"Coffer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Gnomon dooth euer beholde the north starre, whether it be closed and shutte uppe in a coffer of golde, siluer, or woode, neuer loosing his nature: So a faithfull Christian man, whether hee abound in wealth, or bee pinched with pouertie, whether hee bee of high or lowe degree in this worlde, ought continually ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various
... penguin tied on her sandals she threw a curious look towards the open coffer, and seeing that it was full of jewels and finery, ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... forth, Little JOHN, The truth, tell thou me! If there be no more but ten shillings, Not one penny that I see!" Little JOHN spread down his mantle Full fair upon the ground; And there he found, in the Knight's coffer, But even half a pound. Little JOHN let it lie full still, And went to his master full low. "What tidings, JOHN?" said ROBIN. "Sir, the Knight is true enow!" "Fill of the best wine!" said ROBIN, "The Knight shall begin! Much wonder thinketh me Thy clothing is so thin! Tell me one word," said ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... following Rallywood's interview with Selpdorf, three men lounged over their lunch. Any one of them, had he cared to take the regimental rolls from their brass-bound coffer in the ante-room, could have read his own name repeating itself down the columns as generation after generation lived through its identical life in the same surroundings, and died, most of them going to the devil with a fine inherited ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... saying, she went to ease her selfe, and so she deceiued them, and hid her selfe in the wood; and though they sought her they could not find her. She carried away with her a little chest made of canes in manner of a coffer, which they call Petaca, full of vnbored perles. Some which could iudge of them, said, that they were of great value. An Indian woman that waited on her did carrie them. The Gouernour not to discontent her altogether, left them with her, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... Hephaestus fashioned a woman out of earth and water, and gave her to Epimetheus, the brother of the Titan. Prometheus had forbidden his brother to accept any gift from the gods, but the bride was welcomed nevertheless. She brought her tabooed coffer: this was opened; and men—who, according to Hesiod, had hitherto lived exempt from 'maladies that bring down Fate'—were overwhelmed with the 'diseases that stalk abroad by night and day.' Now, in Hesiod (Works and Days, 70-100) ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... head, and Martin rose from his seat and disappeared from the room for a few minutes. When he came back he had a coffer in his hands that seemed to be heavy. He placed it on the table, and went on with his speech as though he ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... sire. Whenever the name of any lady who runs the risk of being compromised is concerned, my memory is like a coffer of bronze, the key of ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... barrier was required to be constructed between the excavated basins made and the bank of the river, to prevent the water of the river from bursting in upon the workmen while they were digging. In such a case as this they make what is called a coffer dam, which is a sort of dam, or dike, made by driving piles close together into the ground, in two rows, at a little distance apart, and then filling up the space between them with earth and gravel. By this means the water of the river can be kept out until the ...
— Rollo in London • Jacob Abbott
... American captives there, Captain Nathan Bullit and Jesse Coffer. Escape seemed impossible, as it could only be effected through a wilderness four hundred miles in extent, crowded with wandering Indian bands, where they would be imminently exposed to recapture, or to death ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... would have seen the danger, but, all he realised was that the table came along more and more easily, and then in the black darkness there was a loud crash, the coffer placed upon the table had, consequent upon its being inclined, glided slowly over the polished surface, till it was right beyond the edge, and then it was but a matter of moments before ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... saw that the rock had been placed over another slab of stone, containing a cavity within it; so that it somewhat resembled a roughly-made chest or coffer, of which the upper mass had served as the lid. Within the cavity lay a sword, with a golden hilt, and a pair ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... youth?—The midnight fire— The silent moonbeam, or the starry choir; To these I 'plain'd, or turn'd from outer sight, To bless my lonely taper's friendly light; I never yet could ask, howe'er forlorn, For vulgar pity mix'd with vulgar scorn; The sacred source of woe I never ope, My breast's my coffer, and my God's my hope. But that I do feel, Time, my friend, will show, Though the cold crowd the secret never know; With them I laugh—yet, when no eye can see, I weep for nature, and I weep for thee. Yes, thou didst wrong me, ... I fondly ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... and customs were frequently pawned out to associations of Italian money-lenders; and the "Ricardi" of Lucca, and "Frescobaldi" of Florence, had agents in the principal towns in Ireland. The royal treasure was deposited in the Castle, in a coffer with three locks. The keys were confided to different persons, and no payment could be made unless the three were present; still, as might be expected from men, the sole object of whose lives appears to have been to enrich themselves at the expense of others, ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... Thomas Browne, Knight, Doctor of Medicine, aged 77 years, who died on the 19th of October, in the year of our Lord 1682, sleeping in this coffin of lead, by the dust of his alchemic body, transmutes it into a coffer of gold. ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... COFFER-DAM. A coffer-dam consists of two rows of piles, each row boarded strongly inside, and being filled with clay within well rammed, thereby resists outward pressure, and is impenetrable by ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... lady, together with water cool, sweet-perfumed essences, unguents and other nice, lady-like toys. Moreover, there be mirrors two of Venice and in pretty coffer—" But Yolande had vanished. ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... the Alamanni as to conjurators, direct that the sacrament shall be so arranged that all the conjurators shall place their hands upon the coffer (containing the relics), and that the principal party shall place his hand on all theirs, and then they are to swear on the relics. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various
... the overcoats. From the court the burglars made their way into the vestry of the chapel, where they found a large chest, strengthened with iron bands and closed with four locks. One of these locks they picked, and then, by levering up the corner, forced the other three. Inside was a small coffer, of walnut wood, also barred with iron, but fastened with only three locks, which were all comfortably picked by way of the keyhole. In the walnut coffer - a joyous sight by our thieves' lantern - were five hundred crowns of gold. There was some talk of opening the aumries, where, ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... April 18, 1485, a report circulated in Rome that some Lombard workmen had discovered a Roman sarcophagus while digging on the Appian Way. It was a marble tomb, engraved with the inscription "Julia, Daughter of Claudius," and inside the coffer lay the body of a most beautiful girl of fifteen years, preserved by precious unguents from corruption and the injury of time. The bloom of youth was still upon her cheeks and lips; her eyes and mouth were half open; her long hair floated round her shoulders. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... a number of things to be provided at the charges of the parish, which may be included under this head, such as Communion Table, Pulpit, Reading-desk, Font, Alms-chest, Alms-basin, Vessels for Holy Communion, Bible, Common Prayer Book, Book of Homilies, Parchment Register Book and Coffer. It would not be easy to make a complete list of things authorised ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... by this method of constructing the foundations were much less, and the cost also, than if an ordinary coffer dam had been used. Also the total weight of the piers is much less, as that portion below a point about two feet below the water adds ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... to a ponderous iron coffer, secured by locks inscribed with Arabic characters. 'That coffer,' said he, 'contains countless treasure in gold and jewels and precious stones. Break the magic spell by which I am enthralled, and one half of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... paradise, she took with her the bough on which the apple hung on. Then perceived she that the branch was fair and green, and she remembered her the loss which came from the tree. Then she thought to keep the branch as long as she might. And for she had no coffer to keep it in, she put it in the earth. So by the will of Our Lord the branch grew to a great tree within a little while, and was as white as any snow, branches, boughs, and leaves: that was a token a maiden planted it. But after God came to Adam, and bade him know his wife fleshly as nature required. ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... mind his own debts, and not the debts of others, so that time is not spent in paying of small sums, neither in the keeping of account of such; but he that buyeth counteth up, and doubtless when the day of reckoning arrives, each cometh and casteth the money he oweth into the merchant's coffer, and ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... mingled activities about him, he crossed to the open coffin and began to fumble amongst the putrefying mass of bones and webbing which lay therein. Out from this he presently drew an iron coffer. ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... to go into the water," Norton agreed. "That would have meant a coffer dam, and the Company won't stand ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... had sent a great coffer of wonderful roses, and the country girls were handling them with awe, banking them round the pulpit, and trailing them over the rail of the little choir loft, wonderful roses from another world, the world that Marilyn ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... sight appear strange to include tumuli amongst stone monuments, but they almost always enclose a dolmen, a cist, or a crypt communicating with the outside by a covered passage. The excavation of more than four hundred tumuli in England has brought to light now, a stone coffer made of a number of stones set edgeways and called a KISTVAEN: now of a, tomb hollowed out beneath the surface of the ground, and enclosed by huge blocks of stone.[136] Mounds are as numerous in Portugal ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... Helen, wad ye leave your coffer, And a' your silk kirtles sae braw, And gang wi' a bare-hough'd puir laddie, And leave ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... do, till while they were in counsel a voice came to them and bade them choose the youngest of the three strange Knights for their King. And they did so. After Galahad was proclaimed King, he ordered that a coffer of gold and precious stones should be made to encompass the table of silver, and every day he and the two Knights would kneel before it and ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... maids who penetrated by chance now and then into this little temple of the Graces could only stand aghast and gaze with open mouths; but no profane hand of theirs was ever permitted to touch those sacred things. There were even pictures on the wall, evolved out of the depths of that great coffer, which, more dear to the Contessa even than her wardrobe, went about with her everywhere—and precious pieces of porcelain: Madame di Forno-Populo, it need not be said, being quite above the mean and cheap decoration made with fans or unmeaning scraps of colour. The maids ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... dragging feeling that almost amounted to corporeal pain, and which he described to himself as agony. Why should this rich, debauched, disreputable lord have the power of taking the cup from his lip, the one morsel of bread which he coveted from his mouth, his one ingot of treasure out of his coffer? Fight him! No, he knew he could not fight Lord Ongar. The world was against such an arrangement. And in truth Harry Clavering had so much contempt for Lord Ongar, that he had no wish to fight so poor ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... the other, whose expression was greedy self-confidence. One of His Excellency's Peacekeepers presided over the exchange. Coldly he extracted a fiftyweight from the pile and folded it into the signed and completed wager-contract. For his own coffer he extracted a fiveweight and slipped ...
— History Repeats • George Oliver Smith
... marble, and at equal distance one from the other, along the curving wall, stood a hundred statues of armed men, holding ever-burning lights. A hundred coffers of green stone lay on the floor, one at the base of each statue, each coffer piled high ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... better so than spar'd. [Puts the powder into the pot.] Assure thyself thou shalt have broth by the eye: [113] My purse, my coffer, and myself ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe
... handsome, careless, and well-to-do, passing along, with wandering eyes. Behind them and disconnected from them by her dress and expression, a tall woman in black robes with a baby on her breast. The hand of the woman was stretched out with a coin which she was about dropping into an iron-bound coffer which stood at the side of the picture. It was "the widow's mite;" and her face, wan, sad, sweet, yet loving and longing, told the story. The two coins were going into the box ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... tender, lucre, pelf, specie, sterling, revenue, assets, wherewithal, spondulics (Slang); wampum; boodle; bribe; bonus. Associated Words: bullion, cambist, bank, banker, capitalist, chrysology, till, coffer, economics, coin, coinage, mint, mintage, financial, financier, Mammon, treasury, treasurer, monetary, monetize, monetization, demonetize, demonetization, numismatist, mumismatics, alimony, cameralistics, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... but handsome parlour was all bright and tidy, and the plates stood on a sideboard ready for supper. Two noble punch-bowls graced the table, and a number of long "churchwarden" pipes supported the large brass coffer filled with tobacco, which opened only by some cunning mechanism, set in motion by dropping a halfpenny in a slit at the top. Mr. Binks was in the chair; Clodd, the butcher, sat opposite; a great fragrance of spice and lemon-peel pervaded the place. It only needed a speech to commence the proceedings, ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... devoted to this purpose, Poggio the Florentine stands distinguished; but he complains that his zeal was not assisted by the great. He found under a heap of rubbish in a decayed coffer, in a tower belonging to the monastery of St. Gallo, the work of Quintilian. He is indignant at its forlorn situation; at least, he cries, it should have been preserved in the library of the monks; but I found it in teterrimo ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... discarnate, does not yet know that a spirit cannot take a living man's hand, though, in fact, tactile hallucinations are not uncommon in the presence of phantasms of the dead. "Lay not my bones apart from thine ... let one coffer" ([Greek: soros]) ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... placed upon a support of any suitable material, whether wood or stone. They are used on a journey in a heretical or heathen country, or in private chapels. In the inventory of the field apparel of Henry, earl of Northumberland, A.D. 1513, is included "A coffer wyth ij liddes to serue for an Awter and ned be'' ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... clear water long ago. Whence did she sail? the sands of ages blur The answer to the secret, and as though They mocked and knew, sleek fishes, to and fro, Trail their grey carrion shadows over her. Coffer of all life gives and hides away, It matters not if London or if Tyre Sped you to sea on some remoter day; Beneath your decks immutable desire And hope and hate and envy still conspire, While all the gaping faces nod ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... see nothing unusual in the appearance of the hardwood floor. She watched his finger, however, count the cracks from a knot in the wood. Then he pressed a certain spot, and one of the blocks sprang up a little way and was easily removed. Beneath it was the steel lid of a small coffer, ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... gems besprent Glanced up at me with eyes of grey, Put on her pearl crown orient, And soberly began to say: "You tell your tale with wrong intent, Thinking your pearl gone quite away. Like a jewel within a coffer pent, In this gracious garden bright and gay, Your pearl may ever dwell at play, Where sin nor mourning come to her; It were a joy to thee alway Wert thou a ...
— The Pearl • Sophie Jewett
... heedless, no—nor wilful to offend, But will his suppliant with much grace receive. 240 So spake the swift ambassadress, and went. Then, calling to his sons, he bade them bring His litter forth, and bind the coffer on, While to his fragrant chamber he repair'd Himself, with cedar lined and lofty-roof'd, 245 A treasury of wonders into which The Queen he summon'd, whom he thus bespake. Hecuba! the ambassadress of Jove Hath come, who bids me to the Grecian fleet, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... when she took him from his bed that night after all the family were asleep, and put on his shoes and led him to the hole she had secretly dug in below the window. They had put his embroidered leather bag of gold in a little wrought-iron coffer that Sebastian had given him, and the nurse had tightly fastened the join of lid and box with wax and resin. The box was wrapped in a silk scarf, and the whole packet put into a big earthenware jar ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... unworthy lover whose lot she is compelled to share. Against them her helpless anger breaks out in flashes of eloquent scorn. Homer was apparently acquainted with the myth of Helen's capture by Theseus, a myth illustrated in the decorations of the coffer of Cypselus. But we first see Helen, the cause of the war, when Menelaus and Paris are about to fight their duel for her sake, in the tenth year of the Leaguer (Iliad, iii. 121). Iris is sent to summon Helen to the ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... tapestry on the walls with a gray ground sprinkled with violets, a little coffer of ebony, an antique mirror, an immense and very old arm chair also in ebony and covered with tapestry, a table with twisted legs, a pretty carpet on the floor, near the table a single chair; and ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... bride; and Master John Wolfe, of the Bible and Crown in Paul's Churchyard, bookseller, erstwhile Dick's indulgent master, and now his partner, Master Taverner having very prudently invested the contents of the silver coffer in the purchase of a share in his employers business, with the laudable determination of bestirring himself zealously in it ever after; and, as another opportunity may not occur for mentioning the circumstance, we will add that he kept to his resolution, and ultimately ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... conventional sonnet-sequence in his 'Amorous Odious Sonnet intituled The Student's Loove or Hatrid.' {106b} Chapman in 1595, in a series of sonnets entitled 'A Coronet for his mistress Philosophy,' appealed to his literary comrades to abandon 'the painted cabinet' of the love-sonnet for a coffer of genuine worth. But the most resolute of the censors of the sonnetteering vogue was the poet and lawyer, Sir John Davies. In a sonnet addressed about 1596 to his friend, Sir Anthony Cooke (the patron of Drayton's 'Idea'), he inveighed against the 'bastard sonnets' which 'base rhymers' 'daily' ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... asked Rollo. As he said this he climbed up upon a little step, and attempted to look through a gilded grating in the front of the coffer which ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... the Fr. caisse, the variant form "cassoon" being adapted from the Ital. casone), a chest or case. When employed as a military term, it denotes an ammunition wagon or chest; in architecture it is the term used for a sunk panel or coffer in a ceiling, or in the soffit of an ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... I left behind me," He'll sing, nor hear her moan, "The tears they come to blind me As I sit here alone." What else had you to offer, Poor spendthrift of the town? Lay out your unlockt coffer— The Lord will know ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... society, and took his home as she found it, making the best of it for herself, and making it for him much better than he had ever hitherto known it. His own children had always looked down upon him, regarding him merely as a coffer from whence money might be had; and he, though he had never resented this contempt, had in a certain measure been aware of it. But there was no such feeling shown by his wife. She took the benefits which he gave her graciously and thankfully, and gave ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... life unfoldeth In phantom forms that coffer holdeth. True, unseen; for 'tis enchanted— What is that but kept till wanted? Do you hear that voice of singing? 'Tis the enchantress that is flinging Spells around her baby's riot, Music's oil the waves to quiet: She at once can disenchant them, To a lover's wish to grant them; She can make ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... fireplace were two guns and two gamebags. A number of little things evidently made by the father for the child touched Veronique's heart—the model of a man-of-war, of a sloop, a carved wooden cup, a wooden box of exquisite workmanship, a coffer inlaid in diaper pattern, a crucifix, and a splendid rosary. The chaplet was made of plum-stones, on each of which was carved a head of marvellous delicacy,—of Jesus Christ, of the apostles, the Madonna, Saint John the Baptist, Saint Joseph, Saint ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... been moved before—the oak coffer, containing the miller's wardrobe—a tremendous weight, what with its locks, hinges, nails, dirt, framework, and the hard stratification of old jackets, waistcoats, and knee-breeches at the bottom, never disturbed since the miller's wife died, and half pulverized ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... trelliswork over the whole. On each side of the chest, near the top, were three rings of iron—six in all—by means of which a firm hold could be obtained by six persons. Our utmost united endeavors served only to disturb the coffer very slightly in its bed. We at once saw the impossibility of removing so great a weight. Luckily, the sole fastenings of the lid consisted of two sliding bolts. These we drew back, trembling and panting with anxiety. In an instant a treasure of incalculable value lay gleaming before ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... bottom, the frame being flexible enough to permit this. The spaces between the posts or verticals were then filled by sheet-piling and the frame was bolted to the curbing piles. This curbing afterward supported the traveler used in laying the concrete. Thus a coffer dam was formed to receive the concrete as shown in Fig. 34. The 1-2-5 concrete was deposited up to within 5 ft. of the mean low water level, the last foot being laid after water was pumped out. The tremie used to deposit the concrete was a tube 14 ins. in diameter at the bottom ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... places when a bridge has to be made, there is an infinite pother and worry about building the piers, coffer-dams, and heaven knows what else. Some swing their bridges to avoid this trouble, and some try to throw an arch of one span from side to side. There are a thousand different tricks. In Belfort they simply wait until the water has ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... their stories, like their lives, become united, and merge, with a rare concord, into one. They have had no bickerings, no misunderstanding, no difference of view which a consultation did not at once reconcile; they have never known a division of interests; from their common coffer each has always drawn whatever he chose; and, down to this day, there has never been a settlement of accounts between them. What facts could better attest not merely a singular harmony of character, but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... high good-humour, having secured those jewels which they had left behind in the iron coffer as his share of the spoil of the ship. Taking note of him as he showed and fondled them, Castell added up the man, and concluded that he was very avaricious; one who hated the poverty in which he had been reared, and would do much for money. Indeed, when he spoke bitterly ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... yet had struck the work. This had carried away some of the upper planking—the false work of the coffer-dam; but this had been repaired in a few hours without delay or serious damage. After that the Indian summer had set in—soft, dreamy days when the winds dozed by the hour, the waves nibbled along the shores, and the swelling ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... to October thirteenth. The floor of the cellar was covered with a layer of concrete, then with two coats of cement, another layer of concrete and a coat of bitumen. The wall includes an outer wall built as a coffer-dam, a brick wall, a coat of cement, and a wall proper, a little over a yard thick. After all this was done the whole was filled with water, in order that the fluid, by penetrating into the most ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... the dead was well supplied, for coffins of every form stood up against the walls, from the simplest chest to the richly gilt and painted coffer, in form resembling a mummy. On wooden shelves lay endless rolls of coarse and fine linen, in which the limbs of the mummies were enveloped, and which were manufactured by the people of the embalming establishment under ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the hope more than to the memory, for the past is an empty chest, the future a full coffer," said Burr, and ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... pure. To profess and betray, to plunder and pray, Is the only ready way to be great; Flattery doth the feat; Ne'er go, ne'er stir, sir - will venture further Than the greatest dons in the town, From a coffer to a crown. ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... Careless these in coloured wisp All lie tumbled-to; then with loop-locks Forward falling, forehead frowning, lips crisp Over finger-teasing task, his twiny boots Fast he opens, last he offwrings Till walk the world he can with bare his feet And come where lies a coffer, burly all of blocks Built of chancequarried, selfquained rocks And the water warbles over into, filleted with glassy grassy quicksilvery shives and shoots And with heavenfallen freshness down from moorland still brims, Dark or daylight on and on. Here he will then, here he will the fleet Flinty ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... and take another survey of it before I left it behind. And then, being cooler and looking more carefully, I noticed that the box to which the tackle had been made fast was not like the other boxes—though about the same size with them—but was a little coffer that seemed once to have been locked and that still had around it the rusty remnants of iron bands. This difference in the make of it put into my head the notion that its contents were more precious than the contents of the other boxes—though ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... going on in the muscles. I spoke just now of railway steam-engines. See how self-supporting ours is! The greater the amount of fire wanted, the faster the blood flows; and the faster the blood flows, the oftener does the coffer re-fill itself, whence comes the supply of oxygen requisite for keeping up the fire. All this goes on at once, by one impulse, and the balance between the receipts and expenditure settles itself of its own accord. How thankful many families would be if their money-chest ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... the women to their rooms—ordering a variety of disinfecting measures in which Martial science excelled while they were needed there—I opened the door of the death chamber to those who carried in a coffer hollowed out of a dark, exceedingly dense natural stone, and half-filled with a liquid of enormous destructive power. Then I lifted tenderly the lifeless form, laid it on cushions arranged therein, kissed the lips, and closed the coffer. ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... to me with a tale that the guards were discontented by reason of the favour shown to the rest of the army. I promised to do what I could, and went into the room where my jewels are kept, to see if I had anything left that might satisfy them. Kneeling before a coffer, I heard my son shriek without, but when I ran to see what ailed him, certain of my women—daughters of shame, whose end is even as they deserved—pushed me back into the room, and held the door ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... soil was neither land nor water, exposed to inundation by the suddenly-opened sluices, to a plunging fire from the forts, and to perpetual hand-to-hand combats with an active and fearless foe, and yet pumping away in the coffer-dams-which they had invented by way of obtaining a standing-ground for their operations—as steadily and sedately as if engaged in purely pacific employments. The besieged here inspired by a courage equally remarkable. The regular garrison was small enough, but the burghers were ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... too, in his careless way, and that night, when he was ready to go down and admit his companions, he would empty most of the gold into a little coffer in which he often left the key, taking but just enough to play with, and almost sure ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... conveniently arranged, there are preserved in it many venerable relics, which can be seen from without through two gratings that are in the front part; and among others there is the head of S. Donatus, Bishop and Protector of that city, and in a coffer of variegated marble, three braccia long, which I have had restored, are the bones of four Saints. And the predella of the altar, which surrounds it all right round in due proportion, has in front ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... the land—I knew myself innocent of crime—but the witness of a priest against me might yet destroy me. In my perplexity I decoyed him to the cell whence he has been released, on pretense that it was the coffer-house of my gold. I resolved to detain him there until the fate of the true criminal was sealed and his threats could avail no longer; but I meant no worse. I may have erred—but who among ye will ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... I heard the sighing of the wind and the roar of the surf, soft with distance, infinite plaintive and despairing. Then, because sleep was not for me, I arose and came groping within my inner cave where stood a coffer and, lifting the lid, drew forth that I sought and went and sat me on my bed where the moon made a glory. And sitting there, I unfolded this my treasure that was no more than a woman's gown and fell to smoothing ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... expensive rugs. The orator's artistic tastes were excellent. Even as he sat in the deeply pillowed arm-chair his eye lighted on a Nike,—a statuette of the precious Corinthian bronze, a treasure for which the dealer's unpaid account lay still, alas! in the orator's coffer. ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... back the sounding bolts. As when a bull Roars in the field, such sound the beautiful doors, Struck with the key, gave forth, and instantly They opened to her. Up the lofty floor She stepped, where stood the coffer that contained The perfumed garments. Reaching forth her hand, The queen took down the bow, that hung within Its shining case, and sat her down, and laid The case upon her knees, and, drawing forth The monarch's bow, she wept aloud. As soon As that new gush ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... hatches and she lies on an even keel. I'll build a coffer dam on her deck round these four hatches and pump her out. If we have enough pumps we can pump her out faster than the water can leak in under the coffer dam. When I've lightened her somewhat I'll kick her into the shore, little by little, until she lies in ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... useless, sire. Whenever the name of any lady who runs the risk of being compromised is concerned, my memory is like a coffer of brass, the key of which I ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... to coffer and some to kist, But nought was stown that could be mist, She danced her lane, cry'd, "Praise be blest, I 've lodg'd a leal poor man. Since naething awa, as we can learn, The kirn 's to kirn, and milk to yearn, ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... of earth was carefully examined, and the probe thrust down anxiously and with great caution. About a yard in depth had been taken away when the spade struck upon something hard. The strokes were redoubled, and a narrow flag appeared. Raising this obstacle they beheld a wooden coffer. Dee sung out a Latin prayer as usual; for he failed not to pour out his thanks with great fervour for any selfish indulgence that fell in his way, or, as he imagined, was granted to him by ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... killing him, but he was overruled by Corsack. However, he was taken away a prisoner, Captain Gray mounting him on his own horse, though, as Turner naively remarks, 'there was good reason for it, for he mounted himself on a farre better one of mine.' A large coffer containing his clothes and money, together with all his papers, were taken away by the rebels. They robbed Master Chalmers, the Episcopalian minister of Dumfries, of his horse, drank the King's health at the market cross, and then left ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... pleasure. Now, do you not breathe again? Do you not feel air and space purified? Here is neither labor nor suffering. The soaring arch of gold has reached the summit. From the lowest gutters, where its stream commences, from the little shops where it is stopped by puny coffer-dams, from the heart of the counting-houses and great workshops, where its volume is that of ingots—gold, in the shape of dowries and inheritances, guided by the hands of young girls or the bony fingers of age, courses towards the aristocracy, where it will become a blazing, expansive ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... wedding, and exhibited himself before an immense crowd in company with an image of his holy bride. He then ordered the people to provide for the expenses of the nuptials and the dowry of his wife, placing a coffer upon each side of the image, to receive the contributions of either sex. Which is the most wonderful manifestation in the history of this personage—the audacity of the impostor, or the bestiality of his ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... will it be later? Well, I apologize for my innocent epigrams on His Holiness in his dressing-gown. And," he continued, laughing, "it is a pity, for I have still two or three entertaining stories, notably one about a coffer filled with gold pieces, which a faithful bequeathed to the Pope. And that poor, dear man was about to count them when the coffer slipped from his hand, and there was the entire treasure on the floor, and the Pope and a cardinal on all fours were scrambling for ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... the chamber; but there was little therein; one stool to wit, a yew-chair, a little table, and a coffer: there was no fire on the hearth, nought save white ashes of small wood; but it was June, so ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... his pickaxe had in reality struck against iron and wood. He planted his torch in the ground and resumed his labor. In an instant a space three feet long by two feet broad was cleared, and Dantes could see an oaken coffer, bound with cut steel; in the middle of the lid he saw engraved on a silver plate, which was still untarnished, the arms of the Spada family—viz., a sword, pale, on an oval shield, like all the Italian ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... finger-breadth on either side for the thickness of the ark, but the roll of the Law was put on the side, as is said, "And put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the LORD."(637) And so with the Philistines, he said, "And put the jewels of gold, which ye return for a trespass-offering, in a coffer by the side thereof."(638) R. Judah, the son of Lachish, said, "there were two arks, one which abode in the encampment, and one which went forth with them to war, and in it were the broken tables," as is said, "And the ark of the covenant of the Lord ...
— Hebrew Literature
... who, after the refreshment of supper, had been forgetting both her fatigue and the other two in the entertainment provided her by the shoes and the Oriental dresses, had now found a little inlaid coffer on a distant table, full of Algerian trinkets, and was examining them. Suddenly a loud crash was ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... brocades, my laces; take each household key; Ransack coffer, desk, bureau; Quiz the few poor treasures hid there, con the letters kept ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... deity. But his brother Set (whom the Greeks called Typhon) with seventy-two others plotted against him. Having taken the measure of his good brother's body by stealth, the bad brother Typhon fashioned and highly decorated a coffer of the same size, and once when they were all drinking and making merry he brought in the coffer and jestingly promised to give it to the one whom it should fit exactly. Well, they all tried one after the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... know whether this remedy is effective, but I remember to have read in Pliny that cedria was used by the ancients to render their manuscripts imperishable. When Cneius Terentius went digging in his estate in the Janiculum he came upon a coffer which contained not only the remains of Numa, the old Roman king, but also the manuscripts of the famous laws which Numa compiled. The king was in some such condition as you might suppose him to be after having been buried several centuries, ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... grunted and scowled as he crunched a log and set it sizzling under his wet heel. He thought of Malpas and cursed Lionel's folly, as, without a word, he loosed his cloak and flung it on an oaken coffer by the wall where already he had cast his hat. Then he sat down, and Nicholas came forward ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... out his arms. Do you see?—look attentively."—"That is true," said Madame de Pompadour, with surprise (there was, indeed, some appearance of the kind). "He points to something square that is an open coffer. Fine weather. But, look! there are clouds of azure and gold, which surround you. Do you see that ship on the high sea? How favourable the wind is! You are on board; you land in a beautiful country, of which you become the Queen. Ah! what do I see? Look ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... thee. Send this Wrangel off. Forget thou thy old hopes, cast far away All thy past life; determine to commence 40 A new one. Virtue hath her heroes too, As well as Fame and Fortune.—To Vienna— Hence—to the Emperor—kneel before the throne; Take a full coffer with thee—say aloud, Thou did'st but wish to prove thy fealty; 45 Thy whole intention but to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... asking for shapings of silks and satins, with which she patched her duds, calling them by the divers names of robes and negligees. All hitherto, however, had been moderation, compared to the daffadile of vanity which she was now seen, when she had searched, as she said, to the bottom of her coffer. I cannot take it upon me to describe her; but she kythed in such a variety of cuffs and ruffles, feathers, old gumflowers, painted paper knots, ribbons, and furs, and laces, and went about gecking and simpering with an old fan in her hand, that it was not in the power of nature ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... task, but your courage will enable you to accomplish it successfully. I will tell you how to kill Kostey, for without that you can do nothing. Now, in the very midst of the ocean lies the Island of Eternal Life. Upon this island is an oak tree, and at the foot of it, hidden in the earth, a coffer bound with iron. A hare is shut up in this coffer, and under her sits a grey duck whose body contains an egg. Within this egg is Kostey's life—if it be broken he dies. Good-bye, Prince Junak, start without loss of time. Your horse will carry you to ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... a beautiful coffer, but, alas! I have lost the key of it. I have found a new key, but it does not fit the casket; should I not search until I have recovered the ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... sorrows greatly, and sets out in search of her. At last he learns from a friendly witch that his betrothed no longer cares for him, "her love is hidden far away." It seems "that on the other side of the ocean stands an oak, and on the oak a coffer, and in the coffer a hare, and in the hare a duck, and in the duck an egg, and in the egg the love of the Queen-Maiden." Ivan gets possession of the egg, and the friendly witch contrives to have it placed before the Queen-Maiden at dinner. She eats it, and immediately ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... gold coin as might load an hundred mules, as was reported by the Bramins, to whom these things are best known. This treasure is said to have been hoarded up by twelve kings, his predecessors. In this treasury there is said to be a coffer three spans long and two broad, entirely full of precious ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... evening gales, Blithely the painted galley sails; On its swift course, how richly stored! Chest, coffer, sack, are heaped aboard. A splendid galley, richly and brilliantly laden with ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... been seen in a neighbouring village,) and the treasure has been attempted to be withdrawn from its tomb, no mortal rope has been able to sustain its weight, each that has been tried invariably breaking when the coffer was at the very mouth of the cave; which, being endowed with the gift of locomotion, has immediately retrograded into its pristine situation! I have mentioned this tradition, as it was told to me, because it is so curiously coincident with the German superstition of treasure buried within the Hartz ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... in that little hilltop cottage where the young man watches over this precious, dangerous, gilded coffer, while Saul is winning and losing his kingdom in a turmoil of blood and sorrow and madness, forgetful of Israel's covenant with the Most High! At last comes King David, from his newly won stronghold of Zion, seeking ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... tread, And see around me spread Temples and mansions, and the hoary hills, Bleak with the labor that the coffer fills, But mars their bloom the while, And steals from nature's face its joyous smile: And here and there, below, The stream's meandering flow Breaks on the view; and westward in the sky The gorgeous clouds ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... brought me yet a little one from Opoeis to your country by reason of a grievous man-slaying, on the day when I slew Amphidamas' son, not willing it, in childish wrath over the dice. Then took me the knight Peleus into his house and reared me kindly and named me thy squire: so therefore let one coffer hide our bones [a golden coffer, two handled, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... bandaged head and stretched out a long thin hand; he could stir nothing else, for his right thigh was in splints beneath a coffer-like erection designed to keep the pressure of the blankets ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... reconciliation with Menelaus was brought about we do not learn from Homer, who, in the "Odyssey," accepts it as a fact. The earliest traditional hint on the subject is given by the famous "Coffer of Cypselus," a work of the seventh century, B.C., which Pausanias saw at Olympia, in A.D. 174. Here, on a band of ivory, was represented, among other scenes from the tale of Troy, Menelaus rushing, sword in hand, to slay Helen. According to Stesichorus, the army was about to stone her ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... sound was repeated; and as I stood on the top of the great staircase, I felt a little uncomfortable, but not frightened. The noise seemed to proceed from a large carved oak coffer or chest (as old as the house), which stood on a landing, about half-way up the stairs. I approached the chest, and from it appeared to come again the word 'Hush!' Could it be the wind whistling through a crack? No; it was far too loud for ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... pottage, The place be a cottage, That a humble contentment defends, Only joy fills its coffer, But spite of the scoffer, There's the place where ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... no sooner had she crossed the threshold than the Evil Spirit blew the light out; she got a light again, but this also was blown out. Instead of returning for another light, she went straight to the coffer in the dark, and brought the books to the house, and that ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... Unto her coffer proud Mettelil flew, All underneath a green hill's side, Of wax she has fashion'd babies two. In such peril ...
— The Dalby Bear - and Other Ballads • Anonymous
... Histoire critique de l'Origine et de la Formation des Ordres grecs, p. 20. See also LAYARD, Discoveries, p. 444, where a bas-relief from the palace of Sennacherib is figured, upon which appears a coffer supported by a foot in the shape of a column, which ends ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... arches, one of 58 feet and two of 55 feet span each. The Severn at that point is deep and narrow, and its bed and banks are of alluvial earth. It was necessary to make the foundations very secure, as the river is subject to high floods; and this was effectuality accomplished by means of coffer-dams. The building was substantially executed in red sandstone, and proved a very serviceable bridge, forming part of the great high road from Shrewsbury into Wales. It was finished in the ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... excavate part of the foundation-pit of the building to the depth of seven feet. The difficulties were still further increased on account of the foundation being partly under the level of the lowest tides, so that a coffer-dam was required. It was further necessary, after each tide's work, to remove and carry ashore part of this coffer-dam; so that on the return of the workmen at ebb-tide much time was lost in readjusting the coffer-dam, and in pumping the water out ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... Sara, who had risen with the first streak of dawn, and snatching a hurried breakfast had left her foster-daughter asleep. She had lifted the lid of the coffer and had taken out the best half of her scarlet mantle, leaving the worn and faded half hanging Over the spinning wheel. "Morva would understand," she thought, "and would wash it and lay it away in the coffer until her return." A gown too she wore, instead of her peasant ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... Andrew bade him lift the silk that hid the contents of the coffer and see what lay there. Wulf did so, and next moment threw back his head like a man whom some sudden light had blinded, as well he might, for from it came such a flare of gems as Essex had rarely seen before. Red, green and blue they sparkled; ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... some six paces to the right, and tilted her gaze up at the coffer as though she would crick ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... has happened," she interrupted in a decided tone. "That is always his message to me when he is in trouble. That is what he telegraphed me when he lost the coffer-dam in the Susquehanna. Oh!—he did not really tell you that, did he, Mr. Breen?" The old anxious note had returned—the one he had ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was 'a little near', and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... cranberries which grow there unraked by himself. Perchance, some spring a higher freshet will float them within his reach, though they may be watery and frost-bitten by that time. Such shrivelled berries I have seen in many a poor man's garret, ay, in many a church-bin and state-coffer, and with a little water and heat they swell again to their original size and fairness, and added sugar enough, stead mankind for sauce to this ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... Nine Tailors go to make a Man, How long, then, shall it take one Man turned Tailor To keep a Cat in Tails, until she die? [CHEAT-THE-DEVIL looks subdued; the children whirl about. But here's no game for Jan.—Stay! Something else.— [He runs to a wooden coffer, rear, and takes out a long crystal on the end of a string, with a glance at the shaft of sunlight from the ...
— The Piper • Josephine Preston Peabody
... returned to the dingle, and without saying anything about Mrs. Chikno's observations, communicated to Isopel the messages of Mr. and Mrs. Petulengro; Isopel made no other reply than by replacing in her coffer two additional cups and saucers, which, in expectation of company, she had placed upon the board. The kettle was by this time boiling. We sat down, and as we breakfasted, I gave Isopel Berners another lesson ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... exigencies of etiquette prevented for more than an hour any nearer approach, but when Mr. Dunbar had rendered "Caesar's things" to social Caesar, and paid tribute of bows, smiles, compliments and persiflage into the coffer of custom, he made his way through the throng, to the spot where his betrothed stood resting after ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson |
