"Desk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of all is a writing-desk," continued Katy. "And Johnnie wants a sled. But, oh dear! these are such big things. And I've only got two dollars and ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... caring more for the education of their children. Some three thousand of these now go to school, not always irregularly. Very quaint scholars are the dark-eyed, quick-glancing, brown-skinned little people sitting tied "to that dry drudgery at the desk's dull wood," which, if heredity counts for anything, must be so much harder to them than to the children of the Pakeha.[1] Three years ago the Government re-organized the native schools, had the children taught sanitary lessons with the help of magic ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... done wrong," said Mr. Easy to himself, as he stood, in a musing attitude, by his desk, about five minutes after Hiram had left. "If I had seen about the situation when he first called upon me, I might have secured it for him. But ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... desk next morning Chillingworth gave to St. George a note from Amory, who had been at Long Branch with The Aloha when the letter was posted and was coming up that ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... door there was no such division, all the occupants of the back benches being men and boys. The congregation was standing, singing a hymn, when Yates and his comrades entered, so their quiet incoming was not noticed. The teacher's desk had been moved from the platform on which it usually stood, and now occupied a corner on the men's side of the house. It was used as a seat by two or three, who wished to be near the front, and at the same time keep an eye on the rest of the assemblage. ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... revealed a character at once supple and decided—supple toward the master who could throw him the prey, firm toward the dogs who might possibly be disposed to dispute it with him. M. Vanel carried a voluminous bundle of papers under his arm, and placed it on the desk on which Colbert was leaning both his elbows, as he ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... sits at a flat-topped desk in a soft-carpeted room, working quietly, methodically. By the window stands a big steel safe containing hundreds of pounds in gold, at hand for any emergency. Ranged on shelves are reference books—"Who's Who," "The Law ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... against the lanced shoulders of the chiefs. The taking of Pango Wango had not been, I fear, a moral victory. Van Blaricom was smoking a cigar, and was writing on a piece of paper, using the back of a Pango Wango man as a desk. The Queen's garments were chiefly variegated bath-towels, and she was rubbing her beaming countenance and ample bosom with hair-oil and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... same open space his clerk was writing at a lacquer desk of the stereotyped form—a low bench with the ends rolled over—a woman was tailoring, coolies were washing their feet on the itama, and several more were squatting round the irori smoking and drinking tea. A coolie servant washed ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... at her big desk, strewn with accounts, in the sober-looking library where she always spent her mornings, and she rose to receive her prospective son-in-law, with an aspect serious and business-like, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... you: If any ask for me at court, report You have left me in the company of knaves. [Exit Monticelso. I gather now by this, some cunning fellow That 's my lord's officer, and that lately skipp'd From a clerk's desk up to a justice' chair, Hath made this knavish summons, and intends, As th' rebels wont were to sell heads, So to make prize of these. And thus it happens: Your poor rogues pay for 't, which have not the means To present bribe in fist; the rest o' th' band Are razed ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... sang in my veins. The scent of adventure was in my nostrils. A fool you may think me, but I was already on the hunt for buried treasure. Half a dozen times I had the paper out furtively, and as soon as my hour of release came I cleared the desk and spread the ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... her," said Mary, confidently; and, without more ado, left Letty, and, going to her desk in the shop, wrote a note to Mrs. Wardour. This she gave to Beenie to send by special messenger to Thornwick; after which, she told her, she must take up a nice tea to Miss Lovel in her bedroom. Mary then resumed her place in the shop, under the frowns ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... the Land Office at Pierre and threw a sheaf of proof notices on the Register's desk. He looked at them with practiced eyes. "These haven't been published yet," ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... report, sir, that I have personally delivered the battery records, correctly sorted, labeled, and securely crated, to the demobilization office. The typewriter, field-desk, and stationery have been turned in, ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... in possession of his desk, and I wrote to my late housekeeper, Madame Lebel, telling her that I was going to spend three weeks at Geneva, and that if I were sure of seeing her I would gladly pay a visit to Lausanne. Unfortunately, I also wrote to the bad Genoese ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the desk where Eglington's mother used to write, Hylda sat with a bundle of letters before her. For some moments she opened, glanced through them, and put them aside. Presently she sat back in her chair, thinking—her mind was invaded by the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... went forward to the desk, and the prescribed oaths having been administered, he took his seat in the Senate. Thus, on the last day of the first session of the Thirty-ninth Congress, Tennessee was fully ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... of Aunt Elizabeth's little body moving hurriedly down the passage and hastened after her. She arrived only just in time. There, standing in a row before four chairs, their faces red and shining, their hands folded in front of them, were the domestics; there, with a little high desk in front of her, on the other side of the long dining-room table was Aunt Anne; here, near the door, were two chairs obviously intended for Aunt Elizabeth ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... rang and the work-people all poured along the corridors and out at the open doors, Katie knocked at the office door and was told to "Come in!" by Mr. James, who happened to be alone inside. Without a word the girl walked up to his desk and laid ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... bent over his desk lost in thought. He held a pencil in his hand and mechanically drew fantastic figures on a large sheet of white paper which lay before him. He suddenly came out of his revery. He had just solved a last difficulty; his plan was now entire and complete. ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... of his desk, he must stagger back with dismay at the piles on piles of letters heaped thereon. To read them all is out of the question; so he sits down and draws one forth, just as you would draw a card from the hand of someone who pretended to ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... the aim of your tenderness always in view. While your arms were around me, your little hand which seemed to rest upon my heart, sought for the key which I always kept in my vest-pocket, and which I had lately told you belonged to the desk in which the important papers of the embassy were placed. You found this key, Rosa, and I knew it, but I only laughed, and pressed you closer to ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... from anabainein, to walk up, the reading-desk of early Basilican churches, also called purgos. Originally small and movable, it was afterwards made of large proportions and fixed in one place. In the Byzantine and early Romanesque periods it was an essential part of church furniture; but during the middle ages it was gradually superseded ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... furniture of the study, a desk, a sofa, a couple of chairs and several bookcases, gave no chance of any hiding place either for the body of the victim or for the murderers. When the men left the room the magistrate locked the door and put the key in his own pocket. The gendarme in the ...
— The Case of The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... at the back of the room. There were no chairs, of course. Each person present occupied a scholar's seat and desk. Courtney had seen her come in. She was so late that he began to fear she was not coming at all. The little thrill of exultation that came with her arrival was shortly succeeded by an even greater fear that she would depart as soon as the meeting was ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... sit at my desk, the thistles are in their glory, and in a vase at my elbow stands a single head of the tall swamp variety, along with a handful of fringed gentians. Forgetting what it is, one cannot help pronouncing the thistle beautiful,—a close bunch of minute rose-purple ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... streaming down every alley and lane, the packed galleries, the gesticulating black figure of the preacher—this impressed on her an idea of the power of corporate religion, that hours at her own prayer-desk, or solitary twilight walks under the Hall pines, or the uneventful divisions of the Rector's village sermons, ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... breakfast a half-hour earlier, but she accepted a cup of coffee. Mihul, all athlete, declined. She went over to Plemponi's desk and stood leaning against it, arms folded across her chest, calm blue eyes fixed thoughtfully on Trigger. With her lithe length of body, Mihul sometimes reminded Trigger of a ferret, but the tanned face was a pleasant one and there was ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... this too, then?" As he spoke the manager took from his desk a small notebook. "I found it on the floor in front of ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... him that the chestnut horse was saddled, "To-morrow the bay horses must be harnessed up to take my wife to Schwerin." Lisbeth said that she had an idea! She rose, wiped the tears from her eyes, and, going over to the desk where he had seated himself, asked him if he would give her the petition and let her go to Berlin in his stead and hand it to the Elector. For more reasons than one Kohlhaas was deeply moved by this change of attitude. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... another fell upon me. One morning some valuable securities, belonging to the firm, were missing. Of course they were sought for, and, as a matter of form—so Mr. Grey said—the desks of all in the establishment were searched. What was my horror when the missing securities were found in my desk! Of course, this was ruin. My reputation, my future, were in the hands of James Grey. I could not account for the discovery, knowing my innocence; but I now feel sure that my employer put the papers ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... At a desk behind him sits John Haynes, the son of Squire Haynes, introduced in our last chapter. He is nearly two years older than Frank, and about as opposite to him in personal appearance as can well be imagined. He has a thin face, very black hair is tall of his age, and already beginning ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... consequence—indeed, I had not expended more than the twenty pounds I had brought with me. I had received some few presents from Lady M—and Madame Bathurst, and a great many from Lady R—. Altogether, I calculated that I had about two hundred and sixty pounds in my desk, for Lady R—had given me one hundred pounds for only a portion of the year; then there was the five hundred pounds which she had left me, besides her wearing apparel and trinkets, which last I knew to be of value. It was a little fortune to one ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... scientists. There were other scientists present, but the fact that Jeter and Eyer, who were so soon to follow Kress into the stratosphere—and eternity?—held the places of honor near the desk of the spokesman, ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks
... it were possible," he said, slowly, "to find one boy or man in a thousand who would receive instructions and carry them out to the letter without a single variation from the course laid down. Cornelius," he looked up sharply at his son, who sat at a desk close by, "I hope you are carrying out my ideas with regard to your sons. I have not seen much of them lately. The lad Cyrus seems to me a promising fellow, but I am not so sure of Cornelius. He appears to be acquiring a sense of his own importance ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... after a moment, more distinctly, as a pretty, undeveloped boy in white pinafores, who had once accompanied Fletcher upon a hurried visit to the town. The gay laugh had awakened the incident in his mind, and he saw again the little cleanly clad figure perched upon his desk, nibbling bakers' buns, while he transacted a tedious piece of business with the ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... point of turning round to leave the room, when with a sound of 'whiff' which reached him from behind, he at once caught sight of a square inkslab come flying that way. Who had thrown it he could not say, but it struck the desk where Chia Lan ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... in the rear which would answer for sleeping, eating, and studying purposes, and which connected with the front apartment by a door in the left-hand corner. This connection he would partially conceal by a prescription-desk. A counter would run lengthwise toward the rue Royale, along the wall opposite the side-doors. Such was the spot that soon ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... was nothing to pay them with—nothing in fact remained but the office furniture. 'Take that, my boys,' said he, 'and divide it among you.' This was accordingly done, and one man marched off with a table, another with a chair, a third with a desk, a fourth with an inkstand, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... plainly enough, but who did not bow. The postman brought daily a bunch of letters, addressed in various forms of stern commercial handwriting to George Henry Harrison, but these often lay unopened and neglected on his desk. ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... editor of the Daily Reformer, sat at his desk, opening letters and marking proofs to the merry tune of a typewriter, worked by a vigorous ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... hut that was allotted to Retief in the little outlying guard-kraal, which had been given to us for a camp. Here I found the commandant seated on a Kaffir stool engaged in painfully writing a letter, using a bit of board placed on his knees as a desk. ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... the iron had come into his soul, and the girl had given it a twist which had taken his last ounce of courage. He lay still a long time, enduring— all he could manage at first. It might have been an hour later that he got up and went to his desk and sat down in the fading light, his hands deep in his trousers pockets; his athletic young figure dropped together listlessly; his eyes staring at the desk where had worked away so many cheerful hours. Pictures hung around it; ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... noble head, this bronze muse; a strong face, with a shadowed glow upon it, indicative of thoughtful fervor, and of a nature most femininely sensitive, but not in the least morbid. Her form is delicate, her hands daintily small. She stands quietly beside her desk, and speaks without notes, with gestures few and fitting. Her manner is marked by dignity and composure. She is never assuming, never theatrical. In the first part of her lecture she was most impressive in her pleading for the race ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... "When the Senate met at ten o'clock on the morning of March 4, 1801, Aaron Burr stood at the desk, and having duly sworn to support the Constitution took his seat in the chair as Vice President. This quiet, gentlemanly and rather dignified figure, hardly taller than Madison, and dressed in much the same manner, impressed with favour all who first met him. An aristocrat ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... player—Courvoisier. Overcome with vexation and confusion at the contretemps, I paused a moment, undecided whether to turn back and go out again. In any case I resolved not to remain in the room. He was seated with his back to me, and still continued to play. Some music was on the desk of the ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... chief, he was a friend of the Recollets, and this did not commend him to the bishop. The friars were about to receive two novices into their order, and they invited the bishop to officiate at the ceremony. Callieres was also present, kneeling at a prie-dieu, or prayer-desk, near the middle of the church. Saint-Vallier, having just said mass, was seating himself in his arm-chair, close to the altar, when he saw Callieres at the prie-dieu, with the position of which he had already found fault as being too honorable for a subordinate ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... his big desk. He was flanked by the adjutant-general and backed by a brace of aides. Moreland, the mariner, was standing at the table and started forward as Loring entered as though to grasp his hand. The General still considered it essential to observe a ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... its resting-place during the time the men were at breakfast and carried into the office, where the dangerous weapon of our enemies was laid upon the desk and examined. ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... and the ledger clerk at the desk behind her had also ceased work and sat listening; but after a moment Mademoiselle threw a little smile towards them—a half-pleased, half-deprecating little smile, as of one who shows a visitor something interesting, something one is glad ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... two counting-rooms—a small outer and a large inner one. In the outer room sat a tall middle-aged man, lanky and worn in appearance and with a red nose. Opposite to him, at the same desk, sat a small fat boy with a round red face, and no chin to speak of. The man was writing busily—the boy was drawing a caricature of ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... pews with hinged doors. But the gallery that ran round three sides was fitted with simple benches. Immediately in front of the pulpit was a square pew which was set apart for the use of the elders, and close up to the pulpit, and indeed as part of this structure, was a precentor's desk. The pulpit was, to Maimie's eyes, a wonder. It was an octagonal box placed high on one side of the church on a level with the gallery, and reached by a spiral staircase. Above it hung the highly ornate ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... girl, all softer thoughts now merged in a burning resentment. "You—you read my letter, the letter that was on my own desk, in ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... Thursday. This and Sunday were his lecture days; his class met at half-past eight. Precisely at that hour he reached a small doorway in High Street, Lambeth, and ascended a flight of stairs to a room which he had furnished as he deemed most suitable. Several rows of school-desks faced a high desk at which he stood to lecture. The walls were washed in distemper, the boarding of the floor was uncovered, the two windows were hidden with plain shutters. The room had formerly been used for purposes of storage by a glass and ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... add that circumstances soon occurred to divert her mind from original composition for a considerable period; and when at last she returned to it, she was much more likely to think of the two completed stories that were lying in her desk than of one that was only begun. She did, however, retain in her recollection the outline of the intended story. The MS. of The Watsons, still existing, is written on the small sheets of paper described in ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... secret drawer in an old oaken desk near the fireplace and took out a large paper package, which he laid ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... writing table in the War Office, opening letters. On his left is the fireplace, with a fire burning. On his right, against the opposite wall is a standing desk with an office stool. The door is in the wall behind him, half way between the table and the desk. The table is not quite in the middle of the room: it is nearer to the hearthrug than to the desk. There ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw
... long labouring under two difficulties; the desire I had to write to you, and the fear of being thought presumptuous if I did. But I will depend on your goodness, so often tried; and put pen to paper, in that very closet, and on that desk, which once were so much used by yourself, when I was acting a part that now cuts me to the heart to think of. But you forgave me. Madam, and shewed me you had too much goodness to revoke your forgiveness; and could I have silenced ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... theatres and Caves of Harmony, making many literary acquaintances, taking runs into the country to canvass for Charles Buller, and trying his 'prentice hand at journalism. His vocation for literature speedily damped his legal ardour, and drew him out of Mr. Tapsell's chambers, where he left a desk full of sketches and caricatures. In May 1832 he wrote: 'This lawyer's preparatory education is certainly one of the most cold-blooded, prejudicial pieces of invention that ever a man was slave to;' and he longs ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... abandoned his negligent attitude, and, drawing close to his father, peered over his shoulder. The letter which lay upon the desk was not a long one, but it was ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Grey One tossed up the covering from the easel. He saw a girl in red, natty figure, piquant face. It was not finished. She was to stand at the head of a saddle-horse, as yet embryonic. She stepped hastily to a little desk and poked at a ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... (we have already seen one of poor construction) that will have strong, as well as adjustable leg support. Some one, sometime, will build a good refrigerator (as we have seen a poor one) constructed with the sanitary, high leg-base of the present day office desk. It will obviate stooping and it will enable one to get the refrigerator pan without groping provided there can be no drain. It will further allow for a refrigerator pan large enough to prevent the common accident of overflowing. ...
— The Consumer Viewpoint • Mildred Maddocks
... are taken to the chapel in which Mr. Gallaudet officiates among them. On the desk is an elegantly-bound Bible, which has been presented by a former patient, who had experienced in his restoration the value of this "Retreat." The hymn-book is a collection made on purpose for the insane, everything gloomy and terrific being excluded. Mr. Gallaudet, ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... sitting quietly in her seat, waiting to be told what to do. She had been placed near Miss Minchin's desk. She was not abashed at all by the many pairs of eyes watching her. She was interested and looked back quietly at the children who looked at her. She wondered what they were thinking of, and if they liked Miss Minchin, and if they cared for their lessons, and if any ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... President: I offer a petition which is now lying on the desk before me. It is too bulky for me to take up. I need not add that it is too bulky for any of the pages of this body ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... are assembled together unto the holy city for sacrificing every seventh year, at the feast of tabernacles, let the high priest stand upon a high desk, whence he may be heard, and let him read the laws to all the people; and let neither the women nor the children be hindered from hearing, no, nor the servants neither; for it is a good thing that those laws should be engraven in their souls, and preserved in their memories, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... discover his "misfortune" and despise him all the more for hiding it. All this prejudice, he explains, is due to "those other Jews." If they would only learn modesty from the gentile,—not talk so, not walk so, and not keep hanging around the professor's desk after the lecture with all sorts of fool questions,—why then, there would be no more of "this prejudice thing" and he could devote his time to more important problems. (We half suspect those problems would be superficial ones. We would also perhaps give more ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... the appointed hour, walked straight to his desk, without a word, a bow, a smile of recognition; read a long hymn, offered a very respectable imitation of the "long prayer," gave out a second hymn, and called on an elder to pray, who always imitated the imitation, and included in his broad sympathies all that his pastor had just ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... couldn't take the vow at once. During his absence, his desk log showed, several calls had come in, all of which had to be taken care of at once. Some of them dealt with evidence or statements from old cases, some were just nuisances. The most urgent was from ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... continually increased. As if his intellectual interests were not enough to occupy him, he took to commercial enterprise, developed the resources of his estates, and started a successful colony of watchmakers at Ferney. Every day he worked for long hours at his desk, spinning his ceaseless web of tracts, letters, tragedies, and farces. In the evening he would discharge the functions of a munificent host, entertain the whole neighbourhood with balls and suppers, and take ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... I expressed a desire to find some place where I could write a telegram to General Grant informing him of the result of the battle, and General Crook conducted me to the home of Miss Wright, where I met for the first time the woman who had contributed so much to our success, and on a desk in her school-room wrote the despatch announcing that we had sent Early's army ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... greater part into the dust hole, and not leave her morning's work undone. Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora and the music of Memnon, what should be man's morning work in this world? I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust. How, then, could I have a furnished house? I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, unless ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... the servant into the inner room, where he returned the bow of a little white-bearded gentleman seated at a huge desk. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... Washington, and the President, who had ridden in from his summer quarters in the Soldiers' Home, had his trousers grey with dust from the knees down. He had come round to the War Department, from which in these days he was never long absent, and found the Secretary for War busy as usual at his high desk. There had been the shortest of greetings, and, while Lincoln turned over the last ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... to his desk and sat down. "Well, I think I needn't keep you any longer, Miss Miller," he said. "If you will just leave the little girls here for a while perhaps I can decide what ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... the latter part of the century. Mrs. Elizabeth Digges owned five Spanish tables, two green carpets and a Turkey-work carpet; Mrs. Elizabeth (Mason) Thelaball, of Lower Norfolk County, had among her possessions a small desk and a writing-slate. In the goods consigned, 1694, by Perry and Lane of London to Mrs. Elizabeth Woory, of Isle of ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... you all this now, because in looking over my writing-desk a moment ago, I came upon an amusing story Henry wrote to me, about some little cousins ...
— The Little Nightcap Letters. • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... in sight, a conductor requires an especial platform, elevated in proportion as the number of performers is large and occupies much space. His desk should not be so high that the portion sustaining the score shall hide his face for the expression of his countenance has much to do with the influence he exercises. If there is no conductor for an orchestra that does not ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... Scotland was brought to him in the afternoon, having reached London by some day-mail from Glasgow. He was sitting at his desk with a heap of papers before him referring to a contemplated railway from Halifax, in Nova Scotia, to the foot of the Rocky Mountains. It had become his business to get up the subject, and then discuss with his principal, Lord Cantrip, the expediency of advising ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... myself." His eyes had fallen upon a small desk that stood near, on which she was accustomed to write her letters. He went to it. It ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... had created Rawdon's admiration, never went back to Mr. Polonius, of Coventry Street, and that gentleman never applied for their restoration, but they retired into a little private repository, in an old desk, which Amelia Sedley had given her years and years ago, and in which Becky kept a number of useful and, perhaps, valuable things, about which her husband knew nothing. To know nothing, or little, is in the nature of some husbands. To hide, in the nature of how ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... read the service. His manner had been extremely reverent and devout, but Malcolm found his delivery unpleasing. The peculiarity in his speech was very noticeable in the reading-desk, and there was no ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... lucky that they still used candle-light! It would make the task much simpler—the funeral pyre already lighted. She moved one of the tall candelabra to the desk, sitting for a long time quite still, her chin cupped in her hands, staring down at the bits of paper. She could smell the wall-flowers under the window as though they were in the room—drenched in dew and moonlight, they were reckless of their fragrance. All this peace and cleanliness and orderly ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... were more copies of these, perhaps, than it would be quite thoughtful to count, though a good many were annually disposed of at the church bazaar, where the Doctor presented them with a generous hand. A sumptuous desk, and luxurious leather-covered armchairs furnished the room; a beautiful little Parian copy of a famous Cupid and Psyche decorated the mantelpiece, and betrayed the touch of pagan in the Presbyterian. ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Court; second, when I received the letter, I put it in my old hat, and buying a new one the next day, the old one was set aside, so the letter was lost sight of for the time.' This hat of Lincoln's—a silk plug—was an extraordinary receptacle. It was his desk and his memorandum book. In it he carried his bank-book and the bulk of his letters. Whenever in his reading or researches, he wished to preserve an idea, he jotted it down on an envelope or stray piece of paper and ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... desk in school Nan found two valentines from her schoolmates. One was very pretty, but the other was home-made and represented a girl running away from a figure labeled GHOST. Nan put this out of sight as soon ...
— The Bobbsey Twins - Or, Merry Days Indoors and Out • Laura Lee Hope
... only to a man of ripe years. But his power and wisdom grew with the weight of his burthens. Whether it were at Nuremberg or at Venice, he was ever early to rise and ready, if need should be, to give up his night's rest, sitting over his desk or travelling at great speed; and he seemed to have no eyes nor ears for the pleasures of youth. Or ever he was four and twenty I found the first white hair in his brown locks. Many there were who deemed that ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... sitting, facing the fire, he called "The Bosom of the Norris Family," and when there were no heavy people like Henry Whitman about, he would occasionally throw himself upon it, carefully pointing out each time the pretty significance of his act. Behind the Bosom was a large and weighty desk covered with a multitude of personal letters, belonging for the most part to Mrs. Norris, a cheque-book open and face down in mute obeisance to the blotter, newspaper clippings, spectacle cases, scissors, and ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... dome. At one end of the ellipse hangs a portrait of the President, and underneath is his richly gilt chair, with a crimson-covered table before it. Right in front of the Speaker's chair, on a lower level, is placed the tribune, which much resembles the precentor's desk in a Scottish church. The tribune is occupied only when a Minister makes a Ministerial declaration, or a Convener of a Committee gives in his Report. An open space divides the tribune from the seats of the members. These last run all round the hall, in concentric rows of benches, also covered ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... and dropped in the Hillsborough post-office, and Little Compton received it the same afternoon. He smiled as he broke the seal, but ceased to smile when he read the note. It happened to fit a certain vague feeling of uneasiness that possessed him. He laid it down on his desk, walked up and down behind his counter, and then returned and read it again. The sprawling words seemed to possess a fascination for him. He read them again and again, and turned them over and over in ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... to me and set me off laughing more furiously than ever. The bookcase was ludicrous, the arm-chair a perfect clown, the way the clock looked at me on the mantelpiece too comic for words; the arrangement of papers and inkstand on the desk tickled me till I roared and shook and held my sides and the tears streamed down my cheeks. And that footstool! ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... carpeted with red anemones. Everything basked in sunlight and glittered with exceeding brilliancy of hue. A tiny white chapel stood in a corner of the enclosure. Two iron-grated windows let me see inside: it was a bare place, containing nothing but a wooden praying-desk, black and worm-eaten, an altar with its candles and no flowers, and above the altar a square picture brown with age. On the floor were scattered several pence, and in a vase above the holy-water vessel stood some withered hyacinths. As my sight became ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... note or a message, and took distinct pleasure in looking at her delicate face under what seemed to him very becoming caps. He liked her refined figure ; her gentle voice and manner; her vague effect of not belonging there, but to Washington or to Europe, like her furniture, and writing-desk with little glass doors above and little eighteenth-century volumes in old binding, labelled "Peregrine Pickle" or "Tom Jones" or "Hannah More." Try as she might, the Madam could never be Bostonian, and it was ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... Fitzwarren was sitting at his desk in his office. He heard some one tap softly at his ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin
... money, mother, and I will write the note.' Mrs Jenkins proceeded to obey her son, whilst he unlocked a desk, and wrote the following ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... letters to my desk saying, "Why did my jars of vegetables lose water?" or, "When I looked into my canner I saw all the beautiful dark sirup in the bottom of the canner instead of in the jars," or, "What shall I do, my beets are ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... luck!" moaned Trask, shutting the register with a slam and turning his back to the desk, a picture ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... start for St. Louis the next day, but he did so on the following morning, and late that same evening he walked into the office of the Southern Hotel. He was beginning to make inquiries at the desk, when his hand was seized and violently shaken. Turning quickly, he at once recognized his faithful old army friend Cap'n Cod, and gave him a ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... friend she had in the world, and was leaving her forever. But after she had allowed the worst of the miserable shock to spend itself, she summoned the stern energy for which she was famous, and going with slower steps than usual to the next room, she unlocked the desk of the ponderous secretary and seated herself to write. Before many minutes had passed the letter was folded, and sealed, and addressed, and the next evening Nan was reading it at Oldfields. She was grateful for being asked to come on the ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... me a great service by so doing. In the hurry of our departure, in consequence of your warning, a small desk was left behind. It contains not only money and jewels of considerable value, but some papers of the greatest importance. I had but just discovered my loss when I was taken prisoner, and the only person I could have entrusted to go in search of it was killed in the same ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... her desk. She turned. 'Put on your dressing-gown, Henrietta. You will get cold. I came into your room but you were fast asleep, and in that minute it was all over. The big things ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... of the man. Let men of culture carry their culture into their vocations, and their vocations will become honorable. Let cultured men plow and reap, and plowing and reaping will become as dignified as the "learned professions." Because a man can not wear as fine a garb at the forge as he can at the desk, it does not follow that his thoughts may not be as fine. A man may wear a polished intellect and a cultivated soul under a coarse garb as well as under a fine one; and he should be respected the more, if circumstances have compelled him to develop his ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... into his empty key box and went on to the telephone desk. It was Mary V, he guessed. He had promised to call her up, but there hadn't been any news to tell, nothing but the flat monotony of inaction, which meant failure, and Johnny Jewel never liked talking of his ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... turned to the pitcher, which always stood on his desk, filled his palm, and asked: "What is ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... to start out with you," replied the rector apologetically, putting a box of fishing tackle he had been sorting back into the drawer of his desk. He was as fond as a child of a day's sport, and never quite so happy as when he set out with his rod and an old tomato can filled with worms, which he had dug out of the back garden, in his hands; but ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... Girdlestone spent an hour in anxious thought, arranging the details of the scheme which he had just submitted to his son. As he sat, his eye chanced to fall upon the two letters lying on his desk, and it struck him that they had better be attended to. It did not suit his plans to fall back upon his credit just yet. It has been already shown that he was a man of ready resource. He rang the bell and ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... pen in hand, staring at the paper on his desk, his mind divided between a bitter disgust with his day's work and the consciousness of a deep central resolve, which that disgust did not affect, and would not be allowed to affect. He was looking harassed, ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to meet the expenses of the voyage. I searched the room thoroughly, discovering nothing, finally concluding that if there was treasure on board, it must be concealed elsewhere. I did find, however, that which strengthened my suspicion, for, in rummaging hastily through a drawer of the rude desk, I came upon a bill of sale for a thousand slaves, dated two weeks before, but unsigned, although the parties mentioned within the document were Paradilla and a merchant of Habana, named Carlos Martinos. ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... Clement took y'e Pistoller's place at y'e reading-desk; and insteade of continuing y'e subject in hand, read a paraphrase of y'e 103rde Psalm; ye faithfullenesse and elegant turne of which, Erasmus highlie commended, though he took exceptions to y'e phrase "renewing thy youth like that of y'e Phoenix," whose fabulous story he ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... little Ethel. 'The sun always leaves the schoolroom window at ten o'clock, and orange-trees want so much sun. There is plenty of room for your desk and the pot.' ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Muttering astonishment, he climbed over the railing, fitted his latch-key noiselessly and swung open the double glass doors that gave direct entrance to the room. The slight sound of his entry passed unnoticed by the Honorable Milton Waring, who continued to lean over his desk completely absorbed in ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... the day came Molly Brownwell went to Jane Barclay's desk and wrote. And when Bob Hendricks came home that night, his sister handed him a letter. ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... of yellow old paper was found in Dr Burton's desk when he died. It was a letter written some fifty-five years before, and had probably lain there during all these years. As it refers to this period of Dr Burton's life, it may be given. It seems fully to bear out the writer's conception of the ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... quickly on to the small desk—shoving the telephone off, knowing Nolan would catch it, as indeed he did with great skill, having been catching telephones and vases and books for Eveley for five full years. She clasped her hands together, glowing, and her ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... condescend to interchange with them and the other sects, the civilities of preaching freely and frequently in each other's meeting-houses. In Rhode Island, on the other hand, no sectarian preacher will permit an Unitarian to pollute his desk. In our Richmond there is much fanaticism, but chiefly among the women. They have their night meetings and praying parties, where, attended by their priests, and sometimes by a hen-pecked husband, they pour forth the effusions ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... like it," concluded Jonah. "Within three minutes four of the police were crying, and the head bottle-washer was beating his breast and imploring me in broken accents to explain away my guilt. I threw five hundred francs on his desk and covered my eyes. With tears rolling down his cheeks, he pushed the notes under a blotting-pad and wrote laboriously upon a buff sheet. Then a woman was produced. Between explosions of distress she made us some tea. In common decency we couldn't push off for a while. Besides, I wasn't quite ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... a picture that Miss Cohen was drawn from her desk in the glass-enclosed office toward the trio in the sample room as inevitably as the moth to the candle flame. She took up some cutting slips from a table, by way of excuse for her intrusion, but the blush and smile with which she acknowledged Ike's rather ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... haven't got to sit out in front and watch you people fulfil your diabolical mission in your doubly diabolical way, and grin at the fearful jokes in the dialogue I've been listening to for weeks, and make the audience feel that they are welcome when they're not. What's been done with my desk? ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... lifted his eyebrows; but he was apparently determined to be even more urbane than usual. He rested his two hands upon the back of his mother's chair and bent forward, as if he were leaning over the edge of a pulpit or a lecture-desk. He did not smile, but he looked softly grave. "Excuse me, sir," he said, "I assured you that I would not influence my sister's decision. I adhered, to the letter, to my engagement. ...
— The American • Henry James
... vagrant for the last month, thinking more of his own pleasures than of your needs and requirements. Forgive him, he is again a working bee and seeking honey for your hives. Have patience, irate correspondents; we have absconded with no manuscripts, and are again at our desk to give bland answers ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... point through the crack of a drawer and, pressing on the hilt, broke the lock, opened the splinted cover of a writing desk. Anastasio, Pancracio and War Paint plunged their hands into a mass of post cards, photographs, pictures and papers, scattering them all over the rug. Finding nothing he wanted, Pancracio gave vent to his anger by kicking a framed photograph ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... card-board—and some ribbon—and some real true paints. I've got some vermilion, but I want some real good blue. And then I want to make some beautiful bands with ties—like what Papa has for his letters—for all Mamma's letters in her desk. There's a bundle of Papa's when he was gone out to the Crimean War, and that's to have a frigate on it, because of the Calliope—his ship, you know; and there's one bundle of dear Aunt Sarah's—that's to have a rose, because I always think ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... libraries use to prevent patrons from seeing what other patrons are viewing on their terminals is the installation of "recessed monitors." Recessed monitors are computer screens that sit below the level of a desk top and are viewed from above. Although recessed monitors, especially when combined with privacy screens, eliminate almost all of the possibility of a patron accidentally viewing the contents on another patron's screen, they suffer ...
— Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Ruling • United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
... write a letter to father," said Fanny; and she went across the room to where her own little desk stood in a ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... taken the end of a wax candle, several matches and a stick of red sealing-wax, borrowed from Cousin James' desk. Holding the end of the sealing-wax over the lighted candle until it was soft and dripping, Richard daubed it around the edge of the can lid, as he had seen the man in the express office seal packages. He had always longed to try it himself. There was something peculiarly pleasing ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... month perhaps—the boys were one day surprised by the appearance of a strange face at what had been Mr. Sawyer's desk. And on inquiry the new comer proved to be a young curate accidentally in the neighbourhood, who had undertaken to fill for a few weeks the under-master's vacant place. The occurrence made some sensation—it was unusual for any change of the ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... strange behavior—being careful only to wait until he had closed his desk for the day. They were men of different minds from Harboro's. He considered their social positions matters which concerned them only; but they had duly noted the fact that he had been taken up in high places ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... fashion of words—with no relaxation, however, of the sharp attention and delicate handling required by the nature of that work. It is the privilege of some kinds of labour, that they are compatible with thoughts of higher things. At the book-keeper's desk, the clerk must think of nothing but his work; he is chained to it as the galley-slave to his oar; the shoemaker may be poet or mystic, or both; the ploughman may turn a good furrow and a good verse together; Richard could at once use hands and thoughts. ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... an inner and smaller apartment, where there was a faded Turkey-carpet instead of the kamptulicon that covered the floor of the outer offices, a couple of capacious, red-morocco-covered arm-chairs, and a desk of substantial and somewhat legal design, on which Gilbert Fenton was wont to write the more important letters of the house. In all the offices there were iron safes, which gave one a notion of limitless wealth stored away in the ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... had paid no attention to the alarm of fire, but the smell of smoke started them into action. Young Stephens hurriedly carried valued books and papers to the vault, while Mr. Hill with the strength of a giant grasped a heavy roll-top desk used by A. H. Bode, Comptroller, pushed it to the wall, and threw it bodily out of the second-story window. The desk was shattered to fragments and the hoodlums grabbed on to the contents. No harm was done to the railway office, save discoloring the edges of some documents. The next ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... to his desk, Lester wanted more amusements than ever. But he had only about fifteen a week where he had been accustomed to five times the amount. He drifted and borrowed and pledged and pawned, and finally was caught by some loan-sharks, who got him out ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... man of violent imagination, copious vocabulary, and a tenacity unparalleled in literature, knew that a page a day—a thousand words daily put on paper every day of the year—and for twenty years, would rear a huge edifice. He stuck to his desk each morning of his life from the time he sketched the Plan general; he made such terms with his publishers that he was enabled to live humbly, yet comfortably, in the beginning with his "dear ones," his wife and his mother. In return he wrote two volumes a year, and, with the exception of a ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... fired my country-girl imagination! He had been the most brilliant writer on the big, brilliant sheet—and the most dissolute. How my heart had pounded on that first lonely day when this Wonder-Being looked up from his desk, saw me, and strolled over to where I sat before my typewriter! He smiled down at me, companionably. I'm quite sure that my mouth must have been wide open with surprise. He had been smoking a cigarette an expensive-looking, gold-tipped one. Now he removed it from between his lips with that ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... Each desk contained a drawer or cupboard; and to encourage those habits of order and self-reliance to which so much weight is attached in the States, each pupil is made responsible for the preservation and security of her books and all implements of education. ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... Nicolo he bequeaths a silver-wrought girdle of vermilion silk, two silver spoons, a silver cup without cover (or saucer? sine cembalo), his desk, two pairs of sheets, a velvet quilt, a counterpane, a feather-bed—all on the same conditions as above, and to remain with the trustees till his ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... intelligence of me, gnawed all the fine nerves of the quick of me and of the consciousness of me. And I, who in my past have been a most valiant fighter, in this present life was no fighter at all. I was a farmer, an agriculturist, a desk-tied professor, a laboratory slave, interested only in the soil and the increase of the ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... spreads," said Dr. Tusher. "'Tis awful to think of it beginning at the ale-house; half the people of the village have visited that to-day, or the blacksmith's, which is the same thing. My clerk Nahum lodges with them—I can never go into my reading-desk and have that fellow so near me. I WON'T have that ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... tree, in a golden-green gloom, and laughed at us over a big branch. Her wild, subtle, nameless charm clothed her as with a garment. We always remembered the picture she made there; and in later days when we read Tennyson's poems at a college desk, we knew exactly how an oread, peering through the green leaves on some haunted knoll of ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... factory itself, a good log building of somewhat spacious size; its big room, divided by a breast-high solid railing, with a small gate in the middle, serving as office and general receiving-place. Beyond the railing, in the smaller space toward the north, there stood the great wooden desk of the factor, its massive book of accounts always open on its face, its hand-made drawers filled with the documents of the Company. Here McElroy was wont to take account of the furs brought in, to distribute recompense, and to enforce the simple law. Attached to this room on the south ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... cigarette and began to open his letters. Ansell, however, was in a discoursive mood. He swung around from his desk and leaned back in ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... ostensible practise of my chosen profession, a listless, aimless undetermined man of forty, and a confirmed bachelor at that!" At the utterance of his self-depreciating statement, John generally jerked his legs down from the top of his desk; and rising and kicking his chair back to the wall he would stump around his littered office till the manila carpet steamed with dust. Then he would wildly break away, seeking refuge either in the open street, or in his room at the old-time tavern, The Eagle House, "where," ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... inevitable black and white marble, was strewn with rugs; and in front of desk and sofa bear skins had been added as a double protection against the cold. The furniture was modern upholstery, with gay chintz slip-covers. Frilled muslin curtains were crossed over and draped high under outer ones of chintz. And everywhere there were flowers—roses, orange ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... of feet. The Indians were within the stockade. A moment later they burst into the shop and advanced upon us, uttering blood-curdling whoops and brandishing their hatchets and knives. McLeod reached for the musket above the desk, but before his fingers touched it Red Feather caught him by the arms, and with the help of the brother made him prisoner. At the ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... himself deserted by his obsequious flatterer, Sampson Brass, cried out in the seclusion of his apartment at the wharf: "Oh, Sampson, Sampson, if I only had you here!" and he was considerably consoled by his operations with a hammer on the desk in front of him. The feelings of Mr. Quilp were understood, if ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan |
