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More "Straight-backed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... surprise. "Ah," he said. "Sit down, Mr. Malone." Malone looked around for the chair, which was an uncomfortably straight-backed affair, and sat down in it gingerly. Remembering past visits to O'Connor, he was grateful for even the small amount of relaxation the hard wood afforded him. O'Connor had only recently unbent to the ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... a straight-backed chair near the dressing-table, and a huge basket of mending of different kinds stood on the floor by her side. The room was very simple, for she loved the well-polished black-walnut furniture among which she had lived all her married life, and ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... a circular) body of high ground disposed north-east to south-west; and with head and neck drooping westward so as to form a mighty pier or breakwater. The watery plain within is out of all proportion to the amount of terra firma. The body-profile shows straight-backed heaps of gypsum, some two hundred feet high, which become quoin-shaped about the middle of the isle: these hillocks are connected by low strips of sand growing the usual vegetation, especially the pink ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... sit on the gorgeous brocade sofa, arranging herself amid the multitude of cushions so as to listen long and happily. Estelle preferring a straight-backed chair, Gerald took the other corner of Aurora's sofa. Immediately Ceccherelli opened with "Souvenir de Sainte-Helene." Aurora, respectful to the artist, ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... sat at his desk in a long, gray dressing-gown, with a rug across his knees: around him were ranged several straight-backed chairs on which were spread hundreds of pages of closely written manuscript. At his elbow on a stand was an immense dictionary, from which he lifted a pair of absorbed ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... he had so often read to her, and altered to her liking—was a desecration. It seemed as though she were losing him indeed—as though he now belonged to these strange people, all of whom were laughing and applauding his words, from the German Princess in the Royal box to the straight-backed Tommy in the pit. Instead of the painted scene before her, she saw the birch-trees by the river at home, where he had first read her the speech to which they were now listening so intensely—the speech in which the hero tells the girl he loves her. She remembered that at the time ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... ayah advanced—-a stout, straight-backed Madrassi, with her black hair in a chignon, a ring in her nose, jewelled rings in her ears, wearing a handsome blue-and-gold saree, coquettishly draped round her ample form, the usual short silk bodice, or choli, and numerous heavy bangles. She salaamed to Sophy with both hands, ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... close my eyes and peer back into my obscure childish world I can see him sitting in his straight-backed cane-bottomed chair, drumming on the rungs with his fingers, keeping time to some inaudible tune—or chanting with faintly-moving lips the wondrous words of John or Daniel. He must have been at this time about ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... to an entertainment, Wert Payley makes young DeLancey Payley take her. It's the only use he's found for DeLancey as yet. We keep out of the kitchen after supper, unless too strongly pressed by thirst, because usually from seven to ten some hardworking young Swedish man sits bolt upright in a straight-backed chair, his head against the wall, discussing romance and other subjects of interest with a scared, resolute expression. Usually this goes on for about three years before anything happens. Then the girl admits, with some hesitation, ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... evening in his library with his guest. It was a large and simply furnished room, but there was a tone of austere harmony in all its appointments. The dark oak table, rows of old books in faded leather bindings, antique lamps, and straight-backed chairs were in keeping with the severe lines of the sombre panels and the heavy, square moulding of the ceiling. Two or three wax candles in an old silver holder stood on a small table by the wide hearth on which a cheerful ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... curtains hanging over the deep green shades. The floor was carpeted with a freshly washed rag carpet stretched over straw, the bed was invitingly clean and looked comfortable, there was a wash stand with bowl and pitcher, soap and towels, a small table with a lamp, a straight-backed chair and a rocking chair. Mrs. Holt opened a large closet having hooks for dresses at one end and shelves at the other. On the top of these there were a comfort and ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the long gloomy room while he waited; the two grated windows were far above reach and opened upon a blank wall opposite. The bare stone pavement was damp, and the furniture consisted of a dark walnut table, once polished, a long straight-backed settle placed at one end, and twelve rush-bottomed chairs arranged round the sides of the room with great regularity. Above the settle hung a painfully realistic crucifix; on the wall at the opposite end a large barocco ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... ever such practical people," confessed Mrs. Red Pepper Burns, sitting on the edge of a straight-backed old chair in the small kitchen. The house boasted but four rooms, two below and two above, with a small enclosure off the kitchen which had been used for a bedroom in the benighted days when people knew ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... questions as to where I came from, how long I had been there, and where I was going, Suzanne led me upstairs to be presented to [v]"Ma belle mere," a white-haired old lady sitting in a big, straight-backed chair. Then, after more courtesies had been extended to me, Suzanne preceded me down to the garden and left me alone while she went in to see that the supper ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... Applehead had hunted for baling wire she went swiftly, with the straight-backed, free stride of the plainswoman who knows not the muscle-bondage of boned girdle. In moccasins she walked; for a certain pride of race, a certain sense of the picture-value of beaded buckskin and bright cloth, held her fast to the gala dress ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... that he had not many minutes to spare, and was anxious that she should be in her hiding-place before his servants came back. She followed him and went in. Unlike the bedchamber, the small study was scantily and severely furnished. It contained only a writing-table, two simple chairs, a straight-backed divan covered with leather, and a large chest of black oak bound with ornamented steel work. The window was curtained with dark stuff, and two wax candles burned steadily beside the writing-materials that were ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... us was effusive to Aunt Eliza and hollowly gracious to me. In ten seconds they had their heads together and were hard at it talking CLOTHES. I was left high and dry on a straight-backed chair, longing to kick the legs of it, yet not daring. For a time I was content to stare; there was lots to stare at, high and low and around. Then the inevitable fidgets came on, and scratching one's legs mitigated slightly, but did not entirely ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... wife, now sitting up in an uncomfortable straight-backed chair, the marks of past servitude were less apparent; but they were there all the same—in her neat black stuff dress, and in her scrupulously clean, plain collar and cuffs. Mrs. Bunting, as a single woman, had been what is ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... would her mother say if she lost the murrey skirt, which had cost six shillings at Bridlington fair? And ten times that money might be lost much better than for her father to discover how she lost it. For Master Stephen Anerley was a straight-backed man, and took three weeks of training in the Land Defense Yeomanry, at periods not more than a year apart, so that many people called him "Captain" now; and the loss of his suppleness at knee and elbow ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... guest to a small easy-chair, Miss Prudence Plunkett took her own, one of those straight-backed, calico-cushioned wooden rockers dear to our grandmothers, and drew it ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... seat herself on the one straight-backed chair in the room. From this she was promptly driven by Mrs. Taylor and established in one corner of a lounge with a soft silk cushion behind her, and further propitiated by the proffer of a cup of tea in a dainty cup and saucer. All this, including Mrs. Taylor's musical voice, ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... for perhaps a half hour in the room, which was almost bare of furniture. There was a straight-backed chair, in which he sat, a narrow bed, and a bureau. Even though his hands were still tied behind his back, he did his best to search the room for something to help him—though he had no idea of what he would ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... carefully deposited in a little handbag he carried, and he returned home. An hour later, when his meal was finished, and he sat on a straight-backed chair meditating in the twilight, a rap sounded at his door, and a letter was handed to him. So rarely did a letter arrive for Mr. Tymperley that his hand shook as he examined the envelope. On opening ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... with the sadness of the Jewish prophet, drinking strong tea and sitting in a darkened room, was rapidly sinking into a very dismal frame of mind, which an outsider would have termed a fit of the blues. He sat in his straight-backed chair taking notes of such parts of the 'Lamentations' as would tend to depress the spirits of the 'Elect' on Sunday, and teach them to regard life in a proper and thoroughly ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... same direction. Gib of course was absent: by skreigh of day he had been gone to Crossmichael and his fellow-heretics; but the rest of the family would be seen marching in open order: Hob and Dand, stiff-necked, straight-backed six-footers, with severe dark faces, and their plaids about their shoulders; the convoy of children scattering (in a state of high polish) on the wayside, and every now and again collected by the shrill ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cast by a shaded candle, and began. It was dull enough, though I had borne such tribulations before, and the drone of my aunt's voice would have sent me to sleep, as it had done at other times, even in a straight-backed chair, had I not been so full of my discovery, and chafed at this delay. Thus all the time my aunt read of spiritualities and saving grace, I had my mind on diamonds and all kinds of mammon, for I never doubted that Blackbeard's treasure would be found at the ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... spade, and the iron nose for the digger or the plough, the village blacksmith usually fashioned, as he did the bake-pan, griddle, crane, and pothooks, for indoor use. Tables, chairs, cradles, bedsteads, and those straight-backed "settles" of which a few may yet be seen, were either home-made or gotten up by the village carpenter. Mattresses were at first of hay, straw, leaves, or rushes. Before 1700, however, feather beds were common, and houses and the entire state of a New England farmer's home had ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... headquarters, and from it descended the general, accompanied by officers of his staff. Punctilious salutes were exchanged, and then the general, accompanied by some of his officers and also those of the regiment, passed slowly between the long files of straight-backed soldiers. His searching glance seemed to take in everything at once, but so thoroughly had every one prepared that even his exacting eye could find nothing to take exception to. It was a time of suspense for all the soldiers, as they knew that ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... Long Ago, where as a boy I sat With mother in the family pew and fumbled with my hat— How I would like to see it now the way I saw it then, The straight-backed pews, the pulpit high, the women and the men Dressed stiffly in their Sunday clothes and solemnly devout, Who closed their eyes when prayers were said and never looked about— That little church of Long Ago, it wasn't grand to see, But even as a little boy ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... Righteousness, etc. When you go into the house of a tolerably well-to-do family, you will find the quantity of furniture rather scanty, and not luxurious. The floor may be covered with matting, but you will find no carpets or rugs. A table and some straight-backed chairs are the principal pieces. On the walls you may find Chinese pictures, which will not challenge your admiration, though they may be artistic in China. Some jars and specimens of fine porcelain may adorn the room, with writings on the walls ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... pale naturally, she was more than pale now. Her frightened eyes fluttered to her husband's face and fluttered away again. Why had she never thought of this! Sheer panic held her quiet in the straight-backed chair. ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... the grave he lies in will look just as well as if he had been straight. Dig it deep, old Martin, dig it deep,—and let it be as long as other folks' graves. And mind you get the sods flat, old man,—flat as ever a straight-backed young fellow was laid under. And then, with a good tall slab at the head, and a foot-stone six foot away from it, it'll look just as if there ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... straight-backed, brisk old lady, with a keen tongue, and a Yankee faculty for coming to the point. I besought her indulgence, and laid the whole Eleanor matter before her—at least, as much of it as seemed wise. I appeared in the role of her son's ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... over the hob and it was singing, as the water bubbled, the merriest song that the little Princess had ever heard. The table was set for tea. It was a very plain tea, only white bread and butter, and honey, and milk; but it made the Princess hungry to look at it. In front of the fire stood a straight-backed chair and a ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... such a jewel, and the ticket was home in the bureau drawer. Well, he must have it; she might starve in the attempt. Such a thing as going to him and telling him that he might redeem it was an impossibility. That good, straight-backed, stiff-necked Creole blood would have risen in all its strength and choked her. No; as a present had the quaint Roman circlet been placed upon her finger,—as a ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... the straight-backed sofa. It has terra-cotta and buff tulips running over the mustard brocade. The gilt part runs into ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... see it fur a while," responded the wife, from her straight-backed chair, her arms folded, ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... down by the bedside in the straight-backed chair that had evidently been comfortable enough for the sisters' anxious ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... free companionship of man and woman had begun. Then and forever ended the old system of courtship, which seems so laughable and even incredible today. One was no longer expected to pay court to one's beloved, sitting stiffly on straight-backed chairs in a chill drawing-room in the non-conducting, or non-conducive, presence of still chillier maiden aunts. The doom of the duenna was sounded; the chill drawing-room was exchanged for "the open road" and the whispering ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... with the taste of the inmates. The spotless purity of the muslin curtains and the transparency of the windows bespeak the thorough cleanliness and comfort of this home-like little nest. And the inviting parlor: it's furniture was neither elegant nor costly. The plain mahogany chairs and straight-backed old-fashioned sofa were well preserved. Not a particle of dust could be seen without the aid of a microscope. And the beautifully polished andirons which had done service in the family for many years, and seemed to assume an air of importance over the less attractive ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... of humor made it hard for him at times. He was sitting very erect in the straight-backed hotel chair when he said: "Mr. Ford, there are occasions when your conceit is insufferable. Do you imagine for a moment that you are the only engineer in the United States who can ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... chairs—a favourite rocker of her own, and the straight-backed, deep chair in which Alden usually sat when he was reading. The chairs faced each other, with a little distance between them. Edith sat in hers, rocking, with her hands crossed behind her head, and her little white feet stretched out in front ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... from the straight-backed chair, and looking very rigid herself as she stood up. "You won't tell me anything! So—I am now going to the police. I don't know what they'll do. I don't know what they can do. But—I can tell them what I think and feel about this, at any rate. For as sure as I am ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... She sat upright in her straight-backed chair before the table, her eyes half closed. It seemed so odd to see those little work-worn hands ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... the Panglossian view of the universe I used no arguments that might cloud his serenity. I acquiesced with mental reservations. We talked for a time, Paragot sitting primly on a straight-backed chair. He had abandoned his sprawling attitudes, for fear, I suspect, of spoiling his new clothes. The position, however, not making for ease of conversation, he presently took up a book and began to read, while I amused myself idly by making a furtive ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... on the edge of the straight-backed chair near the desk, as though to mark the parenthetical nature ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... Mr. Wilkinson?" said the marquis, rising from his chair behind the study table, and putting out the ends of his fingers so as to touch the young clergyman's hand. "Pray take a seat." And Arthur seated himself—as, indeed, he had no alternative—on a straight-backed old horsehair-bottomed chair which stood immediately under a tall black book-case. He was miles asunder from the fire; and had he been nearer to it, it would have availed him but little; for the grate was one of those which our grandfathers cleverly invented ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... labourer's cottage in England, to the worst, which can only be described as dens of filth and squalor. All are built on the same plan. There is one guest-room, a bare carpetless apartment, with a rough wooden bench, a table, and two straight-backed wooden chairs, and the room is heated to suffocation by a huge stove, which occupies a corner of the room. The flimsy plank partition is unpapered, but generally plastered with the cheap, crudely coloured prints sold by pedlars. Some of these depicted events connected with our recent ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... said, seating herself in one of the straight-backed chairs. "I have been so troubled since you preached that sermon yesterday, I could scarcely sleep. And I made up my mind I'd come to you the first thing this morning. Mr. Plimpton and I have been discussing it. In fact, people are talking ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... degenerate generation—a generation who, according to her creed, weakened their backs and ruined their health by lounging on sofas and easy chairs, while, for her part, though seventy years of age, she was thankful to say a straight-backed chair was good enough for her. It may be imagined that for this self-reliant, vigorous Aunt Mary to be taken seriously ill, so ill as to have to summon help, was a great shock, and Mr. Hastings decided at once that he must go to see his sister, and that one ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... earth. A poor soil is usually porous, admitting more wholesome air and sunshine, and it is through these vital forces that trees and men grow taller and hardier. Thus do I like to compensate the sterile fields of my native place by their stalwart, thin, straight-backed citizens, all bone and muscle, living with undimmed eyes and ears to ripe old age, mowing their meadows to the last summer of their lives and dying conveniently in some winter ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... of sense of humor made it hard for him at times. He was sitting very erect in the straight-backed hotel chair when he said: "Mr. Ford, there are occasions when your conceit is insufferable. Do you imagine for a moment that you are the only engineer in the United States who ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... chair, straight-backed and severe, in which Professor Valeyon always sat when at work. He had a theory that it was not well to be too much at bodily ease when intellectually occupied. Directly behind the chair, upon the shelf of a bookcase, stood a plaster cast of Shakespeare's face, ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... Torrington was fanning herself with a slow motion which reminded Frank of the way in which a tiger, caged in a zoological garden, switches its tail after being fed. Priscilla sat in the background under a lamp. She had chosen a straight-backed chair which stood opposite a writing table. She sat bolt upright in it with her hands folded on her lap and her left foot crossed over her right Her face wore a look of slightly puzzled, but on the whole intelligent interest; such as a humble dependent might feel while submitting to instruction ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... lettuce were carefully deposited in a little handbag he carried, and he returned home. An hour later, when his meal was finished, and he sat on a straight-backed chair meditating in the twilight, a rap sounded at his door, and a letter was handed to him. So rarely did a letter arrive for Mr. Tymperley that his hand shook as he examined the envelope. On opening it, the first thing he saw was a cheque. This excited him still more; he unfolded ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... and dependants were all gathered together in the wide, cool kitchen of Drumquhat, for it was the time for the minister's catechising. Saunders sat with his wife beside him. The three sons—Alec, James, and Rob—sat on straight-backed chairs; Walter near by, his ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... to admit the new comers, disclosing Miss Du Prel, in a gown of pale amber brocade, enthroned upon a straight-backed antique sofa. The exquisiteness of the surroundings which Lady Engleton had a peculiar gift in arranging, the mellow candle-light, the flowers and colours, seem to have satisfied in Valeria an inborn love of splendour that often opened hungry and ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... living room of Harmer's house were assembled that February evening six persons. It was just growing dusk, but the dancing firelight gave a pleasant illumination. Harmer and Mason were seated on opposite sides of the hearth in straight-backed wooden armchairs, and both were smoking. Rachel sat at her wheel, with her sister Dinah near to her; and in the background hovered two fine-looking young men, the two eldest sons of the household—Reuben, his father's right-hand man in business matters ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... entered into Amelia, and sat enthroned. She sank down on a straight-backed chair, and put her hands on her knees, while the knock came again, a ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... Challoner spent the evening in his library with his guest. It was a large and simply furnished room, but there was a tone of austere harmony in all its appointments. The dark oak table, rows of old books in faded leather bindings, antique lamps, and straight-backed chairs were in keeping with the severe lines of the sombre panels and the heavy, square moulding of the ceiling. Two or three wax candles in an old silver holder stood on a small table by the wide hearth on which a cheerful wood fire burned, but ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... general, accompanied by officers of his staff. Punctilious salutes were exchanged, and then the general, accompanied by some of his officers and also those of the regiment, passed slowly between the long files of straight-backed soldiers. His searching glance seemed to take in everything at once, but so thoroughly had every one prepared that even his exacting eye could find nothing to take exception to. It was a time of suspense ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... on Nepenthe which the Master still deigns to enter. I'm afraid he has grown very groggy on his pins of late; if he sat on any by a straight-backed chair they would never get him up again. To think that was once a pretty little boy . . . Poor old fellow! I know what he wants. They've been ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... ended when the university-clock struck the hour; the next should begin within ten or fifteen minutes. One by one the students drop in and take their places,—high and low, rich and poor, all on the same straight-backed pine benches. The days fire over, even in title-loving Germany, though not long since, when the young counts and barons sat foremost, on a privileged, raised, and cushioned seat, and were addressed by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... end of October. The room, extending two-thirds of the distance from left to right, is, for reasons of space economy, scantily furnished with the bare necessities—a bureau with mirror in the left corner, rear—two straight-backed chairs—a table with a glass top in the centre. The floor is varnished hardwood. The walls and furniture are painted white. On the left, forward, a door to the hall. On the right, rear, a double glass door opening on the porch. ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... for the gold medal itself. That his blue-eyed god should address him, a mere peon, as "thy," the endearing, intimate pronoun kept for one's friends! The tears stood in Diego's black eyes when he heard; and Diego was no weakling, but a straight-backed stoic of an Indian, who stood almost as tall as the Senor Jack himself and who could throw a full-grown steer to the ground by twisting its head. He bowed low and turned to fumble the sweet, dried grasses in Surry's manger; and beneath his coarse shirt the feel of the ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... waste of space on the river is no loss, but your wide embankment at the side loses good ground; and so my picturesque bridges are right as well as beautiful, and I hope to see them built again some day instead of the frightful straight-backed things which we fancy are fine, and accept from the pontifical rigidities of ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... their lives in the hard work of a farmhouse; but autumn-like and withered as this woman may have looked, her features had kept, or rather gained, a great refinement. She led us into her old kitchen and gave us seats, and took one of the little straight-backed chairs herself and sat a short distance away, as if she were giving audience to an ambassador. It seemed as if we should all be standing; you could not help feeling that the habits of her life were more ceremonious, but that for the moment she assumed the simplicities ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... down while I answer you, Barbara," said Duncan, with almost unimaginable tenderness in his tone. "No, not in that straight-backed chair, for I want you to listen to all I have to say, and to be at ease while you listen. Sit here," pushing an easy chair forward, "sit here where you can see my face as I speak. I want you to see in my eyes the sincerity ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... all,—thank God! And the grave he lies in will look just as well as if he had been straight. Dig it deep, old Martin, dig it deep,—and let it be as long as other folks' graves. And mind you get the sods flat, old man,—flat as ever a straight-backed young fellow was laid under. And then, with a good tall slab at the head, and a foot-stone six foot away from it, it'll look just as if ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of the muslin curtains and the transparency of the windows bespeak the thorough cleanliness and comfort of this home-like little nest. And the inviting parlor: it's furniture was neither elegant nor costly. The plain mahogany chairs and straight-backed old-fashioned sofa were well preserved. Not a particle of dust could be seen without the aid of a microscope. And the beautifully polished andirons which had done service in the family for many years, and seemed to assume an air of importance over the less attractive articles ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... pipeful of tobacco-dust, Peter sat, straight-backed, leaning elbows on knees and chin on hands, wondering what on earth was to become of them all next day. For a man out of work there was not a dollar of credit at the little village store; and work! why, there was only ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... other, the Harvester tapped at her door and helped the Girl upstairs. He had divided the space into three large, square sleeping chambers. In each he had set up a white iron bed, a dressing table, and wash stand, and placed two straight-backed and one rocking chair, all white. The walls were tinted lightly with green added to the plaster. There was a mattress and a stack of bedding on each bed, and a large rug and several small ones on the floors. He led her to the rocking ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... our trunks to sit by this imitation of a fire, only to find that there was nothing to sit on but the most uncompromising of straight-backed chairs. ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... proportions, especially the peaked gable over the entrance and the small, low and square wooden belfry, give it a somewhat foreign aspect which is by no means surprising in the circumstances. Indeed, it may be said to have decided Norse suggestion. The interior, with its severely simple galleries, straight-backed wooden pews and high pulpit under the chancel window, has that quaintness to be seen in the earliest country churches of America. Two big-eyed, winged cherubim on the organ loft are interesting examples ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... trotting up the long hill into Norton; at the top was the High Road, at the end of the High Road the gates leading into the park. If anything remained to be said, it would be wise to say it now, but Cornelia seemed to have nothing to say. She sat in erect, straight-backed fashion, her right hand lying on her knee, the fingers of the left rubbing softly up the arm, serenely oblivious of his presence. Guest cleared his throat once, cleared it again, cleared it a third time, ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... with no spot of weakness evident, even the key-hole being concealed by a metal flap on the outside. The room itself was small, the walls tinted red, and contained no furniture except a narrow bed and one straight-backed chair. Light was admitted through a small window, placed so high in the wall I was compelled to stand on the chair to look out, a mere round opening through which it would be impossible to squeeze my rather stalwart body. It was almost a typical ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... and the ticket was home in the bureau drawer. Well, he must have it; she might starve in the attempt. Such a thing as going to him and telling him that he might redeem it was an impossibility. That good, straight-backed, stiff-necked Creole blood would have risen in all its strength and choked her. No; as a present had the quaint Roman circlet been placed upon her finger,—as a present should ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... about a mile from the river, in a little plain surrounded by wooded hills, and entirely covers an eminence with its tile roofs, surmounted by a long, straight-backed cathedral with two stiff towers. As we got into the town, the tile roofs seemed to tumble uphill one upon another, in the oddest disorder; but for all their scrambling, they did not attain above the knees ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from all others in the room. It was straight-backed, and its oaken arms were covered by two plates, apparently of German silver. When Holmes clutched it by the arms to drag it forward, he gave one half-articulate gasp, and plunged headlong to the floor, quivering. Sir George Newnes sprang up ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... Panglossian view of the universe I used no arguments that might cloud his serenity. I acquiesced with mental reservations. We talked for a time, Paragot sitting primly on a straight-backed chair. He had abandoned his sprawling attitudes, for fear, I suspect, of spoiling his new clothes. The position, however, not making for ease of conversation, he presently took up a book and began to read, while I ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... eyes and peer back into my obscure childish world I can see him sitting in his straight-backed cane-bottomed chair, drumming on the rungs with his fingers, keeping time to some inaudible tune—or chanting with faintly-moving lips the wondrous words of John or Daniel. He must have been at this time about seventy years of age, ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... did he find the girl, who spent that night in a straight-backed chair at the bedside, asleep. Always she was sitting there with eyes wide and brimming with suffering and fear, and a wakeful, troubled heart into which love had flashed like a meteor and which it threatened, now, to sear like a lightning bolt. It seemed to her that life had ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... am old," said the Doctor, pushing his straight-backed wooden chair from the table, and turning from his books to look out of his small window. "Yes, I am certainly very old," he said again, rapping absently on the arm of the chair with the pen he held. ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... dyes, she would sometimes overtake her relatives preceding her more leisurely in the same direction. Gib of course was absent: by skreigh of day he had been gone to Crossmichael and his fellow-heretics; but the rest of the family would be seen marching in open order: Hob and Dand, stiff-necked, straight-backed six-footers, with severe dark faces, and their plaids about their shoulders; the convoy of children scattering (in a state of high polish) on the wayside, and every now and again collected by the shrill summons of the mother; and the mother herself, by a suggestive ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... At one end of the room was a massive mahogany bed, screened by heavy curtains which were looped back by silken cords. Near the bed was an old-fashioned mahogany dresser, with a diamond-shaped mirror, and in front of it a straight-backed chair adorned with the grotesque carving of an ancient and long-dead fashion. About him, everywhere, were the evidences of luxury and of age. The big lamp, which gave a brilliant light, was of hammered ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... intent, honest, upright. He seldom laughed; though when he did, there came at the corners of mouth and eye, tiny, tell-tale lines which showed that beneath seriousness and silence, lay a fund of humor unharmed by continual drain. He was a tall man, broad-shouldered, straight-backed. And to that which had been left him, he added, in health, in mind, and in money, and he added wisely and well, and never at ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... not," she agreed, seating herself in one of the straight-backed chairs. Her clasped hands rested on the small round table in the center of the room, while she looked out across the lawn to the dahlias and zinnias on ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... was sanded with the whitest sand; lovely old straight-backed chairs stood about; there was an oaken table, and a spinning-wheel. A wicker cage, with a lark in it, hung in ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... a bedroom at the back and a "living-room" in front, overlooking the street from the third story of the building. Of the bedchamber there is but little to say, except that it contained a bed, a washstand, a mirror, two straight-backed chairs and a clothes-press. Droom went out for his bath—every Saturday night. The "living-room," however, was queer in more ways than one. In one corner, on a chest of drawers, stood his oil stove, while in the opposite corner, a big sheet-iron heater made itself conspicuous. ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... both young and old. But none the less her shrewd mother wit and kindly heart instructed her in things not taught in the schools. The consequence was that, while she herself sat erect in fine scorn of the backs of her straight-backed Sheratons, her drawing-room was furnished with an abundance of easy chairs and lounges, and arranged with cosey nooks and corners calculated to gratify the luxurious tastes and lazy manners of a decadent generation. Her shrewd wit was further discovered in the care she took to assemble to ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... it was bounded on the other two by Jedwort's overgrown stone wall. It was a square, old-fashioned building, with a low steeple, that had a belfry, but no bell in it, and with a high, square pulpit and high, straight-backed pews inside. It was now some time since meetings had been held there; the old society that used to meet there having separated, one division of it building a fashionable chapel in the North Village, and the other a fine ...
— The Man Who Stole A Meeting-House - 1878, From "Coupon Bonds" • J. T. Trowbridge
... rocking-chair, a couch covered with chintz, and half a dozen straight-backed, spider-legged chairs were ranged methodically along the sides of the room, while in the centre of the floor, so placed that the fresh morning breeze which entered by the door would blow straight across it to the window shaded ...
— Aunt Hannah and Seth • James Otis
... the distance he might have to drop, and then calmly walked into the room again and closed the window behind him, leaving the latch so that the lightest touch would cause it to fly open. He relit the candle and drew a straight-backed chair up to the table. Then he put coal on the fire and stirred it up into a royal blaze. He would willingly have folded the shutters over those staring windows at his back. But that was out of the question. It would have been to cut off ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... criticism, therefore, his admirers offer this word of advice: Try to like Browning; in other words, try to understand him. He is not "easy"; he is not to be read for relaxation after dinner, but in the morning and in a straight-backed chair, with eyes clear and intellect at attention. If you so read him, you must soon discover that he has something of courage and cheer which no other poet can give you in such full measure. If you read nothing else, try at least "Rabbi ben Ezra," and after the reading reflect that the optimism ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... travelled through the night, and in the early morning left the express at a junction. Honora sat in the straight-backed seat of the smaller train with parted lips and beating heart, gazing now and again at the pearly mists rising from the little river valley they were climbing. Chiltern was like ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... that figure which even the passage of years had been able to bend so very little to its will. For a moment the lace kerchief folded across the black gown rose and fell tumultuously; then its wearer crossed the room and seated herself with uncompromising discomfort in the only straight-backed chair the room contained. This done, Mrs. Nancy Wetherby, for the twentieth time, went over in ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... babies fretted, young folks twisted and squirmed in the straight-backed benches. A parable he told, a story of salvation, conviction, damnation. But always he came back to the thirteenth chapter of St. John. He spoke again of that part of the communion service which had preceded: the partaking of the ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... passed upstairs into the inner room, carefully shutting both doors behind him. The place was unlighted, but through the large stone-mullioned window the rays of the full moon poured brightly, and by them, seated in a straight-backed chair, Montalvo saw a draped form. There was something forbidding, something almost unnatural, in the aspect of this sombre form perched thus upon a chair in expectant silence. It reminded him—for he had a touch of ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
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