"Parlour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the forest was illuminated. Everybody was glad except Lady Hainault, who sighed, and said, "I have no doubt the Queen would have preferred her own room, and that we should have had a quiet dinner, as in old days, in the little Venetian parlour." ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... another example of ae freslige metre. The literal translation is "Fifty over a hundred complete / the Dun of Ciaran used to feed, // guests and lepers / people of the refectory and of the parlour." ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... old woman known to both. There Diana expressed the wish to rest awhile, and thither they took their way, Ruth leading both horses and supporting her faltering cousin. The dame was all solicitude. Diana was led into her parlour, and what could be done was done. Her corsage was loosened, water drawn from the well and brought her to ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... dormitories, infirmary with chapels and lodgings within the same; the workhouse, with another house adjoining to the same; the convent kitchen; the library; the old hostery; the chamberer's lodgings; the new hall; the old parlour adjoining to the Abbot's lodging; the cellarer's lodging; the poulter house: the gardner; the almary, and all other houses and lodgings not otherwise reserved," were "deemed to be superfluous" and were committed to the custody of Sir ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse
... There must be close upon a hundred people here, drawn hither, held fast, by his little Polly. There she stood, in her sulphur shawl, unrecognisable, to be sure, but natural and self-possessed as if she had been singing in her own parlour. ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... herself, was her mother suddenly enamoured with the beauty of Chippendale furniture? How did she know that Sturt's (the tailor's) prices were lower for costumes this season? And in what way had she become aware what the Ashton's last parlour-maid thought, if she had not engaged that young woman for her own service? Julia was at once uneasy and disgusted; the last alike with the proceedings themselves and the attempt to deceive her about ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... told you so," but his tongue said nothing, which was nice of it; and the Prince did all the complaining as we sat on perfectly new chairs, in a perfectly new parlour, with a smell of perfectly new plaster in the air, and plu-perfectly old newspapers on the table. According to him, Joseph was an absolutely unique villain, with a combination of deceit, treachery, procrastination, laziness, and stupidity mixed with low cunning, such as could not be paralleled ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... for tradesmen. The way you should have gone in is round somewhere on another road. A maid admits you to a small parlour and in a moment Mrs. Chesterton comes in to inquire if you have an appointment with her husband. She always speaks of Mr. Chesterton as "my husband." It develops that the letter you sent fixing the appointment got balled up in some way. It further develops that a good ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... by Miss Evelyn shaking me to rouse me up. I stumbled up, but though partially stupefied, I fancied Miss Evelyn's eyes shone with a brilliancy I had never before observed, and that there was a bright hectic flush on her cheek. She refused to go into the parlour, but hurried to bed on pretence ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... up before a particularly dreary and greasy beershop, into which Gregory rapidly conducted his companion. They seated themselves in a close and dim sort of bar-parlour, at a stained wooden table with one wooden leg. The room was so small and dark, that very little could be seen of the attendant who was summoned, beyond a vague and dark impression of something ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... for the remembrance of his mean plot against David Grieve, and for a certain other little fact. A middle-aged woman, in a dowdy brown-stuff dress and black mantle, had begun to haunt the house. She sat with Purcell sometimes in the parlour downstairs, and sometimes he accompanied her out of doors. Mary Ann reported that she was a widow, a Mrs. Whymper, who belonged to the same chapel that Purcell did, and who was supposed by those who knew to have been making up to him for ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had now become aware of the nature of this huge object. It was a Pianoforte. I had seen one like it before. One used to stand in the corner of our little parlour, upon which my mother often made most beautiful music. Yes, the object whose broad smooth surface now barred my way, was neither more ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... however, "the evil savours, great unquietness, with over many drafts of air," threw the poor gentleman into a burning ague. He shifted "his lodgings," but to no purpose; the "evil savours" followed him. The keeper offered him his own parlour, where he escaped from the noise of the prison; but it was near the kitchen, and the smell of the meat was disagreeable. Finally, the wife put him away in her store-closet, amidst her best plate, crockery, and clothes, and there he continued to survive till ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... the other day of a reviewer who started from Charing Cross with a blue bag filled with books for his criticship: he read at Camberwell, and he read at Dulwich—he wrote in the sanded and smoke-dried parlour of the Lion, the Lamb, or the Fox—and he wrote whilst his steak was grilling at the auberge at Dulwich—and he went home in a hackney-coach: "Lord how he went out—Lord how he came in." Another brother talks of rambling in a secluded village field with Gilbert ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various
... spheres, and stale as their music to angels' ears. Public affairs, except as they touch upon me, and so turn into private, I cannot whip up my mind to feel any interest in, I grieve, indeed, that War and Nature and Mr. Pitt, that hangs up in Lloyd's best parlour, should have conspired to call up three necessaries, simple commoners as our fathers knew them, into the upper house of luxuries,—bread and beer and coals, Manning. But as to France and Frenchmen, and the Abbe Sieyes and his constitutions, I cannot make these present ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... firelight flashed through diamond panes and glowed in the heart of green bottle-glass. Out in the street men shouldered past her, talking blithely; and in distant kitchens cups clinked and ware clattered, and every house—every house from garret to parlour, seemed to her a home happy and gleeful. A home; and her home! She stood at the thought and cursed them; cursed them, and like the echo of her whispered words the solemn boom of a ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... him into a back parlour, where there were several wooden rocking-chairs, and a strong smell of stale tobacco. Here he busied himself in producing cold meat, a squash pie, and a bottle of whisky, and was as voluble as civil about every ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... In twenty minutes, shorn and shaven, I was back again in the Mayor's parlour. The tears of gratitude stood in his eyes. I learned afterwards that a decoration was contingent on his preservation of the public peace on the occasion of ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... advice, he pushed in and looked round. He was in the parlour, and a large china dog welcomed ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... told you of Uncas, did he?" resumed the trapper, without regarding the slight interruptions of the bee-hunter, which amounted to no more than a sort of by-play. "And what thought he and said he of the lad, in his parlour, with the comforts and ease of ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... his right, and whose name was a household word in the enemy's camp, had listened to him with enchained and sympathetic interest. For a single second he permitted his thoughts to travel back to the humble beginnings of his political career. He had a brief, flashlight recollection of the suburban parlour of his early days, the hard fight at first for a living, then for some small place in local politics, and then, larger and more daring schemes as the boundary of his ambitions became each year a little further extended. Beyond him now was only one more step to be ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... may seem even brutal to the gallery. We boast too often manners that are parochial rather than universal; that, like a country wine, will not bear transportation for a hundred miles, nor from the parlour to the kitchen. To be a gentleman is to be one all the world over, and in every relation and grade of society. It is a high calling, to which a man must first be born, and then devote himself for life. And, unhappily, the manners of a certain so-called ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... took him by the hand, and led him into a very large parlour that was full of dust, because never swept; the which after he had reviewed a little while, the Interpreter called for a man to sweep. Now, when he began to sweep, the dust began so abundantly to fly about, that Christian had almost therewith been choked. Then ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... every man is up to it. A giddy head would very soon give way beneath the task. It is a science in itself. Besides, I swore before the parson I would take you 'for better or worse.' You see how I keep my word. Look there now! The thread has tied itself into a knot again. Now, if one of your parlour-maids had been holding it, you would have been angry with her, but as my darling little wife it is not lawful for you to be angry. Do you hear me? It is not lawful for you to be angry ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... little, good musical taste. And from what my little father told me, what wonderful orchestras these Jeronomites must have had in their convents! For the ladies it was a great delight to go on Sunday evenings to the parlour, where they met the good fathers, each one a master of his own particular instrument. These were the only concerts in those days, and with their pittance assured, and no anxiety as to housing or clothing themselves, and with the love of art as their only duty, you ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... mysteriously protected by influences invisible. But in the end the vulgar, yet perhaps legitimate, curiosity of the sightseer, of the professional reporter, drove me within the doors. The houses were so modest that they had no entrance-halls or lobbies. One passed directly from the street into the parlour. Apparently the parlours were completely furnished. They were in an amazing disorder, but the furniture was there. And the furnishings of all of them were alike, as the furnishings of all the small houses of a ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... ourselves up in horse-cloths. When in an hour's time the rain stopped, and we put up at an inn, our enforced silence gave place to the wildest merriment. We three young fellows—the future Finance Minister as well—danced into the parlour, hopped about like wild men, spilt milk over ourselves, the sofa, and the waitress; then sprang, waltzing and laughing, out through the door again and up into the carriage, after having heaped the girl ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... lady tells us this story in the late autumn evenings. Now the harvest is in, huge haycocks shelter the gable, the honey is strained and put by in jars, the apples are ripened and stored; the logs begin to sputter and sing in the big parlour at evening, hot cakes to steam on the tea-table, and the pleasant lamp-lit hours to spread themselves. Indoor things begin to have meaning looks of their own, our limbs grow quiet, and our brains begin to work. ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... some few days after these events that the presence of Lady Agnes de Clarenham was requested in the parlour of her nunnery, which was some miles distant from Bordeaux, by a person who, as the porteress informed her, was the bearer of a message from the Princess of Wales. She descended accordingly, but her surprise was great on beholding, ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... appointed hour, as the clock of the Abbey was striking, they gave three gentle knocks at the door of the house. It was immediately opened by Tony, who held a candle in his hand, closed the door quietly behind them, and then led them into a parlour. ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... sat drinking and smoking in a little parlour at the back of an old public-house in Shadwell. The room was about as large as a good-sized cupboard, and was illuminated in the day-time by a window commanding a pleasant prospect of coal-shed and dead wall. The paper on the walls was dark and greasy with ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... aunt, of which I was an astonished spectator. The horsemangander—that is to say, Edith May—being tall and strong, came behind the person to be horsemangandered (to wit, ...), and took her round the waist, under the arms, then jumped with her all the way from the kitchen into the middle of the parlour; the motion of the horsemangandered person at every jump being something like that of a paviour's rammer, and ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... As they were sitting round the table, John put his head in the door, and said, Archie Kerr was come down the dale, with the curiosities which he had found. Mr. Martin desired him to walk into the parlour; and added "John, my lad, you may come in, and see them too, if you like." Mr. Martin examined them, and found them exceedingly curious. He was looking at one of the coins at the window, when Mrs. Martin kindly enquired of Archie, ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... consciences and private parlour Allowed the demon of religious hatred to enter into its body Behead, torture, burn alive, and bury alive all heretics Christian sympathy and a small assistance not being sufficient Contained within itself the germs ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... detected a constraint in Cynthia's manner which Lila did not appear to share. The girl, dressed daintily in a faded muslin, with an organdy kerchief crossed over her swelling bosom, flashed upon Carraway's delighted vision like one of the maidens hanging, gilt-framed, in the old lady's parlour. That she was the particular pride of the family—the one luxury they allowed themselves besides their costly mother—the lawyer realised upon the instant. Her small white hands were unsoiled by any work, and her beautiful, kindly face had none of the nervous dread which seemed always lying ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... parlour, with a clean, sanded floor, (prettily herring-boned, as the housemaids technically phrase it,) furnished with red curtains, half a dozen beech chairs, three cast-iron spittoons, and a beer-bleached mahogany table,—Spriggs tugged at the bell. The host, with ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... esteem and confidence; but, at the same time, a little more ceremonious than is usual in so intimate a relation. The solemn courtesy with which he compliments "his elegant Marian" reminds us now and then of the dignified air with which Sir Charles Grandison bowed over Miss Byron's hand in the cedar parlour. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the King gave the signal for beginning the wedding festivities and bade decorate the city. The kettle drums beat and the tables were spread with meats of all kinds and there came performers who paraded their tricks. Merchant Ma'aruf sat upon a throne in a parlour and the players and gymnasts and effeminates[FN48] and dancing-men of wondrous movements and posture-makers of marvellous cunning came before him, whilst he called out to the treasurer and said to him, "Bring gold and silver." So he brought ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... myself; but, in overhauling the affair, they found, that, as the shipping articles with poor Kate wouldn't hold together, why, they could make nothing at all of me; so I was white-washed like a queen's parlour and sent adrift." ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... signal, through the dusty glass door behind the painted deal counter, Mr Verloc would issue hastily from the parlour at the back. His eyes were naturally heavy; he had an air of having wallowed, fully dressed, all day on an unmade bed. Another man would have felt such an appearance a distinct disadvantage. In a commercial transaction of the retail order ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... sooner informed he was there, than he came into the parlour with a countenance, which had in it all the marks of good humour and satisfaction; Horatio, said he, after having made him seat himself, I doubt not but you think me your enemy, after the treatment ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... come inside and see my invaluable Brigida. She is, as usual, fatiguing herself with our accounts." The old lady led the way into the darkened parlour. It was small and rather stiff. As one's eyes became accustomed to the dim green light one noticed the incongruity of the furniture: the horsehair chairs and sofa, and large accountant's desk with ledgers; the ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... out of doors. The sun gives forth his rays through a vapor like that which was upon the water yesterday. But Aunt bids me give her love to pappa & all the family & tell them that she should be glad of their company in her warm parlour, indeed there is not one room in this house but is very warm when there is a good fire in them. As there is in this at present. Yesterday I got leave (by my aunt's desire) to go from school at 4 o'clock to see my unkle Ned who has had ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... few minutes all met together at table in the small parlour, which was room of all work in the cottage. They had not the whole house, limited as were its resources; for it was also the habitation of a gardener, who took his vegetables to the Oxford market, and whose wife (what is called) did ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... could I do? I should not be a man without some weakness."— "Be assured they will reward you for this."—"They ought, Collot they ought; for it has cost me a hard struggle." After this dialogue Bonaparte and M. Collot entered the breakfast-parlour, where I was then sitting. Eugene breakfasted with us, but neither Josephine nor Hortense. I have already related how I acted the part of mediator in this affair. Next day nothing was wanting to complete the reconciliation between ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... the next day the front door bell tingled, and presently the parlour-maid knocked, and came in with a card ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... and stopped to lunch at "The Bush." I was delighted to get down from my perch, and to stretch my cramped legs by running about in the charming garden behind that celebrated inn. Dim bright memories are with me still of the long-windowed parlour opening into a garden verdant with grass, and stately yew hedges, and formal clipped trees; gay, too, with bright flowers, and mysterious with a walk winding under an arch of the yew hedge to the more distant bowling-green. On one side of this arch an admirably-carved stone figure ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... go without an escort, Roland. It was too bad," she said reproachfully as she stood in the open door of a parlour and ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... itself, and itself in the other. Have you ever noticed the Vault or snug little Apartment which the Spider spins and weaves for itself, by spiral threads round and round, and sometimes with strait lines, so that its lurking parlour or withdrawing-room is an oblong square? This too connected itself in my mind with the melancholy truth, that as we grow older, the World (alas! how often it happens that the less we love it, the more we care for it, the less reason we have ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... was in a state of un-Sabbatical disquiet. After she had seen Saskia and Dickson start she finished her housewifely duties, took Cousin Eugenie her breakfast, and made preparation for the midday dinner. The invalid in the bed in the parlour was not a repaying subject. Cousin Eugenie belonged to that type of elderly women who, having been spoiled in youth, find the rest of life fall far short of their expectations. Her voice had acquired a perpetual wail, and the corners of what had once been a pretty ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... there had always been Conneely's Hotel in Killesky. If the old people remembered Julia Dowd's little public-house with its thatched roof, the low ceiling and the fire of turf to which you could draw a chair while you had your drink, the little parlour beyond which was reserved for customers of a superior station, they did not ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... was a swamp of deceit. And where am I to find elasticity of spirit to bring out my grand invention now? I used to shut myself up in the parlour, and ponder and cry, when I thought that the effort of inventing anything would sap my vitality. (Pathetically.) I did want to leave you an inventor's widow; but I never shall now, particularly as I haven't made up my mind what to invent yet. Yes, it's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... hall, Like me, were wont to dwell near pleasant field, Enjoying all the sunny day did yield— With me the change lament, in irksome thrall, By rains incessant held; for now no call From early swain invites my hand to wield The scythe. In parlour dim I sit concealed, And mark the lessening sand from hour-glass fall; Or 'neath my window view the wistful train Of dripping poultry, whom the vine's broad leaves Shelter no more. Mute is the mournful plain. Silent ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... unlimited joint and vegetables could be obtained for half-a-crown. The old-fashioned boxes into which the guests edged themselves had not been removed, and about the mahogany bar, placed in the passage in front of the proprietress's parlour, two dingy barmaids served actors from the adjoining theatre with whisky-and-water. The contributors to the Pilgrim had selected a box, and were clamouring for food. Smacking his lips, the head-waiter, an antiquity who cashed cheques and told stories about Mr. Dickens ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... a party in a parlour, Crammed just as they on earth were crammed, Some sipping punch—some sipping tea; But, as you by their faces see, All silent, and all—damned! "Peter ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... her head held down, she couldn't help thinking, "So that's the way he does it," and felt, I think, as feels the fly who has walked into the parlour. The next moment she heard a sharp voice, "Here—stop that!" ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... crossing in Bond Street: looking up he saw between the two windows of the vehicle the profile of a thickly mantled bosom, on which a camellia rose and fell. All the remainder part of the lady's person was hidden; but he remembered that flower of convenient season as one which had figured in the bank parlour half-an-hour ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... out the stores with his own hand, he took soundings of the sherry, he numbered the remainder biscuits; painful scenes took place over the weekly bills, and the cook was frequently impeached, and the tradespeople came and hectored with him in the back parlour upon a question of three farthings. The superficial might have deemed him a miser; in his own eyes he was simply a man who had been defrauded; the world owed him seven thousand eight hundred pounds, and he intended that ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... disfigurement embittered the poor chap a little; for while Smythe was ready to show off his monkey tricks anywhere, James Welkin (that was the squinting man's name) never did anything except soak in our bar parlour, and go for great walks by himself in the flat, grey country all round. All the same, I think Smythe, too, was a little sensitive about being so small, though he carried it off more smartly. And so it was that I was really puzzled, as well as startled, ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... admirable examples of the English Eighteenth Century School. Faithful to my promise, I pronounced every one of them to be little gems, unsurpassed by anything in the private collections of America or Europe. We passed into the drawing-room and parlour with the same success. In the latter apartment the Colonel, grasping my arm, said impressively: "Now you will see our great treasure, the Brodie Vandyck, of which Flora has so often told you. I have never lent it for exhibition, for, as you know, we are rather superstitious ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... suite for superintendent, including one elevator, for close under $65,000, on very good terms of payment. This will include all fittings (hardware, etc.) and two fine, large piazzas, with arrangements for sun parlour, if desired. Also four bathrooms. Miss Buxton has selected the site, as I suppose she has written you, and Miss Bradley has secured another deaconess-nurse for the permanent staff. Young Collier has done ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... shall be at home to nobody else now," said Lady Eustace. But Frank Greystock had hardly regained his self-possession when Miss Macnulty hurried into the room, and, with a look almost of horror, declared that Lady Linlithgow was in the parlour. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... In the West Parlour—-a sitting-room which Lady Gertrude herself never used—there was a fairly good piano, and here Nan frequently found refuge, playing her heart out in the welcome solitude the room afforded. Inevitably she would forget the time, ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... to apologise for making the hero of Waterloo the subject of this article; for, having had always free access to the parlour of the Duke of Wellington, I flatter myself that I am peculiarly fitted for the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... because she said that no one but I need ever know. She would creep home through the fields soon after sunrise and her sister would let her in. The old man would be sleeping heavily.... The end of it was that I let her go up to my room while I lay on the sofa in the little parlour. The horsehair bolster was deucedly hard, but I was young, and when I did get off I slept well. When I woke it was nearer eight than seven, and I had just scrambled up when my landlady came in. One look at her face was enough. I understood that ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... and dreary-looking, but there were buildings to be seen, and windows from which children's faces were gazing curiously at us. My father said something to the nun who came forward, and she took us into the parlour. This was large, with a polished floor, and was divided by an enormous black grating which ran the whole length of the room. There were benches covered with red velvet by the wall, and a few chairs and armchairs near the grating. On the walls ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... rise. On top of the desk is a desk lamp and a large box of candy; inside the desk is writing material, &c. In pigeon-hole left there is a small photo and frame, which ANNIE places on the table when she removes the breakfast set. In front of centre window in alcove is a small table on which is a parlour lamp, and some newspapers, including the "New York Sun." On the floor running between the desk and table is a large fur rug. In front of the table is a small gilt chair; in front of desk there is also a small gilt chair; there is a pianola piano, on top ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... a growling voice which they knew, before Mr. Simlins entered the door of the dining room. "That gal o' yourn wants me to stay politely in the parlour yonder—but I ain't polite—and I come to see you, not your doors and windows nor the pretty paper on your walls. What are you all about, Mrs. Derrick? I hear the very spirit of turbidness has got into ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... might smite a wet rock either on Hammar Scar or on the wooded crags above Red Bank. These could be seen from the window of one of the rooms of Dove Cottage. Seated beside the hearth of the "half-kitchen and half-parlour fire" in that cottage, and looking along the passage through the low door, the eye would rest on Hammar Scar, the wooded hill behind Allan Bank. The context of the poem points to Hawkshead; but the details of the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... inn; not such shall be thy fate, as long as trout are trout, and men have wit to catch them. For art thou not a sacred house? Art thou not consecrate to the Whitbury brotherhood of anglers! Is not the wainscot of that long low parlour inscribed with many a famous name? Are not its walls hung with many a famous countenance? Has not its oak-ribbed ceiling rung, for now a hundred years, to the laughter of painters, sculptors, grave divines (unbending ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... possibly attain. I patted him gently, and he proceeded at once to march along beside me with an air of satisfaction unspeakable. A very old woman, who had been the housekeeper of the former cure, also came to meet us, and after having invited me into a little back parlour, asked whether I intended to retain her. I replied that I would take care of her, and the dog, and the chickens, and all the furniture her master had bequeathed her at his death. At this she became fairly transported with joy, and the Abbe Serapion at once paid her ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... had she my priceless gift for uttering an unimportant personal opinion as if it were the final verdict of posterity with the black cap on. We were devoted to one another, and many a time have I owed my position as temporary parlour-maid in an unsuspicious family to the excellent character that she had ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... parlour tonsorial, Knight of the razor and shears, Who have from time immemorial Snipped it too ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... pervading odour of dust and decayed leather. The girl, after shutting the bolts behind her, led the way cautiously, and, crossing a passage at the rear of the shop, opened a door upon a far more cheerful scene. Here, in a neat parlour hung with old prints and mezzotints and water-colours, a hanging lamp shed its rays on a China bowl heaped with Warwickshire roses, and on a white cloth and ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... match of insinuation is applied to the train of rumoured difficulties, the suspicion that has been smouldering for awhile bounces at once into a report, and very shortly its echo is bounced in every parlour ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various
... night. But for four days before the appointed night he was required to shave his beard every morning, change his linen, and put on a consecrated girdle made of a black cat's skin. When all was prepared for the summoning of the spirits, the magician was instructed to enter a dark parlour or cellar, to light seven candles, and draw a circle with his own blood. When the candles were lighted, it was essential for the magician to protect himself with two drawn swords, and consecrate the circle, so that all evil spirits might be ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... all ranks, professions, and denominations of men whatever,—be no less read than the Pilgrim's Progress itself—and in the end, prove the very thing which Montaigne dreaded his Essays should turn out, that is, a book for a parlour-window;—I find it necessary to consult every one a little in his turn; and therefore must beg pardon for going on a little farther in the same way: For which cause, right glad I am, that I have begun the history ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... ceremony, and still more real kindness, the Baron, without stopping in any intermediate apartment, conducted his guest through several into the great dining parlour, wainscoted with black oak, and hung round with the pictures of his ancestry, where a table was set forth in form for six persons, and an old-fashioned beaufet displayed all the ancient and massive plate of the Bradwardine family. A bell was now heard at the head of ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... day was sinking into darker night when he entered his house. There was no light in the passage nor any in the parlour. As he groped his way in, he struck against a chair that was out of place, and hurt himself. The momentary pain caused the fretfulness he felt, on finding all dark within, to rise into anger. He went back to the kitchen, grumbling sadly, and there gave the cook a sound ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... the sitting-room doors, and through the keyhole of the parlour we heard a noise of some one moving, and then in a soft whistle the tune of the "Would I were a ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... bedrooms built on a third floor at the back; and such rearrangement of the ground floor as, besides its handsome drawing-room, and its dining-room which he hung with pictures, transformed its bedroom into a study which he lined with books and sometimes wrote in, and changed its breakfast-parlour into a retreat fitted up for smokers into which he put a small billiard-table. These several rooms opened from a hall having in it a series of Hogarth prints, until, after the artist's death, Stanfield's noble scenes were placed there, when the Hogarths were moved to ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... (the niece) had received those wounds in attempting to defend her relation. According to the circumstances that appeared, this unnatural wretch had cut the throat of her aunt and benefactress with a case-knife, then dragged the body from the wash-house to the parlour; that she had stolen a watch and some silver spoons, and concealed them, together with the knife and her own apron, which was soaked with the blood of her parent. After having acted this horrid tragedy, the bare recital of which the humane reader will not peruse without horror, she put on another ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... there till star-light; but a day of rambling alone, in a strange country, among unknown faces, brings a social hunger by evening, and a craving for some one to speak to and a voice in return becomes almost a fear. A bright kitchen-parlour, warm with the health of six workmen, grouped round a game of dominoes, and one huge quart pot of ale, used among them as woman in the early world, was a grateful inglenook, indeed, wherein to close the day. Of course, friend N. joined them, ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... across the table out of window at vacancy, under the window-blind which was half drawn down. "Leastwise it has been so considered by many gentlemen which have partook of chops and tea in the present humble parlour." ...
— Tom Tiddler's Ground • Charles Dickens
... she was going to be talked about, and afterward she was sure of it, for Aunt Plenty whispered to her as they went into the parlour, ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... but to the best of my remembrance, the boy was sent down to my son Jason's to borrow candles for the night. Another time, in the winter, and on a desperate cold day, there was no turf in for the parlour and above stairs, and scarce enough for the cook in the kitchen. The little GOSSOON was sent off to the neighbours, to see and beg or borrow some, but none could he bring back with him for love or money; [GOSSOON: a little boy—from the French word GARCON. In most Irish families there used ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... Falmouth is a fine town with ships in the bay, And I wish from my heart it's there I was to-day; I wish from my heart I was far away from here, Sitting in my parlour and ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... my head on my hand again, and stared vacantly as before. Exhaustion had almost become stupor, and it was in a sort of dream that I watched the stout figure moving softly to and fro, lighting the fire, and bringing an air of comfort over the dreary little parlour. Then she was gone for a little bit, and I felt a little more lonely and weary; and then I heard that cheerful clatter, commonly so grateful to feminine exhaustion, and the good woman entered with a toasted glow upon ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... for parlours with a regulated temperature, and takes his morality on the principle of tin shoes and tepid milk. The care of one important body or soul becomes so engrossing, that all the noises of the outer world begin to come thin and faint into the parlour with the regulated temperature; and the tin shoes go equably forward over blood and rain. To be overwise is to ossify; and the scruple-monger ends by standing stockstill. Now the man who has his heart on his sleeve, and a good whirling weathercock of a brain, who reckons his ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Tusmore, in Oxfordshire, also had a secret chamber, approached through a fixed settle in "the parlour" window. A tradition in the neighbourhood says that the great fish-pond near the site of the old house was dug by a priest and his servant in the days of religious persecution, constituting their daily ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... into the kitchen, and he flung open the door of what had been his warping-room. The warping-mill was gone—everything that had been there was gone. What met the delighted eyes of Elspeth and Tommy was a cozy parlour, which became a bedroom when you opened that other door. "You are a leddy now, Elspeth," Aaron said, husky with pride, "and you have a leddy's room. Do ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... account of which my prayer was, that the Lord would be pleased to send in something for this day. When I came home last evening from the meeting, my dear wife told me, that there was some money in the box in our parlour. I opened it, and found it to contain five sovereigns. Thus we are supplied ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... uttered, Miss Vincent pursued other means of gaining intelligence of the new comers. She stole softly into the hall, and screened herself from observation, in a narrow passage leading to the store-room. The next moment she beheld a tall girl, an elderly lady, and a little boy ushered into the parlour. She listened to hear their names announced, but in vain. As she was returning to the school-room, the hall door was opened by Elizabeth. She hastily retreated into the passage: but betrayed herself by stumbling over a stand of plants, that had been placed there, ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... each took a hand. Malvina was still standing where the Professor had left her. It was very absurd, but the Professor felt frightened. He went into the kitchen, where it was light and cheerful, and started Mrs. Muldoon on Home Rule. When he returned to the parlour Malvina ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... Matthew Wesley's parlour, Johnson's Court, Captain Bewes told the whole story—or so much of it as he knew. The disappearance from on board his ship of a person so important as Mr. Samuel Annesley touched his prospects in the Company's service, and he did not conceal ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a Bolingbroke and a Pope? No, he rejoined, I love the name and character of Bolingbroke, and I preserve the house as well as I can with religious veneration; I often smoke my pipe in Mr. Pope's parlour, and think of him with due respect as I walk the part of the terrace opposite his room. He then conducted me to this interesting parlour, which is of brown polished oak, with a grate and ornaments of the age of George the First; and before its window stood ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... saw them, like great armies of white or red ants, creeping over the land, devouring all that was beautiful in it, or ancient, or redolent of grandeur. Bit by bit, street by street, the ignoble, the tidy, the pettiness of the parlour, was gaining upon splendour and renown, and the anticipation of the change cast a foreboding sadness over the beauty of his own ancestral home. It tainted even his unuttered pride in his son, who had been at Eton without expulsion, and served two years ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... minutes Cecilia followed her, and entered the parlour into which Mr. Gray had been shown, without a sign of tears upon her cheeks. She had been able to assume a look of injured feminine dignity, of almost magnificent innocence, by which the lawyer was much startled. She was resolved at any rate to confess no injury done by herself to her husband, ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... or two nothing happened, and Lyveden stood in the passage with his hat in his hand, wondering whether his engagement was to rest with the butler. Then a door opened and closed, and a girl dressed as a parlour-maid appeared upon the scene. She was walking slowly, and seemed to be endeavouring to extricate something from ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... the High-street, one wing of which is the Dragon inn, and the other is a large room where the corporation assemble to transact business, and is called the mayor's parlour, under which is the ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... with her once or twice; there the parlour is monastic, there is not the provincial and middle-class side of the Rue Tournefort, it is composed of a sombre room, of which all the breadth at the end is taken up by an iron grating, and behind the grating are again wooden bars, and a shutter painted black. You are ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... priest from priest. But for those mad passions which ere long began to burst forth at every moment, we should have gained no insight into the real lot of that great world of women who died in those gloomy dwellings; not one word should we have heard of the things that passed behind those parlour gratings, within those mighty walls which ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... small parlour, in which was seated a pretty, little, dark-eyed, rosy-cheeked girl, still in, or only just out of, her teens. Oliver was so taken aback by the unexpected sight that he stood gazing for a moment or two ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... was a picturesque inn, standing on the bank of the river Severn. It was much frequented in the summer by fishermen, who spent their days in punts and their evenings in the old oak parlour, where a picture in boxing costume of Mr Joe Bevan, whose brother was the landlord of the inn, gazed austerely down on them, as if he disapproved of the lamentable want of truth displayed by the majority of their number. Artists also congregated ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... might be mentioned as no unentertaining illustration of the manners of the men of wit and gallantry in the time when it was published." To Godwin's description we may add that the book includes a Rhyming Dictionary, "useful for that pleasing pastime called Crambo," also a collection of parlour-games, and a number of other clever things. The poems and songs interspersed with the prose were mostly old ones reprinted, some of them chosen with fine taste; but one or two were Phillips's own. ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... impelled me was a hidden, obscure necessity, a completely masked and unaccountable phenomenon. Or perhaps some idle and frivolous magician (there must be magicians in London) had cast a spell over me through his parlour window as I explored the maze of streets east and west in solitary leisurely walks without chart and compass. Till I began to write that novel I had written nothing but letters, and not very many of these. I never made a ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... country earlier than had been anticipated, and, save for Fisher, the only other person in the house beside the girl, was the middle-aged domestic who was parlour-maid, serving-maid ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... seeing the lady on such terms of intimacy in the family, made no hesitation to follow the doctor to a back-parlour, where, to his extreme surprise, he was closely questioned as to his present state of health, and the rise and progress of the disorder which he had caught through his own imprudence. The more he denied the circumstance, the more the doctor persisted ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... the [newspaper], which I have not seen, your Lordship will perceive from what I have said, that no 'monastery is in process of erection;' there is no 'chapel;' no 'refectory', hardly a dining-room or parlour. The 'cloisters' are my shed connecting the cottages. I do not understand what 'cells of dormitories' means. Of course I can repeat your Lordship's words that 'I am not attempting a revival of the Monastic Orders, ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... the door and started at first with my old astonishment, with which I had woke up, so strange and beautiful did this interior seem to me, though it was but a pothouse parlour. A quaintly-carved side board held an array of bright pewter pots and dishes and wooden and earthen bowls; a stout oak table went up and down the room, and a carved oak chair stood by the chimney-corner, now filled by a very old man dim-eyed and ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... transmuted them into a most comfortable dwelling, subsequently building on to them a new wing, that ran at right angles at the back, which was, if anything, a shade more inexorably Elizabethan than the stem onto which it was grafted, for here was situated the famous smoking-parlour, with rushes on the floor, and a dresser ranged with pewter tankards, and leaded lattice-windows of glass so antique that it was practically impossible to see out of them. It had a huge open fireplace framed in oak-beams ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... piteously out of his shop, and went into a back parlour. Dyson heard his trembling fingers fumbling with a bunch of keys, and the creak of an opening box. He came back presently with a small package neatly tied up in brown paper in his hands, and, still full of terror, handed it ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... and to revolt against the slap-dash untidy menage, Delia and her train of rowdy boys, the shouting, the practical jokes, and the slang. Then suddenly the Levison cloud burst! One night, when he was flying upstairs to his sky parlour, his mother waylaid him on the landing and, with an imperative gesture, beckoned him into ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... by a navigation of boats and barges, and by a road below my terrace, with coaches, post-chaises, waggons, and horsemen constantly in motion, and the fields speckled with cows, horses, and sheep. Now you shall walk into the house. The bow-window below leads into a little parlour hung with a stone-colour Gothic paper and Jackson's Venetian prints, which I could never endure while they pretended, infamous as they are, to be after Titian, &c., but when I gave them this air of barbarous bas-reliefs, they succeeded to a miracle: it is impossible at first sight not to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... said the knight. And a considerable space of time again elapsed ere the eloquence of the abbot, half chiding and half soothing, prevailed on the lady, in her adopted character, to approach, the parlour, in which at last she made her appearance, with a countenance on which the marks of tears might still be discovered, and a pettish sullenness, like that of a boy, or, with reverence, that of a girl, who is determined upon taking her own way in any matter, and equally resolved to give no reason ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... house. Donal and his wife seated in two comfortable armchairs by the parlour fire. The parlour is well furnished, and Kitty is busy dusting, as visitors are expected. Donal is a man of about fifty-six years, and his wife is a little younger. Donal is reading a copy of the Galway Examiner, and his ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... pale woman, had a-seen me, dro' a chink o' the parlour-door, as I tuk the coat down. An' she knowed what I tuk it for. I've a-read it, times and again, in her wifely eyes; an' to-day you yoursel' are witness that she knowed. If ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... her month in London among her noble friends, it must not be supposed that her noble friends gave her bed or board. They sometimes gave her tea, such as it was, and once or twice in the month they gave the old lady a second-rate dinner. On these occasions she hired a little parlour and bedroom behind it in King Street, Saint James's, and lived a hot, uncomfortable life, going about at nights to gatherings of fashionable people of which she in her heart disapproved, seeking for smiles which seldom ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... I put on clean linen, which I had along with me, and dressed myself as well as I could. And now, when I thus made my appearance, they did not, as they had the evening before, show me into the kitchen, but into the parlour, a room that seemed to be allotted for strangers, on the ground-floor. I was also now addressed by the most respectful term, "sir;" whereas the evening before I had been called only "master": by this latter appellation, I believe, it is usual to address only ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... open a few minutes longer till he had enough people inside to warrant closing. But never, never unless he was assured that Pepperleigh, the judge of the court, and Macartney, the prosecuting attorney, were both safely in the bar, or the bar parlour, did the proprietor venture to close up. Yet on this fatal night Pepperleigh and Macartney had been shut out—actually left on the street without a drink, and compelled to hammer and beat at the street door of the bar ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... parlour were startled by a sharp cry from Maud, and in another instant she flew into the room, rushed at a bound to the fireplace, snatched down her light rifle from its hooks over the mantel, and, crying, 'Quick, Ethel, your rifle!' was gone again ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... whether The fourteen Murphys all pigged together? The wages per week of the Weavers and Skinners, And what they boiled for their Sunday dinners? What plates the Bugsbys had on the shelf, Crockery, china, wooden, or delf? And if the parlour of Mrs. O'Grady Had a wicked French print, or Death and the Lady? Did Snip and his wife continue to jangle? Had Mrs. Wilkinson sold her mangle? What liquor was drunk by Jones and Brown? And the weekly score ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... the road, his shoulders were shaking suspiciously. Miss Mattie was watching him through the lace curtains that glorified the parlour windows. "Seems as if he had St. Vitus's dance," she mused. "Wonder why he doesn't mix up ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... period. "My dear fellow, Mr. Sim," one of them, asks, "is your tea agreeable?" to which the other answers, "Charming, my dear Lollena; where do you buy it?" They are seated in an attic, which, like that of the cobbler, serves "for parlour and bedroom and all," and the washing of the tenant hangs suspended on a line above the heads of the interesting pair. We find another the same year, entitled, Dandies having a Treat, wherein we are shown a couple of eccentricities in a confectioner's shop; one of them, who ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... of these false explanations of the nature of my future service, we were rung for down again, and I was reintroduced into the same parlour, where there was a table laid with three covers; and my mistress had now got with her one of her favourite girls, a notable manager of her house, and whose business it was to prepare and break such young fillies as I was to the mounting block; and she was accordingly, in that ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... His great hall was commonly strewed with marrow-bones, and full of hawk-perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers. The upper end of it was hung with fox-skins of this and the last year's killing. Here and there a pole-cat was intermixed, and hunter's poles in great abundance. The parlour was a large room, completely furnished in the same style. On a broad hearth, paved with brick, lay some of the choicest terriers, hounds, and spaniels. One or two of the great chairs had litters of cats in them, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... I assure you. Come in." He led Smith into a little room near the door. "We've a few friends in the parlour," he added, "and I guess you can tell me ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... politics, are to cease to interest you. You are to scheme to surprise gossip about the private lives, dress, and talk of artists, men of letters, politicians. Your professional work will sink below the level of servants' gossip in a public-house parlour. If you happen to meet a man of known name, you will watch him, will listen to him, will try to sneak into his confidence, and you will blab, for money, about him, and your blab will inevitably be mendacious. In short, like the most pitiable outcasts ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... affront. Listen to the passionate vehemence of his words when he is refused some indulgence which he has been teasing his mamma to grant him, though it would surely try your patience, as it has done mine, to hear the stamping and screaming that is going on just outside the parlour-door; and yet, for all this, Freddy receives no punishment. Oh no! 'It would break his spirit.' What ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... Dr. Lewen, who frequently honours me with a visit of conversation, as he is pleased to call it, and had parted with me in my own parlour, came to the door: and hearing the words, interposed; both having their hands upon their swords: and telling Mr. Lovelace where I was, he burst by my brother, to come to me; leaving him chafing, he said, like ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson |
