"Couch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and soft lying, had disqualified the soldier to compete for any length of time with a man like the Navarrese, accustomed to the severest hardships, whose most luxurious meal was a handful of boiled beans, his softest couch a bundle of straw or the packsaddles of his mules. Constant exposure and unceasing toil had given the muleteer the same insensibility to fatigue attributed to certain savage tribes. Whilst his antagonist, with inflamed features and short-drawn breath, and reeking with perspiration, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... and sweetness in the way the Virgin turns upon the couch, in order herself to assist in laying the Child down. Giotto is in this exactly faithful to the scriptural words: "She wrapped the Child in swaddling-clothes, and laid Him in a manger." Joseph sits ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... saluted him and get around him whilst he welcomed them and rejoiced in their safety. Then they escorted him to their camp and pitched pavilions for him and set up standards; and Gharib sat down on his couch of estate, with his Grandees about him; and they related to him all that had befallen, especially to Sa'adan Meanwhile the Kafirs sought for Ajib and finding him not among them nor in their tents, told Jaland of his flight, whereat his Doomsday rose and he bit his fingers, saying, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... certain place a Brahman, whose name was Svabhavakripana, which means "a born miser." He had collected a quantity of rice by begging, and after having dined off it, he filled a pot with what was left over. He hung the pot on a peg on the wall, placed his couch beneath, and looking intently at it all the night, he thought, "Ah, that pot is indeed brimful of rice. Now, if there should be a famine, I should certainly make a hundred rupees by it. With this I shall buy a couple of goats. They will have young ones every six months, and ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... laid aside, in order, for a time, to make way for other strong emotions; but often, very often, the young Cossack's deep slumber had been troubled by them, and often he had lain sleepless on his couch, without being able to explain ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... a wicked light flashed up into his eyes; but the calm, benignant gaze of the other cooled the tempest in his veins. The priest sat down on the couch where the child lay, and took the fevered hand in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... into the library, and sat down on a couch, taking Flossie and Freddie up on his knees, while Bert and Nan sat close ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... for a human fellow creature," said Malinkoff sternly, but the priest had gone back to his hard couch, nor would he leave it, and Malinkoff, with a shrug of his shoulders, went back ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... now know is called Sam, had laid out my evening apparel, from the queer dancing shoes with flat heels to a very stiff and high collar, upon a couch in the huge room, and after my bath I began to put them upon me with as much rapidity as was possible to me. For a few moments all went well, even up to having tucked the fine and very stiff white linen shirt garment into the silky black cloth trousers, but a ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... darkness. We recalled another scene under these same tail trees, on a night when the iron gateway was "spanned by a naming arch of massed stars." The park was a "forest with sparks of purple and ruby and golden fire gemming the foliage," and Lucy, driven from her couch by mental torture, wandered unrecognized amid the gay throng at the midnight concert of the Festival of the Martyrs and looked upon her lover, her friends the Brettons, and the secret junta of her enemies, Madame Beck, Madame Walravens, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... Kitty Pakenham exclaimed, "O! Miss Edgeworth, you are the truest of the true—the kindest of the kind." And a little, delicate, death-like white hand stretched itself out to me before I could reach the couch, and when I got there I could not speak—not a syllable, but she, with most perfect composure, more than composure, cheerfulness of tone, went on speaking; as she spoke, all the Kitty Pakenham expression appeared ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... to sleep; I forbid you to speak. I won't answer you, and I tell you of a certainty that in a quarter of an hour Jean will be here. [Musotte stretches herself out obediently upon the couch and goes to sleep.] ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... and got a book, but it was impossible to read, with Jimmy lying on the couch giving vent to something between a sigh and a groan every few minutes. About eleven the cards stopped, and Bella said she would read palms. She began with Mr. Harbison, because she declared he had a wonderful hand, full ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... lolling on a couch, in dressing-gown and slippers. Opposite to him was a gentleman whose face was partly hidden by a pewter pot, out of which he was draining the last draught. Mr. Larkyns turned his head, and saw ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... room for subtle distinctions between that which is comme il faut, and that which is not. All such refinements are unknown in the East; the Pasha and the peasant have the same tastes. The broad cold marble floor, the simple couch, the air freshly waving through a shady chamber, a verse of the Koran emblazoned on the wall, the sight and the sound of falling water, the cold fragrant smoke of the narghile, and a small collection of wives and children in the inner apartments—these, the utmost enjoyments of the grandee, are ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... her own thick cloth mantle, well lined with dressed lambskins, laid it on the floor, rolled the collar of it over a small log of wood—the only substitute she could see for a pillow—and showed an inviting couch in an instant. Ermentrude let her brother lay her down, and then was covered with the ample fold. She smiled as she turned up her thin, wasted face, faded into the same whitey-brown tint as her hair. "That is good," she said, but without thanks; and, feeling the soft ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... waters 'bove the main, That things might change or cease; tears his white hair, Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage, Catch in their fury and make nothing of; Strives in his little world of man to outscorn The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain. This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch, The lion and the belly-pinched wolf Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs, And bids what ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... past. It seemed as if the lengthening days of January were bringing renewed comfort with them, when Charles, who ever since October had been confined to bed, was able to wear the Chinese dressing-gown, be lifted to a couch, and wheeled into the dressing-room, still prostrate, but much enjoying the change of scene, which he called coming ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the couch, burying her face in the cushions, which she tumbled in her despair, and moaning out that he didn't love Verena, he never had loved her, it was only his hatred of their cause that made him pretend it; he wanted to do that ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... which they win again from heaven in limpid streams, leading them in wild leaps through gloomy chasms fringed by timid harebells, whose soft blue eyes look love upon the rocks, while the myriad forest leaves musically murmur above their flinty couch. They watched the fitful shadow-dance of clouds over the green earth. They loved to see these heaven tents where Beauty dwells chased by the young zephyrs, or, driven on in heavy masses by the bolder winds, blush under the fiery glances of the sun, and melt into the sky upon his nearer approach. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... ... oh, all right." Rudi sat down on the old brown couch and sighed. "I just thought it would be a good idea to get a job, bring some bread into the house, you know? So I went down to the agency, and they had this application waiting, and I went down and got the job, and I start tomorrow. That's ...
— Hex • Laurence Mark Janifer (AKA Larry M. Harris)
... out again a while after, the full stream of sunlight that came thence into the passage drew her eyes that way. And Faith did not wonder then that her mother had been startled, and unprepared by the doctor's words for the sight of what she now saw. The chintz-covered couch was drawn before the window, in the full radiance of the sunlight, and Mr. Linden lay there looking out; but the sunlight found no glow in his face, unless one as etherial as itself. The habitual sweet pure look was there—a look that reminded Faith ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... slippery the work of allurement doubtless moved apace. But the girl had scruples and a kind of fear. She made one great effort, of which her weak health would have made her seem incapable. She humbly asked leave to quit that dove's-nest, that couch too soft and delicate, to go and live in common with the ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... the broad, luxurious couch that marked the precise centre of the semi-circle and was evidently intended to be the section of honour. Mr. Bingle leaned back, stretched out his slender legs, crossed his feet, and looked over his tortoise-shell glasses with a fine assumption of tolerance. He was still ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... your key!" he heard Bobby saying, and the next instant his door was flung open, the lights were switched on, and he was staggering blindly toward the couch at the foot of the bed. Then there was a furious ringing of bells, a long wait, followed by the appearance of a sleepy ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... crystal he bore in his hand, and the blessed relief from my pains that a drop from the essence which flashed through the crystal bestowed! And then—and then—I remember no more till the night on which Ayesha came to my couch and said, 'Rise.' ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... remarked that the dishwater boiled away so fast and the cows lay down so much that she believed it would rain the next day. When, that same afternoon, the welcome shower came with scarce ten minutes' warning, Huldah could hardly believe her eyes and ears. She jumped from her couch of anguish and remorse like an excited kitten, darted out of the house unmindful of the lightning, drove the Jersey calf under cover, chased the chickens into the coop, bolstered up the tomatoes so that the wind and rain would not blow the fruit from the ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... walls. In the only chair Aunt Margaret was seated close to the window. In front of her was a small work-table, with a kerosene lamp on it, but the side of the room towards which she looked was quite occupied by a narrow couch —ridiculously narrow, for Aunt Margaret was very stout. There was a thin chest of drawers on the other side, and the small coal stove that stood in the centre so nearly filled the remaining space that the two visitors were one ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... cautions against excitement or violent emotions. With his usual competent grasp on the essentials of a situation that he could not understand at all, he put aside for the time his exasperated apprehensions about the next day's event, and picking Lydia up bodily he carried her to a couch, closing her lips with gentle hands and soothing her with ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... the heat and noise of the long day, Anna was resting on the couch in her sitting-room. A bowl of roses and a note which she had read three or four times stood on a little table by her side. One of the blossoms she had fastened into the bosom of her loose gown. The blinds were drawn, the sounds of the ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... room, an amazing room, its unconcealed simplicities blazoning themselves cheerfully in the light. There were rustic tables and comfortable chairs; there was a couch untouched, apparently, save that it had been denuded of the cushions that lay now about her. There was a small black stove and pans on it and dishes on a stand. There was a chest of drawers and along the walls were ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... bothered for a while yet, at any rate," said Charley, thoughtfully, as he stretched out on his couch and pulled his blanket over him. "Good-night, all; here goes for the land ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... own couch, where he was wont of old, When overcome by gentle sleep, to rest, Olympian Jove ascended; there he slept, And, by his side, ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... young blades that hate a lonely couch? Here is your lovely night for gallivanting with ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... the few days she presumed she should be absent, and extinguishing her lamp at the hour she usually retired to rest, awaited, alone and in silence, for the clock to strike eleven; at which time she knew the family would have all sought their couch and ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... beautiful as Diana, had been found in the forest of Beaumanoir by some Hurons of Lorette, who were out hunting with the Intendant. She was accompanied by a few Indians of a strange tribe, the Abenaquais of Acadia. The woman was utterly exhausted by fatigue, and lay asleep on a couch of dry leaves under a tree, when the astonished Hurons led the Intendant to the spot ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... gained by a brigade of English soldiers, six of whom, on a support formed by muskets, bore what seemed to be the corpse of an officer, whose arm, hanging down, gave to another officer the hand. Such a scene soon attracted general attention. In a few minutes a couch, by the junction of two or three chairs, was made, and on that the body laid. The soldiers who had formed the support, with arms grounded and grief deeply marked on their countenances, presented a melancholy ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... method satisfactory in out-patient practice. The patient lying on a couch, the limb is raised about eighteen inches and kept in this position for five minutes—till the excess of blood has left it. With the limb still raised, the ulcer with the surrounding skin is covered with a layer, about half an inch thick, of finely powdered boracic acid, and ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... unbruised youth with unstuffed brain Doth couch his limbs, there GOLDEN SLEEP doth reign: Therefore thy earliness doth me assure, Thou art UP-ROUSED by ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... in the study, he on an arm-chair drawn near the fire and I on the couch. I cannot say now at what time I began to have an inkling that there was something wrong. It came upon me gradually and made me very uncomfortable, though of course I did not show this. I heard people going up and down stairs, but I was not at ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... visit me so easily. An uncomfortable impression remains, which has not been lessened by the casual remark of the owner of the hut regarding the habits of the scorpions. "Very knowing creatures, senor," he says, as he obsequiously helps to arrange my couch in the middle of the floor—a position chosen by myself—"they have a habit of dropping from the roof on to a ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... of these things must have been vouchsafed me as I sat there behind Melmount's couch, but now my knowledge of accomplished things has mingled with and effaced my expectations. Something indeed I must have foreseen—or else why ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... still farther! Step softly into the chamber of my heart-here we are in the vestibule—utter stillness—no Humboldt—no architect—no barking dog. Thou art not a stranger; go up and knock; it will be alone and call to thee "Come in!" Thou wilt find it on a cool, quiet couch, and a friendly light will greet thee. All will be peace and order, and thou wilt be welcome! What is that? Heavens! See the flames shooting up over him! Whence this conflagration? Who can save here? Poor heart! Poor, suffering heart! What can reason accomplish here? It knows everything better and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... joy; the houses' tops With gaping spectators are throng'd, nay wild They climb such precipices that the eye Is dazzl'd with their daring; ev'ry wretch Who long has been immur'd, nor dar'd enjoy The common benefits of sun and air, Creeps from his lurking place; e'en feeble age, Long to the sickly couch confin'd, stalks forth, And with infectious breath assails the Gods. O! curse the name, the ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... On my sea-strand couch, For screams of the sea fowl. There wakes me, When from the wave he comes, Every ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... daughter Irene to tell where a certain deposit was hidden. Two less marvellous, but more instructive, stories bring out the simplicity of his character. He rebuked a celebrated preacher at Cyprus for altering, in a quotation from the gospels, the homely word for "bed" into "couch." "What! are you better than He who said 'bed,' that you are ashamed to use his words?" On occasion of a way-worn traveller coming to him in Lent, finding no other food in the house, he presented him with salted pork; and when the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... her (unresisting now) to the other side of the room and lowered her to the couch that stood there. He looked into the teapot, where the drained leaves were still warm. He filled it up again with boiling water from the kettle on the gas ring, and poured out a cup and gave it her to drink, supporting her stooping head tenderly with ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... expressed surprise, but he merely invited them to be seated and waited for them to explain the object of their late visit. The room into which they had been shown was his consulting room, furnished in the simplest fashion—almost shabbily. There were chairs and table and a couch, a small stand for a pile of magazines, a bookcase containing some medical works, and a sprawling hare's-foot fern in a large flowerpot by the window. Mr. Pendleton seated himself near the fern, examining it as though it was a botanical rarity, and left his wife to undertake ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... solitary teepee he knew instantly what it was. It was a grave! Sometimes a new white lodge was pitched thus for the dead, who lay in state within upon a couch of finest skins, and surrounded by his ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... illuminated all our spiritual vision, have we been able to say certainly of death, it is a sleep. This has made its outward semblance not that of cessation, but of progression—not an end, but a change—converting its rocky couch to a birth-chamber, over-casting its shadows with beams of eternal morning, while behind its cold unconsciousness the unseen spirit broods into higher life. "He fell asleep," says the sacred chronicler, speaking of bloody Stephen. "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth," said Christ ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... and tossing it carelessly from her hand, she settled back upon her couch for good solid meditation, while tears gathered in her deep blue eyes, chasing each other in rapid succession down ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... awhile, oh flowers!—oh wandering grasses, And creeping ferns, and climbing, clinging vines;— Bend down and cover with lush odorous masses My darling's couch, where he in ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... the poor monks. While the servants were taking off her cloak and adding two more logs to her fire, she called her steward, whom she ordered to send some wood to the convent immediately. She then had her couch moved close to the fireside, the warmth of which soon revived her. The recollection of what she had just suffered was speedily lost in her present comfort, when the steward came in again to ask how many loads of wood ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Giovanni's wounds, he left the father and son together. Giovanni lay upon a couch in his own sitting-room, eating his breakfast as best he could with one hand. The old Prince paced the floor, commenting from time to time upon ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... my couch I rose, and like a ghost Stole through the darkness of my father's halls; Fled to the sea; and in my fragile bark I heaped a few fresh fruits, and bore a vase Filled with fresh water,—this was all my store. I loosed my shallop ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown
... esse tori; Alma quies, optata, veni, nam sic sine vita Vivere quam suave est; sic sine morte mori."—T. Warton. [Finely translated by Wolcot.] "Come, gentle sleep! attend thy vot'ry's pray'r, And, though Death's image, to my couch repair; How sweet, though lifeless, yet with life to lie, And, without dying, oh, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various
... your couch alone Ere Egypt and Rome were born? Ere the Age of Stone, Or the world had known The Man with ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... turn and flash and come to a stop, watching the horseplay of boys and maidens as one set clambered off laughing and another pressed forward into their places. The tune droned in his ears, came to an end, went on again. He drowsed to its recurrent beat. From his couch in the wet shadow he gazed up at the stars riding overhead, ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... simplicity enjoined in some of the following statutes of this Table, for the decemvirs apparently took a dim view of extravagant funerals, this statute seems to mean that a rough-hewn pyre without elaborate smoothness of its wooden material suffices for the cremation-couch of ...
— The Twelve Tables • Anonymous
... to read the unspoken thought! Courtenay and Christobal and Tollemache need not have striven to couch their warnings in ambiguous words. Elsie could have told them all that was left unsaid at breakfast. The ship had fought her own enemies; now the human beings she had saved must defend themselves from a foe against ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... very closely to the old fable of the crumpled rose-leaf breaking the rest of the sybarite on his couch of silk. ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... before her gate, Though very quiet was her bower. All was as her hand had left it late: The needle slept on the broidered vine, Where the hammer and spikes of the passion-flower Her fashioning did wait. On the couch lay something fair, With steadfast ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... Nan her present, which was a lovely white couch pillow of lace and embroidery. And Nan gave Patty a picture to hang in her own room. It was a beautiful water-colour, a Venetian scene, and Patty was delighted ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... obstruction but that offered by the cavalry under Stuart, and on Thursday, April 30th, had crossed the Rapidan at Germanna and Ely's Fords, and was steadily concentrating around Chancellorsville. At the same time the Second Corps, under General Couch, was preparing to cross at United States Ford, a few miles distant; and General Sedgwick, commanding the detached force at Fredericksburg, having crossed and threatened Lee, in obedience to orders, now began passing back to the northern bank again, in order to march up and join the main body. ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... cried. "Why didn't I warn her! Put her on the couch here in the hall, Kut-le. John, tell Li Chung to bring the hot-water bottles. ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the light burned late, on this evening, in Mrs. Arnot's parlor. The lady's indisposition had confined her to her room and couch during the greater part of the day; but as the sun declined, the distress in her head had gradually ceased, and she had found her airy drawing-room a welcome change from the apartment heavy with the odor ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... position deprived me for a moment of my self-possession, and I stood stationary in the middle of the room, deliberating upon whether I should call back my conductress, and ask from her some explanation, or proceed forward to the couch, where, no doubt, my services were required; but my hesitation was soon resolved, by the extraordinary appearance of an Indian-coloured female countenance, much emaciated, and lighted up with two bright orbs, occupying the interstice between the curtains, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... knyghte of comelie mien, Affynd unto the kynge of Dynefarre, At echone tylte and tourney he was seene, And lov'd to be amonge the bloudie warre; He couch'd hys launce, and ran wyth mickle myghte 135 Ageinste the brest of Sieur de Bonoboe; He grond and sunken on the place of fyghte, O Chryste! to fele his wounde, his harte was woe. Ten thousand thoughtes ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... battle. Pauline found her new home filled with all the luxuries and sacred relics of the tribe. There were rugs richer than those in the Chief's house; the walls were festooned with strung beads, and on the large, low couch of bear skins lay the most splendid of ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... purpose could have been achieved with less; and yet, poor as she was, she had achieved her purpose. And then again the more dissolute Italian youths of Milan frequented the Stanhope villa and surrounded her couch, not greatly to her father's satisfaction. Sometimes his spirit would rise, a dark spot would show itself on his cheek, and he would rebel, but Charlotte would assuage him with some peculiar triumph of her culinary art and all again would be ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... the best and blackest bowl, and putting on Persian slippers, sitting on the softest couch, I will light my pipe, with my feet on the hearth, and I will cast ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... left the house as rapidly as she had come. Lettice sank down upon a couch, and hid her face in the cushion. She could not shed a tear, but she was trembling from head to foot, and ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... not the blossom-dotted couch To wander in the midday heat, With lotus-petals on your breast, With fevered ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... must be my bed, The bracken curtain for my head, My lullaby the warder's tread, Far, far from love and thee, Mary; To-morrow eve, more stilly laid My couch may be my bloody plaid, My vesper song, thy wail, sweet maid! It will not waken ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... expression as really new and if he cannot enjoy the old, when the old is of all time. The beautiful and the real can never be old or new because they are the same through the movement of time. To explain what I mean, let me come suddenly down to date and permit me to quote from Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's "On the Art of Reading." He is writing of the Bible, which ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... document from his fingers Sewatis leaped from his couch, seized the warrant, and went back to his slumbers, saying, ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... of the studio was fitted up as a sitting-room, with rugs, easy-chairs, and a couch, and a table with work and writing-materials. Here, in a retired nook behind an old screen, stood "Babs's" bassinette, where she ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... whole mind was full of music; associations, memories, sensations of pleasure or pain,—all were mixed up inexplicably with those sounds that now delighted and now terrified; that greeted her when her eyes opened to the sun, and woke her trembling on her lonely couch in the darkness of the night. The legends and tales of Gionetta only served to make the child better understand the signification of those mysterious tones; they furnished her with words to the music. It was natural that the daughter of such a parent should soon ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... and Louis rose to open it, and then he saw a sight which shook all his gathered firmness to tears. Headed by the eldest of Minnie's scholars came a procession of children, each one bearing a bunch of fairest and brightest flowers to spread around the couch of their beloved teacher. Some kissed her, and others threw themselves beside the corpse and wept bitter, burning tears. All shared in Louis' grief, for all had lost a dear, good friend and ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... other end on trees and flowers, which showed the sunlight busy there too. The child lingered wistfully. Then crossed the hall, and went into a matted, breezy, elegant room, where a lady lay luxuriously on a couch, playing with a book and a leaf-cutter. She could not be busy with anything in that attitude. Nearly all that was to be seen was a flow of lavender silk flounces, a rich slipper at rest on a cushion, and a dainty little cap with roses on a head ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... courtesy, the Twins had given her the best sleeping-cave to herself, but she displayed such a terrified reluctance to sleep in it alone, that her couch of bracken and her blankets were moved into the cave of Erebus. After the journey and the excitement she was not long falling into ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... him, and he sprang up as well and strong as he had ever been. Wondering how it was that he had been so quickly cured, he made haste to find Alcestis and tell her the good news. But when he went into her room, he saw her lying lifeless on her couch, and he knew at once that she had died for him. His grief was so great that he could not speak, and he wished that death had taken him and spared the one whom ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... House, particularly in the department of facetiae. After leaving Sydenham, Hill took chambers in James Street, Adelphi, where he resided until his death. The walls of his rooms were completely hidden by books, and his couch was 'enclosed in a lofty circumvallation of volumes piled up from the carpet.' He was never married, had no relations, and even his age was a source of mystery to his friends. James Smith once said to him: 'The fact is, Hill, the register of your birth was destroyed in the ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... Old Cook, his servant took it upon him to cut up their coast and fling ashes upon it. The lads made a muster, and chose a committee to wait upon the General, who admitted them, and heard their complaint, which was couch'd in very genteel terms, complaining that their fathers before 'em had improv'd it as a coast from time immemorial, &ca. He ordered his servant to repair the damage, and acquainted the Governor with the affair, who observ'd that it was impossible to ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... suck I: In a cowslip's bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat's back I do fly After summer merrily: Merrily, merrily, shall I live now, Under the blossom ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... cheeks, but doubted, nevertheless, when you came to meet her great eyes, so dreamy that you wondered which was alive, you or she. Her hand, usually held up to her cheek, was absolutely ghostlike. Her form was so small, and deeply imbedded in a reclining-chair or couch-corner, that it amounted to nothing. The dead Galileo could not possibly have had a wiser or more doubtfully attested being as a neighbor. If the poor scientist had been there to assert that Mrs. Browning breathed, he would probably have been imprisoned forthwith ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... before Ling, now more downcast in mind than the most unsuccessful student in Canton, returned to his room and sought his couch of dried rushes. All his efforts to have his distinguished appointment set aside had been without avail, and he had been ordered to reach Si-chow within a week. As he passed through the streets, elegant processions in honour of the winners ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... flat on his back on his narrow bed, with his mouth wide open, and snoring like a key-bugle with leaky stops; while his beads and crucifix—misplaced emblems in contact with drunkenness and debauchery—were reposing on his ample chest. The doctor was sitting beside his own couch, whispering words of childish comfort to the little boy, whose pale cheeks and brown curls reposed on the pillow of the bed. The poor child's thin, limp fingers rested like the petals of a drooping lily in the dark, ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... shadow which grows more and more distinct as it approaches nearer and nearer, at last standing before my soul like the moon, which on some stormy night throws back the cloud-veils from across its face. She was always sick and suffering and silent, and I never saw her except reclining upon her couch, upon which two servants brought her into the room and carried her out again, when she was tired. There she lay in her flowing white drapery, with her hands generally folded. Her face was so pale and yet so mild, ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... flight of broken brick steps that Old Meg, the fortune-teller, had her den where through the superstitions of those inhabiting the neighborhood she managed to eke out a miserable existence. The interior of the den was unspeakably filthy. The furniture consisted of a broken-down couch, a chest of drawers in a like condition, a card-table, a few kitchen chairs, and some boxes. Most of the panes in the windows had been broken and the empty spaces had been covered with old newspapers. Consequently, ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... the compassion and interest he was evoking in the hearts of his schoolfellows, retired early to his sorrowful couch, and mourned his departed gipsies till slumber gently stepped in and soothed his troubled mind. But returning day laid bare the old wound, and Alexander girded himself listlessly to the duties of the hour, with a heart ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... said, "we'll have plenty of time to talk this over, but now we must get some rest. I want to get an early start in the morning, if the storm has blown over. It's me for the downy couch now and the early bird stunt in ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... long procession followed Fay; And still the little couch remained unblest: But, when those wayward sprites had passed away, Came One, the last, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the invisible shall be made visible in forms comprehensible to the commonest minds. Sin would surely flee from a temple sculptured in such a shape as the body of Valentine, as a vampire would flee from the bloodless courts of the heaven of the Revelation. Lust cannot lie at ease on a crystal couch, or rest its dark head upon a pillow of pale ivory. And the message of this strange, unearthly youth now given in music, and to the air and the dust—for Valentine had lost knowledge of his friends—was crystalline too. In his improvisation he journeyed through many themes of varying ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... he gave command to put away Gulo's corpse, which no one had ventured to touch. The slaves from whom Lygia had been taken he sent to rural prisons,—a punishment almost more dreadful than death. Throwing himself at last on a couch in the atrium, he began to think confusedly of how he was ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... is that these half-hours by the convalescent's couch are full of subtle flattery for the doctor, and are apt to evolve the social best of him, as he notes the daily gain in strength and color, and listens, a tranquil despot, to one's pleas for this freedom ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... position. Mr. Balfour was received again by the King on July 12th and a little later in the day General Lord Kitchener, after passing in triumphal procession through the streets of London on his return from South Africa, was also admitted into audience by the King and personally decorated from his couch with the special Coronation honour—the new Order of Merit. Lord Kitchener then dined with the Prince of Wales, as representing His Majesty, at ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... marched twelve miles before camping. It rained before we started out from Manila and cleared up, but left the roads very muddy and made marching very hard. The twelve miles were made by ten o'clock. That night the wet ground served as couch and one blanket as all the covering. We had to recline, if we lay down at all, with gun and belt at our side, ready at a moment's notice to meet the enemy's attack should they swoop down upon us in camp. After a halt of six hours we set about at four o'clock preparing breakfast, every ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... upstairs, followed at a respectful distance by Mr. Boffin, waving his plumed tail. He, too, took his afternoon nap, curled up cosily upon the silken quilt at the foot of his mistress's couch. In the room adjoining, Rose rested for an hour also, though she usually spent the time ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... and loaded with another's property, be interpreted? Did he enter the house after me, or was he the tenant of some chamber hitherto unvisited; whom my entrance had awakened from his trance and called from his couch? ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... disturb him by sitting up after him, and so I could not write since he returned, though I wished very much to tell you about him, ever since he came home. He came back unlooked for that day; and when I heard a step on the piazza, I was lying on a couch and feeling quite indisposed. But as soon as I saw him I was frightened out of all knowledge of myself,—so haggard, so white, so deeply scored with pain and fatigue was the face, so much more ill he looked than I ever saw him before. He had walked from the station because he saw no carriage ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... deadly weapon to bear on the stag; quickly draw a steady bead, hugging the rifle with all our might, and fire! The hinds flash across our vision like the figures in a magic lantern, and the stag lies weltering in his couch." ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... from my peaceful home There in far Colchis, thou hast lured me here, To be thine haughty paramour's meek slave. Freeborn am I, yet see! mine arms are chained!— Through the long, troubled nights, upon my couch I lie and weep; each morn, as the bright sun Returns, I curse my gray hairs and my weight Of years. All scorn me, flout me. All I had Is gone, save heavy heart and scalding tears.— Nay, I will speak, and thou shalt ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... could move, the school-master had taken the papers, and was standing over Charlie's couch, with his right hand against the wall, at the level of his head, and his left arm hanging by his side; and I suppose it was his attitude which made me notice, before he began to speak, what a splendid figure he had, and how strong he looked. He spoke in ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... rising from his couch and speaking in so severe and impressive a voice that the two servants of Pe-tsing at once fled in great apprehension, 'this person has also found it necessary, in his official position, to oppose you; but here the similarity ends, for, on his part, he has never felt towards ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... forks; even a set of dessert knives obtained the notice of our cupidity. Articles of a lesser moment nor a thousandth part so useful, did not escape the all-grasping hands of the soldiery. In a back apartment there stood a mahogany couch or settee in a highly finished style. The woodwork of the couch was raised on all sides by cushioning, and costly covered by a rich figured silk. This to us was lumber, besides our carioles were full. However, we grabbed the mattrass and pallets all equally elegant ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... withdrawn, Jeanne, worn out by her morning's expedition, lay down on her bed with her hostess for a short sleep. Sire Jean d'Aulon, who was very weary, stretched himself on a couch in the same room, thinking to take the rest he so greatly needed. But scarce had he fallen asleep when the Maid leapt from her bed and roused him with a great noise. He asked ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... for me—she engaged it nearly all: and there was something fearful and sublime in the exceeding idolatry of Gabrielle for her sweet baby. Self was immolated altogether; and when she hung over the baby's couch each night, watching its happy, peaceful slumbers, it was difficult to say which of the twain was the more beautiful. Repose marked the countenance of each—Gabrielle's was imbued with the heavenly ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... nights when she was sleepless on her own couch beneath the roof of Catharine Knollys, did Mary Connynge allow herself to think. Tell, then, ye who may, whether or not she was a mere survival of some forgotten day of the forest and the glade, as she lay with her hands clasped in brief moments of emotion. Surely she hoped, as all women hope ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... was scattered over with an incredible number of yellow stars that had fallen down from out of the sky. And, because of the pleasantness of this place, Sir Percival here dismounted from his horse and sat him down upon a little couch of moss under the shadow of an oak tree that grew nigh to the cottage, there to rest himself for a while with great pleasure. And as he sat there there came a barelegged lass from the cottage and brought him fresh milk to drink; and there came a ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... booty to offer it to their chief, and selfishness was not so general that this noble French courtesy did not reappear from time to time to recall the happy days of France. Straw was the bed of all; and those of the marshals who in Paris slept on most luxurious beds of down did not find this couch too hard ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... rather heavily and hoarsely, it is true, but apparently resting comfortably. Betty and Bob were thoroughly tired out and glad to say good-night and go to bed. As Betty snuggled down on the comfortable old couch, she thought how kind of the doctor to have made ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... is surmised, as I seek my couch, that the city opposite is Chao-choo-foo. Inquiry to that effect, as usual, elicits nothing but a bland grin from Yung Po. When, however, he takes the unnecessary precaution of warning me not to venture outside the covered sleeping quarters during the night, intimating ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... with the thick couch of dry leaves beneath, could still see the figure of Robert, rifle across his knees, crouched at the doorway, a black silhouette against the fading sky. The Onondaga knew that he would watch until the storm came in full flood, and nothing would escape his keen eyes and ears. Dagaeoga was a ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... should be any preference with regard to seats, one suggestion is that a lady should be seated on a couch or sofa, unless advanced in years, when she should be asked to accept an easy chair; an elderly gentleman should be treated in the same manner. If a young lady should be occupying a particularly comfortable seat, she must ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... guided to the proper round. Another step brought my head above the sill: at the next, I had two arms inside the long, shaft-like opening; my body followed, as Mathilde's receded. I crawled through; lowered myself, hands and knees, to the couch beneath; leaped to the floor, and kneeling before the ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Portsmouth and her boy to the care of James; "And do not," he good-naturedly added, "let poor Nelly starve." The Queen sent excuses for her absence by Halifax. She said that she was too much disordered to resume her post by the couch, and implored pardon for any offence which she might unwittingly have given. "She ask my pardon, poor woman!" cried Charles; "I ask hers with all ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... as "Polly" dropped her grip on the floor and, banging open a door, entered a shabby little sitting room, followed by Harley. Dropping onto a ragged couch, she stared obstinately out of ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... and a lot of others besides, but you can see how much I need to catch up. And oh, but it's fun! I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an 'engaged' on the door and get into my nice red bath robe and furry slippers and pile all the cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass student lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read one book isn't enough. I have four going at once. Just now, they're Tennyson's poems and Vanity Fair and Kipling's Plain Tales and—don't laugh—Little Women. I find that I am the only girl in college who wasn't brought ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... genial surroundings, she will soon be herself again. But if our brave worker has not these indispensables, or has them in a chance, get-me-if-you-can sort of way, then she lingers on, and often rises from her couch but half cured, and plunges on again under the old conditions, until something occurs which some persons call "a chance," some by another name, which mercifully changes the current of her life for a while, ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... delirium tremens waited around and haunted her imagination through the day; while shrieks, and groans, and all the signs of woe attended her nightly couch, to add a gloomy horror to her unrefreshing and broken slumbers. And so far as my observations extend, the most inveterate derangements of the nervous system are either produced or aggravated by the habitual ...
— A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister
... consisting of an open verandah in front and a small dark sleeping room behind. It was raised about five feet from the ground, and was reached by rude steps to the centre of the verandah. The walls and floor were of bamboo, and it contained a table, two bamboo chairs, and a couch. Here I soon made myself comfortable, and set to work hunting for insects among the more recently felled timber, which swarmed with fine Curculionidae, Longicorns, and Buprestidae, most of them remarkable for ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... morning he declared he had passed a sleepless night owing to the efforts of two Scotch lads who occupied the room next to him. They had some taste for carpentering, and were addicted to getting up in the dead of the night and doing odd jobs about the room. At half-past five a.m. they left their couch and began playing Cain and Abel. Only the Naturalist protested there is no authority in Scripture for the fearful row Abel made when Cain got him down ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... cried, advancing to the couch. "Why, this will never do, Miss Rogers! Tut, tut! you are not sick, you do not look it! This is only an excuse to send for me, and you know it. I can see at a glance that you are a long way from being ill, and you ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... prince as if she had just observed him, and invited him to be seated on the fauteuil near her couch. The prince obeyed, but he was absent-minded and restless, and the more the queen endeavored to engage him in harmless and unconstrained conversation, the more monosyllabic and preoccupied he became. The poor prince remembered only that his beloved was so near, that only ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... on the bed, patting the dead face with nervous fingers; but she was dry-eyed, no filial despair raised tumult in her breast, her pleading was for the impossible—for the dead lips to speak—and when she was refused her plea, she sprang from the couch in a paroxysm ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... confidently; but it is the voice of an exhausted man, whose physical resources are nearly at an end. For a long time he sits quite still, holding his wife's hand, saying nothing, for he has nothing more to say. A high screen behind the couch on which they rest cuts off the gaslight; only the firelight plays fitfully upon the two faces. Suddenly the brightness falls away, and over that foreshadowing of death, now only three ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... poor, the cultivated and barbaric, are all the same in love; the same beautiful, tender, forgiving spirit of devoted affection dwells in all. Oh, see the mother as she gazes fondly upon her child; as she feeds him from her breast; as she watches by his sick couch; as she counsels him to virtue and goodness; as she weeps over his waywardness ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... buttons of widely dissimilar design and colour and, with great difficulty since her hands were puffed and clumsy from long immersion in strong suds, she affixed them to the back of the dress and fell into her corner of the family couch to dream of Miss Bailey's surprise and joy when the blended plaid should be revealed unto her. Surely, if there were any gratitude in the hearts of teachers, Yetta should be, ere the sinking of another sun, "monitors off ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... evening, she lay on the couch in her own room, weary with the day's experiences. For all she had considered herself well posted in political methods, this day had been a ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow |
