"Closet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and had already acquired the knack of spreading all she knew very thin, so that it might cover a vast surface. She had no ambition to write a good book, but was painfully anxious to write a book that the critics should say was good. Had Mr Broune, in his closet, told her that her book was absolutely trash, but had undertaken at the same time to have it violently praised in the 'Breakfast Table', it may be doubted whether the critic's own opinion would have even wounded her vanity. The woman was false ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... her coach, calling on Roger Pepys, and visiting Mrs. Creed, and my cosen Turner. Thus ended this month with very good content, but most expenseful to my purse on things of pleasure, having furnished my wife's closet and the best chamber, and a coach and horses, that ever I knew in the world; and I am put into the greatest condition of outward state that ever I was in, or hoped ever to be, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... full of wonder to the dark banister-stairs that led down to the quarters below. Her light feet were as still as a little mouse's in a cheese closet. Presently she ...
— Little Sky-High - The Surprising Doings of Washee-Washee-Wang • Hezekiah Butterworth
... was tempted to show the financial skeleton in the closet of wild-life protection, by inserting here a statement of the funds available to be expended by all the New York organizations during the campaign year of 1911-1912. But I cannot do it. The showing is too painful, too humiliating. From it our enemies would derive ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... and the whole on each, and each on each. All creatures are members of one body, and members one of another. The germ of the oak is in the acorn, but the acorn left to itself alone can never grow into the oak, any more than a body at rest can place itself in motion. Lay the acorn away in your closet, where it is absolutely deprived of air, heat, and moisture, and in vain will you watch for its germination. Germinate it cannot without some external influence, or communion, so to speak, with the elements from which it derives its ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... have we searched in the closet, where the headless dolls and tailless horses, the collapsed drum and the torn primer, are put away. We have privately climbed to the summit of the clothes-press, we have surreptitiously invaded the nurse's own private work-basket, lured by disappointing lumps of wax and fragments of rhubarb-root; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... ye, gentle Ladies, for your paine.— O Phoebus, wretched thou, thus art thou faine With forg'de excuses to conceale thy paine. O, Hyacinth, I suffer not these fits For thee, my Boy; no, no, another sits Deeper then thou in closet of my brest, Whose sight so late hath wrought me this unrest. And yet no Goddesse nor of heauenly kinde She is, whose beautie thus torments my minde; No Fayrie Nymph that haunts these pleasaunt ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... his mother, Roscoe took off Uncle Sam's service coat, put on a kitchen apron, and went into his little familiar dark closet ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... in his hand, to drink, saying, "This is Nero's distilled water." [629] Then his cloak having been torn by the brambles, he pulled out the thorns which stuck in it. At last, being admitted, creeping upon his hands and knees, through a hole made for him in the wall, he lay down in the first closet he came to, upon a miserable pallet, with an old coverlet thrown over it; and being both hungry and thirsty, though he refused some coarse bread that was brought him, he drank a ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... importance, their limitations, their possibilities, have never been demonstrated: no commanding intellectual authority has ever taken up the subject and worked it out before the eyes of the people as a problem of our national politics. It remains a question of the closet, a merely speculative proposition as to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... of this wireless outfit at present," he said, "and if you have a spare box and some nails, I will just nail these things up until I have time to set up the outfit." So the wireless instruments were safely boxed up and locked in a closet, along with Charley's rifle and fishing-rod. There was nothing in his remaining luggage that could be much harmed, even if the youngsters did get hold ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... I have them locked in a closet. We've got a very large closet with windows and other comforts. Usually there are three or four of 'em in at the same time, ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... small care of the staff of love and packet of marriage, seeing he did no otherwise arm that part of the body than with links of mail, advised him to shield, fence, and gabionate it with a big tilting helmet which she had lying in her closet, to her otherwise utterly unprofitable. On this lady were penned these subsequent verses, which are extant in the third book of the ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... late, having attended a banquet last night. After having my coffee and rolls in my bedroom, I went to my dressing-room to be shaved. As I did so, I paused for a moment, drew the snuff box from the pocket of my white evening waistcoat, which my valet had hung in a closet the night before, and took a pinch of snuff from it. I then replaced it in the pocket and entered the dressing-room adjoining, where Noel, my man, was waiting for me. He proceeded to shave me as usual, and I began to dress. Upon going to the closet in my bedroom to remove the box, and fasten ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... is a closet," answered the dame; "or if you like it, the general and admiral are both there fast asleep, but I am unwilling ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... Dolliver could nowise account for this happy condition of his spirits and physical energies, until he remembered taking an experimental sip of a certain cordial which was long ago prepared by his grandson, and carefully sealed up in a bottle, and had been reposited in a dark closet, among a parcel of effete medicines, ever since that gifted ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... blue brocaded satin is!" quoth Fanny, looking at one of Margaret's new gowns hanging in a closet. "Why didn't you wear it at the Watts' dinner yesterday? And your brown velvet—you've not had it on since it ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... contact, we thought that these two kinds of sensitiveness might be connected; but this is not necessarily the case, for the cotyledons of Oxalis sensitiva did not rise when kept on one occasion for 1 h., and on a second occasion for nearly 4 h., in a dark closet. Some other cotyledons, as those of Githago segetum, are much affected by a feeble light, but do not move when scratched by a needle. That with the same plant there is some relation between the sensitiveness of its cotyledons ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... Thug is up to," he said, crossed the room, drew back the drapery, and opened the door into the little closet where we ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... in his private closet there lay a picture which sometimes, as it were, despite himself, he took from its hiding-place to look upon; and when he found himself gazing at the wondrous face of storm, with its great stag's eyes, he knew that the mere sight waked ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... up all with a grin. But this nobody sees but himself. He grins when his daily work is done—when his allotted labors are accomplished—at night in his own closet, and altogether for his own private entertainment. He goes home. He locks his door. He divests himself of his clothes. He puts out his candle. He gets into bed. He places his head upon the pillow. All this done, and your diddler grins. This is no hypothesis. It is a matter of course. I reason a ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... that trick of blushing," thought Mary. At the end of the hall was a closet door with a mirror set in it. She caught sight of her own cheeks. "Oh, dear!" she breathed to herself. "I wonder if I'm catching ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... his arms Hilda lifted her face, her eyes shining at him through her tears. And her heart went out to him as never before. From that moment it was his, all his. "My love, my dear love," she said. She went to the closet and took out her hat. She put it on before the mirror over the mantelpiece. "I'm ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... not think the wrapper well enough. It was pretty, she knew, but not as pretty as the dresses she had seen hanging in Ethelyn's closet when she arranged the room that morning; so she said, hesitatingly: "I wish you wouldn't wear that down. You were so handsome yesterday in the black gown, with them red earrings and pin, and your hair brushed ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... heard at "DAVID BRUNGER (Clerks)" Mr. Issy Jago would slip through from "DAVID BRUNGER (Private)" to the tiny closet containing the cistern into which the door marked "DAVID BRUNGER (Clerks)" opened. Sliding through this door in such a manner as to give the client no glimpse of the interior, he would inform the visitor, with ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... pasted on the walls of Nicey's room. In one corner an enclosed staircase was cut off from the room by a door at the head of the third step; the space underneath the stair was in use as a closet. The marble topped bureau, two double beds, a couple of small tables, and some old chairs were all of a period prior to the current century. A pot of peas was perched on a pair of "firedogs" over the ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... most doleful breakdown"), which included Miss Twinkleton, the Landlesses, Rosa Bud, and Edwin Drood, as shown in the illustration, "At the Piano." The Reverend Septimus Crisparkle's mother, who is the hostess (and celebrated for her wonderful closet with stores of pickles, jams, biscuits, and cordials), is beautifully described in ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... Thompson, "this looks like persecution and very strong favoritism on the part of Miss Leece. A thing we wish to keep out of the school as much as possible. But what about this!" and she opened the door of the closet where the pumpkin face of the effigy grinned at them grotesquely from ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... moreover, there was a confessional—a little oaken structure, about as big as a sentry-box, with a closed part for the priest to sit in, and an open one for the penitent to kneel at, and speak through the open-work of the priest's closet. Monuments, mural and others, to long-departed worthies, and images of the Savior, the Virgin, and saints, were numerous everywhere about the church; and in the chancel there was a great deal of quaint and curious sculpture, fencing in the Holy of Holies, where ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... as I was thinking—for so I am pleased to call my muddy stirrings—what manner of essay I might write and how best to sort and lay out the rummage, it happened pat to my needs that I received from a friend a book entitled "The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened." Now, before it came I had got so far as to select a title. Indeed, I had written the title on seven different sheets of paper, each time in the hope that by the run of the words I might leap upon some further thought. Seven times ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... and with Sir W. Pen by coach to St. James's and there up to the Duke, and after he was ready to his closet, where most of our talke about a Dutch warr, and discoursing of things indeed now for it. The Duke, which gives me great good hopes, do talk of setting up a good discipline in the fleete. In the Duke's ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... a mad business. I've answered every letter—some that I've owed for years; I've put my bureau and chiffonier and closet in sickening order; I've mended every scrap of clothing I possess, reinforced all my buttons and run in miles of ribbon; I've visited the sick and even been to the dentist. I really ought to die just before I start a new piece of work. At no other time is my house of ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... went to stealing cats right off, and before night we had eleven cats caged. We had one in a canary bird cage, three in Pa's old hat boxes, three in Ma's band box, four in valises, two in a trunk, and the rest in a closet up stairs. ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... so good, nor do they convey half so good an idea of his power, as those reported by short-hand writers and published by others. He was more, and better, and mightier in the pulpit, before a large and living congregation, than in his closet alone. My remembrance of these three great and godly men, and powerful Christian ministers, is a rich and eternal treasure. I can never come near them, but I may follow them, as I did in the days of my ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... not stand high in the eyes of the scientific world—though the closet-systematist may affect to underrate their calling, I dare boldly affirm that the humblest of their class has done more service to the human race than even the great Linnaeus himself. They are, indeed, the botanists of true value, who have not only imparted to us a knowledge of the world's ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... confession of my resentment, but I could not leave the town, where for the honour of your conversation and friendship alone I have remained so long, without acquitting myself of those obligations I had to you; I send you therefore the key of my closet and cabinet, where you shall find not only your letters, but all those presents you have been pleased once to think me worthy of: but having taken back your friendship, I render you the less valuable trifles, and ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... one occupied by David Ball was empty and he slipped into this. The room contained a closet, and on the other side was another closet, opening into the room the men were in. The partition between was of boards, and as the other door stood wide open, Joe, by placing his head to the ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... around the centre-table and jags horrible hieroglyphics over the whole polished surface. The bookcase that we are trying to move tilts, and trembles, and goes over, and the old house through all her frame gives signs of woe. A crash detonate on the stairs brings me up from the depths of the closet where I am burrowing. I remember seeing Petronius disappear a moment ago with my lovely and beloved marble Hebe in his arms. I rush rampant to the upper landing in time to see him couchant on the lower. "I have broken ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... help came back to mind; it was evident something was wrong. I at once entered the open door into which the figure had passed, determined to do what I could to assist one in such unmistakable need of help. To my astonishment I found that the place was a mere housemaid's closet, for the keeping of brooms, dusting appliances, and the like. It was but a tiny room, too; a glance from the threshold was enough to convince me that no human ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... dead and forgotten wall that subdued him, but he was quite willing to take the old-fashioned chair on the terrace which she offered him, and follow her motions with not altogether mechanical eyes as she drew out certain bottles and glasses from a mysterious closet in the wall. Mr. Clinch had the weakness of a majority of his sex in believing that he was a good judge of wine and women. The latter, as shown in the specimen before him, he would have invoiced as a fair sample of the middle-class German woman,—healthy, comfort-loving, home-abiding, the very ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... invectives on his ministers, and laughed louder than the rest when Shaftesbury directed his coarsest taunts at the barrenness of the queen. Courtiers were entrusted with the secret "management" of the Commons; obstinate country gentlemen were brought to the Royal closet to kiss the king's hand and listen to the king's pleasant stories of his escape after Worcester; and still more obstinate country gentlemen were bribed. Where bribes, flattery, and management failed Charles was content to yield and to wait till his ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... the Mississippian backwoodsman, Woodley, could give a better account of these singular excrescences than all the closet scientists ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... and said that there were no lodgings there, but that the chief of police would provide us, and that we were to accompany him to the police office. There we were allowed to dry ourselves over a huge brazier full of glowing coals, while the zapties cleaned out the adjoining room, a closet about ten by fourteen feet, in which the dust of years lay accumulated and to all appearance undisturbed. This was simply a cell in the police prison, and there we ate what the miralai saw fit to order for us. Our passports were again examined and discussed, and we were rexamined as to our ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... the worthy attorney, whose innermost imp burst out periodically, like a Dutch clocksentry, to trot on his own small grounds for thinking himself of the community of the man of the world. 'You lawyers dress in another closet,' he said. 'The Rev. Groseman has the ear ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... superficially at all events, less attractive. But by its cult of cleanliness, self-control, and efficiency, it has given a new meaning to civilization; it has invented Puritanism, the gospel of the day's work, and the water-closet. These reflections may not seem very apposite to the subject of the Canal; but they will suggest themselves to one who arrives in Panama after traveling through the Latin States ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... employed by common turners for making bowls. "In fact," says Mr. Mallet, "Bramah not only anticipated, but carried out upon a tolerably large scale in his own works—for the construction of the patent hydraulic press, the water-closet, and his locks—a surprisingly large proportion of our modern tools." [6] His remarkable predilection in favour of the use of hydraulic arrangements is displayed in his specification of the surface-planing machinery, which includes a method of running pivots entirely on ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... addressed the public and popular assemblies. Cicero spoke in the forum. That this added to their effect on the mind of both orator and hearers, may be conceived from the difference between what we read of the emotions then and there produced, and those we ourselves experience in the perusal in the closet. It is one thing to read the Iliad at Sigaeum and on the tumuli, or by the springs with Mount Ida above, and the plain and rivers and Archipelago around you; and another to trim your taper over it in a snug library—this I know. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... placid-looking, middle-aged lady who at once cried, "Kyril, it's all right!" In the dining-room, where a samovar steamed on the table and there were plates full of bread and raw fish, a man in uniform emerged from behind the window-curtains, and another, dressed like a workman, from a closet. They were delighted to meet an American reporter. With a certain amount of gusto both said that they would certainly be shot if the Bolsheviki caught them. They would not give me their names, but both ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... occasion calls for."—"Oh no, I have not; and I do not care who hears me: it was impossible for anyone to behave more honourably." After more conversation of the same kind the King desired to see Mr. Pitt in the closet. The levee continued, and, some little time after, Mr. Pitt said to the King: "Your Majesty will pardon me if I take the liberty of saying that I fear I shall not be able to attend Your Majesty in the closet."—"Oh yes: you must; I have just done." The King went to the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... years ago were done By that old splendid artist-king, the sun, Torn down and dragged in civilization's gutter, Or sold to purchase settlers' bread and butter. She don't want things exposed from porch to closet, And so she kind o' nags the man who does it. She carries in her pockets bags of seeds, As general agent of the thriftiest weeds; She sends her blackbirds, in the early morn, To superintend his fields of planted corn; She gives him rain past any duck's desire— Then maybe several weeks of quiet ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... which he buried in a hole under his bed, and the fear grew upon him that some mercenary might discover its lurking-place and relieve him of the burden of responsibility. This was the only skeleton which lurked in the man's closet. It was the only cloud in his sky; the rest of the zenith was sunshine and gladness. To the neighbors and itineraries he had been preaching hard times for twenty years, although the whole earth suspected the contrary. He became ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... upper turret chamber this plot was being concocted against the innocent child by two passionate, hot-headed boys and one of the ancient race of bards, the little maiden was herself sleeping soundly and peacefully within a small inner closet, close to the room where Gladys, the lady of the castle, reposed; and with the earliest streak of dawn, when the child opened her eyes upon the strange bare walls of the Welsh stronghold, the first thing that met her eyes was the sweet and gentle face of the chatelaine ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the occupation of thinking. She went out on the piazza to think; she stayed in the house to think. She tried a corner of the china-closet. She tried thinking in the cars, and lost her pocket-book; she tried it in the garden, and walked into the strawberry bed. In the house and out of the house, it seemed to be the same,—she could not think of anything to think of. For many weeks she was seen sitting on ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... from the western exposure; but only the hot smell of the asphalt and the stifling odor of car smoke came through the curtainless window. The gas-jet, turned very low, threw distorted shadows on the bureau with its medley of toilet articles and medicine bottles. Through the open door of the closet could be seen Rose's personal belongings; under the table were a pair of high-heeled slippers; and two white stockings made white streaks across ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... anything was wrong until their mistress should come home. As soon as she was in the nursery and fully aware of the state of affairs, they left off their precautions. The maids appeared on the staircases clandestinely as they ought not to have done. Mrs. Freshwater herself abandoned her cosy closet, and declared in an impressive voice that no bell must be rung for luncheon—nor anything done that could possibly disturb the blessed baby, she said as she gave the order. And Williams desired to know what was preparing for Mr. Randolph's dinner, and announced his intention of taking it up ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... experienced in official life foresaw the dangers of a temper so free and of movements so informal. The opponents of the late governor recommended the neglect of all the distinctions which had limited intercourse, and some persons, never before seen at government-house, were admitted to the closet, and boasted ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... to cry bitterly; between sobs she could hear Kate as she walked from closet and bureau to her trunk which she was packing. The lid slammed heavily and a few minutes later Kate entered the room dressed for ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... execrable lane, and signed to us to follow him up three broken steps of brick. From a pouch in his dingy coat he produced a key, applied it to a door, and opened to us two small rooms, without a window in either, without a leaf to shade, without bath-closet or kitchen. And this was the residence sumptuously appointed for the English governess to the royal ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... the air to circulate from below. There was some difficulty at first in kindling the wood; and the old servant resorted once or twice, after some little apologetic muttering of doubts with herself, to a closet, containing, as Paulina could observe, a ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... were acquainted with the late sagacious magistrate Sir John Fielding; who, when fatigued with attending to complicated cases, and perplexed with discordant depositions, used to retire to a little closet in a remote and tranquil part of the house, to rest his mental powers and sharpen perception. He told a great physician, now living, who complained of the distance of places, as caused by the great extension of London, that 'he (the physician) would not have been ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... the road to Paris, travelling—thanks to trebled fees—with all speed, and passing through two or three apartments, enter at the Tuileries the little room with the arched window, so well known as having been the favorite closet of Napoleon and Louis XVIII., and now ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to see him disappointed, if it were only a joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim and bore him off into the washhouse, that he might hear the pudding ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... a small rampart, intending to throw it down into a garden which had been allowed to run to waste. They hoped that the old man's death would be attributed to his having accidentally fallen off the terrace on his way in the dark to a closet at the end of the gallery. But their strength failed them when they reached the door of the last room, and, while resting there, Lucrezia perceived the two sbirri, sharing the money before making their escape. At ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... find you gain a great deal by giving to the school lesson all the color and light which every-day affairs can lend to it. Do not let it be a ghastly skeleton in a closet, but let it come as far as it will into daily life. When you read in Colburn's Oral Arithmetic, "that a man bought mutton at six cents a pound, and beef at seven," ask your mother what she pays a pound now, and do the sum with the figures changed. When ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... closet—a room—a staircase—an open window leading in another direction to that where the men were busy! If he could find any of these he might be safe, and he was about to try and search for some means ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... he happened to feel rather good-natured than otherwise, just then, after putting down his things, helped Nathan get his chair through the door, and placed it up at the kitchen table, which stood out in the middle of the floor. He then went into a closet, and opened a little drawer, where he knew corks were kept, and brought out one or two, selecting the cleanest and softest that he could find. When he came back, he found Nathan, pouring out some black sand, from the sand-box, upon the ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott
... they were some hundred miles asunder, each of them shut himself up in his closet at the time appointed, and immediately cast his eye upon his dial-plate. If he had a mind to write anything to his friend, he directed his needle to every letter that formed the words which he had occasion for, making ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... bill in his palm and jammed it into her hand. "Let me in with your pass-key, that's a good girl. It's all right. I won't disturb their stuff. I only want to listen. You understand! There's a political game on. I want to get to that ventilator in the closet—you know it!" ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... to have been satisfied, but he only looked worried. He glanced round the little closet that served as a kitchen, in search of possible sources for slips, but did not see them. All he was able to say was, "That broth ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... with you," answered the widow, "I did think that I came upon him once in the closet, with his back to me, as often I'd seen the weak creature in life going after a bottle on the top shelf. But it was only his coat hanging there, with his boots standing below and my muff hanging over ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... a stranger from somewhere. Some substitute that! No mulling over hot toddies on Christmas night for him! He saw the marauder crawling in through the Rectory window! He saw him fumbling now to the left, now to the right, all through the front hall! He followed him up the stairs to a closet where the silver was evidently kept! He caught the man red-handed as it were! Or rather—white-handed," flushed the Master of the House for some quite unaccountable reason. "To be perfectly accurate," he explained conscientiously, "he was caught with a pair of—of—" Delicately he spelt ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... mask which he wore over his face as a protection from any poisonous exhalations that might rise up from the mixture, suddenly dropped off, and Sainte-Croix dropped to the ground as though felled by a lightning stroke. At supper-time, his wife finding that he did not come out from his closet where he was shut in, knocked at the door, and received no answer; knowing that her husband was wont to busy himself with dark and mysterious matters, she feared some disaster had occurred. She called her servants, who broke in the door. Then she found Sainte-Croix stretched out ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... in the cathedral," continued the poor woman, "and I shall go to it this morning as I have always gone. There is a little unused closet in a gallery where you may hide, and still see all that happens. It is your last look at the lady, and I will give it to you, as you gave me to know ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... undertaker's assistants and the barber called in low voices through the halls for basins of water and towels. There was a search for the Old Gentleman's best clothes and his clean linen; bureau drawers were opened and shut, closet doors softly closed. Relatives and friends called and departed or stayed to help. A vague murmur arose, a mingled sound of whispers and light foot-steps, the rustle of silks, and the noise of stifled weeping, and then at last silence, night, solitude, ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... father and grandfather done in glazed Delft tiles, which seem more appropriate for a bathroom than a throne-hall. From each end of the apartment scarlet-carpeted staircases, with gilt balustrades, lead to the second floor. Under one of these staircases is a sort of closet, with glass doors, which looks for all the world like a large edition of a telephone booth in an American hotel. The doors were sealed with strips of paper affixed by means of wax wafers, but, peering through ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... study, and in her closet duties: and were occasionally augmented by those she saved from rest: and in these passed ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... door, and heard what I could. And I am sure Lucy would have done just the same by me; for a year or two back, when Martha Sharpe and I had so many secrets together, she never made any bones of hiding in a closet, or behind a chimney-board, on purpose to ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... you goe with me into my Closet, To helpe me sort such needfull ornaments, As you thinke fit to furnish me to morrow? Mo. No not till Thursday, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... read the ways of Providence, and saw that the very audacity of which Guise took advantage to entrap Coligny led him too in his turn to trip smiling and bowing, a comfit box in his hand and the kisses of his mistress damp on his lips, into a king's closet—a king's closet at Blois! Led him to lift the curtain—ah! to lift the curtain, what Frenchman does not know the tale?—behind which stood ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... carefully the while before every movement, his acts suggesting that he was playing the part of a robber; and he thought so and laughed to himself, as he said softly, as if answering his conscience, "Yes, but I am only stealing my own," and then made his way to his own sleeping chamber, a narrow little closet of a place which opened upon the court, where the musical tinkling of the water as it fell back into the ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... have builded your ships in the sun-lands, And launched them with song and wine; They are boweled with your stanchest engines, And masted with bravest pine; You have met in your closet councils, With your plans and your prayers to God For a fortunate wind to waft you Where never ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... Mayor said this, he unlocked a high closet, and disclosed a complete suit of brass armour, of ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... to many a sorrowing heart. It has wiped away many a tear. Prayer is the Christian's stronghold. There can be no real progress in the divine life without earnest prayer. A decline in spiritual life usually begins at the secret closet. Satan knows what a powerful weapon prayer is in the hands of a saint. As Cowper ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... good to everyone," said the little nurse, pinning a clever arrangement of sheets firmly, "she has a grand face!" The room was bright and orderly now, Susan flung pillows and blankets into the big closet, hung her aunt's white knitted ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... the room lay hawks' hoods, bells, old hats with their crowns thrust in, full of pheasant eggs, tables, dice, cards, and store of tobacco pipes. At one end of this room was a door, which opened into a closet, where stood bottles of strong beer and wine, which never came out but in single glasses, which was the rule of the house, for he never exceeded himself nor permitted ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... and bits of sewing, which she did so nicely, that Demi frequently pulled out his handkerchief display her neat stitches, and Baby Josy had a flannel petticoat beautifully made by Sister Daisy. She like to quiddle about the china-closet, prepare the salt-cellars, put the spoons straight on the table; and every day went round the parlor with her brush, dusting chairs and tables. Demi called her a "Betty," but was very glad to have ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... of a bed-place was considerately resigned to me. It consisted of a crib in a small room, no larger than a closet; however, as the horizontal position still continued most distressing to me, a bed of down could not have procured me repose, for I do not think I ceased coughing for three consecutive minutes the whole night. And it was no small aggravation to my misery, to know that I was the means of ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... and the wake in summer, Shrovings, the wakeful catches on Christmas Eve, the hockey or seed-cake, these he yearly keeps, yet holds them no relics of popery. He is not so inquisitive after news derived from the privy closet, when the finding an eyry of hawks in his own ground, or the foaling of a colt come of a good strain, are tidings more pleasant, more profitable. He is lord paramount within himself, though he hold by never so mean a tenure, and dies the more contentedly, though he ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... dining-room, a sentimental desire came over Flora to look into the dragon closet which had so often swallowed Arthur in the days of his boyhood—not improbably because, as a very dark closet, it was a likely place to be heavy in. Arthur, fast subsiding into despair, had opened it, when a knock was heard ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... say about this matter into the one remark, that the law of the whole process is the old one which was exemplified on the day of Pentecost. 'Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly; gather the people, assemble the elders; let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet; let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar. Yea, the Lord will be zealous for His land, and will pity His people; and I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh.' Brethren, to our knees ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... sundry old women at that auction. With what a free and contemptuous manner they examined the fine old furniture, and handled the fine old china, and coolly rummaged and ransacked every nook and corner, and peeped and pried into every box, chest, and closet that was not locked! And their tongues, you may be sure, were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Richard for weapons, in spite of what he had said, when they had him alone in a little chamber off the King's closet, but not unkindly, after what had been ordered, but they found nothing beneath the white kirtle save the white skin, and nothing in the burse but the book of hours and a little pen-knife, and the bottle of Quinte Essence. One of them held that up, ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... countries other than their own. Can it be that in such an age all that can help to aid the inspiration and to increase direct knowledge is of no account whatever, because, forsooth, it has a medium or method of its own? There are those who say that Shakespeare is better in the closet than on the stage; that dramatic beauty is more convincing when read in private than when spoken on the stage to the accompaniment of suitable action. And yet, if this be so, it is a strange thing that, with all the activity of the new-born ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... to advise him to marry as soon as he could, provided he chose with discretion; and had once paid him a visit in his humble parsonage, where she had perfectly approved all the alterations he had been making, and had even vouchsafed to suggest some herself—some shelves in the closet upstairs." ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... was absent, Marie Louise went to converse with her in her room; and in order not to go through the saloon where the ladies of the palace were assembled, she entered the apartment of her lady of honor through a very dark closet, and this conduct deeply wounded the feelings of the other ladies. I have heard Josephine say that Madame de Montebello was wrong to initiate the young Empress into the scandalous adventures, whether true ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... which we use for company, this belongs to my strong box, where I keep my money, and this belongs to the casket, in which are all my jewels. Here also is a master-key to all the rooms in the house; but this small key belongs to the closet at the end of the long gallery on the ground floor. I give you leave," said he, "to open, or to do what you like with all the rest except this closet. This, my dear, you must not enter, nor even put the key into the lock, for all the world. If you ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... defend a practice you know are two things; I practise religion in my closet, in my family, in the congregation, but I defend this practice before the magistrate, the king, and the judge. Now the temple was prepared for the practice of religion, and the house of the forest of Lebanon for defence of the same (Rev ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Confinement and Lying-in.— The room should be light, sunny, and well ventilated; it should not be too near a water-closet. In the city as quiet a room as possible should be selected, and one that is well removed from the rest of the house, so that if necessary perfect quiet can be maintained. The room should be as cheery ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... not remembered to tell Elitha about the hundred dollars which Jakie had willed us, so decided to let grandma keep it to cover some of the expense we had been to her, also not to ask for our little trinkets stored in her closet. ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... to do much work so my job was to carry the key basket for old Mistress. I sho' was proud of that job. The basket held the keys to the pantry, the kitchen, the linen closet, and extra keys to the rooms and smokehouse. When old Mistress started out on her rounds every morning she'd call to me to get de basket and away we'd go. I'd run errands for all the house help too, so I was ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... rows, capped with sealing wax and paper, and armed with labels. But Maggie has neither sentiment nor imagination. Jelly to her is an institution, not an inspiration. It is subject to certain rules and rites, of which not the least is the formal interment in the fruit closet. ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... sent for sir Ralph. Come with me, Margaret: you and Mary must keep your old father from blundering. Run, Dorothy, and tell Mr. Delaware and Mr. Andrews that I desire their presence in my closet. I miss the rogue Scudamore. They tell me he hath done well, and is sorely wounded. He must feel the better for the one already, and I hope he will soon be nothing ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... talked about killing Nelse Ackerman as a means of bringing the war to an end. And after the talk he had heard Joe Angell whisper to Jerry Rudd that he had the makings of a bomb already; he had a suit-case full of dynamite stored there in the closet, and he and Pat McCormick had been planning to pull off something that very night. Peter had gone out, but had watched outside, and had seen Angell, Henderson, Rudd and Gus come out. Peter had noticed that ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... would enable him to settle with his family in Texas in a gallant style. Upon my inquiring what could be the cause of a certain abominable smell which pervaded the cabin, he apprised me that, in a small closet adjoining, he had secured a dozen of runaway negroes, for the apprehension of whom he ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... in, and sitting-rooms are for sitting in. Keep everything to its right purpose, and don't try and delude me into nonsense." Why, my mother would have given us a fine scolding if she had ever caught us in our bedrooms in the daytime. We kept our outdoor things in a closet downstairs; and there was a very tidy place for washing our hands, which is as much as one wants in the day-time. Stuffing up a bedroom with sofas and tables! I never heard of such a thing. Besides, a hundred pounds won't last for ever. I shan't ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... to do as the caliph had commanded, and as soon as the caliph went into the room where Abou Hassan lay, he placed himself in a little raised closet, from whence he could see all that passed. All the officers and ladies, who were to attend Abou Hassan's levee, went in at the same time, and took their posts according to their rank, ready to acquit themselves of their respective duties, as if the caliph himself ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous |
