"Divan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Freedom's temple where he mark'd her grave: He steel'd the blunt Batavian's arms To burst the Iberian's double chain; And cities rear'd, and planted farms, Won from the skirts of Neptune's wide domain.[3] 60 He with the generous rustics sate On Uri's rocks[4] in close divan; And wing'd that arrow sure as fate, Which ascertain'd ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... floors were of hardwood and covered partially with foreign rugs. There were low divans, but no tables nor chairs. The whole scene was akin to that described as oriental. Lena returned with the robes for Cora, and laid them on a divan. Then she adjusted a screen, thus forming a dressing room in one corner. This corner was hung with an oblong mirror, framed in wonderful ebony. Helka saw ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... hastily convoked and Irregular tribunal before which Jesus underwent the mockery of a trial was similar to that of the ancient Sanhedrim. The members sat on a semi-circular divan, the president in the centre, and a scribe at each extremity, who recorded the evidence and the decisions of the court. It may be noted, that while laws had been carefully formulated for the conduct of such trials, almost every one of them was flagrantly violated on the present ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... floor instantly," ordered the girl on the divan. "Nothing worse for colds than rag carpet rugs. There's plenty of room up here out of drafts. Come, lovey. Do try to curl up some. I always fear you will break up in splinters when ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... it. Not having been apprised of Miss Elliot's conflicting emotions since her departure, Mrs. Willard's mind was as a page blank for impressions when her visitor burst in upon her, pirouetted around the room, appropriated the softest corner of the divan, and announced spiritedly: ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Seated on a divan in the centre of the drawing-room, in a most distinguished attitude, in unexceptionable attire, and with the rose-coloured lights making all her soft greys opalescent, was Miss Salemina Peabody. Our exclamations of astonishment ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... unconscious accomplice in this fraud. As the time for the great musicale approached, she was bidden to amuse Gwendolen in the bungalow, with the understanding that if the child fell asleep she might lay her on the divan and so far leave her as to take her place on the bench outside where the notes of the solo singers could reach her. That Gwendolen would fall asleep and fall asleep soon, the wretched mother well knew, for she had given her ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... bad Arabic, showing us into a good-sized room—the upper chamber we had seen from far. Its windows, innocent of glass, were closed by wooden shutters, roughly bolted, which creaked and rattled in the gale. A very fine-looking old man rose from the divan to greet us. ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... walls, and what had once been a dingy fireplace was now faced with embossed tiles never made in America. There were paintings in oil here and there, done by master hands, as one could tell. The curtained windows spoke eloquently of secrecy. Here and there a divan and couch showed elaborate care in comfort. Beyond a lace-screened grille I saw an alcove—doubtless cut through the original partition wall between two of these humble houses—and within this stood a high tester bed, its heavy mahogany posts beautifully carved, the couch itself piled deep ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... any one so overcome as young Fraser-Freer. Watching him, it seemed to me that the affection existing between him and the man on the divan must have been a beautiful thing. He turned away from his brother at last, and Walters sought to give him some ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... hesitated. Then he led the way to a divan in a retired corner of the lobby and motioned to me to be seated. There he sat down beside me and waited for me to speak. I, in turn, waited for ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... rubbish—plaster hands, canvases, sketches begun and discarded, and draperies thrown over chairs. Feeling very tired, he took off his cloak, placed the portrait abstractedly between two small canvasses, and threw himself on the narrow divan. Having stretched himself out, he finally ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... She is sitting in a neglige of white muslin and laces on a small red divan with her feet on a footstool that matches. She has thrown her fur-cloak about her. It is the identical cloak in which she appeared to me for the first time, as goddess ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... this remark and the laugh resolving itself into a low, musical voice that bade him enter, Mr. Middleton found himself in a small boudoir of oriental magnificence, facing a young man in the costume of the Moslem nations, who sat cross-legged upon a divan smoking a narghileh. He was of perhaps twenty-six, somewhat slight, but elegant of person. His face, extremely handsome, betokened that he was a man of intelligence and sensibility. Two brilliant, sparkling eyes illumined ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... him and the door swung shut of its own weight with a click. We were in a high-ceilinged, very long room, having seven sides. There were windows to right and left. A deep divan piled with scented cushions occupied the whole length of one long wall, and there were several huge cushions on the floor against another wall. There was one other door besides that ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... intruder, tossing off a glass. "That's better." And he threw himself comfortably down on a divan, ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... She craves an edict: this— That any prince be free to sue for her. With this condition: She will set the suitor Three riddles, and before the whole Divan. If he can solve them, he shall be her consort, And heir of China. If he cannot solve them, Altoum by most solemn oath is bound To rid the reckless suitor of the head Which could not solve the riddles of his daughter. Goes not the ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... alighted in the courtyard of a large house. Four native servants were at the door, and the old officer led the way to a spacious room. This was carpeted with handsome rugs. Soft cushions were piled on the divan, running round the room, the divan itself being covered with velvet and silk rugs. Looking glasses were ranged upon the walls; a handsome chandelier hung from the roof; draperies of gauze, lightly embroidered with gold, hung ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... was reached. Spero carried the unconscious girl up the stairs and gently laid her on the divan. He then got on his knees beside Jane, and, hiding his face in his hands, ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... saw the richly-latticed stone doorway of the house guarded by two figures in armour like iron statues; and passing between them, they came into the principal chamber, marble-floored, and with a divan of cushions round it; but full in the midst of the room lay a coffin, covered with the lilied banner, and the standard of the Cross; the crowned helmet, good sword, knightly spurs, and cross-marked shield lying upon it; solemn forms in armour guarded it, and priests knelt ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Patterson played with his father, howled and talked his mother out of taking a bath and was put to bed. Alec and Carol curled up on the divan to watch the same show Troy was viewing. At 2030 they, too, were in bed and asleep. The sounds of the city were deadened by the high insulation construction of the building. Possibly half of the nearly three million ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... crackers, Humphrey remained over to sit on the music-stool, with the air of one playing the pianola. In this position he found his uses. There are times when a husband may legitimately be annoyed; at these times it was pleasant to kick Humphrey off his stool on to the divan, to stand on the divan and kick him on to the sofa, to stand on the sofa and kick him on to the book-case; and then, feeling another man, to replace him on the music-stool and apologise to Celia. It was thus ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... just as ready to propose that others should spend the night with them as, on the smallest pretext, to accept the same hospitality from others. Wanda, indeed, always slept curled up like a cat on a divan, in a fur wrapper, which she put on early in the evening when she wanted to smoke cigarettes. She went to sleep at no regular hour. A bear's skin was placed always within her reach, so that if she were cold she could draw it over her. Jacqueline, not being ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... all directions. We descended into the earth upon a falling platform [lift] and travelled. The stopping-places are as close as beads on a thread. The doors of the carriages are guarded with gates that strike out sideways like cobras. Each sitter is allowed a space upon a divan of yellow canework. When the divans are full the surplus hang from the roof by leathers. Though our carriage was full, place was made for us. At the end of our journey the train was halted beyond its lawful time that we might come forth at ease. ...
— The Eyes of Asia • Rudyard Kipling
... a luxurious divan and he held my milk-white hand in his. I do not make that statement as a startling announcement of an unusual occurrence, but simply as a matter ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... has the power when present 'Mong the stars round the divan which muster? Who amidst the gems of night's crescent Has the blaze ...
— Mollie Charane - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... you going to talk?" said Leonore, when they were ensconced on a big wicker divan, in the soft half ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... slow, cool smile. In the big, uncarpeted alcove, where stood Natalie's great painted piano, Marion Hayden was playing softly, carefully posed for the entrance of the men. Natalie was sitting with her hands folded, in the exact center of a peacock-blue divan. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... eight cards, four on either side (see tableau). These constitute the Divan. From this Divan you can play any suitable cards on the foundations, and, having done so, proceed to deal out the remainder of the pack, turning the cards one by one, those that are not suitable for the foundations being laid ...
— Lady Cadogan's Illustrated Games of Solitaire or Patience - New Revised Edition, including American Games • Adelaide Cadogan
... you," he continued passionately, stopping abruptly before them, "to assume that others should live according to your lackadaisical, sensuous sentimentality—your divan, boudoir conceptions of life? Thoreau and Rousseau and Emerson and Ruskin were great men, but had they talked less and actually lived out the life they preached, the world might possibly have been aroused to a consciousness of something higher by this time; but they were too small for the task. ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... his shoes and secured the latticed steel door of his locker he went up to the main room of the clubhouse, where, on the long divan before the open fire, he found Peyton Morris lounging with Anette Sherwin by a low tea table. The hot water, they informed Lee comfortably, was cold, inviting him by implication to ring for more; and then they returned to the conversation ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... greetings in the market-place. The dog is generally the better gentleman, and he is aware of it; and he duly appreciates the loafer, who is not too proud to pause a moment, change the news, and pass the time of day. He will mark his sense of this attention by rising from his dust-divan and accompanying his caller some steps on his way. But he will stop short of his neighbour's dust-patch; for the morning is really too hot for a shindy. So, by easy stages (the street is not a long one: six dogs will see it out), the Loafer quits the village; and now ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... he flung himself down on a divan, and lit a cigarette. On the mantel-shelf, framed in dainty old brocade, stood a large photograph of Sybil Merton, as he had seen her first at Lady Noel's ball. The small, exquisitely-shaped head drooped ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... his only chance since they arrived to make a brief social call upon the family of his patient. It was but an hour before Georgiana's departure, and when he learned this, Jefferson Craig came over to her, where she sat upon a divan at one end of the long private drawing-room of the suite. Seeing this, the others of the party began conversations of their own, after the manner of the highly intelligent, and for those five minutes Georgiana lived in a place apart from ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... guests were gone, Lady Everington fled to her boudoir and collapsed in a little heap of sobbing finery on the broad divan. She was overtired, no doubt; but the sense of her mistake lay heavy upon her, and the feeling that she had sacrificed to it her best friend, the most humanly valuable of all the people who resorted to her house. An evil cloud of mystery hung over the young marriage, one of those sinister ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... condemned to go about Stamboul tied to an ass for having pierced with an insolent distich the Grand Vizier of Ibrahim; I have been in the same cafe with Soliman the Big, the monstrous admiral, whom four robust slaves hardly succeeded in lifting from the divan; Ali, the Grand Vizier, who could not find in all Arabia a horse that could carry him; Mahmoud Pasha, the ferocious Hercules that strangled the son of Soliman; and the stupid Ahmed Second, who continually repeated "Koso! ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... rejoiced, and they added the gold to the gold and the silk to the silk and sat talking and laughing each to other. Meanwhile, when Abu al-Hasan fared forth the presence of the Caliph and went to lay out Nuzhat al-Fuad, the Commander of the Faithful mourned for her and dismissing the divan, arose and betook himself, leaning upon Masrur, the Sworder of his vengeance, to the Lady Zubaydah, that he might condole with her for her hand-maid. He found her sitting weeping and awaiting his coming, so she might condole with him for his boon-companion Abu al-Hasan the Wag. So he said to her, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... to fire on a Russian," said the Khan, contemptuously stretching himself on the cushions of the divan, "when they might have cut ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... down by the lamp, very straight, the way she always sat when she had something important on her mind. Mrs. Lee sank back among the pillows on the divan and Mr. Lee pulled his chair closer to the ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... an old friend by both the Ambassador and his wife. The former drew him to a divan from which he could watch the entrance to the rooms, and ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a rather desolate plain, and across to the large and well-kept hospital. As all my draperies and pretty cretonnes had been burnt up on the ill-fated ship, I had nothing but bare white shades at the windows, and the rooms looked desolate enough. But a long divan was soon built, and some coarse yellow cotton bought at John Smith's (the cutler's) store, to cover it. My pretty rugs and mats were also gone, and there was only the old ingrain carpet from Fort Russell. The ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... the room wherein the old Man—forty years long in this wise— His housekeeper was wont to scold, Look through the window and kill flies. 'Twas plain—an oaken floor ye scan, Two cupboards, table, soft divan, And not a speck of dirt descried. Oneguine oped the cupboards wide. In one he doth accounts behold, Here bottles stand in close array, There jars of cider block the way, An almanac but eight years old. His uncle, busy man indeed, No other book had ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... you'll be comfortable," he said—"that divan yonder is as easy a couch as one could wish—and there's this door you can lock at the head of the staircase; while I, of course, will be on guard below.... And now, Miss Bannon... unless there's something more ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... can only prove its existence by the manner in which it annexes all that is richest, most beautiful, and, to use a byegone slang word, most Precious. For it is reserved the luxurious Chesterfield or Divan, heaped with rainbow-like cushions, and placed in the most becoming light, until the quick, unhappy day dawns when another "artistic temperament" comes to the fore, and the first retires perforce, if not a better, certainly a sadder, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Jack said before his father mentioned his visitor's name. But he was not Jack Crane in his game; he was Uncas. The big chairs and the divan were trees in his imaginative eyes. The huge easy chair in which Daddy's caller (Jack thought of him only as "Mister") sat was a fallen log. He, Uncas, meant to ...
— They Twinkled Like Jewels • Philip Jose Farmer
... span a mighty span, * Whose lavish of largesse all Empyrean! lieges scan: None other but he shall be Kaysar highs, * Lord of lordly hall and of haught Divan: Kings lay their gems on his threshold-dust * As they bow and salam to the mighty man; And his glances foil them and all recoil, * Bowing beards aground and with faces wan: Yet they gain the profit of royal grace, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the November streets. Christine only smiled. It was a long, narrow flat—a small sitting-room with a piano and a sideboard, opening into a larger bedroom shaped like a thick L. The short top of the L, not cut off from the rest of the room, was installed as a cabinet de toilette, but it had a divan. From the divan, behind which was a heavily curtained window, you could see right through the flat to the curtained window of the sitting-room. All the lights were softened by paper shades of a peculiar hot tint between Indian red and carmine, ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... Sir Simon had left, the Writer selected his favourite pipe, filled it with his choicest tobacco, and having lit it, stretched himself at ease upon the most comfortable divan in his rooms, and thought out ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... interrupted pointblank. She was sitting up very straight on the divan, with a certain expression around her mouth, and a very steady purposeful look in her eyes, which even Jean at home ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... suspicious appearance Mr. Jay betook himself to a cigar-divan, and read the magazines over a cheroot. From the divan he strolled to the tavern and had his chops. I strolled to the tavern and had my chops. When he had done he went back to his lodging. When I had done I went back to mine. He was overcome with drowsiness early in the ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... until the morning, and the result is that for such of the natives as are not very scrupulous, Ramadan consists of turning day into night, and night into day. But Allouma carried her delicacy of conscience further than this. She placed her tray between us on the divan, and taking a small, sugared ball between her long, slender fingers, she put it into my mouth, and whispered:—'Eat it, it is ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... posturing, smirking chamberlains took me in charge, and ushered me with their flimsy golden wands to the dais at the farther end. It appeared that I was to sit on Phorenice's divan, and eat my meat out ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... slowly into the room, dragging Kitty behind her. She let him press the tips of her unbending fingers, pouted, smiled faintly, dropped upon a divan by Kitty's side, strengthened her hold on Kitty's hand, and fixed her eyes on Kitty's hair. "Aren't you tired?" she said, giving it an absorbed caressing stroke, with a low laugh. "I am." "I am going to look again to-morrow, Kitty," she continued, brightening up with a decisive air, ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... were there, with doors closed and the lights on, Craig exhaled his breath as noisily as a blown swimmer. "What a day! What a day!" he half-shouted, dropping on the divan and thrusting his feet into the rich and rather light upholstery of ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... you," said Lady Blanchemain, and seated herself on the circular divan in the centre of the polished terrazza floor. She wasn't really tired in the least, the indefatigable old sight-seer; but a respite from picture-gazing would enable her to turn the talk. She put up her mother-of-pearl lorgnon, and glanced round the walls; then, lowering it, she frankly ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... found a single room, forty feet square, where, in the dim light, for there was no opening but the door, the chief sat awaiting them on a sort of bedstead, three of his wives at his side, while sixty old men, wrapped in white cloaks woven of mulberrybark, formed his divan. When he spoke, his wives howled to do him honor; and the assembled councillors listened with the reverence due to a potentate for whom, at his death, a hundred victims were to be sacrificed. He received the visitors graciously, and joyfully ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... open and the awnings down. He saw a young woman seated before a small table covered with tea things, and a tall young man standing near by. Mr. Locke stood just inside the door, but what warmed Jarrow's heart and bolstered his courage was a picture of Dinshaw's island which lay on a divan. There was the proof that the old captain had ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... his trusted friend William along. The glee changed to grief when, within a year—so quickly does the appearance of the chess-board change in "the great game"—Great Britain was once more on the doorstep, and fickle Germany was snuggling close to Young Turkey on the divan in the dimly lighted parlor. Virtuous old Britain professed to be shocked and horrified; he occupied himself with talking scandal about young Germany, when he should have been busy trying to supplant him. Few chapters ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... probability of this miscarriage, that most Men wonder at these unaccountable Measures, and think the Eagles Councils look a little Wildish, as if some of his great Men were grown Dilirious and Whymsical, that fancy'd Crowns and Kingdoms were to come and go, just as the great Divan at their Court should direct. This confusion of Circumstances has occasion'd a certain Copy of Verses to appear about the Moon, which in our Characters may be read ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... couch should be bought for it, instead of a folding bed. It will then serve the purpose of a sofa as well as a bed. If it is a box couch, further economy will be gained by its use as a place to store the bedclothes. But the simplest of all arrangements is a divan bed, formed of springs and mattress alone, and supported on legs nailed to the corners of the spring-frame. Over it a cover should be thrown during the day, and the pillows in use, if there is not room for them elsewhere, should be slipped ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... smoking in the little room at the side of the porch. A single lamp with a red shade hung from the ceiling in the centre of this room, hardly giving enough light to read by. There were half-a-dozen deep armchairs, a divan, and two or three small tables—beyond that nothing. Sidney's father had furnished it thus, with a knowledge and appreciation of Oriental ways. It was not a study, nor a library, nor a den; but merely a smoking-room. Mr. Bodery had ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... received the cavalier in state, seated on a magnificent divan and surrounded by the officers of his court, in the Hall of Ambassadors, one of the most sumptuous apartments of the Alhambra. When De Vera had delivered his message, a haughty and bitter smile curled the lip of the fierce monarch. "Tell your sovereigns," ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... amicable office. But the cabinet council of English creditors would not suffer their Nabob of Arcot to sign the treaty, nor even to give to a prince at least his equal the ordinary titles of respect and courtesy. From that time forward, a continued plot was carried on within the divan, black and white, of the Nabob of Arcot, for the destruction of Hyder Ali. As to the outward members of the double, or rather treble, government of Madras, which had signed the treaty, they were always prevented by some over-ruling influence (which they do not describe but which cannot be ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... my pockets a brace of double-barreled pistols which formed part of my traveling kit. When I returned I found the baron already booted and spurred; this without metaphor. He was stretched full length on the divan, and did not speak as I came in, or even look at me. Chewing an unlit cigar, with eyes fixed on the ceiling, he was evidently following some absorbing ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... to Pedlow and Sneyd. The fat man was shouting at a woman in pink satin, who lounged, half-reclining, among a pile of cushions upon a divan near the fire; Sneyd gallantly bending over her to ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington
... the last verse his head began to nod. The words came thickly from his lips and he sank sleepily back among the soft divan pillows. ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... thou shalt pass all this day with me; wherefore do thou doff thy clothes and don this red gown, for it is a sleeping gown." So she took away his clothes and made him assume the red gown and set on his head an old patched rag she had by her; after which she sat by him on the divan and she sported with him while he toyed with her awhile, till he put out his hand to her. Whereupon she said to him, "O our lord, this day is thy day and none shall share in it with thee; but first, of thy favour and benevolence, write me an order for my brother's release from ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... on the divan, smoking with easy indifference. His clothing and his shoes were spotless. He had shaved, and his beard had been freshly trimmed. Rawlins and the district attorney stood in front of the fireplace, studying him with perplexed ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... The Divan refusing the demands of Mehemet Ali, the solution of the question was referred to Field-Marshal Hussein, who proceeded with that calculated exertion which the Ottomans take for dignity; and thus three weeks ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... on the pavement, I had chanced on the very features, the haunting sadness and mystery of which I had been so long in quest. I wondered at the simplicity with which he was able to maintain a pose so essentially undignified. I told myself I beheld the East squatted broodingly as on a divan, while the West paraded with parasol and Prayer-Book. I wondered that the beadles were unobservant of him. Were they content with his abstention from the holy ground of the Church Parade, and the less sacred seats on the promenade ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... his divan and drew aside the hangings leading to a large hall, closely followed by Neangir and Sumi. There they saw two young men, one about seventeen, and the other nineteen years of age. The younger was seated before a table, his forehead resting on ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... the fortress has a very deserted air. We found there dilapidated clay houses for the soldiers, and, somewhat to the side, the divan of the governor, which consists of a hall with two circular arches, the interior containing low sofas covered with rich carpets. There we waited upon the governor, who, according to invariable custom, ordered coffee to be served. He then took us over the armoury, in which was a small field-piece ...
— The Caravan Route between Egypt and Syria • Ludwig Salvator
... slept none. It was always my lot in that huge house to be put, little fellow as I was, in the hugest of places. My bed was as spacious as a Turkish divan. Its yellow silken quilt, lined with eiderdown, and embroidered with crimson flowers, was like a great waving field of ripe corn with poppies in it. When I lay down, great weltering waves of Bed came and rolled over me; and my bolster alone was as big as the cook's ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... little scene from afar. And when Jenkins takes his leave, bright and smiling, and waving his hand to the different groups, Monpavon seizes the Governor: "Now, it's our turn." And they pounce together upon the Nabob, lead him to a divan, force him to sit down, and squeeze him between them with a savage little laugh that seems to mean: "What are we going to do to him?" Extract money from him, as much of it as possible. It must be had in order to float the Caisse Territorial, which ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... was sitting by my side had hands which were sufficient in themselves to make a man forget her sex, and not knowing how to spend our time we treated the whole company to drinks. Then I lighted a cigar, stretched out on the divan, and, sad and depressed, while the voices of the women rose shrilly and the glasses were being ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... was the subject of conversation. 'Adultery,' he exclaimed, 'is merely a matter of opportunity!' See, then, I have changed these accessories of crime, so that they become spies," added the councillor, pointing out to me a divan covered with tea-colored cashmere, the cushions of which were slightly pressed. "Notice that impression,—I learn from it that my wife has had a headache, and has been ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... all, is it?" Gillow presently queried, from the divan where he lolled half-asleep with dripping brow. Fred Gillow, like Nature, abhorred a void, and it was inconceivable to him that every hour of man's rational existence should not furnish a motive for getting up and going somewhere else. Young Breckenridge, who took the same view, and the Prince, ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... ceiling. Bayard, the African explorer, and the young Russian Secretary, Ivan Petrovski, had each the end of a long sofa, with pretty Mme. Petrovski and old Baron Sleyde between them, while Mme. Constantin lay nestled like a kitten among the big and little cushions of a divan. ...
— Homo - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... appointments as in the sleeping-room. She had knowledge enough to appreciate that the rugs and hangings were exquisite, the former were Persian and the latter of a thick black material, heavily embroidered in silver. The main feature of the room was a big black divan heaped with huge cushions covered with dull black silk. Beside the divan, spread over the Persian rugs, were two unusually large black bearskins, the mounted heads converging. At one end of the tent was a small doorway, a little portable writing-table. There ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... I had printed a pamphlet in Arabic, with all the papers (official) concerning Zebehr Pasha and his action in pushing his son to rebel. It is in Arabic. My brother has it. It is not long, and would repay translating and publishing. It has all the history and the authentic letters found in the divan of Zebehr's son when Gessi took his stockade. It is in a cover, blue and gold. It was my address to people of Soudan—Apologia. Isaiah XIX. 19, 20, 21 has a wonderful prophecy about Egypt and the saviour who will come from ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... dripping finery, the Nubian eunuchs rushing to their aid, plunging into the water from the balustrade, or dashing down the marble steps,—all this forms an agreeable relaxation after the labours of the Divan. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... is your home for the future," explained the count, dropping easily upon a divan and lighting ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... he acquitted himself of his difficult task. As for his poetry, it lacks the depth, the glow, the virility, and inspiration of the works of the classical period. He was a restless wanderer, a poet tramp, roving in the Orient, in Africa, and in Europe. His most important work is his divan Tachkemoni, testifying to his powers as a humorist, and especially to his mastery of the Hebrew language, which he uses with dexterity never excelled. The divan touches upon every possible subject: God and ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... now, with low obeisances, inviting them to seat themselves on the divan which lined part ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... opened the door of the vaulted chamber he called his "den." It was sparingly furnished, and bore no likeness to the sort of smoking divan an undergrad of the tone of Ralph would affect now in Oxford. Plain stove, floor strewn with rushes, rude tapestry around the walls, with those uncouth faces and figures worked thereon which give antiquarians ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... date has been fixed for the wedding?" Mrs. Dawson, on the divan, murmured to Mrs. Creve. The latter smiled ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... the zilagheet shrieks of the women, and general rejoicing, to the bridegroom's house. Col. Churchill describes what follows: "The bride meantime, after having received the caresses and congratulations of her near relatives, is conducted to a chamber apart and placed on a divan, with a large tray of sweetmeats and confectionery before her, after which all the females withdraw and she is left alone, with a massive veil of muslin and gold thrown over her head and covering her face, breasts and shoulders down to the waist. What thoughts and sensations ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... shoulder; otherwise he had plenty of gold and red silk about him. He was pulled up to the bride, turning his head away as if he was ashamed to look at her, and dropped a red silk handkerchief over her face for a moment. Then he sat down on the divan, and all the old women of both houses sprinkled the couple with yellow rice, and rubbed their foreheads with some charm, which looked like a bit of stone and a nutmeg-grater, and wished them all kinds of luck—but ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... which I have yet to traverse, will hardly allow me to add a few words relative to the administrative services of the illustrious geometer. Appointed French Commissioner at the Divan of Cairo, he became the official medium between the General-in-Chief and every Egyptian who might have to complain of an attack against his person, his property, his morals, his habits, or his creed. An invariable sauvity of manner, a scrupulous regard for prejudices to oppose which directly ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... composer is not willing to confess, and least of all the stage manager, for when the curtain opens there is not presented even the picture called for by the German libretto. Nevertheless, morn is dawning, birds are twittering, and the young lover, kneeling before his mistress on a divan, is bemoaning the fact that day is come and that he cannot publish his happiness to the world. The tete-a-tete is interrupted by a rude boor of a nobleman, who come to consult his cousin (the princess) about a messenger to send with ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... The guests lost their appetites by this announcement; and at eight o'clock in the evening the "Endymion" cut her cables, and got under weigh; subsequently joining Admiral Louis's squadron, off the island of Tenedos. Mr. Arbuthnot now finding himself in safety, wrote to the divan to explain the motives of his sudden departure, and to propose the renewal of negociations. Feyzi Effendi, a Mussulman of high rank, was ordered to open a conference with the British ambassador; and day after day passed in negociations, but all to no purpose. At length, on the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... country. He mounted, and, with a single servant, went forth from the gates—the woman preceding—and rode until he reached a village in the mountains. Here, in a poor little house, he found Selima; clothed in the very commonest style, engaged in making divan cushions. She was a marvellously beautiful girl, and the heart of the merchant at once began to yearn towards her; yet he endeavored to restrain himself, and said, "This beautiful thing is not for me." ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... court-beauty, the favourite of the Queen, and the glass which reflected the smiles and frowns of royalty. He afterwards saw her the idol of the party which opposed government, sung by Waller, flattered by Holland, presiding with all the frivolity and pride of a pretty trifler at the dark divan, while Pym and St. John disclosed their hopes of extending their aggressions to seizing the remaining prerogatives of the alarmed and conceding King. Weak, vain, passionate, and unprincipled, with no determined object but her own aggrandizement—no claim to attention ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... shyness about exposing my beauty to the curious gaze. Pardon me if I seat myself first; I find it more comfortable to sit than to stand, to recline than to sit." Stiffly the speaker let himself into an upholstered divan and fitted the cushions to his aches and his pains, his bruises and his abrasions. He sighed miserably. His features were discolored, shapeless; his lips were cut; strips of adhesive tape held the edges of a wound together; his left hand was tightly bandaged and the room reeked ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... branches athwart the entrance; and, a few yards removed, around the foot of a venerable elm, is spread a variegated carpet of daisies and other pretty flowers, whose colours the Persian loom might be proud to imitate for a prince's divan. ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... reentered Mrs. Harold's room. She had collapsed upon the divan, almost hysterical, and Polly looked as though someone had dashed cold water in her face. Peggy was the only one who accepted the situation philosophically. With ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Jackson, in Congress, against their meddling with the affair of slavery, or attempting to mend the condition of the slaves, it put me in mind of a similar one made about one hundred years since by Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim, a member of the Divan of Algiers, which may be seen in Martin's Account of his Consulship, anno 1687. It was against granting the petition of a sect called Erika, or Purists, who prayed for the abolition of piracy and slavery as being unjust. Mr. Jackson does not quote it; perhaps he has not ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... into it from the separate rooms of the traders. We accosted the first Tartar whom we met; and he promised, with great readiness, to procure us what we wanted. He ushered us into his room, cleared away a pile of bags, saddles, camel-trappings, and other tokens of a nomadic life, and revealed a low divan covered with a ragged carpet. On a sack of barley sat his father, a blind graybeard, nearly eighty years old. On our way through the camp I had noticed that the Tartars saluted each other with the Arabic, "Salaam aleikoom!" and I therefore greeted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... rolled back in his head like a dying man's. He seemed to crumple up, and she caught him as he fell. Her terrified shriek brought Hoichi, who took instant charge of the situation. He made the unconscious man comfortable on a divan, applied such restoratives as were at hand, and directed a frightened maid ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... footsteps had died away, Gerelda flung herself face downward on the divan, sobbing as if her heart would break; and in this position, a few minutes ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... covered with Turkish rugs, the lights concealed inside lamps of dull brass bedecked with crimson tassels. In the air were the odors of stale tobacco-smoke, of cheap incense, and the sickly, sweet smell of opium. To Ford the place suggested a cigar-divan rather than a bedroom, and he guessed, correctly, that when Prothero had played at palmistry and clairvoyance this had been the place where he received his dupes. But the American expressed himself pleased with his surroundings, and while Prothero remained ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... her and returned a few moments later with a flat, red-covered portfolio. They sought out an unmolested spot and snuggled in a corner of a plush divan in one of the deserted parlors. He drew back the cover and ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... a long day of outdoor fun, stupefied with fresh air and exercise, Lawrence, and Sylvia too, could not keep their eyes open, and dozed and woke and dozed again, coiled like so many little kittens among the cushions of the big divan. In all the intensely enjoyed personal pleasures of her later youth, and these were many for Sylvia, she was never to know a more utter sweetness than thus to fall asleep, the music a far-off murmur in her ears, and to wake again to the restrained, clarified ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... the Queen of Hungary, who would not arrive until the following morning, and, after a brief conversation with Malfalconnet and Master Adrian, the loyal nobleman had gone without delay, and at the risk of angering him, to his imperial master. Without even rising from the divan, and still clasping the hand which Barbara attempted to withdraw as Don Luis advanced, Charles asked with stern rebuke what had caused his entrance at so late an hour. Quijada requested a brief audience, but Charles replied that he had nothing to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that "the fool and his money are soon parted?" Are you using a hero and a heroine in your plays now? If so, would you mind writing their lines for them, while I arrange the details and remarks for the young man who is discovered asleep on a divan when the curtain rises, and who sleeps on through the play with his mouth slightly ajar till the close—the close of the play, not the close of his mouth—when it is discovered that he is dead. He then plays ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... also the number of speakers and their talent. I except orators, of course, because they are things of ages, and not of septennial or triennial re-unions. Neither House ever struck me with more awe or respect than the same number of Turks in a divan, or of Methodists in a barn, would have done. Whatever diffidence or nervousness I felt (and I felt both, in a great degree) arose from the number rather than the quality of the assemblage, and the thought ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... divan was gorgeous with silk curtains and cushions embroidered with gold thread and embossed with tinsel ornaments, the work of the bride herself. The seat for the bridegroom was somewhat higher and larger than the bride's. At last the bridegroom approached in a large barge, which ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... "confrontation," she had brought none of her own books or belongings to disturb the suggestion of the room as it had been. There were three large windows, through which the city lights were beginning to shine; under one of these and across that end of the room was a divan, covered with a bright rug; opposite and against the other wall was a desk, with a chair before it, and bookshelves, and a corner cupboard which held a plentiful supply of tea-things. Between the two windows nearest ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... large smoking-room, its floor and walls covered with trophies of the hunt—antlers and the skins of carnivora. Here he threw off his coat and bade me be at home as he lay down upon a wicker divan covered with the tawny skin of some wild animal. He stroked the fur fondly with ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... to see him. She laid aside her book and made room for him on the divan. They talked about the weather, the changes that had taken place since the fall, a scrap of foreign travel of mutual interest, each hoping that the other would be first to broach the subject most vital to both. Finally, Mrs. Bennington ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... and gaunt, with blotched walls and a stained uneven floor. On a divan lay a pile of "properties"—limp draperies, an Algerian scarf, a moth-eaten fan of peacock feathers. The janitor had forgotten to fill the coal-scuttle over-night, and the cast-iron stove projected its cold flanks into the room like a black ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... for your consideration and advice, a treaty of peace and amity, concluded on the 5th day of last September by Joseph Donaldson, Jr., on the part of the United States, with the Dey of Algiers, for himself, his Divan, and his subjects. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... surrounded by the luxury of her private apartment. We sat on a low divan, side by side. I wanted, more than anything I had ever wanted before, to put my arms around her. But I dared not. One does not make love easily to a queen, the three hundred and eleventh of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... he heard her light laugh come floating across the hall, and bowed over her white fingers. But Sybil saw the over-bright eyes and nervous mouth and had hard work to keep back the tears. She piled the cushions about a dark corner of the divan, ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... make no scene. I can only long to be omnipotent for just one instant that I might deal with you, Robert Townsend, as I desire—and even then, heaven help me, I would not do it!" Mrs. Hardress sat down upon the divan and laughed, but this time naturally. "So! it is done with? I have had my dismissal, and, in common justice, you ought to admit that I have ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... Tommy draw in his breath. With a shiver Smilax turned away. Better than we he understood what the old man had endured. Together we cut the pitiable victim down, carried him inside and laid him on a kind of divan. ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... turned our faces westward I saw across the way, on the inner side of the street, an open doorway, giving just a glimpse of some dark hangings, a brass lantern swinging from the roof, and a couple of men in flowing robes and turbans, lounging upon a divan within. ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... scattered upon barren and sterile soil, and unable to bear fruit. Oh, my friend, what unfortunate days of humiliation and disgrace are still in store for Germany! But let us not talk of this now, but of you. Come, let us seat ourselves side by side upon this divan. And now tell me of your successes and your glory. The report of it has reached me, and I have learned with unenvying delight with what enthusiasm the whole literary and political world of England has received you, and how the ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... chief, unfortunate Bencomo. As the fashionables came forth to walk and drive we passed the calvario and the place leading to the Villa Orotava, and found quarters in the fonda of D. Jose Gobea. The sala, or chief room, some 30 feet long, wanted only an Eastern divan round the walls; it was easily converted into a tolerable place of bivouac, and here we resolved to try country life for ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... On a divan of silken cushions in the guest chamber of a house in the city of Adrianople, a woman lay, still and straight. Midnight was long past. Outside, the hot wind could be heard every now and then, listlessly flapping the carved ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... he turned and saw her breathing deeply with closed eyes. It seemed only humane to care for Sorez. On the first floor he found a divan and, with the help of the soldiers, arranged him upon this, where he, too, ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... and saw a room unfamiliar, yet already hated. It was a small, but beautiful room, the walls covered with Moorish work, such as I had seen at the Alhambra. I lay on a divan-bed, in an alcove without windows; but in the room beyond, I saw one with a dainty filigree frame, supported by a marble pillar. There was also an archway, from which a curtain was pushed aside, and I could see the end of ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... flowing sleeves; a brilliant-colored shawl envelops the waist, and huge folds of Turkish trousers extend to the knee; the leg is bare, and a yellow slipper finishes the fanciful costume. In the aft part of this caique is the space allotted for the 'fare,' a crimson-cushioned little divan[3] in the bottom of the boat, in which two persons can lounge comfortably. The finish of the caique is often extraordinary—finest fret-work and moulding, carved and modelled as for Cleopatra. The caiques ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... regretted and how much needed, how the partisans of England felt themselves deserted and abandoned by his withdrawal, and how gravely the best interests of Turkey itself were compromised for want of that statesmanlike intelligence that had up to this guided the counsels of the Divan: all these formed only a part of Atlee's task, for he wrote letters and leaders, in this sense, to all the great journals of London, Paris, and Vienna; so that when the Times and the Post asked the English people whether they were satisfied ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever |
