"Article of furniture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... these familiar articles in her possession once more; these mute friends often awakened in the solitary queen's heart memories that served to entertain and console her. Arenenberg was a perfect temple of memory; every chair, every table, every article of furniture, had its history, and this history spoke of Napoleon, of Josephine, and the great ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... no mistake," thought Sam, as he sank on a bench, the only article of furniture the room contained. "I'm being treated worse than Tom was treated by old Crabtree when first we came to the Hall. And all because I called Tubby by his nickname! If this keeps on a fellow won't dare to breathe out loud when Grinder ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... he remained by the door, while I passed quickly about the room, which was bare of every article of furniture save a solitary table and chair. There was not even a window in it, with the exception of one small light situated so high up in the corner made by the jutting-up staircase that I wondered at its use, and was only relieved of extreme apprehension at the prison-like appearance of the ...
— The Staircase At The Hearts Delight - 1894 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... interest of the story, somewhat late. One article of furniture, curiously out of place among the rich appointments of their fine hotel, the woman had insisted on retaining, a heavy, clumsily carved oak desk her father had once used in his office, and which he had given to her for her own as a birthday ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... turpentine one teaspoonful), a portion of which should be freely taken up with a piece of soft flannel and well rubbed into the work. These rubbings with the preparation and charcoal several times will give the article of furniture a beautiful dead-black colour and polish. This method of polishing is applied to the black-and-gold furniture, cabinets, etc., in imitation ...
— French Polishing and Enamelling - A Practical Work of Instruction • Richard Bitmead
... crack in the door," he said. "But, I believe we would be better off with the door open entirely. That would give us a clear view of the side from which attack must come. We can push this big table across the doorway, upending it. So." And, suiting action to word, he and Tom dragged the heavy article of furniture into position. "Now let us push ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... be surprised to find what a saving can be made in time and trouble by the use of this most essential article of furniture, as well as the remarkably low price at which ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 06, June 1895 - Renaissance Panels from Perugia • Various
... he moved about, touching each article of furniture, examining with care the two of three old English landscapes that had been let into panels on the west side of the room, pausing in ecstacies before the great cabinet and standing before the fireplace as if he were warming his ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... Tales of knight-errantry and chivalry were always in her hands, and bore their noxious fruit in the wild dreams of ambition they fired in the girl's mind. Often, when alone with her sister, with book closed in her hand and eye fixed on some article of furniture, her thoughts would be away winning crowns of fame on battle-fields of her own creation, urging on gallant knights to deeds of bravery, or arranging with humbled foes the terms of peace. She would start from her reverie with a sigh that told of the imprisonment of ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... advantages is to serve as a receptacle for the food of a family during meals. If on such occasions it be covered with a white linen or cotton cloth, its appearance will be much improved, and in time it can not fail to become a favorite article of furniture. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various
... any other curious specimen, she resumed her book, never speaking to me again, except to ask, when she saw me gazing wonderingly around the splendidly-furnished room, "if I supposed I could remember every article of furniture, and give ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... sunset, and were soon established in neat rooms of quite novel fashion. The floors were of unpainted white wood, checked off with black walnut; the stairs were all of stone, the stove was of porcelain, and every article of furniture was odd. But we had not much time to spend in looking at things within doors, for the lake was in full view, and the mountain tops were roseate with the last rays of the setting sun, and the moon soon rose and added to the whole scene all it wanted to make us half believe ourselves in a pleasant ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... higher, but every year will add some new charm, some new grace and harmony without and within. More and more the ground around it, the trees, the walks, and the grateful soil will assimilate themselves to its spirit. More and more each article of furniture will grow to be an essential part of the home, dear for its comfort, and beautiful in its fitness and simplicity. More and more you will learn the worthlessness of boastful fashion, and the exceeding loveliness ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... from a great function at St. Peter's. It is the festa of St. Peter's chair, and the ex-dragoon Cardinal Howard has been fugleman in the devout adorations addressed to that venerable article of furniture, which, as you ought to know, but probably don't, is inclosed in a bronze double and perched up in a shrine of the worst possible taste in the Tribuna of St. Peter's. The display of man-millinery and lace was enough to fill the lightest-minded woman with envy, and a general concert—some ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... apartment in which Mr. Pinto had invited me to see him, there were three chairs, one bottomless, a little table on which you might put a breakfast-tray, and not a single other article of furniture. In the next room, the door of which was open, I could see a magnificent gilt dressing-case, with some splendid diamond and ruby shirt-studs lying by it, and a chest of drawers, and a cupboard apparently ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pitch-pine sofa upholstered with a stuff slightly dissimilar from that on the table. The mattress of the sofa was uneven and its surface wrinkled, and old newspapers and pieces of brown paper had been stowed away between it and the framework. The chief article of furniture was an effective walnut bookcase, the glass doors of which were curtained with red cloth. The window, wider than it was high, was also curtained with red cloth. The walls, papered in a saffron tint, bore framed advertisements and a few photographs of self-conscious persons. ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... crack in the hearts of the worthy sisters,—for every plate, knife, fork, spoon, cup, or glass was as intimate with them, as instinct with home feeling, as if it had a soul; each defect or spot had its history, and a cracked dish or article of furniture received as tender and considerate medical treatment as if it were capable of understanding ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... grew her self-disgust. Occasionally the mere fact of lying in bed became unendurable, and she rolled out and marched about her room and whispered abuse of herself—usually until she hit against some article of furniture. ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... sort of work all three of them set at once to their tasks. Carter, standing for a moment in the doorway, surveyed Frederic Hoff's quarters, taking in all the details of the furnishings. Both the sitting room and the bedroom adjoining were equipped in military simplicity, with hardly an extra article of furniture or adornment, chairs, tables, everything of the plainest sort. Moving first into the bedroom, Carter quickly investigated pillows and mattress, but in neither place did he find what he sought, evidence of a secret hiding place. He rummaged for a while through the drawers of two tables, ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... to me such a huge place!—the largest house I had ever been in; but it was rather desolate, for, except in one little room below, where she had scarcely more than a bed and a chair, a slip of carpet and a frying-pan, there was not an article of furniture in the whole place. She had been put there when the last tenant left, to take care of the place, until another tenant should appear to turn her out. She had her houseroom and a trifle a week besides for her ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... opaque, and circular on dark days as on bright ones; consequently, on a certain morning when it was so huge and glaring as to be positively offensive to the eye, inasmuch as it did not hang over a Holy Family, but over an ordinary and somewhat uncomfortable article of furniture, she adopted the courageous feminine expedient of looking underneath the bed, where she found this priceless legacy of the master reposing in a hat-box in which it had lain for nearly ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the door, communicating with the suite ending in Mr. Brooks's bedroom. A diagram of this segment will show that the only article of furniture in ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... was much like herself—painfully neat. Every article of furniture stood in exactly the same place it had always stood. Nothing was ever suffered to be disturbed. The tassels of the crazy cushion lay just so over the arm of the sofa, and the crochet antimacassar was always spread at precisely the same angel over the horsehair rocking chair. No speck ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... round the room with eyes of desperate scrutiny. They at once fell on a large old-fashioned screen, covered with engravings, which Merton had picked up for the sake of two or three old mezzotints, barbarously pasted on to this article of furniture by ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... the Directory were first installed in the Luxembourg (27th October 1795)." says M. Baileul, "there was hardly a single article of furniture in it. In a small room, round a little broken table, one of the legs of which had given way from age, on which table they had deposited a quire of letter-paper, and a writing desk 'a calamet', which ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... to which he led me, was large, with three windows, which opened upon the street. The walls were hung with wired cases, apparently containing books. There was a table and two or three chairs; but the principal article of furniture was a long sofa, extending from the door by which we entered to the farther end of the apartment. Seating himself upon the sofa, my new acquaintance motioned to me to sit beside him, and then, looking me full in the ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... country people hardly knew such a thing as bread, many had never in their life tasted such a delicacy; few villages had an oven. A weaving-loom was rare; the spinning-wheel unknown. The main article of furniture, in this bare scene of squalor, was the crucifix and vessel of holy-water under it....It was a desolate land without discipline, without law, without a master. On 9,000 English square miles lived 500,000 souls: not 55 to the square mile. [Footnote: Carlyle. Frederick the Great, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... controversy which took place some years ago there has been a wonderful development in the knowledge of acoustics, or sounds. It was shown that the slightest sound would immediately set into vibration every article of furniture in a room, and very sensitive instruments have been devised to register ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... was small and narrow, and its meagre furniture was in striking contrast with the comfortable appointments of the room they had just left. It contained a single bed, a chest of drawers, a washstand, and a wardrobe. The latter, a cumbrous article of furniture, stood between the bed and the wall, against the side nearest ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... general, to be the sole means of the aristocratic distinction; and the populace, looking always upward for models, are insensibly led to confound the two entirely separate ideas of magnificence and beauty. In short, the cost of an article of furniture has at length come to be, with us, nearly the sole test of its merit in a decorative point of view—and this test, once established, has led the way to many analogous errors, readily traceable to ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... built the house new for her before their marriage, but her interest in furnishing it had been short-lived. It went, indeed, little beyond a bath-tub and her piano. They had disagreed about almost every other article of furniture, and Clara had said she would rather have her house empty than full of things she didn't want. The house was set in a hillside, and the west windows of the parlor looked out above the kitchen yard thirty feet below. The east windows opened directly into the front yard. At one of ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... a poorly-stuffed robin. In one angle of the room austerely huddled a three-cornered "whatnot" of four shelves. Two china pugs and a statuette of a simpering pair of children under a massive umbrella adorned this article of furniture. On the wall ticked an old-fashioned square wooden clock. The floor was concealed by a rag carpet. So much for the East. The West contributed brilliant green copper ore, flaky white tin ore, glittering white quartz ore, shining pyrites, and one or two businesslike specimens of oxygenated ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... no better in the sitting-room: there was plenty of finery, but no real comfort—scarcely a single article of furniture was entire; while a huge chimney-glass, surmounted by a gilded eagle, being too tall for its position, had been made to fit into its place by the sacrifice of the eagle's head and body, the legs and claws alone being visible against the ceiling. ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... morning call, he should never leave his hat or riding-whip in the hall, but should take both into the room. To do otherwise would be to make himself too much at home. The hat, however, must never be laid on a table, piano, or any article of furniture; it should be held gracefully in the hand. If you are compelled to lay it aside, put ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... had been hung on some pegs against the wainscot at the foot of my bed. One arm accidentally crossed two or three of the adjoining pegs, and the other was nearly parallel by coming in contact with some article of furniture which stood near. Now the mystery was developed: this dreadful hobgoblin, which a few minutes before I began to think was an aerial being, or sprite, and which must have gained admission either through the key-hole, or under ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... the last of all those in whose fortunes he might be supposed to have an interest. He turned from the sight with a bitter pang at his heart, and, to his surprise, discovered that he was not alone in the solitude of his prison. One ministering spirit sat beside him upon the long bench, the only article of furniture afforded to his dungeon. ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... she, "don't be skeer'd. Yeou jest leave that to me. The minnit them air letters gits here, I hides 'em in that bewro-draw'r," pointing to an article of furniture in ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... possibly be, for that God was too just to suffer it. I felt for the poor man, who had been driven from his home in the noble convent close by, and from a state of comfort and affluence reduced in his old age to indigence and misery, for his dwelling seemed to contain scarcely an article of furniture. I tried twice or thrice to induce him to converse on the school, but he always avoided the subject or said shortly that he knew nothing about it; the idea of being a schoolmaster was evidently humiliating ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... she, opening a door which led to a parlor, perhaps ten feet square, motioning to them to enter. Mason, still retaining her trembling hand, led Eliza into the room, and seated her on the sofa, the chief article of furniture it contained. Her eyes met his earnest gaze. They were immediately filled with tears. His own overflowed. He threw his arm around her, and they mingled their tears in silence. It was long ere the first word was spoken. Eliza at length seemed to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... India Company is reported to have cost $18,000. Whales' teeth, the tusks of elephants, and those of the walrus and narwhal, are all used. Elephants' feet are cut off at a convenient length, richly upholstered, and used as seats; the great toe-nails, when finely polished, giving the novel article of furniture an ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... sitting in a very nice room and in their time—how long ago it now seemed!—both husband and wife had been proud of their carefully chosen belongings. Everything in the room was strong and substantial, and each article of furniture had been bought at a well-conducted auction held ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... spoke, Peter Macnab missed his footing and came down on the table with a crash so tremendous that the crazy article of furniture became something like what Easterns style a split-camel—its feeble legs spread outwards, and its body came flat to ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... were in a "dug-out" ten feet by about fifteen, seven feet high, with a dirt roof; four feet of the walls were the natural earth, the other three of sod, with holes for windows and corn-sacks for curtains. This little lady had her Saratoga trunk, which was the chief article of furniture; yet, by means of a rug on the ground-floor, a few candle-boxes covered with red cotton calico for seats, a table improvised out of a barrel-head, and a fireplace and chimney excavated in the back ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... another of these was, that Mrs. Dodds, like her of Auchtermuchty, or Mrs. Grumlie, carried domesticity to devotion, scarcely anything in the world having any interest to her soul save what was contained in the house—from Tammas, the chief article of furniture, down, through the mahogany table, to the porridge-pot; clouting, mending, darning, cleaning, scouring, washing, scraping, wringing, drying, roasting, boiling, stewing, being all of them done with such duty, love, and intensity of purpose, that they were veritable sacrifices to the lares. This ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... that he should never be replaced. The sway of these cats was despotic, but there were occasions on which their own territory was too limited for them, and messages would come from far down the street demanding the removal of the reigning favourite from some article of furniture where it had ensconced itself with such majesty that a show of violence was out of the question. Among his precious books was a cat story—privately printed and bound—which his second wife had gradually evolved among the wonderful essays ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... allow the outfit as a separate article from the salary. I have inquired here into the usual amount of it. I find that, sometimes, the sovereign pays the actual cost. This is particularly the case of the Sardinian ambassador now coming here, who is to provide a service of plate, and every article of furniture, and other matters of first expense, to be paid for by his court. In other instances, they give a service of plate, and a fixed sum for all other articles, which fixed sum is in no case lower ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Boys sometimes manipulate their genital organs through their trouser pockets; some even make a hole in the pocket to enable them to masturbate more effectually. In other cases, children, especially girls, lean against some article of furniture—a chair or a table—apparently in a harmless manner, but really in such a way that pressure is exercised upon the genital organs, which are stimulated by pressure or friction. In some, strong mechanical stimulation is required; in others, weaker stimuli suffice, because ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... was confined was the sybil's chief pride. Every article of furniture, every bit of painting, the carpets, and even the base-burning stove, were the trophies of ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... great bulk of the population are Protestants, or Presbyterians, the same writer says—"On the other side of these miserable hills, whose inhabitants are years before they can afford to get the holes mended in their potato-kettles—the most indispensable and important article of furniture in an Irish cabin—the territory of Leinster ends, and that of Ulster begins. The coach rattled over the boundary line, and all at once we seemed to have entered a new world. I am not in the slightest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... account books of her personal expenses were mixed up with billets dous, paints and pomades, moneylenders' circulars, belladonna and cantharides. But most astounding of all were the contents of the widows' prie-Dieu. In this devotional article of furniture were stored all the inmost secrets of her profligate career. Affectionate letters from the elderly gentleman on whom she had imposed a supposititious child lay side by side with a black-edged card, on which was written the last message of a young lover who ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... The only article of furniture in the room was a prie-dieu of black oak. I knelt on this, and gazed on the coffin, and wondered. My curiosity urged me to go up to it, and turn down the pall, and ascertain whether the name of the occupant was engraved on the lid. But stronger than my curiosity was a certain repugnance ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... on with but one article of furniture, I think I would choose a bed. One could if necessary sit, eat, read, and write in the bed. In past time it has been a social centre: the hostess received in it, the guests sat on benches, and the ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... since he was nothing keen for the evening's enjoyment, Maitland made profit of the interval to wander through his rooms, lighting the gas here and there and noting that all was as it should be, as it had been left—save that every article of furniture and bric-a-brac seemed to be sadly in want of a thorough dusting. In the end he brought up in the room that served him as study and lounge,—the drawing-room of the flat, as planned in the forgotten architect's scheme,—a large and well-lighted apartment overlooking ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... Shadow, "when our thoughts are not fixed upon any particular object, that our bodies are subject to all the vagaries of elemental influences. Generally, amongst worldly men and frivolous women, we only attach ourselves to some article of furniture or of dress; and they never doubt that we are mere foolish and vague results of the dashing of the waves of the light against the solid forms of which their houses are full. We do not care to tell them the truth, for they would ...
— Cross Purposes and The Shadows • George MacDonald
... washed and put away in the cupboard, she helped her grandmother undress, and settled her comfortably in the green enameled bed with its brass trimmings, that occupied a good part of the small room. Lucia's mother had brought it with her from Naples, and it was the most cherished and admired article of furniture that the Rudinis owned. ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... lively and cultivated widow, Lady Austen, who told him the story of John Gilpin and called for a ballad on the subject. She also urged him to write a long poem in blank verse; and when he demanded a subject, she whimsically suggested the sofa, which was a new article of furniture at that time. Cowper immediately wrote "The Sofa," and, influenced by the poetic possibilities that lie in unexpected places, he added to this poem from time to time, and called his completed work The Task. This was published in 1785, and the author was instantly recognized as one of the ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... outside, compared to many log-houses I have seen further south. Through the low porch, without any remonstrance from the dogs, we reach a lower door. It is hot inside. Yes, there is a stove to the left, and it appears to be the only article of furniture in the room entered. Behind the partition is a very different chamber. It is furnished with the usual couches spread with skins, and on the edge of one of these, Lydia is seated. She does not rise to greet ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... problem, plotting by what illicit and awful torture it might be possible for the tough and stubborn parts to be brought into juxtaposition—there is a chair—a solid, sitable chair, which neither squeaks, nor shuffles, nor shivers. May be you are ashamed at the quantity of mind the dull article of furniture has absorbed; but there are other reflections—homely as ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... the room resembled a miniature court of justice. The principal sitting-room of the royal suite, which was the chief glory of the Adriatic, had been stripped of every superfluous article of furniture or embellishment. Curtains had been removed, all evidences of luxury disposed of. Temporarily the apartment had been transformed into a bare, cheerless place. Seated on a high chair, with his back to the wall, was Sirdeller. At his right ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... replied Woodward, "here goes to set her at defiance;" and as he spoke he tossed bed, straw, rug, blanket, and every miserable article of furniture that the house ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... article of furniture beneath the opening, and in another moment the two men were in the stuffy atmosphere of the unventilated loft. Beneath them they heard Mrs. Shorter dragging the commode back to its accustomed place, and then the sound of her ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... so relaxed in every muscle, and so dead to outward things, that it was impossible to get her any farther. So they bore her into this horrible den, and laid her down in one of the stalls on a bed of loose straw. Inside, there was nothing but these stalls and straw—not a table or chair, or any article of furniture. They filled up nearly the entire room, leaving only a narrow passage between them. The only means of ventilation was ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... back, so that there was some article of furniture between him and his adversary. "I do not choose that there should be a ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope |
