence never Out of the room depart; Over the threshold, not the less, forever He felt her going ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... struck by lightning, remained the prince upon the threshold; behind him were seen the astonished faces of his generals, who, on tiptoe, stretched their necks to gaze, over each other's shoulders, upon ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... deserted enough, in all conscience. The door was open, and the November wind free to play through the place as it liked. I stood on the threshold, thinking. I had found out nothing about any wolf-bait, excepting the one bottle the Frenchwoman's son might or might not have left there; certainly nothing about Collins ever having got hold of any; ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... Squatting on the threshold, her emaciated arms still covering her eyes, Bakuma strove to obey. At length she faltered out the story of her double abduction. The capture by the askaris had made but little difference to her, for, as she phrased it, the beak of her ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... the life blood dyed the African heath. I saw some passing over the border line which divides life and death, with a ring of stern-browed comrades round them, leaning upon their rifles, whilst a brother or a father knelt and pressed the hand of him whose feet were on the very threshold of the land beyond the shadows. I saw others smiling up into the faces of women—the poor, pain-drawn faces of the dying looking less haggard and worn than the anguish-stricken features of their womanhood who knelt to comfort them in that last awful hour—in the hour which divides time from eternity, ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... beyond their power has to be conquered, and here Oisin wars with the giant Fomor. De Dannan and Romorian passed from Eire wrestle still in the invisible world, say the legends. We, too— would-be mystics—are met on the threshold of diviner spheres by terrible forms embodying the sins of a living past when we misused our spiritual powers in old Atlantean days. These forms must be conquered and so Oisin battles with Fomor and releases the power— a princess ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... candelabrum of six lighted candles. After J. had helped the King from the carriage he took the candelabra from the servants and preceded the King up the stairs to where I stood, according to custom, on the threshold of the door. I presented to the Crown Princess a large bouquet of red and white roses (the Danish colors), with long streaming ribbons to match, and a smaller ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... arm; she looked up quietly, smiled, and stepped across the threshold. Speed followed; Jacqueline slipped in beside him, and then I turned on Buckhurst, who had just ordered his soldiers to surround ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... plank door was ajar, but as Alleyne approached it there came from within such a gust of rough laughter and clatter of tongues that he stood irresolute upon the threshold. Summoning courage, however, and reflecting that it was a public dwelling, in which he had as much right as any other man, he pushed it open and stepped into ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Ten nights and days I lay upon my bed. Bethink thee, mistress Moon, whence came my love. And wan became my flesh, as 't had been dyed, And all my hair streamed off, and there was left But bones and skin. Whose threshold crossed I not, Or missed what grandam's hut who dealt in charms? For no light thing was this, and time sped on. Bethink thee, mistress Moon, whence came my love. At last I spake the truth to that my maid: "Seek, an thou canst, some cure for my sore pain. Alas, I am all the Mindian's! But ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... No Englishman or American ever crosses the threshold, and Kate has no brothers. The students have no money and no morals, and, what is worse, no baths. A burgess or a professional would be quite as intolerable, and no man of our class would consent to an elopement. Germans may be sentimental but they ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... the threshold of Parliament, Lord Verney arranging for his debut as member for Wendover, in Buckinghamshire, under the Rockingham administration; another star was added to the galaxy of that brilliant assembly, and if ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... noiseless attendance, its mute, watchful assiduities. The last testimonies of expiring love! The feeble, fluttering, thrilling—oh! how thrilling—pressure of the hand! The last fond look of the glazing eye turned upon us even from the threshold of existence! The faint, faltering accents struggling in death to give ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... then, in an instant, all hesitation was lost in purpose and they again advanced this time to the threshold. Judge Ostrander had just time to brace himself to meet the unknown, when the door fell back and the woman of the morning appeared in ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... these marvels, the men of science were eagerly following up the new clue to the mystery of matter which was exercising the mind of Crookes and other investigators. In 1896 Becquerel brought us to the threshold of ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... forget a harangue from the mouth of the old man, which I listened to one warm evening as he and I sat on the threshold of the stable, after having attended to some of the wants of a batch of coach- horses. It related to the manner in which a gentleman should take care of his horse and self whilst engaged in a journey on horseback, and was addressed to myself on the supposition of my one day coming ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... a deep curtsy when, opening the door to the autocratic summons of Crashaw's rat-a-tat, she saw the great man of the district at her threshold. Challis raised his hat. Crashaw did not imitate his example; he was all officiousness, he had the air of a chief ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... Rolf came scampering home from his recitations, and catching sight of his mother through the open door of the kitchen, he ran to her, calling out before he reached the threshold, "Mamma, mamma, ...
— Uncle Titus and His Visit to the Country • Johanna Spyri
... view to the admittance of such a vehicle, which when not in use is carefully enveloped in brown holland, like a harp or a chandelier during the out-of-town season, and is deposited in the hall or passage of the threshold, and in some cases in a corner of the marble-paved reception room. The presence in our studio of Don Benigno's quitrin is therefore not very remarkable. Many weeks, however, elapse before we can get rid of this unsightly piece of furniture. Several ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... no questions, nor did she keep me waiting. Ere I had time to prepare a word of that which I must say to her, she was on the threshold signing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... led him mechanically nearer and nearer to the house where she lived, all the details of his wedding-day rose in his memory, and he turned aside to see again the little church, the threshold of which they had crossed together—she exquisitely lovely in her white draperies, ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... thee! still thy Theodore! Hearts in the holy bands of Love combin'd, Death has no power to sever. Thou art mine! A little while and thou shalt dwell with me In scenes where Sorrow is not. Cheerily Tread thou the path that leads thee to the grave, Rough tho' it be and painful, for the grave Is but the threshold of Eternity. ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... hand, rose to her feet, and turned her face away to hide her emotions; then she glided noiselessly along the room, and paused at the threshold. Suddenly, impelled as by a new thought, she returned to my side and said, in ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... (She crosses the threshold. He hesitates. She turns and, holding out her hands, draws him over. He hops. On the antlered rack of the hall hang a man 's hat and waterproof. Bloom uncovers himself but, seeing them, frowns, then smiles, preoccupied. A door on the return landing is flung open. A ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... days and the nights until that month was spent; but now at last it was the month of August, and upon the night of the seventh day thereof ended the season of waiting. It is to tell that upon that night came Harold, the son of Egbert, from his hut, and stood on the threshold thereof, and awaited the rising of the moon from out the silver waters yonder. While thus he stood there appeared unto him Membril the fairy, and smiling upon him she said and ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... her face when he addressed her, made no reply; but after he had departed from the threshold, her eyes followed him, and the tears slowly forced ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... little nephew twine his arms around your neck; though your mother, with dishevelled hair, and tearing her robe asunder, point to the breast with which she suckled you; though your father fall down on the threshold before you, pass on over your father's body. Fly with tearless eyes to the banner of the cross. In this matter cruelty is the only piety.... Your widowed sister may throw her gentle arms around you.... Your father may implore you to wait but a ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... sense of reluctance the boy obeyed. He felt the door to confession closing with finality behind him; and now that he saw all chance for dallying on its threshold cut off, he began to regret that it should so completely close. Once again the opportunity to clear his conscience had come about in an easy, natural manner; confession had been gently and tactfully invited and he had turned his back. Never again, probably, ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet On his pale horse: to whom Sin thus began. Second of Satan sprung, all-conquering Death! What thinkest thou of our empire now, though earned With travel difficult, not better far Than still at Hell's dark threshold to have sat watch, Unnamed, undreaded, and thyself half starved? Whom thus the Sin-born monster answered soon. To me, who with eternal famine pine, Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heaven; There best, where most with ravine I may meet; Which ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... heard the door open, and yet there stood Aunt Theresa on the threshold, and with her a little old lady. The little old lady had a bright, delicately cut face, eyes of whose expressiveness there could be no question, and large grey curls. She wore a large hat, with large bows tied under her chin, and a dark-green satin driving-cloak lined ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... elevation of the dais, behind which, across Gothic columns, stretched draperies of cloth-of-gold, was placed Edward's chair of state. Around him were grouped the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, the Lords Worcester, Montagu, Rivers, D'Eyncourt, St. John, Raoul de Fulke, and others. But at the threshold of the chamber stood Anthony Woodville, the knightly challenger, his knee bound by the ladye-badge of the S. S., and his fine person clad in white-flowered velvet of Genoa, adorned with pearls. Stepping forward, as the count appeared, the gallant Englishman bent his knee half-way to the ground, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his knocking Long Sin appeared on the threshold and motioned to Bennett to come in, ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... that seems to have died from her face flames back. Without speaking to him, without looking at him, she turns to leave the room. On the threshold she pauses ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... William Yorke had quitted the house, shaking the dust from his shoes in anger, as he crossed the threshold. Anger as much at himself, for having ever given her up, as at Constance Channing; and still most at the Right ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... a frill to his shirt—an ornament, by the way, which did not seem to go at all well with the beard, which was continually in contact with it. It was the custom of this worthy person, after standing for a short time on the threshold inhaling the air, to come forward into the road, and, after glancing at one of the upper windows in a half mechanical way, to cross over to the logs, and, leaning over the fence which guarded the railway, to look ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... on the threshold abashed. The living-room was filled with neighbors come to help—young men, girls, with here and there some older folk—all gathered about a pile of greens in the center of the floor, from which each was choosing ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... while after she got home. The dark looks of Mother Carke were always before her eyes, and a secret dread prevented her passing the threshold of her home again ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... said Ziska, holding the door open, and looking as though he were inclined to threaten. Trendellsohn paused for a moment on the threshold, fixing his eyes full upon those of his rival; but Ziska neither spoke nor made any further gesture, and then the Jew ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... with beds of old-fashioned pansies and sweet-Williams and rows of hollyhocks on all sides. The upper verandah affords a view of the Peace, here fully a mile in width, of incomparable beauty. To the visitor who steps over its threshold, Mr. Wilson's library indicates at once the reading man and the clever artificer. Scientific works of reference, good pictures, the latest magazines, certainly look inviting to ragged travellers who have opened no books, save those of nature and human-nature, for five ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron |
