"Round table" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the turmoil, to seek cloisters of quiet, which bias "The Holy Grail" attacks. Arthur was no friend to the pursuit of the grail; not that he loves not, with a passion white as sun's flame, the good and pure, but that he has sagacity to see such quest will scatter the round table and its fellowship, and would dispeople his forces, whose presence makes for peace and sovereignty in all his realm and compels the sovereignty of law. Him, their king, these errant knights heeded not, so enticing and noble seemed the warfare they ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... napkins and cloaths exceedingly, and are served at table by servants who are dirty, and often very offensive. I was admitted, by accident, to a Gentleman's house, of large fortune, while they were at dinner; there were seven persons at a round table, too small for five; two of the company were visitors; yet neither their dinner was so good, nor their manner of eating it so delicate, as may be seen in the kitchen of a London tradesman. The dessert (in a country where fruit is so fine and so plenty) was only a large dish of the seeds of pomegranates, ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... anteroom his coat and hat were taken by a servant. He then stepped into a room where a round table was spread with spotless linen and rare silver. There were five chairs ranged around the table. Hanada frowned ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... wall-paper, and was well, almost pretentiously, furnished, with its round table, its divan, and its bronze clock under a glass shade. There was a narrow pier-glass against the wall, and a chandelier adorned with lustres hung by a ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... took down a leaden platter from a shelf by the door, and, opening a cupboard, he took out a little glass bottle full of a clear amber-coloured liquid, which glowed like melted fire. Setting down the platter on a little round table in the middle of the room, he dropped one or two drops of this liquid on it, and in an instant they broke into tongues of flame which curled ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... will have the goodness to imagine the Sanctum Sanctorum of Household Words. Anything that best suits the reader's fancy, will best represent that magnificent chamber. We merely stipulate for a round table in the middle, with some glasses and cigars arranged upon it; and the editorial sofa elegantly hemmed in between that stately piece ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... excellency. The ministers of princes claimed the same title. Months were employed in settling that question. Then a difficulty arose as to the seats at table, who were entitled to the positions of honor. After long debate, this point was settled by having a large round table made, to which there could be ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... Claridge's. She wore a dark blue princess frock, buttoned right up to the throat. Her hair was brushed straight back from her head, revealing a little more completely her finely shaped forehead. She was seated before a round table covered with papers, and Tallente fancied, even as he crossed the threshold, that there was an electric atmosphere in the little apartment, an impression which the smouldering fire in her eyes, as she glanced up, confirmed. The change in her expression, however, as she recognised ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... now rested on the table, and from under the table (which was without cloth or cover—an old mahogany round table) there rose a hand, visible as far as the wrist. It was a hand, seemingly, as much of flesh and blood as my own, but the hand of an aged person—lean, wrinkled, small, too—a woman's hand. That hand very ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... easy-chair reposed the limbs of Mrs. Woolper; a bright little fire burned in a bright little grate, and its ruddy light was reflected in a bright little fender. Prints of the goody class adorned the walls; and a small round table, with a somewhat gaudy cover, supported Mrs. Woolper's work-box and family Bible, both of which she made it a point of honour to carry about with her, and to keep religiously, through good fortune and through evil fortune; ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... with the vigor of two woodmen felling a mighty oak. The edges of the axes being spoiled, the knights drew their well-tempered swords and renewed the combat with the lustihood of the heroes of the Round Table, fighting so fiercely that it was not easy to follow the gleam of the swift-flashing blades. In the end the Burgundian proved himself more than a match for the Sicilian, driving him back, hewing rents in his armor, and threatening him with speedy death. At this stage of the affray Duke ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... see the narrow room, the bare, brown, discoloured walls, the incongruous marble clock on the mantel-piece, the single rickety chair that swayed beneath me. I could almost draw the tortuous pattern of the faded cloth that hid the round table at which I sat. The ink was thick, pale, and sticky; the pen spluttered. I wrote furiously, anxious to be done with it. Once I went and leaned over the balcony, trying to hit on a word that would not come. Miles down below, little people crawled over the cobbled street, little carts ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... particular wasp at table I had in my mind remains to be spoken of. I was lunching at the house of a friend, the vicar of a lonely parish in Hampshire, and besides ourselves there were five ladies, four of them young, at our round table. The window stood open, and by-and-by a wasp flew in and began to investigate the dishes, the plates, then the eaters themselves, impartially buzzing before each face in turn. On his last round, before ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... boy with a toasting-fork knelt by the hearth. You disentangled a smell of stewed tea and browning toast from thick, deep smells of peat smoke and the sweat drying on Ned's shirt. When Farmer Alderson got up you saw the round table, the coarse blue-grey teacups and the brown glazed teapot on a ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... specimen of an intended national work by William and Robert Whistlecraft, of Stowmarket, in Suffolk; harness and collar makers; intended to comprise the most interesting particulars relating to King Arthur and his Round Table." The real author of Mr. Whistlecraft's specimen was the Right Hon. J. Hookham Frere, who has the merit of having first introduced the Italian burlesque style into our literature. Lord Byron composed his "Beppo" confessedly after this example. "It is," ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... Paris Library and elsewhere there are manuscript volumes containing the stories of the Round Table abridged and somewhat clumsily combined from the various Prose Romances of that cycle, such as Sir Tristan, Lancelot, Palamedes, Giron le Courtois, &c., which had been composed, it would seem, by various Anglo-French gentlemen at ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Wherefore if the thought of one must be pleasant so at last must be that of the other. And then came the nurse with tales of what Berthun thought of this man of his—how that he was surely a wandering prince, with a vow of service on him, like Gareth of the Round Table in ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... cousin, rosy beyond belief, trim in white middy blouse and blue skirt, was already in her place behind the coffeepot. Vere sat opposite her at the round table. They were holding hands across the rolls and bacon and eggs, their glances interlocked in a shining content that made my solitariness rather drab and dull to my own contemplation. At my clumsy step the picture dissolved, ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... Rear centre, a door opening into the garden. Doors at the sides; in the centre a round table. ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... addition of that with Romans abroad, the Igraine episode, or rather overture, the doubtless valuable introduction of Merlin, the treason of Mordred and Guinevere, and the retirement to Avalon—that is practically all. No Round Table; no knights (though "Walgan, the king's nephew," is, of course, an early appearance of Gawain); none of the interesting difficulties about Arthur's succession: an entire absence of personal characteristics ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... children ran joyous to meet him. Dorothea pushed the one wooden arm-chair of the room to the stove, and August flew to set the jug of beer on a little round table, and fill a long clay pipe; for their father was good to them all, and seldom raised his voice in anger, and they had been trained by the mother they had loved to dutifulness and ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... had quitted the brilliant saloons whose hero he was, to comfort his old friend in the days of his tribulation. The fiscal was there also, cutting quills for every one present, and sticking them into the inkstands, which were placed all round the round table in front ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... now recall the manner in which my aunt and I greeted one another. I must have been very tired there, but whatever impression was made has gone out of my memory. But I recall very clearly how we sat at the little round table near the big window that gave on the terrace, and dined and talked. I remember her ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... of washed-out brick and well-ripened wood, there was comfort and cleanliness and quiet. The front room, with its stiff cane rocker and chairs, its round table and well-adorned mantelpiece, its cretonne-covered lounge and tapestry carpet, was not a bad sample at all, of a drawing-room ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... meeting, he would improve almost any occasion you could mention for hours and hours! By this time, young ladies," said Mrs. Pardiggle, moving back to her chair and overturning, as if by invisible agency, a little round table at a considerable distance with my work-basket on it, "by this time you have found me out, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... George down to dinner; but Jack De Baron sat on his left hand. Next to him was Augusta Mildmay, who had been consigned to his care. Then came Lord George sitting opposite to his host at a round table, with Mrs. Houghton at his right hand. Mrs. Mildmay and Miss Hetta Houghton filled up the vacant places. To all this a great deal of attention had been given by the hostess. She had not wished to throw her cousin Jack and Miss Mildmay together. She would probably ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... of receiving that telegram, was sitting at a small round table in the bar of The Stamford, listening in silence to certain opinions which were being expressed by his two companions in arms and partners in misfortune, the same opinions relating in a most disparaging manner to ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... a quiet cosy breakfast, served up on a little round table for myself alone, I sat down to test the practicability of the plan I had formed at home for my peregrinations in England:—viz., to write until one, P.M., then to take my staff and travel on, eight ...
— Jemmy Stubbins, or The Nailer Boy - Illustrations Of The Law Of Kindness • Unknown Author
... and around it was placed an odd covering frame that caught up the smoke and channeled it via underground passages to some distant wilderness, where its sightless remnants would dissipate into the atmosphere unnoticed. On the near side of the fire was a round table flanked by four large, comfortable chairs, padded by cushions made from the same material as the various carpets and ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... wholly to renounce the one as the other, because they are both surrounded with an atmosphere of the fabulous. Hengist and Horsa come to us encompassed with Gothic traditions that belong to other nations. Arthur presents himself with his attributes of the magician Merlin, and the knights of the Round Table. But are we therefore to deny altogether their historical existence? In following the ignis fatuus of tradition, the credulous annalists of the monastic age were lost in the treacherous ground over which it led them. The more patient research of a critical age sees in that doubtful light ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... affecting their interests in common with woman, great advance had been made during the past six centuries, but those regarding the exclusive interests of women, had remained in statu quo, since King Alfred the Great and the knights of his Round Table fell asleep. The anti-negro slavery object of my paper seemed to be lost sight of, both by friends and foes of human progress, in the surprise at the innovation of a woman entering the political arena, to argue publicly on great ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... servants. He said we girls might dine in our little parlour apart, but there was no bearing that, and the whole household dined and supped together. Breakfast was at such uncertain times that we left that for the back kitchen, and had our own little round table by the fire, or in the parlour, at half-past seven; and so we took care to have a good cup of coffee for Fulk when he came in about five or six; but the half-past twelve dinner and eight o'clock supper were at the long table, our three selves and Baby ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hotel that evening, and told her all about A. Jones. The tale was finished long before that dyspeptic youth had wakened from his slumbers. Then they all dressed for dinner and afterward met in the lobby, where Uncle John told them he had arranged to have a big round table prepared for the entire party, including a seat for A. Jones, who might ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... line, encouraged what may be called poetical padding. The influence of the Breton romances diverted the chansons de geste into ways of fantasy; "We shall never know," writes M. Leon Gautier, "the harm which the Round Table has done us." Finally, verse became a weariness, and was replaced by prose. The decline had progressed ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... just as the extreme beauty of a few superb women was more effective against the plainness of the crowd. The result was mediaeval, and amusing; sometimes coarse to a degree that might have startled a roustabout, and sometimes courteous and considerate to a degree that suggested King Arthur's Round Table; but this artistic contrast was surely not the perfection that Motley had in his mind. He meant something scholarly, worldly, and modern; he was thinking of his ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... picture as nearly as I can draw it: a round table with a low centerpiece of orchids in lavenders and pink, old silver candlesticks with filigree shades against the somber wainscoting; nine people, two of them unhappy—Jim and I; one of them complacent—Aunt Selina; one puzzled—Mr. Harbison; and the rest hysterically mirthful. Add one sick Japanese ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... she started up and looked around her, she was alone, and the room was lighted only by a flickering blaze from the fireplace. This dancing light fell on a little low round table, on which was a plate with some slices of mutton-ham, some oatcake, three or four eggs, and a pitcher. She was ravenously hungry, and she was alone. She thought she would take something—so little as to ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... pottle in the Hall," was the reply, and the monk, with a laugh savouring little of asceticism, said he would seek him there, and accordingly crossed the court to the noble Hall, with its lofty dark marble columns, and the Round Table of King Arthur suspended at the upper end. The governor of the Castle had risen from his meal long ago, but the garrison in the piping times of peace would make their ration of ale last as far into the afternoon as ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... back just as luncheon was served. Dahlia was looking pinker than ever, and I thought the Philosopher's tan had rather a pinkish hue, also. I felt obliged to ask Dahlia to stay to luncheon and she promptly accepted. Throughout the meal she was very gay, sitting at my round table between the Philosopher and the Skeptic, and plying both with attentions. It is a singular phrase to use, in speaking of a girl, but I know no other that ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... the background, between the windows, an open glass door leading out on to the verandah. Below this, a portion of the garden is visible. A sofa and table down left. To the right a piano, and farther back a large flower-stand. In the middle of the room a round table, with chairs. On the table is a rose-tree in bloom, and other plants around ...
— The Lady From The Sea • Henrik Ibsen
... waterfall that seemed, so broad the intervening valley, to spring silently to the bouldered river-bed below. On a white bearskin, in front of one of the few unnecessary fires she had ever seen, slept a boar-hound. It was a pity that the books lying on the great round table were mostly the drawings of Dana Gibson and that when the lady of the house came in to speak to them she proved to be a lisping Jewess, but that could not dull the pearl of the spectacle. She insisted ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... of his Round Table. We know that some people are inclined to discredit the accounts which have come down to us of this famous British King and Christian hero, but for our own part we are inclined to trust the old chroniclers, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... Chiltern, been anathematized from all the high pulpits of the world, Honora's belief in him could not have been shaken. Ivanhoe and the Knights of the Round Table to the contrary, there is no chivalry so exalted as that of a woman who loves, no courage higher, no endurance greater. Her knowledge is complete; and hers the supreme faith that is unmoved by calumny and unbelief. She alone knows. The old Chiltern did not belong to her: hers was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... was sayin'," he resumed, sitting with hand and forearm resting on a round table, in the centre of which was a large kerosene lamp, "that my notion was, fust off, to have him come here, but when I come to think on't I changed my mind. In the fust place, except that he's well recommended, ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... selections that bear some relation to one another. A simple cycle of this sort may be seen where in the eighth volume the account of Lord Nelson's great naval victory is followed by Casabianca; a better one where in the fifth volume there is an account of King Arthur, followed by tales of the Round Table Knights from Malory, and Geraint and Enid and The Passing of Arthur from Tennyson. By this plan one selection serves as the setting for another, and a child often can see how the real things of life prove the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... with Sir Pelleas as with one Who gets a wound in battle, and the sword That made it plunges through the wound again, And pricks it deeper: and he shrank and wailed, 'Is the Queen false?' and Percivale was mute. 'Have any of our Round Table held their vows?' And Percivale made answer not a word. 'Is the King true?' 'The King!' said Percivale. 'Why then let men couple at once with wolves. ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... the hermit, once a knight. "I have seen the day," says the hermit, "I would have loved him the worse, because he was against my lord, King Arthur, for some time. I was one of the fellowship of the Round Table, but I thank God now I am otherwise disposed." Gawain, seeking the wounded knight, comes to Astolat, where Elaine declares "he is the man in the world that I first loved, and truly he is the last that ever I shall love." Gawain, ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... it a round table, a half-dozen chairs, a small sheet-iron stove, and a rude kind of settee that served Jim Woppit for a bed by night. There were some pictures hung about on the walls—neither better nor poorer than the pictures invariably found in the homes of ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... mirror, and indeed the whole mantelpiece, was festooned and half hidden with branches laden with deep crimson rowan-berries, mixed with heather and silvery-leafed honesty; a basket of the same rowan-berries occupied the centre of the round table; an Oriental scarf draped the ugly horsehair sofa, and a comfortable-looking rug was thrown over the shabby easy-chair. The fishing-tackle, butterfly-nets, pipes, and all other heterogeneous matters, were consigned to a small bare apartment, ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... most charming little snuggery imaginable. It was something like a saloon railway carriage—it seemed to be all lined and carpeted and everything, with rich mossy red velvet; there was a little round table in the middle and two arm-chairs, on one of which sat the cuckoo—"quite like other people," thought Griselda to herself—while the other, as he pointed out to Griselda by a little nod, was evidently ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... a pleasing accompaniment to the moonlight of the sonata, as if pelicans were gnashing their teeth in the dimness. The sterner sex made a dash for the various albums and literature on the round table in the center of the room, and turned the leaves with a gentle flutter. The sonata was finished in dead silence. As it was performed by one of the family, no applause was necessary. I was asked to sing; and, though I do not like to sing after dinner, I consented, ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... imitative wretch had got a towel, and as often as Lady Racial's handkerchief travelled to her eyes, Jacko's peery face was hidden, and you saw his lithe skinny body doing grief's convulsions till, tired of this amusement, he obtained possession of the warrior's helmet, from a small round table on one side of the bed; a calque of the barbarous military-Georgian form, with a huge knob of horse-hair projecting over the peak; and under this, trying to adapt it to his rogue's head, the tricksy ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... such intimacies with natural and unsophisticated people that there came to him the understanding of the heroes of the Red Branch. How pallid, beside the ruddy chivalry who pass, huge and fleet and bright, through O'Grady's pages, appear Tennyson's bloodless Knights of the Round Table, fabricated in the study to be read in the drawing room, as anemic as Burne Jones' lifeless men in armour. The heroes of ancient Irish legend reincarnated in the mind of a man who could breathe into them the fire of life, caught from sun ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... dined alone. Sir Carey said he must insist on a short honeymoon even though they were obliged to spend it in an Embassy. They had dinner in Bohemian fashion on a small round table in Lady Ingleton's boudoir, and were waited upon by Sir Carey's valet, a middle-aged Italian who had been for many years in his service and who had succeeded, in the way of Italian servants, in becoming one of the family. The Pekinese lay around solaced ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... has done the largest amount of the best poetical work. The Idylls of the King appeared in 1859. This series of poems— perhaps his greatest— contains the stories of "Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table." Many other volumes of poems have been given by him to the world. In his old age he has taken to the writing of ballads and dramas. His ballad of The Revenge is one of the noblest and most vigorous poems that England has ever seen. The dramas of Harold, Queen Mary, and Becket, are ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... in the heaviest showers of rain, and felt so much the more comfortable when we entered the brilliant, well-lighted palace. We passed through many state- rooms into a salon carre, where the royal family was assembled en petit comite. At a round table sat the queen with an elegant work-basket before her (perhaps to embroider a purse for me?); near her were Madame Adelaide, the Duchess of Orleans, and ladies-in-waiting. The noble ladies were as affable as if we had been ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... the first floor of the Tuileries, between the Pavilion de Flore and the Pavilion de l'Horloge, my mother used to sit doing her fancy work at a round table lighted by shaded candles, with my aunt Adelaide, the young princesses, and the ladies-in-waiting near her. The King sat on a window seat in the billiard-room adjoining the drawing-room, and there received the despatches brought him by his secretary, Baron Fain, and read the Times, the only newspaper ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... of that little, oak-paneled parlor on the right of the hall of entrance, where there was always a fire kept alive for the master, and a round table covered with account books, piles of paper, bundles of pens and bottles ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... somewhat difficult to carry. She would not let her down, however, but conducted her across the cool hall and into a room at the further end of the passage. This room was nearly empty, matting covered the floor and a round table stood in the center, while two or three high-backed chairs, with hard seats, were placed at intervals round the walls. It was a decidedly dreary room, and rendered all the more so because the morning sun was pouring in through ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... whichever it may be, brings to mind a more indestructible reality than anything else that has occurred within the present field of our vision; though this includes the scene of Guy of Warwick's legendary exploits, and some of those of the Round Table, to say nothing of the Battle of Edge Hill. For perhaps it was in the landscape now under our eyes that Posthumus wandered with the King's daughter, the sweet, chaste, faithful, and courageous Imogen, the tenderest and womanliest woman that Shakespeare ever made immortal in ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the four chums—unusual circumstance—were all present; MacNab, seated at the big round table, engaged in putting up a remarkably neat parcel, the others lounging at ease, ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... Sol and Captain Cuttle kept her reckoning in the little hack parlour and worked out her course, with the chart spread before them on the round table. At night, when old Sol climbed upstairs, so lonely, to the attic where it sometimes blew great guns, he looked up at the stars and listened to the wind, and kept a longer watch than would have fallen to his lot on board the ship. The last bottle of the old Madeira, which had had its ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Then she turned, with an uneasy side-look at her brother-in-law, and began leading the way down the short passage. The door of the dining-room was open; Jacques could not help seeing that only one place was laid at the round table, also that Madeleine had just ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... purely theoretical. To her all sea-faring men are courageous, simple-hearted stalwarts having their business in great waters, and she has intimated that she always remembers them in her prayers. The modest breakfast, for two, is spread on one side of the round table which is so much too large for the room. She would be only too pleased if she could board me, but it is not allowed. The Inn, I have been given to understand, has been bought outright by some person of great wealth, whose design is ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... was not a knight of the round table, was there, who did not give up all to go upon that Quest, though only one was found worthy to fulfil it? But now-a-days, the knights sit drinking hock and champagne, or drive sulky-wagons, and never fancy that there ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... Tracey has poured for me, Mr. Dundee?" Mrs. Dunlap asked shakily, leaning against the big round table. ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... he kept his ears wide open to what was being said around him, I soon discovered. I was telling Mr. Raven and his niece of my adventure of the afternoon, and suddenly I observed that Mr. Cazalette, on the other side of the round table at which we sat, had stopped eating, and that, knife and fork still in his queer, claw-like hands, he was peering at me under the shaded lamps, his black, burning eyes full of a ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... prison, we were led into a magnificent apartment, with open arches facing toward the distant mountains, and a repast was spread before us. Juba, to our great contentment, was allowed to accompany us. I think that Jack was the most pleased member of the party at the sight of the food. We sat at a round table, and I observed that the eatables consisted, as with Juba's people, exclusively of vegetables, except that there were birds, of species unknown to us, but of most exquisite flavor, and a light, white wine, the most delicious that I ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... millionaire and the Russian Prince, but beyond—it was a round table, only just big enough to hold them—came her hostess and Lord Bracondale, and two or three times at dinner they spoke, and very often she felt his eyes ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... near which they were standing, they could look down upon a large saloon, adorned all around with pillars, and splendidly decorated, in which many colored lamps restored the light of day. In the midst of the saloon stood a round table, laden with various choice meats. Around the table extended a sofa, on which eight men were seated. In one of these men the storks recognised the very merchant, who had sold them the magic powder. His neighbor desired him to tell them his latest exploits; ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... little white rolls; Rosamond and Ruth beat up the cake; mother attended to the boiling of the tongues, and, when it was time, to the making of the delicious coffee; all together we gave all sorts of pleasant touches to the brown room, and set the round table (the old cover could be "shied" out of sight now, as Stephen said, and replaced with the white glistening damask for the tea) in the corner between the southwest windows that opened ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... them to her chamber. They are not slow to accept the invitation. "Be seated, gentlemen, be seated," she says, preserving a calmness of manner not congenial to the feelings of either of her guests. She places chairs for them at the round table, upon the marble top of which an inlaid ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... when he would join us here?" enquired Louise, when they were seated at the little round table. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... with a smile; "and yet they are very witty, and are much read at Court. The king likes especially the romance of Messeurs Iffven and Gaudian, which describes King Arthur and his knights of the round table. He has joked about it with the ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... fine engravings which the home contained, the fancy-work of our hostess—a German lady seems never to be without it—lying neglected as the conversation rose in interest. Supper was served between eight and nine o'clock, at a round table accommodating the hostess and her three guests. Delicious tea, made from a burnished brass teakettle over an alcohol lamp on a stand beside the hostess, with white and black bread, five kinds of sausage, cold meat, and pickled fish, composed the first course. There was a second, ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... About the great round table were gathered a goodly company—the company of Brown's old friends among the rich and eminent of the city. Not only men of great wealth, but men distinguished in their professions, noted for their achievements, and honoured ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... hostess, she loved situations, and her social tact was illimitable. In a few minutes Trent was seated in a comfortable and solid chair with a little round table by his side, drinking tea and eating buttered scones, and if not altogether at his ease very nearly so. Opposite him was Davenant, dying to escape yet constrained to be agreeable, and animated too with a keen, distasteful curiosity to watch ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "A knight of the round table could not have acted better," her majesty went on; "and so, M. de Charny, as the king will doubtless take upon himself to reward M. de Suffren, I, for my part, wish to do something for the ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... Willoughby swore violently, and a second later he stamped upon the carpet. Durrance's imagination was kindled by this simple sequence of events, and he straightway made up a little picture in his mind. In one chair himself smoking his cigar, a round table holding a match-stand on his left hand, and on the other side of the table Captain Willoughby in another chair. But Captain Willoughby lighting his pipe and suddenly arrested in the act by a sentence spoken ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... sofas and ottomans scattered through the room, and a grand piano in one corner, the furniture being covered with yellow, or amber—coloured velvet, with broad heavy draperies of gold fringe, like the bullion of an epaulet. There was a small round table near the stove, on which stood a silver candlestick, with four branches filled with wax tapers; and bottles of wine, and glasses. At this table sat an officer, apparently about forty five years of age. There was n othing ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Butterwell and his office papers, and not stirring from his seat till a messenger summoned him before the Board. The Board, as he entered the room, was not such a Board as the public may, perhaps, imagine such Boards to be. There was a round table, with a few pens lying about, and a comfortable leathern arm-chair at the side of it, farthest from the door. Sir Raffle Buffle was leaving his late colleagues, and was standing with his back to the fire-place, talking very loudly. Sir Raffle was a great bully, and ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... Highlands, in the eighteenth century, the boys had a curious custom. They would go to the moors outside of the town, make a round table in the sod, by cutting a trench around it, deep enough for them to sit down to their grassy table. On this table they would kindle a fire and cook a custard of eggs and milk, and knead a cake of oat-meal, which was toasted by the fire. After eating the custard, the cake was cut into as many parts ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... that he filled with rare distinction for six years. As to his literary work, this began with the publication of his novel, 'Tiger-lilies', in 1867, and in the same year, of occasional poems in 'The Round Table' of New York. 'Corn', published in 'Lippincott's Magazine' (Philadelphia) for February, 1875, is the first of his poems that attracted general notice, and the one that gained him the friendship of Bayard Taylor. ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... To make matters worse, we had dined at a sensible hour. When the bottles made their first round at dessert, the clock on the mantel-piece only struck eight. I counted the strokes, and felt certain, from the expression of his face, that the other junior guest, who sat on one side of me at the round table, was counting them also. When we came to the final eight, we exchanged looks of despair. "Two hours more of this! What on earth is to become of us?" In the language of the eyes, that was exactly what we ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... the round table in the centre of the room, on which lay a tambourine and a little green box. Lagune developed unsuspected lengths of knobby wrist and finger directing his guests to their seats. Lewisham was to sit next to him, between him and the Medium; beyond the Medium sat Smithers with Miss Heydinger ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... and rode his best, feeling like some errant knight of the great Round Table, ready to right the whole world's wrongs. "But what about the horse?" said he. "We can na keep him ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... A round table spread in the tavern hall was loaded with food and liquors, while songs and speeches were given with a vim, all boasting of the prowess and patriotism ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... of our chairs and in turn made a sort of low bow to the newcomer, shaking our own hands (Chinese fashion) all the time. This over, she escorted us into an inner room.... There was a rug on the floor, a round table, some very high chairs with straight backs, and some mirrors. We sat in state some few minutes and then more ladies came in one after another, and each one we had to salute in the same ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... a success. To begin with, a waiter person—Mr. Murrill referred to him as a waiter person—sat them down near the front at a small, round table whose enamel top was decorated with two slopped glasses and a bottle one-third filled with wine gone stale. At least the stuff looked and smelled like wine—like a poor ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... be glad of one, if I may have it, Mrs. Leslie," the Doctor returned, emulating her light tone as well as he could; and, after shaking hands with the younger lady, who got up from her knees to greet him, he took a seat near the round table, not in the well-worn, cozy arm-chair in the snuggest corner of the snug room, which, with its gorgeous dressing-gown thrown across it and slippers warming before the fire, wad evidently sacred ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... recommended to Miss Nowell, and had procured from London for her, or something of an equally frivolous character. The Captain was always cordial, always pleased to see him. His visits were generally made in the evening; and it was his delight to linger over the pretty little round table by the bow-window, drinking tea dispensed by Marian. The bright home-like room, the lovely face turned so trustingly to his; these were the things which made that fair vision of the future that haunted him so often now. He fancied himself the master of some pretty villa in the suburbs—at ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... interrupted her gently. "This affects you too deeply, my dear Charlotte. I know your soul dwells on such recollections with intense delight; but I implore—" "O Albert!" she continued, "I am sure you do not forget the evenings when we three used to sit at the little round table, when papa was absent, and the little ones had retired. You often had a good book with you, but seldom read it; the conversation of that noble being was preferable to everything,—that beautiful, bright, gentle, and yet ever-toiling woman. God alone knows how I have supplicated with tears on ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... a deep border of brown dashed in gold. The chairs were all willow, also a pretty, standing work-basket, already filled with some of Bea's light work; and there, on the table, lay some of the young doctor's books and papers. The tiny dining room next, with its round table and new chairs, its little closet, with the shelves covered with snowy paper, and well stocked with dishes, all plain and cheap, but of pretty shapes and serviceable strength. Then the kitchen, shining with new tin, and a brisk little stove, and the rack hung ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... set forth; here we took our meals; here entertained to a dinner the king and notables of Makin. In the midst was the house, with a verandah front and back, and three rooms within. In the verandah we slung our man-of-war hammocks, worked there by day, and slept at night. Within were beds, chairs, a round table, a fine hanging lamp, and portraits of the royal family of Hawaii. Queen Victoria proves nothing; Kalakaua and Mrs. Bishop are diagnostic; and the truth is we were the stealthy tenants of the parsonage. On the day of our arrival Maka was away; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... petite femme, A good boy, a little woman, the le jeune homme, les chevaux young man, the black horses, noirs, l'ecole francaise, la the French school, the round table ronde, la porte ouverte, table, the open door, an un livre excellent. excellent book. Le pere et ses fils sont The father and his sons are grand. tall. Le pere et ses filles sont The father and his daughters grands. are tall. Les portes et les fenetres ...
— French Conversation and Composition • Harry Vincent Wann
... being placed publicly on a small round table, excited general attention and admiration. The Italian Princess, Madame de Maintenon, the Duc de Saint Aignan, and Dangeau himself went into raptures over the rare perfection of these marvellously assorted brilliants. The King, ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... intelligent, and sensitive face, and a low, agreeable voice. She looks youthful and comely, and is very gentle and lady-like. And so we proceeded to the breakfast-room, which is hung round with pictures; and in the middle of it stood a large round table, worthy to have been King Arthur's, and here we seated ourselves without any question of precedence or ceremony. On one side of me was an elderly lady, with a very fine countenance, and in the course of breakfast ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... late excellent edition of Sir David Lindsay's works, has refuted the chimerical derivation of Snawdoun from snedding, or cutting. It was probably derived from the romantic legend which connected Stirling with King Arthur, to which the mention of the Round Table gives countenance. The ring within which justs were formerly practised in the Castle park, is still called the Round Table. Snawdoun is the official title of one of the Scottish heralds, whose epithets seem in all countries to have been fantastically ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... if you were hungry," said the young woman, laying her baby in the cradle, and spreading a cloth on the round table. "My husband will be home soon, and if you like to stay and sup with him and me, ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... pique blanket, along the wall, is nailed up a rug with a representation of a Turkish sultan luxuriating in his harem, a narghili in his mouth; on the walls, several more photographs of dashing men of the waiter and actor type; a pink lantern hangs down from the ceiling by chains; there are also a round table under a carpet cover, three vienna chairs, and an enameled bowl with a pitcher of the same sort in the corner on ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... were sofas, between the doors. On the front side was a range of windows looking out upon the river. The windows were large, and as the walls of the hotel were very thick, a recess was formed for each, and opposite each recess was a round table. These tables were all set for ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... Governor of Berlin, who, together with Count Zu Eulenburg and Count Wilhelm von Hohenau, one of the Emperor's Adjutants, had been mentioned by Harden in his paper as members of the so-called Camarilla or "Round Table" that sought to influence the Emperor's political actions by subtle manipulations. He was sentenced to four months' imprisonment, but appealed the case, and was let off two years later with a ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... and pared in dull times for this "room" and when once Joe had a long run of steady work she had launched out into what those who know how workingmen's wives should live would have denounced as the wildest extravagance. A gilt framed mirror and a sofa, four spidery chairs and a round table, a wonderful display of wax apples under a glass shade, a sideboard and a pair of white lace curtains hanging from a pole, with various ornaments and pictures of noticeable appearance, also linoleum for the floor, had finally been gathered together and ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... with an English version and a glossary by the Rev. Robert Williams in the first volume of his "Selections from the Hengwrt MSS". (6) The first volume of this work is entitled "Y Seint Greal, being the adventures of King Arthur's knights of the Round Table, in the quest of the Holy Grail, and on other occasions. Originally written about the year 1200". The volume, following the manuscript now in the library of W.W.E. Wynne, Esq., at Peniarth, is divided into two parts. ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... subscription at the end of the ballad to the effect that it was written on a round table in the Manor of Henan, near Pont-Aven, by the "bard of the old Seigneur," who dictated it to a damsel. "How comes it," asks Villemarque, "that in the Middle Ages we still find a seigneur of Brittany maintaining a domestic bard?" There is no good reason ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... introduced and mantels of solid oak. For upholstery, leather covering was commonly used instead of cloth. Carpets were laid in strips, not tacked down to stay, and rugs were laid so as to show a goodly glimpse of hardwood floor; and in the dining-room a large, round table was placed instead of a right-angled square one. This table was not covered with a tablecloth; instead, mats and doilies were used here and there. To cover a table entirely with a cloth or spread was pretty good proof that the piece of furniture was cheap and shabby; so in no William Morris ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Morton," Sir Allan said, pointing to some dainty marvels of china and a Japanese teapot, which stood on a little round table between two chairs, "and bring me a loose jacket from my room. I am dining in Downing Street to-night, and shall not want to dress ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... apartment on the ground floor served for dining and drawing-room, communicating directly with the kitchen by a door, which stood always wide open. This room was furnished in the most scanty manner; two old arm chairs, six straw chairs, a sideboard, a round table. Pauline had already laid the cloth for the dinner ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... on the seaman, but without uttering a word, she went smartly to a corner and drew into the middle of the room a round table with one leg and three feet, whose accommodating top having been previously flat against the wall, fell down horizontal and fixed itself with a snap. On this the earnest little woman, quickly and neatly, spread a fairish linen cloth, and proceeded to ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... who signed it were David Monroe, of the North American Review; Robert Reid, the painter, and about thirty others of the Round Table Group, so called because its members were accustomed to lunching at a large round table in a bay window of the Player dining-room. Mark Twain's reply was prompt and heartfelt. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... young hero died on October 1, 1578, in his thirty-first year, the last of the great figures of medieval chivalry—a knight worthy to have been commemorated in the Charlemagne gestes and to have sat at Arthur's Round Table with Sir ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... know. Haven't been over to see them work," Jane replied. "Have any of you?" She glanced about the round table at ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... laid outside a village inn in that county of curious dialects, Loamshire. The inn is easily indicated by a round table bearing two mugs of liquid, while a fallen log emphasises the rural nature of the scene. Gaffer Jarge and Gaffer Willyum are seated at the table, surrounded by a fringe of whisker, Jarge being slightly more of a ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... and twenty besides. I will engage to compile twelve books with characters just as distinct and consistent as those in the Iliad, from the metrical ballads, and other chronicles of England, about Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. I say nothing about moral dignity, but the mere consistency of character. The different qualities were traditional. Tristram is always courteous, Lancelot invincible, and so on. The same might be done ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... of a former cavalry barracks in Berlin, A windowless room that receives all its light from a lamp which burns suspended over a round table. From the back wall opens a straight passage which connects the room with the outer door—a door with iron hasps and a primitive signal bell which any one desiring to enter rings by means of a bell rope. A door in the right wall leads to an adjoining ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... M. Paul disclosed a parlour, or salon—very tiny, but I thought, very pretty. Its delicate walls were tinged like a blush; its floor was waxed; a square of brilliant carpet covered its centre; its small round table shone like the mirror over its hearth; there was a little couch, a little chiffonniere, the half-open, crimson-silk door of which, showed porcelain on the shelves; there was a French clock, a lamp; there ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... to wake her when supper was ready, but Abby knew just how good her rolls were, and knew that the child must be famished; and sure enough, after a little nap, Marie was ready to wake and sit up at the little round table, and be fed like a baby with everything good that Abby could think of. The fare had not been dainty in the travelling troupe of Le Boss. The fine white bread, the golden butter, the bit of broiled fish, smoking hot, seemed viands of paradise to the hungry ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... neighbouring prince of Deira, and thus reigned as the first king of Northumbria as Northumbria. The Celtic name of the fortress was Dinguardi, or Dinguvardy; and tradition has it that this was Sir Lancelot's castle of Joyeuse Garde, where he had often feasted the Knights of the Round Table, and where he, at last, came home to die. The fact that Bamburgh is the only pre-Conquest castle in Northumberland disposes of ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry |
