"Mantelpiece" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... after. The room is empty when the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces about, but stops short when he catches sight of a pot dog on the mantelpiece.] ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... him, and stood with her hand on the mantelpiece. She did not laugh, she did not even smile, but there was in her the deep and quiet ecstasy that causes the thorn to blossom in beauty after a winter of reserve. It seemed to him that she was swaying as a ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... wrote to Owen explaining the whole matter. It was too late in the evening for the postman's visit, and she placed the letter on the mantelpiece to send it ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... with all the other worlds and cycles, they had a very human awe of things sent from ghostland. They met in Lone Sahib's room in shrouded and sepulchral gloom, and their conclave was broken up by a clinking among the photo frames on the mantelpiece. A wee white kitten, nearly blind, was looping and writhing itself between the clock and the candlesticks. That stopped all investigations or doubtings. Here was the manifestation in the flesh. It was, so far as could be seen, ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... large gilt frames protected by shadow-boxes. In a corner was a cabinet of gilt and glass, filled with Dresden-china figurines and toy tables and a carven Swiss musical powder-box. The fireplace was of smooth, chilly white marble, with an ormolu clock on the mantelpiece, and a fire-screen painted with Watteau shepherds and shepherdesses, making silken unreal love and scandalously neglecting silky unreal sheep. By the hearth were shiny fire-irons which looked as though ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... of the library Suzanna hesitated a moment, for the sound of voices came to her. Then she went forward, and there, standing near the white marble mantelpiece was the Eagle Man, near him ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... race-horses, and hunted regularly both with the Kildare and Wicklow hunts; and rode on his grey horse Endymion that famous match against Captain Punter, which is still remembered by lovers of the sport, and of which I caused a splendid picture to be made and hung over my dining-hall mantelpiece at Castle Lyndon. A year afterwards he had the honour of riding that very horse Endymion before his late Majesty King George II. at New-market, and won the plate there and the attention ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... their mark behind them still surviving in the town. Near the junction of East Street with South Street there still exists at the back of the second shop, in the former street (a repository for fancy needlework), a room lined with good oak wainscoting, with finely carved mantelpiece, over which is an inscription, richly carved in relief, with the letters "Ao Di" to the left, and to the right the date "1573;" while above, in the centre, are the initials "J H" and "M H;" separated by a floriated cross and encircled by a wreath. This would doubtless be John Hamerton and ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... decently but not richly furnished room, belonging to MARGARET. Table, small writing-desk, chairs, a cupboard, two windows up stage, doors right and left. At rise of curtain, CLEMENT is discovered leaning against mantelpiece, in a very elegant dark gray morning suit, smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper. MARGARET stands by window, then walks up and down, finally comes behind CLEMENT and runs her hands through his hair. She seems rather ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... before a desk littered all over with papers and official looking documents. The walls of the room were lined with shelves, on which were glass jars, retorts, countless bottles and many appliances of surgical science. A skeleton was propped against the mantelpiece. The atmosphere seemed heavy with the ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... am afraid that Blenavon must have been a very depressing companion!" she said, leaning her elbow upon the broad mantelpiece. ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... wax fruit under glass shades on rickety tables, crochet couvrettes over the back of almost every chair as well as on the sofa, and a wonderful festoon of green and yellow tissue paper round the glass above the mantelpiece. Mr. Yorke took Cecil in there while the cloth was being laid, but told him he never sat there, as there was not a single chair which would bear his weight, nor a table which did not creak when it ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... upstairs, and were ushered into the best room in the inn, where the officer received them lolling at his ease in an armchair, his feet on the mantelpiece, smoking a long porcelain pipe, and enveloped in a gorgeous dressing-gown, doubtless stolen from the deserted dwelling of some citizen destitute of taste in dress. He neither rose, greeted them, nor even glanced in their direction. He afforded a fine example of that insolence of bearing ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... she saw them. They were lofty, they were airy, they were light. There was not much furniture, but what there was was good—old carved armoires, solid divans and—joy of joys—in each room a carved oak, Seventeenth Century mantelpiece eight feet ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... given to umpire of commencement of any work or the placing of a mine. In event of no umpire being available, a folded note must be put on the mantelpiece when entrenchment is commenced, and opponent asked to open it when the trench is completed ...
— Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books • H. G. Wells
... We cannot but be despised. One comes abroad foredoomed to share the sentiment. This is your middle-class! What society can they move in, that sanctions a vulgarity so perplexing? They have the air of ornaments on a cottager's parlour mantelpiece.' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the district of Berwick-on-Tweed. Sutton was active during the Popish reaction then taking place in the north. He showed loyalty, valour, and wisdom, and was for this rewarded by being made Master General of the Ordnance in the north in 1569. Two cannons carved over the mantelpiece in the great hall still commemorate Sutton's work in this capacity. When the country became quiet Sutton embarked upon mercantile pursuits. He leased lands from the Bishop of Durham and from the Crown, on which were rich and undeveloped coal mines. ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... dark red, the curtains dark red, the carpet, eiderdown, rep cover of the armchair, plush on the photograph frames, embroidered mats upon the washstand, tiles upon the stove, everything a deep, dark red. Four mugs stood upon the mantelpiece, and ... she rubbed her eyes ... was it possible that one had an iron cross upon its porcelain, one the legend "Got mit uns," the third the head of the Kaiser, the fourth the head of the Kaiserin? "That is too much! The people I shall write ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... lady's boudoir beautifully furnished and filled with works of art; china, choice pictures, and old silver abounded on every side; on the hearth burned a bright fire; on the mantelpiece was a very handsome looking-glass framed in oak. My companion, having lit six candles, went to the windows to draw down the blinds. I interposed and saved her this exertion by ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... fingers at the fire my eyes were arrested by a beautiful portrait hanging above the mantelpiece. It represented a lovely girl in the prime of youth and beauty, and attired ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... am speaking, you mean. But that is different. I am always afraid to speak, but I dare write anything. The subject is closed now, however. I shall write no more." She advanced listlessly, and leaned against the mantelpiece close beside the couch on which her ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... almost beside himself; he did not know what to say; he stood up, and leaned his elbow on the mantelpiece, supporting his ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... First Lieutenant Leimann stood ready with their violins, while Lieutenant Bleibtreu, the violoncello pressed between the knees, occupied the rear. The auditors, at least the majority of them, were comfortably ensconced in chairs or sofas, near the mantelpiece, and around a table on which a small battery of beer mugs, steins, and tankards ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... as the wondering flunky turned toward the telephone, he sprang up the stairs, threw open the library door and entered. The electric lights were blazing in the heat and silence of the closed room. The odor of violets hung reminiscent in the stale air. The panel by the mantelpiece was thrust back, and the door of the safe, so uselessly concealed, hung open, revealing the empty shelves within and the deep shadow of the inner compartment. He saw it all in a flash of understanding; the frantic woman's rush to the place of concealment,—the ravaged hiding place. What ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... rose and went to the mantelpiece and took one book from the heap of books there. She opened it and glanced abstractedly through the leaves as they flittered under ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... prints upon the walls. Over the fireplace, in a small, square case, a brown medal caught her eye, hanging from a strip of purple ribbon. Beneath was a slip of newspaper cutting. She stood on her tiptoes, with her fingers on the edge of the mantelpiece, and craned her neck up to see it, glancing down from time to time at the bacon which simmered and hissed beneath her. The cutting was yellow with age, and ran ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... notch with his knife in the oaken doorpost. Ten years went by, still more years, and still no notch was cut. Odd things happen in odd places. There is a story of an old mansion where a powerful modern stove was put in an ancient hearth under a mantelpiece supported by carved oak figures of knights. The unwonted heat roasted the toes of these martyrs till their feet fell off. Another story relates how in our grandfathers' days a great man invited his friends to dinner, promising them a new dish that had never before been set upon ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... about her at the gilt-framed glass over the mantelpiece, the table, the five chairs (including one arm), the sofa and the chiffonnier, which was pretty well all the furniture that the room contained. The remains of a fire untidied the grate; the flimsiest curtains were hung before ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... hadn't." Max leaned against the mantelpiece and smoked, with his face to the ceiling. "I knew you were a species of deity of course. I've been told that several times. And I humbly beg ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... pictures I do not always agree with Sir Howard, but his decorative taste is very good, and the things he has picked up in all parts of the world are delightful. "Et ego, etc." We have things and things as it is, and shall pick up more! He is so very ingenious, and has made a dado over the mantelpiece, with a white or coloured border on which he puts pictures and photographs; in the centre is a square of coloured material with other things mounted on it. I foresee making a similar design for our Malta mantelpiece, with a gold Maltese ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... vaguely turned toward the hearth on which the fire was dying, and beside the upright of the large sculptured mantelpiece she beheld for a moment a tiny shoe, belonging to the child which she loved to see in her dreams. Then the vision vanished, and there was nothing left but the lonely hearth. A sharp pain tore her swollen heart; a sob rose to her lips, ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... commercial traveller and is often away, sometimes for a month or six weeks together," and the gossiping woman was beginning a long and incoherent story when the stranger interrupted her, pointing to a silver-framed photograph of a young woman he had noticed on the mantelpiece. ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... with queer names, if there had not been trouble of some kind in his zenana, and nowhere else. But this is beside the story. The facts of the case are these: Pack called on Churton next day when Churton was out, left his card, and STOLE the Bisara of Pooree from its place under the clock on the mantelpiece! Stole it like the thief he was by nature. Three days later, all Simla was electrified by the news that Miss Hollis had accepted Pack—the shrivelled rat, Pack! Do you desire clearer evidence than this? The Bisara of Pooree had been stolen, and it worked as it ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... hair with his hand and smoked furiously. George Featherly, standing with his back to the mantelpiece, smiled unkindly. ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... sitting room. A table in the centre. On it a telephone. Two chairs at it, opposite one another. Behind it, the door. The fireplace has a mirror in the mantelpiece. ...
— The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw
... Fire break out in the Kitchen Chimney, or any other, a blanket wetted should be nailed to the upper ends of the mantelpiece, so as to cover the opening entirely; the fire will then go out of itself: for this purpose two knobs should be permanently fixed in the upper ends of the mantelpiece, on which the blanket ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... my business, and then you can settle yours." He had seated himself in a chair, but he got up, shook himself, and walked around the room nervously. The lithograph of a popular burlesque actress stared brazenly at him from the mantelpiece. He took this remarkable work of art, folded it across the middle, and threw it into the grate. "I've had more trouble than enough," he went on, "and if I hadn't met you to-day I intended to hunt ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... too much absorbed in it to look up at her; but if he had done so, he would have been startled by the fearful capacity of passion which changed, for the moment, that gay Queen Whims into a terrible Roxana, as she stood, leaning against the mantelpiece, but drawn up to her full height, her lips tight shut, eyes which gazed through and through him in awful scrutiny, holding her very breath, while a nervous clutching of the little hand said, "If ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... a clock upon the mantelpiece chimed the half-hour, and the laugh snapped off short. The next moment the man had Lyveden's arm in a ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... opened neatly, to permit the elegant but dusty figure of Carlos Hernando, Duke of Alva, to step to the mantelpiece and leap ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... roses; opposite to Mrs. Gaddesden the wall was divided between a round mirror, in whose depths she saw herself reflected and a fine Holbein portrait of a man, in a flat velvet hat on a green background. Over the carved mantelpiece with its date of 1586, there reigned a Romney portrait—one of the most famous in existence—of a young girl in black. Elizabeth Merton bore a curious resemblance to it. Chrysanthemums, white, yellow and purple, gleamed amid the richness of the room; ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... suggested the idea of "Paradise Regained," and that the draft of the latter poem was written upon a great oak table which may be seen in one of the low-pitched rooms on the ground floor. I fancy that Milton must have beautified and repaired the cottage at the period of his tenancy. The mantelpiece with its classic ogee moulding belongs certainly to his day, and some other minor details may also be noticed which support this inference. It is not difficult to imagine that one who was accustomed to metropolitan comforts would be dissatisfied with the open hearth common to country ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... landlady raised her watery and dejected eyes. "If you wouldn't mind taking every single one of those knick-knacks off the mantelpiece and putting them away on the top ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... dollars won't—won't be needed?" I asked with a contemptible feeling of disappointment that the Byrds had got so rich before I had been able to do this one thing for them. I looked up at old Grandmother Byrd over the mantelpiece and said in my ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... desire it. It has been very neatly executed on a letter sheet, by a very deserving printer, who attends upon my ministry, and is a creditable specimen of the typographic art. I have one hung over my mantelpiece in a neat frame, where it makes a beautiful and appropriate ornament, and balances the profile of Mrs. W., cut with her toes by the young lady born ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... sister and I should stay, and why in the world we had ever left our cozy little flat to enter this desolation of riches and false luxury at all. The unsightly picture of the late Samuel Franklyn, Esq., stared down upon me from the farther end of the room above the mighty mantelpiece. ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... key of the bag, locked it, and set it aside on the mantelpiece. Then he went over to the suit-case lying on the bench at the foot of the bed, closed and locked it, and dropped the bunch of keys in his pocket. And just then Dr. Lydenberg came back, dressed, and on his ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... a dim light. Trefoils of carved wood adorned the upper portions of the doors. Behind a balustrade, three purple mattresses formed a divan; and the stem of a narghileh made of platinum lay on top of it. Instead of a mirror, there was on the mantelpiece a pyramid-shaped whatnot, displaying on its shelves an entire collection of curiosities, old silver trumpets, Bohemian horns, jewelled clasps, jade studs, enamels, grotesque figures in china, and a little Byzantine virgin with a vermilion ape; and all this was ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... very pleasant apartment, decorated extensively with evidences of Harry's athletic tastes. There were boxing-gloves, fencing-foils, dumb-bells, and other aids to muscular exertion; silver cups won at college sports were ranged on the mantelpiece; on one wall hung a selection of savage weapons which Harry had brought from Africa and the South Seas; on the other, a hunting trophy of whip, spurs, cap and fox's brush was arranged; and pictures of celebrated horses and ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... a fair start. I can see him now, how he used to be standing there by the fireplace when we came out o' the two bedrooms early in the morning, an' he always made out, poor's he was, to give us some little present, and he 'd heap 'em up on the corner o' the mantelpiece, an' we 'd stand front of him in a row, and mother be bustling about gettin' breakfast. One year he give me a beautiful copy o' the 'Life o' General Lafayette,' in a green cover,—I 've got it now, but we child'n 'bout read it to pieces,—an' ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... into a dingy sitting-room at the back of the house, neatly furnished but depressing. Books stood in a row upon the mantelpiece. The fire had evidently just been lit. It smoked in ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... great astonishment of Janet, she sat down to divert her mind from trouble by Patience. As if to reward her for her stubborn fortitude, the malignity of the cards relented, and she brought out an intricate matter three times running. The clock on her mantelpiece chiming a quarter to eight, surprised her with the lateness of the hour, and recalled to her with a stab of pain that it was dinner-time at Mr. Wyse's, and at this moment some seven pairs of eager feet were approaching the door. Well, she was dining at a quarter ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... at No. 92a, Porchester Square, Bayswater. Rhubarb-green and gilt paper, with dark olive dado: curtains of a nondescript brown. Black marble clock on grey granite mantelpiece; Landseer engravings; tall book-case, containing volumes of "The Quiver," "Mission-Work in Mesopotamia," a cheap Encyclopedia, and the "Popular History of Europe." Time, about 9:45. Mr. MONTAGUE TIDMARSH is leaving to catch his omnibus. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various
... small bedroom, little more than an alcove, and the gaze of the apparition was fixed on this doorway. I closed the door behind me and locked it, and then stood still. In the looking-glass over the mantelpiece I saw a drawn, pale, agitated face, in which all the trouble in the world seemed to reside; it was my own face. I was alone in the room with the ghost—the ghost which, jealous of my love for the woman it had loved, meant to revenge itself by ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... Graham's, and as she went in, leaving the door open, Horace, who had followed her without any very definite purpose, looked in. It was a tolerably large room, with a door to the left opening into a smaller apartment, Utrecht velvet chairs and sofa, a mantelpiece also covered with velvet, on which stood a clock, a tall looking-glass, and two lighted wax candles; a table in the middle with some packs of cards, and a liqueur bottle and glasses, and a bed on one side opposite the fireplace. The window looked on to a side street, noisy with the incessant ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... a designing villain, Mary. While you were telling that story last night, you will remember that I walked about the room. One of your rings was on the mantelpiece and I ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... yesterday the kindly faces and cheerful voices that smiled upon and greeted me as I ran in from the wards to take a few moments' rest. I had collected and kept on the shelves in my office a great many books for the use of convalescents, who were my most constant visitors. The mantelpiece was decorated with articles of curious workmanship and miracles of beautiful carving (the gifts of my patients), variously inscribed. There were cups and saucers, with vines running over and around them, boxes which simulated books, paper-cutters, also rings made of gutta-percha buttons, ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... "take away those knick-knacks on the mantelpiece; leave only the clock and the two Dresden vases. I'll fill those vases myself with the flowers Corentin brought me. Take out the chairs, I want only this sofa and a fauteuil. Then sweep the carpet, so as to bring out the colors, ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... court, and he saw that the smoke came from a great flame of papers burning in a bowl when he entered the Chaplain's room. After giving a hasty greeting and blessing to the lad, who was charmed to see his tutor, the Father continued the burning of his papers, drawing them from a cupboard over the mantelpiece wall, which Harry had never ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Terry were with her. It was in her hospital that Terry met Braithwaite. She passed me yesterday, driving with the Queen in the Park; not that I noticed her. It was Terry who did that." He came slowly over from the window to the fireplace and stood gazing level with the picture above the mantelpiece. He spoke wonderingly, "The most beautiful woman in England, they say! So ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... his nest under the eaves. As the summer wore on, he grew quite tame. And when summer waned, and the other swallows flew away, this one lingered, day after day, fluttering dubiously over the threshold of the cottage. Presently, as the air grew chilly, he built a new nest for himself, under the mantelpiece in my friend's study. And every morning, so soon as the fire burned brightly, he would flutter down to perch on the fender and bask in the light and warmth of the coals. But after a few weeks he began to ail; possibly because the study was a small one, and ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... to the photograph of his painting of Lion's Head which hung over the mantelpiece, in what he felt to be the place of the greatest honor in the whole house, and a sudden fear came upon him that perhaps Jeff had developed an artistic talent in the belief of his family. But he waited ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... from a musk-rat or one of the other numerous rent-free tenants of every Indian bungalow, paid little heed to them. When, however, the same sounds were heard some hours later and appeared to emanate from the mantelpiece, he went to the bowl, and, lo and behold, two young egrets had emerged! These were at once fed. They lived for three days and appeared to be in good health, when they ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... young man, with a little bit of fair moustache and still less chin, no practice to speak of, and a considerable quantity of unpaid bills. A man of such features and in such circumstances invites temptation. At the present moment, though his waistcoat was unbuttoned and his feet rested on the mantelpiece, his mind seemed not quite at ease. He looked back upon a number of fortunate events that had not occurred, and forward to various unpleasant things that might occur, and then he took a letter from his pocket and read ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... over the mantelpiece showed that it was a quarter-past ten, although I had thought it considerably later. As Patch followed me into the room, leaving damp footmarks on the clean linoleum, a short thin-faced woman, with fair hair drawn very tightly ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... had a round table and two low chairs. There were yellow flags in a jar on the mantelpiece; a photograph of his mother; cards from societies with little raised crescents, coats of arms, and initials; notes and pipes; on the table lay paper ruled with a red margin—an essay, no doubt—"Does History consist of the Biographies of Great Men?" There were ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... almost up to the top of the wall. The young girl had never dreamed that her captain was much of a student. The only things that reminded her of Captain Jules were the fishnets that were hung at the windows for curtains and the great sprays of coral and sponge which decorated the mantelpiece. ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... could be prevailed upon to unfold the secrets of his prison-house, but they were finally extorted. It seemed, that up stairs, on a level with the haunted chamber, was a closet, immediately back of the fire-place with the carved oaken mantelpiece, once side of which, it will be remembered, was at least two feet wide; and its curious carvings were so adroitly made as to conceal the cracks of that part which opened as a door: this, if even left ajar, would still be in shadow from ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... against the adjoining property. Handsomely hung with chintz, furnished with rosewood, and thickly carpeted, they proclaimed themselves as belonging to a pretty woman—and indeed suggested the kept mistress. A clock in the fashionable style stood on the velvet-covered mantelpiece. There was a nicely fitted cabinet, and the Chinese flower-stands were handsomely filled. The bed, the toilet-table, the wardrobe with its mirror, the little sofa, and all the lady's frippery bore the stamp of fashion or caprice. Though everything was quite third-rate as to elegance or quality, ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... of spacious civilian beds, we used as a mess, and the colonel and the adjutant slept there. The only wall decorations were two "samplers" executed by a small daughter of the house, a school certificate in a plain frame, and a couple of gaudy-tinselled religious pictures. A pair of pot dogs on the mantelpiece were as stupidly ugly as some of our own mid-Victorian cottage treasures. And there were the usual glass-covered orange blossoms mounted on red plush and gilt leaves—the wedding custom traditional to the country districts of Northern France. The inner door ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... another silence. The clock ticked away energetically on the mantelpiece, as if glad to make itself heard at last. Outside, a plaintive snuffle made itself heard. John, the bull-dog, Mike's inseparable companion, who had followed him to the study, was getting tired of waiting ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... curate's visit, Mrs Clinton tidied the house and adorned herself. It has been said that she was a woman of taste, and so she was. The mantelpiece and looking glass were artistically draped with green muslin, and this she proceeded to arrange, tying and carefully forming the yellow satin ribbon with which it was relieved. The chairs were covered with cretonne which might have come from the Tottenham ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... of the leaves of trees through a small uncovered part at the side. For some time I felt uneasy and anxious, my spirits being in a strange fluttering state. At last my eyes fell upon a small row of tea-cups, seemingly of china, which stood on a mantelpiece exactly fronting the bottom of the bed. The sight of these objects, I know not why, soothed and pacified me; I kept my eyes fixed upon them, as I lay on my back on the bed, with my head upon the pillow, till at last I fell into a calm ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... of their chairs. They spoke with a faded propriety, dropped their final "g's," and specialised in the abbreviation "ain't." They stayed for a quarter of an hour exactly by the French clock on the mantelpiece, contriving, in this calculated period, to make it quite clear that they were on terms of intimacy with the Halbertons, and they invariably finished by inviting ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... eight inches; left-hand brass, seven inches; carved-wood—Italian—five and three quarter inches each; old glass on mantelpiece—seven inches. And below this, dated the third: Last night, between midnight and daylight, the candle in the glass holder on the right side of the mantel was burned down one and ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... knocked out his pipe, and chose a fresh one from the mantelpiece. "You'll make quite a good story of that, Roddy," he said, "with a little practice. But, as I don't work among lunatics, what's ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... shut my eyes I can see them now, for all it is so long ago. The long, low, poorly-furnished room, badly lighted by one colza oil lamp, the head of a dingo and two brushes crossed, over the mantelpiece, the only attempt at ornament, and the two men seated at the table, the decanter between them, gambling away my life and happiness. Maybe it was only in jest; I try to think so now, but the consequences were so fatal, there must have been just a spice of ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... moment the bell tinkled, and the maid came running up. She carried a jug of hot water and flannels in her hand, and pushing past him she declared that she hadn't a moment. The door of the bedroom was ajar; a fire burned, candles flared on the mantelpiece, a basin stood on the floor, and at times nothing was heard but a long moan, mingling with the murmuring voices ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... Rory, with subdued exultation. "Here, jewel," he continued, handing her a pencil from the mantelpiece—"write yer name nately on that paper, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... broke in upon the last five pound note of his savings. He realized the position without any actual misgivings. He denied himself regretfully a tiny mezzotint of the Raphael "Madonna," which he coveted for his mantelpiece. He also denied himself dinner for several evenings. When fortune knocked at his door he was, in fact, extraordinarily hungry. He still had faith, notwithstanding his difficulties, and no symptoms of dejection. He was perfectly well aware that this need for food was, after all, one of the ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... times, when he had been provoking or obtuse, so shook with hysterical anger, born of the inevitable days in his society and in the kitchen, that she could have thrown at him the battered pot which she carried, or could have pushed him passionately against the mantelpiece in her fierce hatred of his helplessness and his occasional perverse stupidity. He was rarely stupid with Jenny, ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... GAUDENS, - This is to tell you that the medallion has been at last triumphantly transported up the hill and placed over my smoking-room mantelpiece. It is considered by everybody a first-rate but flattering portrait. We have it in a very good light, which brings out the artistic merits of the god-like sculptor to great advantage. As for my own opinion, ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... matter of old Horace MacNair's coming in on them once during a thunder-storm. The family were sitting in the big hall; the ladies with their feet up on chairs to insulate them from the lightning; young Vincent Ezekiel teasing them by putting his on the mantelpiece. At one point in the storm came a terrible crash, and Auber jumped up, starting toward the door. Then he came back and sat down quietly. They laughed, and asked if he had ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... highness, and with unlooked-for sympathy,' returned the young man. 'I know not how to tell the change that has befallen me. You have, I must suppose, a charm, to which even your enemies are subject.' He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and visibly blanched. 'So late!' he cried. 'Your highness—God knows I am now speaking from the heart—before it be ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... I have crept gasping to bed, and shivered for hours with my head under the clothes, after an evening spent in listening to this authentic and fantastic family tale. How the candlesticks walked out into the air from the mantelpiece, and back again; how the chairs of skeptical visitors collected from all parts of the country to study what one had hardly then begun to call the "phenomena" at the parsonage at Stratford, Connecticut, hopped after the guests when they ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... center of the room, monopolized most of the little space there was. At the foot of the bed, a small table, covered with a soiled and ink-stained cloth, was heaped with newspapers and magazines; on the right, facing the door, leading to the hall outside, an old-style mantelpiece surmounted a rusty fireplace. A single arm gas jet served for illuminating purposes, and in a little alcove stood a table with a small gas stove connected by rubber tubing with a gas fixture. There were two windows in the room, opening outward ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... came crawling on all fours over the doorstep. Once inside, he stumbled to his feet and moved with great difficulty towards the fireplace, where he clung with both hands to the mantelpiece, swaying to and fro and groaning pitifully the while. He collapsed just as Maren came in from the kitchen, she ran to him, got off his clothes and put ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... was furnished with an eye to artistic effect, the walls were decorated with good taste. The furniture was new, as well as pretty. One beautiful photogravure from Burne Jones' "Wheel of Fortune" was hung over the mantelpiece. Hilda and Quentyns, faithfully represented by an Italian photographer, stood side by side in a little frame on one of the brackets. Mildred felt herself drawing one or ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... one room was a little loft, my bedroom for fourteen years. The cottage floor was hard, dried mud. There was a wide, open fireplace. Several holes made in the wall by displacing of bricks here and there contained my father's old pipes. A few ornaments, yellow with the smoke of years, adorned the mantelpiece. At the front window sat my father, and around him his shoemaking tools. Beside the window hung a large cage, made by his own hands, and in which singing thrushes had succeeded one another for twenty years. The walls were whitewashed. There was a little partition that screened the work-bench ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... clock on the mantelpiece was striking twelve. "You get to bed, boy!" he said. "I don't want anything to eat, thanks all the same." He paused a moment, then held out ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... jump, and bumped his head on the mantelpiece, and this so startled him that he dropped Mrs. Longtail, and she scampered off down in a deep, dark hole and hid safely away. Then the cat saw Mrs. No-Tail pouring water from the can, and he ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... it to Mrs. Burrell in the afternoon, for the morning was his time for study and writing. But he found it impossible to think of his sermon. That sovereign on the mantelpiece was in all his thoughts. His back was to it, and yet he saw the dull shining disc. In spite of his reason and his faith, in spite of a very strong will and of a practiced command over himself, he felt the presence of the ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... the great mantelpiece, and in it hung Regnault's famous picture, "The Dancer," all scarlet frock and white flesh against an ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... too high, hissed up into a long tongue of flame. The fire smoked feebly under a newly administered shovelful of 'slack', and a heap of ashes and cinders littered the grate. A pair of walking boots, caked in dry mud, lay on the hearth-rug just where they had been thrown off. On the mantelpiece, amidst a dozen other articles which had no business there, was a bedroom-candlestick; and every single article of furniture stood crookedly out of ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... the room: he remained there for some minutes, leaning on the mantelpiece, and then rushed into the park. He hurried for some distance with the rapid and uncertain step which betokens a tumultuous and disordered mind. At length he found himself among the ruins of Dacre ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... his shoulder against the mantelpiece, listening in a half-hearted way to his sisters' conversation. With a heavy jerk he threw himself upright and slowly crossed the room. He stood for some moments immediately behind Hilda without touching ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... lovely presents," returned Dick, becoming rather incoherent and red at the sight of Nan's blush. "It was so awfully good of you all, to work all those things for me;" for Nan had taken secret measurements in Dick's room, and had embroidered a most exquisite mantelpiece valance, and Phillis and Dulce had worked the corners of a green cloth with wonderful daffodils and bulrushes to cover Dick's shabby table: and Dick's soul had been filled with ravishment at the sight ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... loyalist concluded his narrative the enthusiasm which had been fitfully flashing within his sunken eyes and quivering across his wrinkled visage faded away, as if all the lingering fire of his soul were extinguished. Just then, too, a lamp upon the mantelpiece threw out a dying gleam, which vanished as speedily as it shot upward, compelling our eyes to grope for one another's features by the dim glow of the hearth. With such a lingering fire, methought, with such a dying gleam, had the glory of the ancient ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... really civilised, we are impatient of irrelevance even in dress. Du Maurier was never for a moment conscious that there was in all the rigmarole of Victorian costume and decoration anything redundant. He seemed to take, in decoration for instance, the draped mantelpiece with its bows of ribbons, and pinned fans quite as seriously as Velasquez took the hooped skirt in costume. Artifice is fascinating in those with whom it is natural to be artificial. When du Maurier thought ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... pipe in the usual way and I looked for the match-box with glances distraught indeed, but exhibiting, I am ready to swear, no signs of a fine frenzy. I was composed enough to perceive after some considerable time the match-box lying there on the mantelpiece right under my nose. And all this was beautifully and safely usual. Before I had thrown down the match my landlady's daughter appeared with her calm, pale face and an inquisitive look, in the doorway. Of late it was the landlady's daughter who answered my bell. I mention this little ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... always took after leaving the mont-de-piete, with a feeling of irritation towards things in general, this feeling was not diminished by the sight of Mr Vince, very much at his ease, standing against the mantelpiece ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... premonition of danger, Dundee crossed the room to the shelf, but his hand did not reach out for the red book, which might have been expected to solve one problem, at least. "Why the shelf?" he asked himself again. Why not the desk top, or the mantelpiece, or the smoking table beside the ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... never presented a greater contrast than the Anderson girls. Dona, at thirteen, was a shy, retiring, amiable little person, with an unashamed weakness for golliwogs and Teddy bears, specimens of which, in various sizes, decorated the mantelpiece of her bedroom. She was accustomed to give way, under plaintive protest, to Marjorie's masterful disposition, and, as a rule, played second fiddle with a good grace. She was not at all clever or imaginative, ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... candle; then dropped it, and lighted a lamp which was on the mantelpiece between his vases of blue glass. His movements were very slow, hesitating and clumsy. Blowing out the candle, which smoked for a long time, he went with the lamp to the bookcase. As the key of the bookcase was in his right pocket and the lamp in his right hand he had to change ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... the hands of the clock on the mantelpiece neared midnight, Miss Pett suddenly moved. Her sharp ears caught a scratching sound on the shutter outside the window. And noiselessly she moved down the passage, and noiselessly unbarred the front door, and just as noiselessly closed ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... your business doubtless concerns me, pray, begin;" and Fitzgerald leaned against the mantelpiece and fumbled with the rim of ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... beneath the great carved mantelpiece. Over his head, hewn out of the solid oak, black with age and coloured with that deep richness which is to-day as a lost art, were blazoned the arms of one of Europe's noblest families. He, Nicholas ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... doors and a fireplace, and its chief glory was a portrait of Dr. Chalmers, whose face, dimly seen in the light of the lamp, was a charter of authority, and raised the proceedings to the level of history. Lockers on either side of the mantelpiece contained the church library, which abounded in the lives of Scottish worthies, and was never lightly disturbed. Where there was neither grate nor door, a narrow board ran along the wall, on which it was simply a point of honour to seat the twelve ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... he pointed his finger to a letter lying on the mantelpiece. I arose and picked it up. It bore Cynthia's ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... gone against her, but she had somehow always contrived to save her baggage train, and her complacent gaze could roam over object after object that represented the spoils of victory or the salvage of honourable defeat. The delicious bronze Fremiet on the mantelpiece had been the outcome of a Grand Prix sweepstake of many years ago; a group of Dresden figures of some considerable value had been bequeathed to her by a discreet admirer, who had added death to his other kindnesses; another group had been a self-bestowed present, purchased in blessed and unfading ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... girl repeats, starting up and standing upright, with one elbow just touching the mantelpiece, and the firelight flooding her figure from the slim waist downwards. "What amusement does a woman want if she is in love with the man she is living with? The man himself is her amusement! To watch ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... clock was a figure of a woman, with what papa said was the cap of Liberty on her head. I didn't think it very becoming myself, but papa said it was historical, so I suppose it is all right. Parker unpacked it, and papa put it on the mantelpiece in the library, and we were all sitting there on Friday morning, when just as the clock struck twelve, we heard a whirring noise, a little puff of smoke came from the pedestal of the figure, and ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... is by way of thanks for my having driven the pigs from the garden, that I find a great bunch of dahlias adorning my mantelpiece. A brown earthen pitcher! And in the middle of the dahlias, a magnificent sunflower! It must be my aunt's doing, and its very homeliness pleases me, just as I love her homely sincerity of affection. Who arranges the glasses in the parlor? Etty, I would not fear to affirm, from the asters ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... was a piece of scribbling paper, yellow and shining like the sun. He put it on the mantelpiece in the drawing-room and glanced at it. Heading the list was a woman's name: "Alice," the most beautiful name in the world, as it had seemed to him then, for it was the name of his fiancee. Next to the name was a ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... chamber set apart for music practice, the only furniture it contained being a piano, a chair, some fiddle-cases, and music-stands, while on the mantelpiece, in the place of a clock, was a metronome that had something wrong with the works. Jack, however, had no eye for these details; his attention was centred in a group of boys who were struggling under the single gas-jet, which was flaring away in a manner which showed it had evidently been turned ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... was on the mantelpiece. It was the next afternoon. I had called upon him in his chambers. It was just an idea that came to me. I crossed over and opened it, and there was his name, "Ellenby and Co., Ships' Furnishers," in ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... risen to her feet. She was standing now before the fire, her left elbow resting upon the mantelpiece, a trifle of silver ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... habit. Everything necessary was to be found there,—large brass bedsteads with snowy coverings, all the modern contrivances for the toilet, chests of drawers, each surmounted by a bright looking-glass; even a number of tiny and curious gimcracks ornamented the narrow mantelpiece; but to a French eye the absence of curtains to the bed, and the unconcealed display of washing utensils, suggested a cabinet de toilette rather than a bedroom. This simplicity has now become quite fashionable among wealthy French people, on account of its healthiness: ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... seized his axe and threw it at the sparrow, but he only broke the window panes, and did not do the bird a bit of harm. She hopped in through the broken window and, perching on the mantelpiece, she called out; 'Yes, carter, it ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... of national characteristics, the German tendency to make love by crying (so he put it) as contrasted with the laughing philosophy of his own country. At the end he apologized for talking so much, and pointed out to me a photograph of Coralie that stood on the mantelpiece more than half-hidden by letters and papers, saying, "I suppose she set me off; somehow she seems to me a sort ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... you know, I mean," he explained with a comprehensive gesture. "These jolly portraits, and the books—that's the old gentleman himself over the mantelpiece, I suppose?—and the elms outside, and—and the whole business. I do like ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... mahogany chest of drawers against one wall and a rosewood piano against the wall opposite. A fender of shining brass with brazen furniture, a bright, copper kettle for boiling water in, and an iron pot for cooking potatoes and meat; there was to be a life-sized picture of Mary over the mantelpiece and a picture of her mother near the window in a golden frame, also a picture of a Newfoundland dog lying in a barrel and a little wee terrier crawling up to make friends with him, and a picture of a battle between ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... was panelled and furnished with the plainest wood. His bed was in the alcove at the back; the only ornament was the portrait of his wife, a dark, Italian-looking woman, which hung surrounded by guns, pistols, and swords, over the low stone mantelpiece. It was just midnight, but Monsieur Joseph was not in bed. He looked a quaint figure, in a dressing-gown and a tasselled night-cap, and he sat at the table writing a long letter. He started when Riette touched the door, and Angelot saw that his hand moved mechanically ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... whose card-rack or mantelpiece (I was going to say groans, but) laughingly rejoices in respectful well-worded invitations to luxuriously-appointed tables. I count not him, hapless wretch! as one who, singling out "a friend," drops in just at pudding-time, and ravens horrible remnants ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... tree with its roots in the inevitable "kings." Her particular kings were the "seven kings of France"—the "Milesian kings"—and the tree grew up a parchment, in all its impressive majesty, over the mantelpiece of their descendant's modest drawing-room. This heraldic monster was regarded with deep respect by child Emily, a respect in no wise deserved, I venture to suppose, by the disreputable royalties of whom she was a fortunately distant twig. Chased out of France, doubtless for cause ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... some old prints upon the wall. On the sideboard was a basket, as yet unpacked, filled with hothouse fruit, and on a low settee by the side of one of the easy-chairs were a little pile of reviews, several volumes of poetry, and a couple of library books. In the centre of the mantelpiece was a photograph, the photograph of a man a little older, perhaps, than this newly-arrived visitor, with rounder face, dressed in country tweeds, a flower in his buttonhole, the picture of a prosperous man, yet with a curious, almost disturbing ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... room and came over close to his side, resting her arm upon the mantelpiece. She was still wearing her walking-dress, prim and straight in its folds about her tall, graceful figure, and her hair, save for the slight waviness about the forehead, was plainly dressed. There were none of the cheap arts about her to which Trent had become accustomed in ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... threshold of the dining-room she stopped aghast. The walls had been distempered a particularly hideous drab; the curtains were mustard yellow; the carpet was a dull brown; the mottled marble mantelpiece, for which she had been intending to substitute one in walnut wood with tiles, still shone in slabs of petrified brawn; there was a huge mahogany sideboard of a kind she had only ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... trouble'—'Heaven send he'll listen to me!' There was something very like an oath from Bessie's lips. She was afraid of Dick, and disappeared down the staircase in panic, but it seemed an age before Torpenhow entered the studio. He went to the mantelpiece, buried his head on his arms, and groaned like a ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... with an expression of tolerant amusement—entirely forced—and stood by the fireplace. He stood beside it, with his elbow on the mantelpiece, not in front of it with his legs apart, and I thought with a pang how much more graceful the ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... church,—nor Aunt Emily. So I've quite got out of the way of going—nobody is very particular about it in Paris or London, you see. But perhaps I'll try and hear Mr. Walden preach—just once—and I'll tell you then what I think about it. I'll put his card on the mantelpiece to ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... on an empty stomach, and that led him to drink brandy and soda with his breakfast instead of sending for some more coffee. I've often seen this sort of thing before, sir, you see, and I've found the physic that will cure him on the mantelpiece. ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... of the delightful, gladsome-looking room. It was hung with a delicate, faded Chinese paper; and against the walls stood a few pieces of fine white lacquer furniture. The chairs were painted—some French, some Heppelwhite. Over the low mantelpiece was framed a long, narrow piece of ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... the mantelpiece ticked noisily, and the late afternoon sun that streamed in through the windows lighted into scarlet the crimson wall-paper and threw into prominence the posters tacked upon it. It was a cozy room with its deep rattan chairs and pillow-strewn couch. Snow-shoes, fencing ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... in the silence which followed, brooding over the room like a living presence, even the noises in the street had ceased, as though what he had said had been a spell cutting Sally and himself off from the outer world. Only the little clock on the mantelpiece ticked—ticked—ticked, like a ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... picture-book. Well, there I was lying, Miss Baker, with my little eyes wide open. It is astonishing how much babies see, though people never calculate on their having eyes at all. I was lying on my back, staring at the mantelpiece, on which my mother ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... present surroundings came back. He dropped with a dizzy rush from awful spaces ... and was aware that he was merely—standing on the black, woolly mat before the fire watching the movements of his new employer, that his pumps were bright and pointed, his head just level with a dark marble mantelpiece. Dazed, and a trifle breathless he felt; and at the back of his disordered mind stirred a schoolboy's memory that the Pythagoreans believed the universe to have been called out of chaos by Sound, Number, and Harmony—or something to that effect.... ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood |
