"Stair" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and shield, and scimitar against the wall, and then followed the duenna, with silent steps, up a winding stair-case, to the apartment of Xarisa. Vain would be the attempt to describe the raptures of that meeting. Time flew too swiftly, and the Abencerrage had nearly forgotten, until too late, his promise to return a prisoner to the Alcayde of Allora. The recollection of ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... like it;—and so did you. I was so glad you got that poor man's horse. You were not angry then?" They had now passed across the hall, and were on the bottom stair. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... the foot of the stair and led her to the dining-room. Another surprise! The room was not only large, pleasant, and airy, overlooking a beautiful garden, but it was neat and tidy, and the table was spotless, with fine damask, delicate china, and beautiful ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... I did, after you," said she, turning to the butler, "was gone to bed—I'm sure of it—Nay, don't you recollect my taking this JAPANNED CANDLESTICK out of your hand, and making you to go up to bed with the brass one, and I bolted the door at the stair-head after you?" ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... Ossawatomie spake on his dying day: "I will not have to shrive my soul a priest in Slavery's pay; But let some poor slave-mother whom I have striven to free, With her children, from the gallows-stair put up a ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... his head and closed the door. The gloom of the porch was deeper than ever as, stooping, he entered the narrow door that opened at the foot of the winding stair that leads to the first loft; from which a rude ladder-stair of wood, some five and twenty feet in height, mounts through a ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... some few months after the departure of the unlucky Countess who had managed to live for six months at the widow's expense, Mme. Vauquer (not yet dressed) heard the rustle of a silk dress and a young woman's light footstep on the stair; some one was going to Goriot's room. He seemed to expect the visit, for his door stood ajar. The portly Sylvie presently came up to tell her mistress that a girl too pretty to be honest, "dressed like a goddess," ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... said this in a very quick, abrupt way, and looked as if he were afraid his offer might be refused. He was much heated, with climbing our long stair no doubt, and as he stood in the middle of the room, puffing and wiping his bald head with a handkerchief, my mother rose hastily and offered ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... furniture. There was no carpet on the floor, no windows in the walls. The only light came from the door, and from a small skylight in the sloping roof, which showed that it was a garret-room. Nor did much light come from the open door, for there was no window on the walled stair to which it opened; only opposite the door a few steps led up into another garret, larger, but with a lower roof, unceiled, and perforated with two or three holes, the panes of glass filling which were ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... Ranger hasten back along the face of the precipice, stop where the rock offered foothold and begin slowly climbing almost vertically. At first, it was going up the tiers of a broken stone stair. Then, the weathered ledge gave place to slant shale. He saw Wayland dig his heels for grip, grasp a sharp edge overhead, and hoist himself to the overhanging branch of a recumbent pine; then, scramble along the fallen trunk to a ledge barely wide ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... thrusting in his rage To right and left each seneschal and page, And hurried up the broad and sounding stair, His white face ghastly in the torches' glare. From hall to hall he passed with breathless speed; Voices and cries he heard, but did not heed, Until at last he reached the banquet-room, Blazing with light, ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... are we, to judge by our own poor knowledge the great unknown forces of God? I went out there and then, caught a midnight train, and was at his house by seven in the morning. His wife met me on the stair and said, 'How did you know?' ... He lay dying in his bed, and all that night he had been calling for me. There was something I could do for him, better than any one else. He wished to place it in ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... were going on for the arrival, when, at ten o'clock in the morning the young man suddenly turned up, quite unexpectedly. Cousin Emmie, with her hair bobbed up in absurd little bobs round her forehead, was busily polishing the stair-rods, while Cousin Matilda was in the kitchen washing the drawing-room ornaments in a lather, her sleeves rolled back on her thin arms, and her head tied up oddly and coquettishly ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... pointed out to the Corporal certain modes and methods by which he fancies this island could be held, in case the French should discover its position; but the excellent Sergeant, though your father, and as good a man in his duties as ever wielded a spontoon, is not the great Lord Stair, or even the Duke of Marlborough. I'll not deny the Sergeant's merits in his particular sphere; though I cannot exaggerate qualities, however excellent, into those of men who may be in some trifling degree his superiors. Sergeant Dunham has taken counsel of his heart, instead of his head, in resolving ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... to the entrance-door is by a kind of trap-ladder, which is a difficult mode for any but the light-keepers, who are accustomed to it. Other persons are generally hoisted up in a chair by a moveable crane. From the entrance a circular stair leads to the first apartment, which contains the water, fuel, &c. The communication with the other apartments is by means of wooden steps. The three lower apartments have two windows each, and the upper rooms four windows each. All the windows have double sash-frames, glazed with ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... thing to see sadness upon her face. And yet Luisa Valverde, looking down from the mirador, saw that now. There was a troubled expression upon it, excitement in her eyes, attitude, and gestures, while her bosom rose and fell in quick pulsations. True, she had run up the escalera—a stair of four flights—without pause or rest; and that might account for her laboured breathing. But not for the flush on her cheek, and the sparkle in her eyes. These came from a different cause, though the same one which had carried ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... prison, and her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault! Oh whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? MADMAN!" here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul—"MADMAN! I TELL YOU THAT SHE NOW STANDS WITHOUT ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... defence, thirty attempted to escape in boats, or by swimming, but were killed to a man while in the water. The remainder retreated with Mageoghegan, who was severely wounded, to a cellar approached by a narrow stair, where the command was assumed by Taylor. All day the assault had been carried on till night closed upon the scene of carnage. Placing a strong guard on the approach to the crypt, Carew returned to the charge with the returning light. Cannon were first discharged into the narrow chamber which held ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... the new administration would not force the bank to accept the paper money issued by Alvarez, but would accept the paper money issued by the bank, which was based on gold. As a result, the cashier came down the stair-case of the Palace three steps at a time, and later our censor read his cable to the Home Bank in England, in which he said that Honduras at last had an honest man for President. What was more to the purpose, he reopened his bank at three o'clock, and quoted Honduranian ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... that region lay extended thousands of Yojanas on all sides. Indeed, O blessed one, it was equipt with many walls made of pure gold and decked with jewels and gems. There were many fine tanks of water furnished with flights of stair-cases made of pure crystal, and many rivers of clear and transparent water. He saw also many trees with diverse species of birds perching on them. That perpetuator of Bhrigu's race behold the gate of that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... woman you are!" exclaimed Giovanni, as they reached the top of the winding stair, which was indeed broader than the staircase of many great houses in Rome. "You ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... from the character of the country. It was conducted over pathless sierras buried in snow; galleries were cut for leagues through the living rock; rivers were crossed by means of bridges that swung suspended in the air; precipices were scaled by stair-ways hewn out of the native bed; ravines of hideous depth were filled up with solid masonry: in short, all the difficulties that beset a wild and mountainous region, and which might appal the most ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... he was forced to pause and rally all his forces before he went on to the next. First he would twine his long fingers about the rail reaching up as far as he was able; then he would lift one limp leg and swing it to the stair above; he would then heave himself forward almost upon his face and drag the other leg to a level with the first, rouse himself as from a tendency to faint, and stand there blinking at the next stair with an agonized plea as for mercy written in the deep furrows of ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... pirates vanished somewhere in the darkness, and the others followed Captain Lingo up a winding stair. At the top was a heavy door, which he unlocked with his key, and locked again on the inside after his guests had passed through. He then led them down a dark passage-way, and turning to the right unlocked a door with his ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... and molded itself, that instant, down to a glittering bowl-round knocker. The door went up; the bells sounded beautifully over all the house: "Klingling, youngling, in, in, spring, spring, klingling." In good heart he mounted the fine broad stair and feasted on the odors of some strange perfumery that was floating through the house. In doubt, he paused on the lobby; for he knew not at which of these many fine doors he was to knock. But Archivarius Lindhorst, in a white damask nightgown, stepped forth to him, and said: "Well, it is a real ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... and took his candle. On the top stair of the first flight he caught his foot in a loose piece of carpet, and stumbled, dropping the candlestick, which broke off at the base. In silence, Mrs. Benn fetched another, and handed it to him with an air of resignation, then, "You'll ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... mind asking him to come and play a little to us? It would do Tom good, I do think." Mary went up the one stair— all that now divided them, and found the musician with his sister—his ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... was but too true. The stair-carpet had not yet been laid down, and his foot had slipped at the uppermost step. He was taken up senseless, and when medical advice was procured, his head and his spine were found to be seriously injured. In a few days, during which he never spoke, old Hornblow was no more. Thus the old man, ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... suddenly, as they were at the top stair, "you must remove your boots: the slightest creak might wake the sleepers at ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... wa'n't without visits from the gentry," said Betsey Lane, turning back proudly at the head of the stairs, with a touch of old-world pride and sense of high station. Then she disappeared, and closed the door behind her at the stair-foot with a decision quite unwelcome to ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... chanced one time Mamma had gone away. Amanda she had left at home All by herself that day. Then someone rattled at the latch;— Amanda heard him there;— She heard him shutting fast the door And creeping up the stair;— ...
— Careless Jane and Other Tales • Katharine Pyle
... was so intense that nothing else could be heard by the two. The voices below were drowned by it, the footstep on the stair was as if it ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... him on the stair, was so affected at his appearance, that she screamed aloud, and betook herself to flight; while he, cursing her with greet bitterness, rushed into the apartment to the doctor, who, instead of receiving him with cordial embraces, and congratulating ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... had taken his key from Diaz' helpless hand, and opened his door and guided him within, and closed the door definitely upon the outer world, I breathed a great sigh. Every turn of the stair had been a station of the cross for me. We were now in utter darkness. The classical effluvium of inebriety mingled with the classical odour of the furnished lodging. But I cared not. I had at last successfully hidden his shame. No one could witness it now but ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... hantle o' braw folk hae leeved in James's Court in their time. I mind o' the Leddy Partan an' Mistress Girnigo, the king's jeweller's wife haein' a fair even-doon fecht a' aboot wha was to hae the pick o' the hooses on the stair.—Winifred, ma lassie, come here an' sit doon! Dinna gang flichterin' in an' oot, but bide still an' listen to what Maister Peden has to ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... indicate varieties and states of more or less altered basalts and dolerites, though no longer held to differ in any essential respects from the better preserved basalts. Still older is the term trap, which is derived from a Swedish word meaning "a stair," for in many places superposed sheets of basalt weather with well-marked step-like or terraced features. This designation is still used as a general term for the whole suite of basaltic rocks by many geologists and travellers (e.g. trap-dikes, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... down behind and suddenly pushed him by the burst open door, spread-eagle fashion, into the laughing long-room! The poor victim pretended it was an accident, "Ye see, Mr. Yates, I was coming down the stair, and me foot slipped." It seems that the luckless Andrew was coming, so he averred, expressly to expostulate with the boys, to throw himself on their generosity for a subscription towards his ruined greenhouse, and to ask Messrs. "Punsonby," Yates, & Co. to promote it. This ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... will be time To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— (They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!") My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple ...
— Prufrock and Other Observations • T. S. Eliot
... told her how he wished her services as leech, she began plotting ill against him in her mind, thinking that by doing evil to him she might find favor with his enemies. Nevertheless, she kept this well to herself and received Robin with seeming kindness. She led him up the winding stone stair to a room which was just beneath the eaves of a high, round tower; but she would not let ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... excitement—I pursued my way, as I thought, toward the stone staircase feeling the air with my outstretched hands as I groped along. In a little while I met with an obstruction—it was hard and cold—a stone wall, surely? I felt it up and down and found a hollow in it—was this the first step of the stair? I wondered; it seemed very high. I touched it cautiously—suddenly I came in contact with something soft and clammy to the touch like moss or wet velvet. Fingering this with a kind of repulsion, I soon traced out the oblong shape of a coffin Curiously enough, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... no further, but he thought more deeply still. All the way from the Teknik to the house where he lodged he was thinking. As he climbed the stair to his attic room he ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... in the library," she announced, and moved majestically down the hall. Then at a sound she paused and glanced toward the stair which rose on the left, opposite the library. A woman was descending, a woman only an inch or two shorter than herself and no less stately, with ashen blonde hair coiled low on her graceful neck and wearing a loose gown of pale green ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... a trustworthy eyewitness, that she saw a number of rats safely convey some eggs down a flight of stairs, from a store room, to their own dwellings. They stationed themselves on each stair, and each egg, held in the fore paws, was handed from one rat to another the whole way. The rats who dipped their tails into a jar of treacle, into which they could not dip their paws, and suffered their companions to lick them afterwards, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... to acquit herself of her engagement. She approached the door for this purpose, but before she could draw the bell, her motions were arrested by sounds from within. The staircase was opposite the door. Two persons were now discovered descending the stair. They lifted between them a heavy mass, which was presently discerned to be a coffin. Shocked by this discovery, and trembling, she ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... clean and warm and hungry. As he opened the stair door he sniffed the coffee and frying ham, and when Mahailey bent over the oven the warm smell of browning biscuit rushed out with the heat. These combined odours somewhat dispersed Dan's gloom when he came back in squeaky Sunday shoes and a bunglesome cut-away coat. The latter was not ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... poor and degraded of many nationalities. Businesses that fatten on misfortune—the saloon, pawn, old clothes and cheap food shops-lined the squalid Cowgate. Palaces were cut up into honeycombs of tall tenements. Every stair was a crowded highway; every passage a place of deposit for filth; almost every room sheltered a half famished family, in darkness and ancient dirt. Grand and great, pious and wise, decent, wretched and terrible folk, ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... life in the open air had made all rooms and roofs seem confining and distasteful to me, and I slept badly in the best of beds. Now my restlessness so grew upon me that, some time past midnight, not having made any attempt to prepare for sleep, I arose, went quietly down the stair and out at the front door, to see if I could find more peace in the open air. I sat down on the grass with my back against one of the big oaks, and so continued brooding moodily over my affairs, confused as they had ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... girl said, when told that she must bathe, that she had not washed all over since she could remember, and she still refrained until put "under discipline." Finally she yielded, but in the evening was heard crying aloud from a seat on the top stair. The matron asked, "What is the matter?" and she replied, "Oh! oh! I've wet my skin and it's made me sick." This is a very extreme case of attachment to dirt, but it is interesting and marvellous to witness the changes in appearance, expression ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 42, No. 1, January 1888 • Various
... own footsteps echoing and laughing from corners and high places. On the ground floor were two or three good-sized rooms with modern grates, but cornices, chimney-pieces, embrasures finely Jacobean. There were innumerable under-stair and over-head cupboards, too, and pantries, and closets, and passages going ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... wall with small Norman windows and an open door near the corner to the left. Through this door we have a glimpse of the garden, and of a garden chair in the sunshine. In the right-hand corner is an entrance to a vaulted circular chamber with a winding stair leading up through a tower to the upper floors of the palace. In the wall to our right is the immense fireplace, with its huge spit like a baby crane, and a collection of old iron and brass instruments which pass as the original furniture of the fire, though as a matter ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... recognition of the dedication to her, descended from heaven to present its Bishop, Ildofonso, with a marvelous chasuble. In proof of this miracle, doubting visitors are still shown the marks of Mary's footprint upon a stair in the chapel! However this may be, it is on this very spot that King Recared formally abjured Arianism; and preserved in a cloister of the cathedral may still be seen the "Consecration Stone" which reads: that the Church of Santa Maria,—built probably ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... Altamont said. "We didn't have to bother fussing around with that flag after all. That hump over there looks as though it had been a small building, and there's nothing corresponding to it on the city map. That may be the bunker over the stair-head ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... and lay cunningly on its back to trip him up. All this time it was incessantly hopping on behind and gaining on him, so that when the boy got to his own door he had reason for being half dead. And even then it would not leave him, but followed him upstairs with a bump on every stair, scrambled into bed with him, and bumped down, dead and heavy, on his breast when ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... game's up!" cried one of the men with the blackened faces; "every one for himself!" and a rush was made for the steps. But it was too late: a strong guard of police fully armed had taken their stand at the top of the stair, and escape was impossible, for there was no other outlet from the vault. As each man emerged he was seized and handcuffed—all except Foster, whose unblackened face told at once that he was not one of the guilty party, and who was grasped warmly by the hand ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... narrow stair leading on to a flat roof, and looked about us. On the left the mist was slowly rising from the river, on the right the foliage of the trees hid our own troops from view. But in front of us to the north we beheld spread out a scene of such ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... the sunny conservatory, the low, long rooms beyond it, the dark hall, and narrow, precipitous stair were always adorably the same. But around them the city was growing with such speed that each time I returned I had to learn to know it afresh. Already there were several blocks of houses beyond ours, and the second year I came home from the convent Hallie Ferguson told me her father was going ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... with pansies and ox-eyed daisies, and on the wide, stone window sills sat boxes and vases filled with maiden-hair ferns and oxalis, with heliotrope and double white violets. Three lines of tables ran down this bright pretty room, and in the centre rose a spiral stair to a cushioned seat, where when "Grace" had been pronounced, the Reader for the day made selections from such volumes of prose or poetry as were deemed by the Matron elevating and purifying in influence; tonic for the soul, stimulant for the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... title was suggested to me by an often used motto which exactly agrees with the fundamental view to which I have been led by my meditations on the mind and being of man; even of those men who deem that they have climbed the very highest steps of that stair which leads into ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the challenge, and, guiding Anne with one shy, awkward hand, while holding aloft a candle in the other, leads the way. It is past ten o'clock, and the old housekeeper is in bed. At each creaking stair they pause, to listen if the noise has awakened her; then, finding all silent, creep forward again, with suppressed laughter, wondering with alarm, half feigned, half real, what the prim, methodical dame would say were she to ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... find his own neatly-slippered feet. Having found them, he proceeded to put them carefully one before the other, and to his enchantment found that this procedure was carrying him magically up the stairs. The Colonel, like a drowning man, clutched feebly for the straw of the great stair-rail—and missed it. He would have gone under, but that Aaron's hand gripped his arm. So, orientating once more like a fragile tendril, he reached again for the banister rail, and got it. After which, lifting his feet ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... stair-head, and watched him as he descended with eyes that took pride in the fine upright carriage of that stalwart, ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... unfortunate) are the "nobodies"—or husbands, fathers, and brothers of "beauties," whom they have dutifully escorted to the scene of triumph, in which they, unlucky wights! are certainly not expected to share. A little desultory conversation goes on among these stair-loungers,—conversation mingled with much dreary yawning,—a trained opera-singer is shaking forth chromatic roulades and trills in the great drawing-room above,—there is an incessant stream of people coming and going,—there ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... others for fear someone should come soffly up behind him and catch hold of his legs in the dark. They went on and on, and round and round the little corkscrew staircase - then through the bell-ringers' loft, where the bell-ropes hung with soft furry ends like giant caterpillars - then up another stair into the belfry, where the big quiet bells are - and then on, up a ladder with broad steps - and then up a little stone stair. And at the top of that there was a little door. And the door was ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... the yellow school. There was no sentry, and a queer air of forlornness seemed to pervade. We asked a loiterer for the colonel's office. He pointed. We climbed yet another stair and found a pair of large rooms; they were empty. Town papers were scattered on the ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... discovered that Sylvia was up-stairs with Rose, sat down to his evening paper. He tried to read, but could not get further than the glaring headlines about a kidnapping case. He was listening always for Sylvia's step on the stair. ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the door through which her brother had gone. There she was startled by the sight of him speeding cautiously down the stair. ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... the rear side of the drive lies but a narrow strip of turf beyond which the ground drops all at once to another level some thirty feet below. On the right this fall is so abrupt that the only way down to it is by a steep rustic stair. On the left, behind the house, the face of the bluff is broken into narrow terraces, from top to bottom of which, and well out on the lower level, the entire space is mantled with the richly burdened trellises of a small vineyard. At the right on this ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... boy rushed into the burning building, flung the tablet down from the top of the tower and then hurried down the stairs. His bold action would indeed have cost the poor fellow his life if the slave Mastor; who meanwhile had hurried to the spot, had not dragged him down the stone stair of the old tower on which the new one stood and carried him into the open air. He was half suffocated at the top of them ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... voice of the doctor, helplessly choking, "Oh, my girl! My daughter!" But by this time Buck was three steps from the bottom, and the back of the burglar was toward him as he crouched over the struggling girl, choking the screams in her delicate throat. Like a vampire, Buck sprang from the third stair, landing on the man's back, his legs worked inside the man's elbows, pinioning the scoundrel's arms back like a trussed turkey, his arms went round the bull-like neck, and his tough young fingers closed on a sinewy throat. He clung to the creature's ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... back down-stairs and into his own room. He lay down without disturbing his wife, but he did not fall asleep. After what seemed to him a long time he heard a stealthy footstep on the stair, and again smelled the aroma of a cigar which floated down ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... by this dismantled stair Finds the old pleasure-hall, long disarrayed, Brick-tiled and raftered, and the walls foursquare Ringed all about with a twofold arcade. Backward dense branches intercept the glare Of afternoon with eucalyptus shade; Eastward the level valley-plains expand, ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... know more about it ere I let it pass forth from mine hands, or any strange eye fall upon it— Ha, in good time! I hear his step on the stair." ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of a footstep on the stair. "Let me go, Jack; there's your sister coming. Quick! Lie down." Hurriedly, she began once more to bathe his face as Mrs. Waring-Gaunt ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... from nature to grace, and that by which we turn from the imperfections of a state of grace to glory. But this turning and turning still, displeases some much. They say it makes them giddy; but I say, Nothing like this to make a man steady. A straight stair is like the ladder that leads to the gallows. They are turning stairs that lead to the heavenly mansion. Stay not at their foot; but go up them, and up them, and up them, till you come ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... sign, and a stair was brought, and then she called to me, and I mounted and sat beside her in the golden half-castle under the canopy of royal snakes. The girl who stood behind in attendance fanned us both with perfumed feathers, and at ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... interesting letter published in A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land, by W. R. Hughes, for the background of his drawing of "Durdles Cautioning Sapsea". There are, however, two other gatehouses, the "Prior's", a tower over an archway, containing a single room approached by a "postern stair", and "Deanery Gate", a quaint old house adjoining the Cathedral which has ten rooms, some of them beautifully panelled. Its drawing-room on the upper floor bears a strong resemblance to the room—as depicted by Sir Luke Fildes—in which Jasper entertained his nephew and Neville ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... husband was scarcely out o' her mouth, than puir Jeanie fell as ane dead across the door-stair. The driver lifted up the unfortunat' girl, carried her into the cabin, an' placed her in a chair, regardless o' the opposition of Mistress Robertson, whose jealousy was now fairly aroused, an' she declared that the bold hizzie sud not ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... retorted with a little flutter of a laugh. "My French heel caught on the stair; it was torn away. ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... of the kitchen, where there is bread enough, and you are hungry, no doubt. It is not possible for you to enter the palace, for you are barefoot; the guards in silver and the lackeys in gold would not allow it: but do not cry, you shall come in still. My sweetheart knows a little back stair that leads to the chamber, and she knows where she can ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... lines and images. In the first stanza of the "Lay" Scott repeats the line which occurs so often in "Christabel"—"Jesu Maria shield her well!" In the same poem, the passage where the Lady Margaret steals out of Branksome Tower at dawn to meet her lover in the wood, gliding down the secret stair and passing the bloodhound at the portal, will remind all readers of "Christabel." The dialogue between the river and mountain spirits will perhaps remind them of the ghostly antiphonies which the "Mariner" hears in ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... came a heavy step up the stair. He had but a moment in which to scramble back into the interior of the great stove, when the door opened and the two dealers entered, bringing burning candles with them to ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... slight, persistent fear of seeing these wounded whom I cannot help. It is not very active, it has left off visualizing the horror of bloody bandages and mangled bodies. But it's there; it waits for me in every corridor and at the turn of every stair, and it ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... old tower of Stormount was being fitted for a modern habitation, the original arrangements of the interior had been in a great measure restored. Entering at the gateway, a narrow passage led to the foot of a spiral stair which ran up to the top of the building. On each story there was a landing-place, into which the rooms opened. Most of them were in shape like a slice of cake, the largest, used as a sitting-room, almost semi-circular. At each window there was a deep recess—the windows themselves in the lower ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... directions for the search, hints being constantly supplied to him by the cook as to what transpired within. The butler, David Bate, went to fetch his master's cup, and of course found the room empty. As he came to the foot of the back-stair, Master Humphrey ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... you going?" said she. There was no answer—the door closed after them; but in a moment she was startled and terrified by a loud and heavy crash, as if some ponderous body had been hurled down the stair. Much alarmed, she started up, and going to the head of the staircase, she called repeatedly upon her husband, but in vain. She returned to the room, and with the assistance of her daughter, whom I had occasion to mention before, she succeeded in finding and lighting ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... asked whether he had forgotten to receive his birthday kiss from her; for, if he did not choose to remember that, Miss Clare would never remind him of it, and to-night should be his last chance of a reconciliation. Thus she meditated, sitting on a stair, and presently heard Richard's voice below in the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Silvestro stoops under the low, arched doorway, heavily clamped with iron and nails, leading into the tower; then he mounts very slowly a winding stair of stone to the second story. The sound of his footsteps brings a whole pack of dogs rushing out ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... almost abandoned in despair the hope of getting within hearing, until a happy thought suggested a seat on the platform stair at the speaker's back. There was a "crack" there, Marion said, into which ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... was to remain in absolute silence, motionless, tense, where he was on the stair, and to trust to the chance that the woman did not look up. But Miss Baylis neither looked up nor down: she reached a landing, turned along a corridor with decision, and marched forward. A moment later Spargo heard a sharp double knock on a door: ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... that modest and simple demeanour common to her countrywomen. Gratified that he had so far conduced, as he imagined, to our comfort, the Norwegian would insist on our entering his house; and conducting us, by a steep and narrow stair, to an upper room, the windows of which overlooked a small garden filled with currant bushes, brought us, in due lapse of time, every dainty that his larder or the thriftiness of his wife could give. Although we were not hungry, we ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... with happiness, she climbed the stair behind the Gallery and thought that she would escape for a moment into the little room where Johnny had proposed to her, and sit there and grow calm. She looked in. Some one was there. A man sitting by himself and staring in front of him. She saw at once that he was in some great ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... was a blacksmith named Kimball, who was afflicted with deafness. From his trade perhaps he had come to be called Puffer Kimball. From a front seat in the meetinghouse he had ventured upon the pulpit stairs, and finally he had reached the position of standing on an upper stair, resting his arms upon the desk, and with his hand to his ear listening to the services from beginning to end. In the east part of the town was a farmer named James Gilchrist, a Scotch Irishman, weighing not less than two hundred and fifty pounds, and the father of four grown sons who where his ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... of the Granges. 8 m. beyond, towards Issoire, is Champeix, pop. 2100, most picturesquely situated in the valley of the Couze. From Champeix the plateau of Pardines, 1620 ft., may be ascended; whence continue to the Tour de Maurifolet, and descend by the stair in the cliff to Perrier, pop. 600, among rocks pierced with caves, 3m. ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... are," she said at last, lifting the boiling pot on the hob. Then she went to the stair-foot and called, "Marc, Jeanneton, Pierre, Marie. Breakfast is ready, my children. Toinette—but where, then, is Toinette? She is used to be down long ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... we went, through mire and puddle, and down a long, winding court. At about midway our friends disappeared, and, suddenly drawn to the right, I was pushed from behind up a steep, fusty stair. Then I knew where we were going. We were going to the tenements where most of the Russians meet of an evening. The atmosphere in these places is a little more cheerful than that of the cafes—if you can imagine a Russian ever rising ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... England Your triumphs idle are, Till ye can match the names that ring Round Caledonia's Bar. Your John Doe and your Richard Roe Are but a paltry pair: Look at those who compose The flocks round Brodie's Stair, Who ruminate on Shaw and Tait And ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... the swallow sing in the eaves and rose All in a strange delight while others slept, And down the creaking stair, alone, tip-toes, ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... me keenly, and hesitatingly passed down the dusky stairway. Then I turned and tried to crawl on, eager to gain my room without revealing my condition; but when I reached the topmost stair it seemed that I could not go any further if my life depended on it. With an irritable imprecation on my weakness, I sank ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... state to which it is reduced by its union with the lime. One coating will be sufficient for places that are already covered with any colour, unless the latter penetrate through it and produce spots. One coat will likewise suffice, in general, for ceilings and stair-cases; two will be necessary for new wood. Milk painting may be coloured, like every other in distemper, by means of the different colouring substances employed in common painting. The quantity I have given in the receipt will be sufficient ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... wondered whether she might safely risk the trip down-stairs after the scissors, or whether it would be better to take the box with her and hide it in her room. Before she had made up her mind, she heard a slow, heavy tread upon the stair. ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... despair, and then in an evil hour his path was crossed by Jeanne de la Motte de Valois, who enjoyed the reputation of secretly possessing the friendship of the Queen, exerting a sort of back-stair influence, and who ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... ance spoken to her on the subject, the company was announced at the hall door. The six ladies all came in a coach-and-six, and were as fine as princesses, but still wore their gowns of green. The gentleman was very polite, and showed them up the stair with a pair of wax candles in his hand. And so they all sat down to dinner, and conversation went on very pleasantly, till at length the husband, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... is broken by a step upon the stair, And the door is softly opened, and—my wife is standing there: Yet with eagerness and rapture all my visions I resign,— To greet the LIVING presence of ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... officer on the ruined stair now hastily retreated downwards; the watchers on the open place around ran to the side of the building where Johnny Darbyshire had thus disappeared, but had scarcely reached the next corner, when they ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... them up by a winding stair to the top of one of the towers, where there was a small room with ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... bread in the large tin box that stood on the stair-landing, I had some difficulty with the clasp. "Never mind that," said Mr. Burroughs, as he scraped the potato skins into the fire; "a Vassar girl sat down on that box last summer, and it's never been ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... the stair-foot, and led the way into what was evidently a lounging-room. A tray containing some cold meat, bread and butter, cheese, and a few other things, stood on a side-table, and to this Godfrey added ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... the liberty, until at length Lord Glenfallen put an end to this somewhat fatiguing ceremonial, by requesting her to conduct me to my chamber if it were prepared for my reception. I followed Martha up an old-fashioned, oak stair-case into a long, dim passage at the end of which lay the door which communicated with the apartments which had been selected for our use; here the old woman stopped, and respectfully requested me to proceed. I accordingly opened the door and was about to enter, ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... rattled in my ears—and with the cold drops gathering on my forehead, I lay still, subdued, in a state of delirious agony. I was almost senseless; until at length, feeling a touch upon my arm, and a breathing at my side, I started wildly up, and eluding all pursuit, fled swiftly down the stair-case. I pressed my hand tightly on my throbbing head, and gaining the kitchen, burst suddenly in, exclaiming, "O! Jane! Jane! do not leave me again!" I sunk down insensible; and remember nothing ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... confessions of fatigue amounted to an appeal ad misericordiam; and Gwen was reserved and silent. When the last of the half-dozen had departed, Gwen got her opportunity. "Don't keep your father up too long, child," said the Countess, over the stair-rail. "It makes him sleep in the day, and it's bad for him." And vanished, with a well-bred yawn-noise, a trochee, the short syllable being the apology for ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... me, while in thought repeating The treasured memories thou alone dost share Hark! with hushed breath and pulses wildly beating I hear thy footstep bounding o'er the stair! ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... sundown,—the room looked cheerful enough for anybody, and it seemed as if Cicely looked a little less white and brokenhearted. She wus glad to be with me, and said she wuz. But right there—before supper; and we could smell the roast chicken and coffee, havin' left the stair-door open—right there, before we had visited hardly any, or talked a mite about other wimmen, she begun on what she wanted to do, and what she ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... slowly, so that the flapping of the oilskins against the stair-rail would not be heard. The steady patter of rain on the deck planks drowned what little noise we made, and as we emerged into the hood a gust of wind drove the moisture into our faces. I could feel my heart thump, yet it was more because ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... his heart, sae smooth his speech, His breath like caller air; His very foot has music in't As he comes up the stair. And shall I see his face again? And shall I hear him speak? I'm downright dizzy wi' the thought, In troth ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... half-way down the stair-case, holding Ursula March across her knees. The poor creature was insensible, or nearly so. She—we learnt—had been composed under the terrible discovery made when she returned to his room; and when all restorative ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... little desks and the great cricketers in their unconvincing flannels. They were waxworks one and all. But when the extra sixpence had been paid at the inner turnstile, and he had passed down a dungeon stair into the dim vaults below, his imagination was at work upon the dreadful faces in the docks before he had brought his catalogue to bear on one ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... when he had left the Handby parlor, where we saw him last, and was fairly upon the stair, had replied to the suggestion of his little wife about the sermon on Revelations with a fugitive kiss, and said, "I will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... and do it your own way, only let us see your face. Then put back the picture slowly, go get the coat, and start to the left as if you were going to hang it up in his room; but you hear steps on the stair outside and you know your boy has come home from work. We see that because your face lights up. Stand happy there till he ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... rouse The mocking echoes with its call, arrive Others, with hastier step and heaving chest. Anon, some bound along divergent paths Which scar the grassy plain, and, with no pause For breath, press up the rocky stair. Straightway, A desperate few, with headlong, frantic speed, Swifter than arrow-flight or Medford whirlwind, Sparks flying from iron-shod heels at every footfall, Over stone causeway and tessellated pavement,— They come—they come—they leap—they scamper in, Ere, ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... on her impatience grew into anxiety, which in its turn became suspicion, until, unable longer to restrain herself, she got up, and, after listening with some evident surprise at the stair-head, cautiously stole down the stairs and peeped, through the chink left by the ill-fitting hinge of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... placed in the upper part of a closet-door. Emily believed her father to be in the closet, and, surprised that he was up at so late an hour, apprehended he was unwell, and was going to enquire; but, considering that her sudden appearance at this hour might alarm him, she removed her light to the stair-case, and then stepped softly to the closet. On looking through the panes of glass, she saw him seated at a small table, with papers before him, some of which he was reading with deep attention and interest, during which he often wept and sobbed aloud. Emily, who had ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... though within it were sudden death!" Then he took the key and, opening the door,[FN50] saw therein no treasure but he espied a vaulted and winding staircase of Yamani onyx at the upper end of the chamber. So he mounted the stair, which brought him out upon the terrace- roof of the palace, whence he looked down upon the gardens and vergiers, full of trees and fruits and beasts and birds warbling praises of Allah, the One, the All-powerful; and said in himself "This is that they ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... of a husband now, Then will it please her to step below?" The cat runs quickly up the stair, And lets her tail fly here and there, Until she comes to the ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... near famished, and as dry as King David's bottle in the smoke. Will you give me bite and sup before I mount and ride again? 'Tis a long gallop back to town on an empty stomach, and with a gullet as dry as Mr. Gilbert Stair's wit." ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... idea, was accomplished in the following manner, which he regarded as an answer to his prayer. One evening the clergyman, with Alexander Simpson, the kirk-officer, and his own servant, had visited Bessie in her cell, to urge her to confession, but in vain. As they stood on the stair-head behind the door, they heard the prisoner, whom they had left alone in her place of confinement, discoursing with another person, who used a low and ghostly tone, which the minister instantly recognised ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... and stood on the stair beside me, looking up at me very sweetly, and resting her hand lightly on my shoulder—a caress so frank and unconcealed that it meant no more then its innocent significance implied. But at that moment, by chance, I encountered Lois's eyes fixed on ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... which an acquaintance with the more modern works of Biblical criticism will pour upon him, and for which his mind is wholly unprepared. To meet with a far weaker evidence than we had taken it for granted we were to find, gives the same shake to the mind, that missing a stair gives to ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... danced to the same wild piping, though their chapters have hushed the matter up. Even Duchesses (they say) have "come tripping doon the stair,'' rapt by the climbing passion from their strawberry-leaved surroundings into starlit spaces. Nay, ourselves, too — the douce, respectable mediocrities that we are — which of us but might recall some fearful outbreak whose details are mercifully unknown to the household that calls us ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... child began eagerly. "Geoff's all right; he's not cross. He only slammed the door at the top of the kitchen stair because I reminded him not ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... the master's voice is heard above, And slowly lag his footsteps on the stair, No hint of weariness to him ascends From those who ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... tones become clearer,—you hear more and more How the water divided returns on the oar,— Does the prow of the Gondola strike on the stair? Do the voices and instruments pause and prepare? Oh! they faint on the ear as the lamp on the view, "I am passing—Premi—but I stay not for you! ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... gushings in still night Mingled with floating music, thus he spake: 'There is no mightier Spirit than I to sway The heart of man: and teach him to attain By shadowing forth the Unattainable; And step by step to scale that mighty stair Whose landing-place is wrapt about with clouds Of glory of Heaven.[B] With earliest Light of Spring, And in the glow of sallow Summertide, And in red Autumn when the winds are wild With gambols, and when full-voiced Winter roofs The headland with inviolate white snow, I play about ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... their young master, every man left awake among them struggled to his feet, and stood stiffly propped, drunk or sober according to his condition, with his eyes turned towards the door which gave upon the turnpike stair. But with a slight wave of his hand the Earl passed on ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... Mr. Denner, who was facing the open door, could see the square hall, and the white stair-rail across the first landing, where with the moon and stars about its face, the clock stood; it was just five minutes to nine. This made the lawyer nervous; he played a low trump, in spite of the rector's mutter of, "Look out, Denner!" and thus ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... of the singing leaves Around the secret Flame, Like mating swallows 'neath the eaves In rustling silence came, And flowing through the silent air Creation fluttered in a prayer Descending on a spiral stair, ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... other place between this and Noli, which was at the distance of forty miles. We accordingly landed, and were conducted to the poste, which our gondeliere assured us was the best auberge in the whole Riviera of Genoa. We ascended by a dark, narrow, steep stair, into a kind of public room, with a long table and benches, so dirty and miserable, that it would disgrace the worst hedge ale-house in England. Not a soul appeared to receive us. This is a ceremony one must not expect to meet with in ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... the house. She had thought of the window the moment that she had barred the kitchen door, and knew that he would be within the house. She could hear him knock at the parlour door, and then enter the parlour. But he did not stay there a moment. Then she heard him at the foot of the stair, and with a low voice he called to her by her name. "Linda, are you there?" But, of course, she did not answer him. It might be that he would fancy that she was not within the house and would retreat. He would hardly intrude into their bedrooms; but ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... our path. The huge rocks overhead appeared to arch us in, while, with utmost caution, we crept along the narrow, irregular ledge, which at times was level, and anon rose abruptly like the steps of a stair; occasionally it wound about projecting rocks and over vast, unknown depths, until my brain whirled, while I hugged the smooth rock wall at my right, and felt cautiously forward ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... of some dark, polished wood, ascended in spirals by a short series of flights and landings. Twice she rested, her knees almost giving way, for the climb upward seemed interminable. But at last, just above her, she saw a skylight, and a great stair-window giving on a court; and, as she toiled up and stood clinging, breathless, to the banisters on the top landing, out of an open door stepped Neeland's shadowy figure, dark against ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... his foot on the stair to go up to the drawing-room when it suddenly occurred to him that though he was the minister of God he was using the weapons of the devil. No matter! If he had been about to commit a crime it would have been different. But this ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... this last stage of its career, where it was both grimy and solitary, and alternately quiet and roaring to the wheels of drays, we found a certain house of some pretension to neatness, and furnished with a rustic outside stair. On the pillar of the stair a black plate bore in gilded lettering this device: "Harry D. Bellairs, Attorney-at-law. Consultations, 9 to 6." On ascending the stairs, a door was found to stand open on the balcony, with this further inscription, "Mr. ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... where he had left her, her arms hanging listlessly at her side, her head bowed upon her breast. She listened intently to his every movement. Now he was on the last stair, now in the hall—when he had crossed it he would be at the street door. With a wild shriek she fled from the room, and ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... drums, rattles, and hobby-horses, but the emblems and mocking of man's business. His father hath writ him as his own little story, wherein he reads those days of his life that he cannot remember, and sighs to see what innocence he hath out-lived. The elder he grows, he is a stair lower from God; and, like his first father, much worse in his breeches.[3] He is the Christian's example, and the old man's relapse; the one imitates his pureness, and the other falls into his simplicity. Could he put off his body with his little ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... short and moderate in tone, the chief point recommended being the evacuation of Bologna by the Austrians. It has been sometimes quoted in order to convict Cavour, at this period, of having held poor and narrow views of the future of Italy. But a man who is mounting a stair does not put his foot on the highest step first. At this stage in his political life most of Cavour's biographers pause to discuss the often-put question, Was he already aiming at Italian unity? Perhaps the best answer is, that really it ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... he took lodgings in Gower Street; but within a week a slight rough-house incident occurred that crippled most of the furniture in his room and deprived the stair-rail of its spindles. R. Browning, the Second, bank-clerk, paid the damages, and R. Browning, the Third, aged twenty, came back home, formally notifying all parties concerned that he had chosen a career—it was Poetry. He would woo the Divine ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... a heavy step, unmistakably to the trained ear that of a man in hob-nailed boots, was heard upon the stair. The door opened and a man ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... to forgive, as you will some day confess. You will thank and forgive me for what I have done." A fit of coughing caused him to lean against the stair rail, a paroxysm of pain crossing his face as he sought to temper the violence of ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... The spot where he had been lying was several miles from the white cottage, yet he was conscious of no time, no distance. It seemed one burning moment, a moment never to be forgotten while he lived, till he found himself at the foot of the outer stairway, the stair that led to the attic. She might still be living, and he would not go to her without the thing she craved, the thing which could speak to her in the ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... the palace either from the water, or on foot at the Salizzada Santa Fosca, No. 2292. A massive custodian greets you and points to a winding stair. This you ascend and are met by a typical Venetian man-servant. Of the palace itself, which has been recently modernized, I have nothing to say. There are both magnificent and pretty rooms in it, and a little boudoir ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... still she cried, and still the world pursues, "Jug Jug" to dirty ears. And other withered stumps of time Were told upon the walls; staring forms Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed. Footsteps shuffled on the stair. Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair Spread out in fiery points Glowed into words, then would be ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot
... staggered on until he found Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stair To the dazed, muttering creatures underground Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound. At last, with sweat of horror in his hair, He climbed through darkness to the twilight air, Unloading hell behind him step ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon
... gangway," others speeding up them in equal haste with that excitement which always marks the infrequent traveler, and poor Alfaretta caught the same fever of haste. Without a word of real farewell, now that she had come thus far at so much risk to speak it, she dashed ahead, slipped on the brass-tipped stair and plunged headlong ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... that artist, and his open ribboned sleeve and wounded shoulder supported by a handkerchief which hung from his neck, Harry Warrington made his way out of the sick-chamber, preceded by his kind host, who led him first down a broad oak stair, round which hung many pikes and muskets of ancient shape, and so into a square marble-paved room, from which the living-rooms of the house branched off. There were more arms in this hall-pikes and halberts of ancient date, pistols and jack-boots of more than ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... The verandah also made an angle and followed the side of this wing, which on the ground floor contained the kitchen and offices. Half way of its length a stairway ran up, on the outside, to a door nearer the end of the building. Up this stair young Dallas went, and introduced Esther to a large room, which seemed to her presently the oddest and also the most interesting that she had ever in her life seen. Its owner had got together, apparently, the old bits of furniture that ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... gracious glance, but from a very lofty elevation. All powerful, imperial, he makes one step towards them with a smile of infinite condescension. Could Charles V, could Maria Theresa appear thus at the head of this ascending stair, who would not bow their heads before ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... any more, even to comfort Carter. They were all silent, so that they clearly heard the unlocking, the opening, the closing of the door of Jimsy's room, and then a step—a swift, sure step upon the stair. ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... of that worst poison of all—Russian treachery. But that fear was not like this fear, which was intimate, personal but intangible. He marked it in the scrutiny of the man who opened the door and of the aged woman who suddenly appeared beside him in the dim hallway and led him noiselessly up the stair to a lighted room upon the second floor. At the doorway the ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... frightened, Elsalill," said Sir Archie. "We have some time left to talk together. These fellows have no stomach to set upon me here, where I can defend myself. They mean to take me in the narrow stair. They think to spit me on their long pikes. And that is what you ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof
... done at last! I have broken the King's stronghold! I have stolen away his children twain From the clutch of their guardsmen bold. I have dragged them here to my castle tower. Prince Hero is strong and fair. But he and his sister shall rue my power, When once up yon winding stair. ...
— The Rescue of the Princess Winsome - A Fairy Play for Old and Young • Annie Fellows-Johnston and Albion Fellows Bacon
... stair-head he met old Marguerite on her way to Lucille's apartments. He signed to her to follow him, and entered a chamber there. She perceived the unmistakable traces of angry excitement in his face—always sinister in an old man, but in one so powerful, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... beholds A golden stair, like that of old, whereon Fair spirits go and come; God's angels coming down on errands ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... morning the sea of Life is visibly ebbing away. At last she started up. How could she sit there without Brownie! Sobbing so that she could not breathe, she rushed across the yard, into the crowded and desecrated house, and up the stair to her own little room, where she threw herself on the bed, buried her eyes in the pillow, and, overcome with grief, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... courtiers. The Gothic was good for God's worship, but this was good for man's worship. The Gothic had fellowship with all hearts, and was universal, like nature: it could frame a temple for the prayer of nations, or shrink into the poor man's winding stair. But here was an architecture that would not shrink, that had in it no submission, no mercy. The proud princes and lords rejoiced in it. It was full of insult to the poor in its every line. It would ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... the pursuit of his interesting project, arose and lighted a lamp. He wrapped himself in a dressing-gown and thrust his feet into a pair of cloth slippers. He stole carefully down the stair, and arrived safely at the door of Elsie's room. The young lady had taken the natural precaution to leave it fastened, carrying the key with her, no doubt,—unless, indeed, she had got out by the window, which was not far from the ground. Dick ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... fancied, if he had observed, that all was not easy in the mind of the new owner of the mill. They might have noted in his manner a continual restlessness; a wandering about the mill from room to room; prying into odd corners here and there; pounding upon the beams and partitions; poking under stair-ways; rummaging into long unused chutes and bins; for ever hunting, anxious-eyed; as though the mill had an evil and troublous ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith |
