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Divan   /dɪvˈæn/   Listen
Divan

noun
1.
A long backless sofa (usually with pillows against a wall).
2.
A Muslim council of state.  Synonym: diwan.
3.
A collection of Persian or Arabic poems (usually by one author).  Synonym: diwan.
4.
A Muslim council chamber or law court.  Synonym: diwan.



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"Divan" Quotes from Famous Books



... wide circumference; full many a league In compass round; woods, rivers, hills, and plains, Large provinces; enough to gratify 360 Ambition's highest aim, could reason bound Man's erring will. Now sit in close divan The mighty chiefs of this prodigious host. He from the throne high-eminent presides, Gives out his mandates proud, laws of the chase, From ancient records drawn. With reverence low, And prostrate at his feet, the chiefs receive His irreversible decrees, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... tent, or I should say, the lawn before it, became a kind of general divan, where the warrior and elders of the tribe would assemble, to smoke and relate the strange stories of days gone by. Some of them appeared to me particularly beautiful; I shall, therefore, narrate them to the reader. One ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... place as heart could desire. The pictures were hung (I forgot to mention that the fairy box contained picture-hooks and wire, hidden away in a corner), the cushions fitted, the chintz tacked in a neat flounce around the box, which straightway became a divan, and looked positively Oriental with the pillows heaped ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards

... but I asked to help, and they let me, and when we were all through there were three stockings and three piles of toys, and in the largest one was all the things that I could think of that my dear child would love. I locked the boys' chamber that night, and I slept on the divan in the parlor off the sitting-room. I slept but little, and the night was very still—so windless and white and still that I think I must have heard the slightest noise. Yet I heard none. Had I been in my grave I think my ears would ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie

... burning brightly there. The floor was of mere flag-stones but the few rugs scattered about though extremely worn were very costly. There was also there a beautiful sofa upholstered in pink figured silk, an enormous divan with many cushions, some splendid arm-chairs of various shapes (but all very shabby), a round table, and in the midst of these fine things a small common iron stove. Somebody must have been attending it lately, for the fire roared and the ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... lonely I felt when I first entered a strange school, so let me try to make it easier for my new girls by introducing some of my old ones; real old," she added, laughingly, as she called to two girls who were curled up on one corner of the big divan at the lower ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... little old man with shaven face and cropped hair, wearing also a high pointed beaver cap with red silk apex topped off with a dark red button with the long peacock feathers streaming out behind. On his nose were big Chinese spectacles. He was sitting on a low divan, nervously clicking the beads of his rosary. This was Ta Lama, Prince of Soldjak and High Priest of the Buddhist Temple. He welcomed us very cordially and invited us to sit down before the fire burning ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski

... took part in this divan were Catholics, and all of them stanch Jacobites, whose hopes were at present at the highest pitch, as an invasion, in favour of the Pretender, was daily expected from France, which Scotland, between the defenceless state of its garrisons and fortified places, ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... eyes rolled back in his head like a dying man's. He seemed to crumple up, and she caught him as he fell. Her terrified shriek brought Hoichi, who took instant charge of the situation. He made the unconscious man comfortable on a divan, applied such restoratives as were at hand, and directed a frightened maid to ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler

... man on the divan, got up slowly and stretched his long athletic limbs with a lazy enjoyment in the action. He was a sporting person with unhampered means and large estates in Scotland and Ireland; he lived a joyous, "don't-care" life of wandering about the world in search of adventures, and he had a scorn ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... Reclining upon a divan in his library the Duc de Sairmeuse was engaged in reading, when Otto, his valet de chambre, came to inform him that a messenger was below, charged with delivering into the duke's own hands a letter ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... his room the young man looked to see that the door to the smoking-room was bolted; then he put out his light and waited, sitting quite still on the divan close to the communication. If she did not come, he had made a mistake and must begin again. But there was a slight noise in the private passage, the sound of a gown, then after a momentary surprise at not being able to come straight ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... "the iron man" is sitting in his wife's room on a small embroidered armless chair. Opposite to him on a large elevated divan lies his wife, a tiny, elegant, transparent little lady, with a face of alabaster, and wee wee hands which a child of two would not have known what to do with if they had been doled out to her. Her small strawberry-like ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... mosquito bars for the explorers. They were canopies, terminating in a point at the top, where they were suspended to the cross rods on which the canvas roof was supported. The netting was tucked in under the cushions of the divan, and ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... around the room that The Author had been so anxious to investigate. It was altogether a man's room, the scoured floor partly covered with a handsome rug, and the divan on which I was sitting covered with another. On both sides of the big fireplace were crowded book-shelves, above which hung weapons gathered from the four corners of the earth. There were two or three deep, ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... at my voice, and, I had time to curse myself while I made a light and tried to raise her from the floor. She shrank away with a murmur of pain. She was very quiet, and asked for Boris. I carried her to the divan, and went to look for him, but he was not in the house, and the servants were gone to bed. Perplexed and anxious, I hurried back to Genevieve. She lay where I had left her, looking ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers

... at the instrument; then she sank down on the divan close to the piano, and put out her fingers, touching it caressingly. From the next room, beyond the curtain, came the sound of cups rattling, and a sweet, rich aroma as of coffee, mingling with the fragrance of cigars ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs

... they descended. The bellboys still nodded on their benches. A travelling salesman was hunched over a week-old Times as if he would awake in a few minutes, glance about guiltily and resume his reading. The child they had rescued still lay on the divan. Her golden hair framed her cheeks like a halo. One arm was thrown above her head. She seemed ready to awake, though she had ...
— The End of Time • Wallace West

... silver fittings, with their voices tinkling pleasantly in a cascade of solicitous little questions. Cushat-Prinkly detested the whole system of afternoon tea. According to his theory of life a woman should lie on a divan or couch, talking with incomparable charm or looking unutterable thoughts, or merely silent as a thing to be looked on, and from behind a silken curtain a small Nubian page should silently bring in a tray with cups and dainties, to be accepted silently, as a ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki

... party," said the captain, solemnly, as he shook each boy by the hand and pointed to seats on the big divan. "This is the first time that strangers have graced our board on this occasion. I hope it portends a successful ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich

... uncertain light of the two feebly-burning candles, Bertha could only see that a few coloured pictures were hanging on the wall—portraits of the Emperor and Empress, so it appeared to her—that, on one side, was a broad divan covered with a Persian rug and that, near the window, there was an upright piano with a number of framed photographs on the lid. Over the piano a picture was hanging, but Bertha was unable to make it out. Yonder, she saw a pair of red ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler

... ceremonial of the hastily convoked and Irregular tribunal before which Jesus underwent the mockery of a trial was similar to that of the ancient Sanhedrim. The members sat on a semi-circular divan, the president in the centre, and a scribe at each extremity, who recorded the evidence and the decisions of the court. It may be noted, that while laws had been carefully formulated for the conduct of such trials, almost every one of them was flagrantly violated on the present occasion ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton

... the Samaritan magnates, on which the Tekoan shepherd pours his scorn, but which is simplicity itself, and almost asceticism, before what he would see if he came to London or New York. To him it seemed effeminate to loll on a divan at meals, and possibly it was a custom imported from abroad. It is noted that 'the older custom in Israel was to sit while eating.' The woodwork of the divans, inlaid with ivory, had caught his eye in some of his peeps into the great houses, and he inveighs against them ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... before Mrs. Estel succeeded in thoroughly reviving him. Then he lay on a wide divan with his head on her lap, and talked ...
— Big Brother • Annie Fellows-Johnston

... evenings. And when I went in the parlor to dust today, the sofa is gone, too. None of these things ever happened before Hortense came. I can imagine she might have taken the firedogs, though I can't imagine why. But she is too little to move that big divan." ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo

... earthly language to display, Conceives, e'en seraphs, tho' in glory's beam, May find their voice unequal to the theme! And seems to view them in their heavenly seat, Mute, from pure adoration, at thy feet: Thou blest Restorer of corrupted man From all the snares of Satan's dark divan! Thou, who with true compassion, hast survey'd Lost wanderers perishing without thy aid! To whose pure eyes all wonders are reveal'd, That live in mortals, from themselves conceal'd! Who view'st with favor, when they most aspire, Their narrow faculties, and vast desire! O prosper, and ...
— Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects - Printed only as Private Tokens of Regard, for the Particular - Friends of the Author • William Hayley

... it." This prediction has been literally verified throughout the respective reigns of his sons Muley Yezzed, and Muley El Hesham, and even his son the present Emperor has often manifested an anti-commercial system, and has accordingly (probably by the advice of the Fakeers belonging to the divan) prohibited the exportation of most articles of clothing, and provision, such as wool, Fas manufactures, corn, olive oil, ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... received the cavalier in state, seated on a magnificent divan and surrounded by the officers of his court, in the Hall of Ambassadors, one of the most sumptuous apartments of the Alhambra. When De Vera had delivered his message, a haughty and bitter smile curled the lip of the fierce monarch. "Tell ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... floor is always covered with matting, and the matting, in its turn, is so closely covered with rugs as to be quite concealed. In large cities rugs are used in the Summer for divan and couch covers; in the Winter the same rugs serve ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt

... convalescence, my tent, or I should say, the lawn before it, became a kind of general divan, where the warriors and elders of the tribe would assemble, to smoke and relate the strange stories of days gone by. Some of them appeared to me particularly beautiful; I shall, therefore, narrate them to the reader. One old chief began ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... heavenly throne, upon that glorious scene to gaze. On cars, like high-towered cities, seen, with elephants and coursers rode, Or on soft swinging palanquin, lay wondering each observant god. As met in bright divan each god, and flashed their jewell'd vestures' rays, The coruscating aether glow'd, as with a hundred suns ablaze. And with the fish and dolphins gleaming, and scaly crocodiles and snakes, Glanc'd the air, as when fast streaming the blue ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... had ceased to function and had with one accord stared at her with grave eyes, and the blonde at the switchboard had lifted her head above the edge of the desk and peered over. And then in the lobby, over in a far corner, they had sat uncomfortably for an hour on the faded plush divan and discussed commonplaces in a low tone and ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... arrival an officer met him at the gate with a message from the rajah, who was anxiously waiting his return. Reginald found him, to his surprise, on foot, pacing slowly up and down a broad verandah overlooking the city, to which he had caused his divan to be carried, that he ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston

... soft divan, and with a sudden twist her train fell about her feet, making an artistic drapery, Keith experienced a sense of delight. He did not dream that Mrs. Wentworth knew much better than he precisely the pose to show the curve of her white full throat and round ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page

... may be found in a well-appointed dining room. When he opened the door of his apartment the fit was over, and his bodily fatigue was so great that he had to catch at the backs of the chairs as he crossed the room to reach a low and broad divan on which he let himself fall heavily. His moral prostration was still greater. That brutality of feeling, which he had known only when charging sabre in hand, amazed this man of forty, who did not recognise ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad

... destroyed his last hope. In a quite unpremeditated manner he put out the gas and rolled under a leather divan which stood at the end of the room. He wished now, with all his heart, that he had run away while he had the chance; ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey

... made by the game since about 1875 it will suffice to give the following statistics. In London Simpson's Divan was formerly the chief resort of chess players; the St George's Chess Club was the principal chess club in the West End, and the City of London Chess Club in the east. About a hundred or more clubs are now scattered all over the city. Formerly only the British Chess ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... over at the Denton lying by the bedside ComWeb on a little table at the head of the divan-thing. She was aware of a feeling of great contentment, of growing relaxation. She closed ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz

... middle of the ninth century, Eulogius, the recently elected Metropolitan Bishop of Toledo, was considered too zealous and too uncompromising in his beliefs, and he was soon summoned before the divan to answer to the charge of participation in the flight and conversion of a Moslem lady, who had taken the name of Leocritia, under which she was canonized at a later date. It was said that the woman had become a Christian through his efforts, and that he had hidden her ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... ante-room, with tapestried walls, and a divan covered with raised velvet, a music desk of gilded wood, and a spinet, on which was painted the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Beyond this there was the dining-room, more soberly though no less richly furnished ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... takes orders and said: 'Have you ever read "Trilby"?' And he said no, but his wife had when it was the rage about five years ago. I had brought a copy on purpose, so I read him that paragraph from the first chapter describing the studio. Here it is: 'An immense divan spread itself in width and length and delightful thickness just beneath the big north window, the business window—a divan so immense that three well-fed, well-contented Englishmen could all lie lazily smoking their pipes on it at once, without being in each other's way, and very often did!' He ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell

... false glitter: All amaz'd At that so sudden blaze the Stygian throng Bent thir aspect, and whom they wish'd beheld, Thir mighty Chief returnd: loud was th' acclaime: Forth rush'd in haste the great consulting Peers, Rais'd from thir dark Divan, and with like joy Congratulant approach'd him, who with hand Silence, and with these words attention won. Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Vertues, Powers, 460 For in possession such, not onely of right, I call ye and declare ye now, returnd Successful beyond hope, to lead ye forth Triumphant ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... Sultan's sickness redoubled on him and he accomplished his term and died; and as for his son Zein ul Asnam, he arose and donning the raiment of woe, [mourned] for his father the space of six days. On the seventh day he arose and going forth to the Divan, sat down on the throne of the sultanate and held a court, wherein was a great assemblage of the folk, [34] and the viziers came forward and the grandees of the realm and condoled with him for his father and called down ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne

... Side. The scene shows the living-room, furnished very plainly, but in the newest taste; "arts and crafts" furniture, portraits of Morris and Ruskin on the walls; a centre table, a couple of easy-chairs, a divan and many book-shelves. The entrance from the outer hall is at centre; entrance to the other ...
— The Machine • Upton Sinclair

... answer was to seat himself, with a dignity the West has yet to learn, on a long divan against the wall that gave him a good view of the entrance and all the rest of the room, window included. Instantly Yasmini flung herself on the other end of it, and lay face downward, with her chin resting on ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy

... the hall?—maybe a piano, maybe a fish-rod, maybe a rifle or a telescope, a volume of sermons or a volume of songs, a spinning-wheel, or a guitar, or a battledore. You might ask widely for what you needed, for study or for play, and you would find it, though it were a deep divan of Osiat or a chibouque from Stamboul—you would find it in one ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... language, but united with the Greeks in spiritual obedience to the same church), were, in the emphatic phrase of Mr. Gordon, "the slaves of slaves:" that is to say, not only were they liable to the universal tyranny of the despotic Divan, but "throughout the empire they were in the habitual intercourse of life subjected to vexations, affronts, and exactions, from Mahometans of every rank. Spoiled of their goods, insulted in their religion and domestic honor, they could rarely obtain justice. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... On the 25th, it was obvious that the Arabs were preparing an attack, and a deputation of the principal inhabitants waited upon the Governor-General. But he refused to see them; Bordeini Bey was alone admitted to his presence. He was sitting on a divan, and, as Bordeini Bey came into the room, he snatched the fez from his head and flung it from him. 'What more can I say?' he exclaimed, in a voice such as the merchant had never heard before. 'The people ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... having been apprised of Miss Elliot's conflicting emotions since her departure, Mrs. Willard's mind was as a page blank for impressions when her visitor burst in upon her, pirouetted around the room, appropriated the softest corner of the divan, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... advantage to the feeble or the unwarlike. Such was the sentiment of the Ottomans even in the reign of their great Soliman. Shortly before the battle of Lepanto, a Dalmatian horseman rode express to Constantinople, and reported to the Divan, that 2,500 Turks had been surprised and routed by 500 musqueteers. Great was the indignation of the assembly against the unfortunate troops, of whom the messenger was one. But he was successful in his defence of himself and his companions. "Do you not hear," he said, ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... roam in a Moorish castle. A divan seat runs round the dilapidated adobe walls, which are partly painted, partly faced with white tiles patterned in green and yellow. The ceiling is made up of little squares, painted in bright colors, with gilded edges, and ornamented with gilt knobs. On the cement ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw

... Steam-bath, and Beauty Parlors, saw to all that. In spite of long bridge-table, lobby-divan and table d'hote seances, "tea" where the coffee was served with whipped cream and the tarts built in four tiers and mortared in mocha filling, the Bon Ton Hotel was scarcely more than an average ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... his view, and observing the different occupations which busied the multitude on every side, he was awakened from the tranquillity of meditation by a crowd that obstructed his passage. He raised his eyes, and saw the Chief Vizier, who, having returned from the Divan, was entering his palace. ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... Lady Blanchemain, and seated herself on the circular divan in the centre of the polished terrazza floor. She wasn't really tired in the least, the indefatigable old sight-seer; but a respite from picture-gazing would enable her to turn the talk. She put up her mother-of-pearl lorgnon, and glanced round the walls; then, lowering it, she frankly ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland

... crimson and gold, some hours later, sat Pluma Hurlhurst, reclining negligently on a satin divan, toying idly with a volume which lay in her lap. She tossed the book aside with a yawn, turning her superb dark eyes on the little figure bending over the rich trailing silks which were to adorn her own fair beauty on the ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... that he was more ready to be happy with the flying moment than he had been, or had expected to be that evening. Something almost paternal shone in his gray eyes as he stretched his large limbs on Caminiti's notion of a Turkish divan, and watched the first smoke-wreaths rise from his cigar, a light which made his face most pleasantly ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... lady—you who are now glancing idly over these pages—that you are surrounded by every luxury wealth can command. You are lounging, perhaps, upon a softly cushioned divan, with tiny, slippered feet half buried in the glowing carpet. There are brilliants blazing upon the delicate hand which shields your face from the warm sunlight, and as you glance around, a costly mirror reveals at full length ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... been wishing to roll was upon the carpet. But of this I was unconscious as I admired Fanny's new dress, the mysterious earrings of our stately Bertha, and ventured upon a slight compliment to Henrietta, who lounged upon the divan. With admirable dexterity, the young lady caught the fleurette upon her crochet needle, reviewed it carelessly, and finally decided to accept it; an event that I had undoubtedly foreseen, for the compliment was a graceful and artistic one. But brothers, as you, Gustav, my boy, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... which Webster defines as "a stuffed seat without a back, first used in Turkey," is obviously obtained, and the modern low-seated upholsterer's chair of to-day is doubtless the development of a French adaptation of the Eastern cushion or "divan," this latter word having become applied to the seats which furnished the hall or council chamber in an Eastern palace, although its original meaning was probably the council or "court" itself, or the hall ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield

... room—the upper chamber we had seen from far. Its windows, innocent of glass, were closed by wooden shutters, roughly bolted, which creaked and rattled in the gale. A very fine-looking old man rose from the divan to greet us. ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall

... wished. He rose before daybreak, awakened his mother, pressing her to get herself dressed to go to the sultan's palace, and to get admittance, if possible, before the grand vizier, the other viziers, and the great officers of state went in to take their seats in the divan, where the sultan always assisted ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... have seen such things?" answered the father. "If is forbidden to the Turks to take a likeness of any one. That is why there is a revolution just now—because the sultan has had his picture painted and hung up over the divan. Ali Tschorbadschi was mixed up in the movement, and was forced to fly. You poor old Tschorbadschi, to have been ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... related his morning's experiences. Schrotter had made him sit on a divan surrounded by cushions, and listened attentively, while his half-closed eyes, full of fire, rested on his friend's unhappy face. Wilhelm had never mentioned his engagement to Fraulein Ellrich to ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... shade on your divan Falls; it is longer than ye wist: It preaches, as Time's gnomon can, This ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang

... great divan on which mused Larry; two smaller ones, half a dozen low seats and chairs carved apparently of ivory and of dull ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... this window, from this divan, we can sit and gaze on whatever we like. What shall it be? Just now, you perceive, there is a wild and turbulent sea, with not a ship in sight. Do you hear the waves tumbling and splashing, and ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... It was twenty minutes to four. There was neither love nor desire in him and he would have liked to throw himself on the divan and sleep. But he set his teeth and got to his feet. He would go through it, ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... her down beside her on the divan, and Mr. Brewster soon took leave of them. The Doctor seated himself ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd

... taken a seat on the divan in order to listen, here commenced making a cigarette; but Andre stopped him. "Excuse me; but will you oblige me ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... divan in front of him, Baya would drone him monotonous tunes with a guitar in her fist; or else, to distract her lord and master, favour him with the Bee Dance, holding a hand-glass up, in which she reflected her white teeth and ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... manner of sitting at meals. The table was surrounded by a divan on which the guests reclined on their left side, with the head nearest the table, and ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed

... chanced on the very features, the haunting sadness and mystery of which I had been so long in quest. I wondered at the simplicity with which he was able to maintain a pose so essentially undignified. I told myself I beheld the East squatted broodingly as on a divan, while the West paraded with parasol and Prayer-Book. I wondered that the beadles were unobservant of him. Were they content with his abstention from the holy ground of the Church Parade, and the less sacred seats on the promenade without, or would they, if their eyes drew towards him, move ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... the prettiest tent that ever was made. The cushioned seat was covered with scarlet, and so were the little chairs, which Clara and Edith knew were meant for them; the edges of the cloth were scalloped with the same bright color, and there was even a rug to match spread in front of the "divan," as Miss Harson laughingly said the cushioned seat ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church

... science of Life. Fired with a noble emulation to pursue a brilliant and distinguished career, Mr Toots had furnished a choice set of apartments; had established among them a sporting bower, embellished with the portraits of winning horses, in which he took no particle of interest; and a divan, which made him poorly. In this delicious abode, Mr Toots devoted himself to the cultivation of those gentle arts which refine and humanise existence, his chief instructor in which was an interesting character called the Game Chicken, who was always to be ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... little furniture; only a few low, round tables, or maidas, completely overlaid with the snow of mother-o'-pearl; two or three tabourets of the same material, and, at one end of the room a low divan, where something white and orange-yellow and purple lay half ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... my side had hands which were sufficient in themselves to make a man forget her sex, and not knowing how to spend our time we treated the whole company to drinks. Then I lighted a cigar, stretched out on the divan, and, sad and depressed, while the voices of the women rose shrilly and the glasses were being drained, I said ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert

... as unceremoniously as he would have done in 'Rees's Divan,' and I only wonder he did not call for brandy-and-water. He had either grown coarser a great deal, or I more decent, during our separation. He talked of his fiancee as he might of an opera-girl almost, and was now discussing Miss Lake in the ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... roofs and walls of other buildings. His room was very cheerless, since he never got a ray of direct sunlight; the south corners were always in shadow. In one of the corners was a clothes closet, built against the partition, in another a wide divan, serving as a seat by day and a bed by night. In the front corner, the one farther from the window, was a sink, and a table with two gas burners where he sometimes cooked his food. There, too, in the perpetual dusk, ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... iron; in some of them still remained half-burned or charred logs, and the dead ashes of long years ago. The ladies remarked that, amidst all this abundance of wealth, there was a certain incongruity in the arrangement of the contents of every room. In one they found silk draperies from India, a divan from Turkey, an Italian settee in the finest Florentine carving; beside it a massive English table of heart of oak, and the light, spider-legged gilt chairs of Paris, with their faded red silk cushions, and so on. ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul

... she said, and led her in the great department store to a hideous object of gilded iron which opened into a double bed, and closed into a divan. At first Mary rejected this Janus- faced machine unequivocally, but became a convert when Miss Mason showed her how cretonne (she pronounced it "creeton") or rugs would soften its nakedness to dignity, and how bed-clothes and pillows were swallowed in its maw by day to be released ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... and unconsciously she met it, as she would have made a heroine meet it had she been a novelist, in a white dressing-gown and pink ribbons in a stereotyped attitude of despair on a divan. ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... theft! The Governor, to prove his friendship and his interest in my welfare, immediately sent the police to capture the coffee-house keeper who had recommended the cook. No sooner was the unlucky surety brought to the Divan than he was condemned to receive two hundred lashes for having given a false character. The sentence was literally carried out, in spite of my remonstrance, and the police were ordered to make the case public to prevent ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... fun, stupefied with fresh air and exercise, Lawrence, and Sylvia too, could not keep their eyes open, and dozed and woke and dozed again, coiled like so many little kittens among the cushions of the big divan. In all the intensely enjoyed personal pleasures of her later youth, and these were many for Sylvia, she was never to know a more utter sweetness than thus to fall asleep, the music a far-off murmur in her ears, and to wake again to the ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... greetings in the market-place. The dog is generally the better gentleman, and he is aware of it; and he duly appreciates the loafer, who is not too proud to pause a moment, change the news, and pass the time of day. He will mark his sense of this attention by rising from his dust-divan and accompanying his caller some steps on his way. But he will stop short of his neighbour's dust-patch; for the morning is really too hot for a shindy. So, by easy stages (the street is not a long one: six dogs will see it out), the Loafer quits the village; and now the world is ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame

... knowledge enough to appreciate that the rugs and hangings were exquisite, the former were Persian and the latter of a thick black material, heavily embroidered in silver. The main feature of the room was a big black divan heaped with huge cushions covered with dull black silk. Beside the divan, spread over the Persian rugs, were two unusually large black bearskins, the mounted heads converging. At one end of the tent was a small doorway, a little portable writing-table. ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... chance since they arrived to make a brief social call upon the family of his patient. It was but an hour before Georgiana's departure, and when he learned this, Jefferson Craig came over to her, where she sat upon a divan at one end of the long private drawing-room of the suite. Seeing this, the others of the party began conversations of their own, after the manner of the highly intelligent, and for those five minutes Georgiana lived in a place apart from the rest ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond

... a dream the conception of his very beautiful Pieta. One sultry summer day Dupre was lying on a divan thinking hard on what kind of pose he should choose for the Christ. He fell asleep, and in dream he saw the entire group at last complete, with Christ in the very pose he had been aspiring to conceive, but which his mind had not ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various

... last bed had been levelled and the last shrub planted the superintendent told them to follow him into the house, as the bey was desirous of speaking with them. They found him seated on a divan. ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... stairway to the level roof, which, with its surrounding parapet, recalled the one described in "Ben Hur." Here fruit was served by a Syrian maid clad in the native costume. On our return to the lower floor, our hostesses conducted us to the divan salon or Oriental smoking room. There, while we rested on low couches, the Syrian maid passed around Turkish coffee in dainty cups, and then brought a lighted narghileh from which, in turn, each one present took a few whiffs of the mild ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... sandalwood, evidently Oriental in workmanship. In niches, or doorless cup-boards; stood curious-looking vases and pots. Heavy curtains of rich fabric draped the doors. The floor was of mosaic, and a small fountain played in the centre. A cushioned divan occupied one side of the place, from which natural light was entirely excluded and which was illuminated only by an ornate lantern swung from the ceiling. This lantern had panes of blue glass, producing a singular effect. A silver mibkharah, or incense-burner, stood ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer

... of the furniture found in European dwellings, make the rugs essential household articles rather than luxuries. The hearth-rug, the bath-mat, the divan-cover, the sleeping-blanket, and the saddle-mat must be regarded as necessities. Religion also has its requirements, and the prayer rug, sometimes ornamented with the hands of the Prophet, is a part of every household equipment, ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway

... broad locker arrangement, handsomely worked in choice mahogany, stretched right athwart the cabin immediately beneath the stern windows, and upon this stood several beautiful flowering plants in pots of elaborately hammered brass, this locker forming the top of a long sofa, or divan, upholstered in crimson velvet, which also stretched across the full width of the cabin. The interior paintwork of the apartment was a rich, creamy white, imparting a deliciously cool and bright appearance to it. The furniture which it contained, and which consisted of, among other less important ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... became a Hanoum. My dear Adile was my sister, and though after years of habit I was always throwing myself down at her feet, she would make me get up and sit at her side, either on the divan or in the carriage. Mourad's love for me had put aside the barrier which had separated us. There was, however, now a terrible one between my slaves and myself. Most of them were poor girls from my own country and of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... did not think much on the matter, nor Indeed on any other: as a man He liked to have a handsome paramour At hand, as one may like to have a fan, And therefore of Circassians had good store, As an amusement after the Divan; Though an unusual fit of love, or duty, Had made him lately bask in his ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... grow a trifle uneasy about the fate of my passport and revolver, and, proceeding to the police-barracks, formally demand their return. Nothing has apparently been done concerning either one or the other since they were taken from me, for the mulazim, who is lounging on a divan smoking cigarettes, produces them from the same receptacle he consigned them to this afternoon, and lays them before him, clearly as mystified and perplexed as ever about what he ought to do. I explain to him that I wish to depart in the morning, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... draw in his breath. With a shiver Smilax turned away. Better than we he understood what the old man had endured. Together we cut the pitiable victim down, carried him inside and laid him on a kind of divan. ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... too, to find myself once again in the flagstoned halls of the Yildiz Kiosk, the Sultan's palace. My little friend Abdul Aziz rose at once from his cushioned divan under a lemon tree and came shuffling in his big slippers to meet me, a smile of welcome on his face. He seemed, to my surprise, radiant with happiness. The disasters attributed by the allied press to his unhappy country appeared to sit ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock

... cigarette and kicked the upholstered leather of a divan uneasily. "There is a Miss Hayden, a ward of my uncle, who lived in his house. She's a quiet thing—musical—the daughter of somebody who was unlucky enough to be his friend. I forgot to say that she was in on the seal ring and $10 joke, too. I wish I had been. Then I could have had ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... the nature of her deed, scarcely conscious of herself as a being at all, Missy craned her neck and peered around the door. They were sitting close together on the divan. Pete's arm was about Polly Currier's shoulder. And he was kissing her! Curious, that! Hadn't she just heard Polly tell him that ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... traders. We accosted the first Tartar whom we met; and he promised, with great readiness, to procure us what we wanted. He ushered us into his room, cleared away a pile of bags, saddles, camel-trappings, and other tokens of a nomadic life, and revealed a low divan covered with a ragged carpet. On a sack of barley sat his father, a blind graybeard, nearly eighty years old. On our way through the camp I had noticed that the Tartars saluted each other with the Arabic, "Salaam aleikoom!" and I therefore greeted the old man with the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... the boys come in, he at once made places for them beside him on the divan, where he sat on a pile of cushions smoking a long chibouque, with a coffee-cup beside him on a little tray, that also contained sweetmeats, from which he took an occasional sip in the intervals, when he removed the stem of his ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... Browne, Literary History of Persia: R.A. Nicholson, Selected Poems from the Divan ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... through the double doorway of the ornate room it was to become aware of a prior occupant. She was reclining on a divan at the end of the large public room. Neither lying nor sitting, but propped up among a dozen pillows with head and limbs inert and the long lashes drooped on the white cheeks, Aline looked the pathetic figure of a child fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion after ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine

... salons the two social worlds of Paris met as on neutral ground. Auguste passed through the rooms without finding the woman who now exercised so mighty an influence on his fate. He entered an empty boudoir where card-tables were placed awaiting players; and sitting down on a divan he gave himself up to the most contradictory thoughts about her. A man presently took the young officer by the arm, and looking up the baron was stupefied to behold the pauper of the rue Coquilliere, the Ferragus of Ida, the lodger in the ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac

... herself, not leading the way, but following the unexpected intruder to the second floor. Evidently the elderly woman was familiar with the house, for she made her way directly to the sitting-room and, seating herself upon the divan, began untying her ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook

... could shake, no deluge invade, their house among the everlasting rock-ribs. Bright crackled their fire, and on the broad divan of cedar he had hewn and covered thick with furs, they two could lie and talk and dream, and let the storm rage, careless ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... Quentin had seen before. He was relieved to find that the prince was not present, and he made his way to Dorothy's side, with Lady Frances, coolly dropping into the chair which a young captain had momentarily abandoned. Lady Frances sat beside Miss Garrison on the divan. ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon

... the camp, to bring water, and lead the camels, were permitted to remain with us. That evening we invited the captain and his crew to dine in the camp; and it was fortunate that we did so, as the sequel will show. Shortly after sundown, as we were all sitting in our usual way, on an extempore divan in front of the tents, drinking coffee, telling stories, and enjoying the cool sea evening breezes, a challenge was heard by the sentinel placed on the rear right of the camp, followed by a sudden and rapid discharge ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke



Words linked to "Divan" :   divan bed, lounge, chamber, couch, boardroom, privy council, council chamber, anthology, diwan, sofa



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