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Antechamber   Listen
noun
Antechamber  n.  
1.
A chamber or apartment before the chief apartment and leading into it, in which persons wait for audience; an outer chamber. See Lobby.
2.
A space viewed as the outer chamber or the entrance to an interior part. "The mouth, the antechamber to the digestive canal."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Antechamber" Quotes from Famous Books



... were so full of sadness—endeavoured by the work of their hands to make up for the unproductiveness of his efforts. The sick man slept, and the mother, taking away the lamp and the pieces of embroidery, went with her children into the adjoining room, which served both as antechamber and dining-room: she seated herself at the table, and took up her work with a sad and abstracted air; then observing her little daughter doing the same thing cheerfully, and her son industriously colouring some prints destined for a book of fashions, she embraced them; ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various

... an ill-tempered person, and my grandmother asserts that I have a very good temper indeed; but I must admit that on Monday morning I felt a little cross, and when Sister Sarah and the nun entered my antechamber I bade them a very cold good-morning, and allowed the former to go without attempting any conversation whatever. The nun having arrived, I would not send her away; but when the sub-mother came at noon, I intended to inform her that I did not any longer desire the ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton

... compatriot Lesurques; having explained to him the motive that called him to the Bureau, he proposed to him that they should go together. Lesurques accepted, and the Citizen Daubenton not having yet arrived, they sat down in the antechamber, in order to see him as he passed, and thus ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... the corridor was so completely washed and dried that one might fancy the joiner had just finished the floor. Through the open kitchen door a large brazier was seen in a glow, and the ringing of plates and dishes was heard. The antechamber was covered with a woolen carpet, and the Christmas pine brought on the day before from the neighboring forest, decked with garland and moss, rose proudly from a large box, as if it knew how proud a part it played in ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... the eighteenth century, with Mme. de Lambert as its leader, there was a renascence of the preciosite of the Hotel de Rambouillet, women protesting against the prevalent grossness and indecency of manners. The salon of Mme. de Lambert was the great antechamber to the Academy, election to which was generally gained through her. A new aristocracy was forming, a new society arose; from about 1720 to 1750, libertinism and atheism, licentiousness and intrigue, crept into ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... would not be convenient to crowd them together in one place, that Pao-y and Tai-y should only remain with her in this part to break her loneliness, but that Ying Ch'un, T'an Ch'un, and Hsi Ch'un, the three of them, should move on this side in the three rooms within the antechamber, at the back of madame lady Wang's quarters; and that Li Wan should be told off to be their attendant and to keep ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... creed, and implore the protection, of the Roman pontiff, who assumed, with propriety and weight, the character of an angel of peace, the common father of the Christians. By his voice, the sword of Charles was chained in the scabbard; and the Greek ambassadors beheld him, in the pope's antechamber, biting his ivory sceptre in a transport of fury, and deeply resenting the refusal to enfranchise and consecrate his arms. He appears to have respected the disinterested mediation of Gregory the Tenth; but Charles was insensibly disgusted by the pride and partiality of Nicholas the Third; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... Smithfield, in London; but it was not surrounded by such lofty buildings, nor in any degree of comparison so well constructed. We ascended a ruinous staircase, which led to an open gallery, where three or four hundred of the Vizier's Albanian guards were lounging. In an antechamber, which opened from the gallery, a number of officers were smoking, and in the middle, on the floor, two old Turks were seriously engaged ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... charged, and upon the hideous pandemonium broke the sharp crack of my rifle, once, twice, thrice. Three lions rolled, struggling and biting, to the floor. Victory seized my arm, with a quick, "This way! Here is a door," and a moment later we were in a tiny antechamber at the foot ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... from the table, and, going to a curtain that concealed the narrow door of an antechamber, he drew it aside, and there came forth, clothed in a garment of gold and green, close-fitting and fine, clasped about the waist with a twining belt of ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... about her, in antechamber or corridor, was there sign of any other being than herself and the recumbent figure of Tario, the jeddak, who watched her through half-closed eyes from the gorgeous trappings ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... there, every Wednesday evening, summer and winter, he received whatever was in any way illustrious in France, or whatever the other capitals of Europe sent to Paris, en passant. "Four small rooms," says Mme. Ancelot, "and a very small antechamber, composed the whole apartment. At twelve o'clock tea was served, with eternally the same cakes, over which a pupil of Gerard's, Mlle. Godefroy, presided. Gerard himself talked; his wife remained nailed to a whist-table, attending to nothing and to nobody. Evening once closed in, cards were the only ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... but the faint patter of the dripping slime, and he went swiftly to the end of the musty antechamber and discovered at the distant end the fourth wall, hitherto unseen. Reaching from the left corner of the scarlet tomb was a narrow staircase built ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... the two young nobles and sprinkled them all with perfume, did much to restore them, though they were all somewhat stiff, and every bone seemed to ache. They were kept waiting for half an hour, at the end of which time the door of the antechamber was opened and their names were called. The queen, who was still a beautiful woman, was standing talking to a gentleman, in whose attire there were but few symbols that would betray to a stranger that he was an ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... out into the antechamber, and repeatedly called back into the Council room. At length James positively commanded them to answer the question. He did not expressly engage that their confession should not be used against them. But they, not ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... offered a problem he was as yet too absorbed in other matters to make any attempt to solve, he left the vicinity of the table, and was about to leave the room when he heard Styles's voice rise from the adjoining antechamber, where Styles was keeping guard ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... antechamber, and know the Lord Sejanus. Suppose it were told him with the proofs in hand—or without the proofs—that the same Jew is the richest man in the East—nay, in all the empire. The fishes of the Tiber would have fattening other than that they dig out of ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... II. inform us that at St. Petersburg, scarcely a hundred years since, whenever the czar or czarina was displeased with a Russian prince, he was forced to squat down in the great antechamber of the palace, and to remain in that posture a certain number of days, mewing like a cat, or clucking like a sitting hen, and pecking his ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... 'and after sunset meet me in my antechamber. Bring a scribe to score the games; Rei shall be the judge, and hold the stakes. But beware of the golden Cup of Pasht! Drain it not to-night, lest I win a love-game, though we ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang

... year was well advanced, when the Earl of Morton, one morning, rather unexpectedly, entered the antechamber of Murray, in which Halbert ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... first interview with his excellency, Sir Evan McCregor, we received an invitation to dine at Government House with a company of gentlemen. On our arrival at six o'clock, we were conducted into a large antechamber above the dining hall, where we were soon joined by the Solicitor-General, Hon. R.B. Clarke. Dr. Clarke, a physician, Maj. Colthurst, Capt. Hamilton, and Mr. Galloway, special magistrates. The appearance of the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... lair and fastness of the president, whose massive portrait I had already seen on several walls. Spaciousness and magnificence increased. Ceilings rose in height, marble was softened by the thick pile of carpets. Mahogany and gold shone more luxuriously. I was introduced into the vast antechamber of the presidential secretaries, and by the chief of them inducted through polished and gleaming barriers into the presence-chamber itself: a noble apartment, an apartment surpassing dreams and expectations, conceived ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett

... in shape it precisely resembles an oven, or depressed beehive. The opening is large and arched, and directly in front, within the nest, there is a partition, which reaches nearly to the roof, thus forming a passage or antechamber to ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... sorrow, his quest for the highest. This vast spiritual passion finds its expression and satisfaction in an invisible world, which promises in a future existence the supreme triumph and reign of a divine justice, wrath, and pity, and for which the visible world is but antechamber and probation. Dante shows the culmination of supernatural Christianity, but he has something further. The guide of his pilgrimage, the star of his hope, the inspiration of his life, is a woman,—loved with sublimation and tenderness, loved better after her death, and felt ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam

... full pomp of the archiepiscopal attire, with the mitre of St. Augustine on his head and the crozier in his hand, Odo advanced, like one who felt his divine mission, to the centre of the room. His cross bearer and other attendants remained in the antechamber. ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... Crochet," some French Envoy or Emissary, I conclude: "you perceive we go on very sweetly together, and are in a high strain. I am sorry I burnt one of his Letters, wherein he assured me he would in the Versailles Antechamber itself speak of me to the King, and that my name had actually been mentioned at the King's Levee. It certainly is not my ambition to choose this illustrious mortal to publish my renown; on the contrary, I should think it ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... white marble staircase, and Frisoni solemnly conducted them to his Highness's private apartments—the antechamber, the audience-closet, the writing-room, ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... hers with a look that held more scorn than wonder. They were standing in the antechamber of Valerie's room. Yonder at his post lounged the recruit "Battista," looking a trifle cleaner than when first he had been presented to the Marquise, but still not clean enough for a lady's antechamber. He ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini

... gallery, when the next moment he recollected that he had left his watch and seals lying on the table. She must not see these first. He ran back and brought them away with him. At the same instant he heard the hostess in the antechamber showing Ottilie the way to her apartments. He sprang to the bedroom door. It was shut. In his haste, as he had come back for his watch, he had forgotten to take out the key, which had fallen out, and lay the other side. The door had closed with a spring, and he ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... said this, she showed me from the drawing-room windows the beautiful avenues of my park, the old horse-chestnuts in bloom, the lilacs, the honeysuckles, whose fragrance filled the air, and whose verdure glistened in the sun. In the antechamber was the gardener and all his family, who, sad and silent, seemed also to say to me, 'Don't go, young master, don't go.' Hortense, my eldest sister, pressed me in her arms, and Amelie, my little sister, who was in a ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... looked towards the south-west and the south. The next largest apartment was in the right or eastern arm of the cross. It was a hall 108 feet long by 24 feet wide, divided by a broad doorway in which were two pillar-bases, into a square antechamber of 24 feet each way, and an inner apartment about 80 feet in length. Neither of the two arms of the cross was completely explored; and it is uncertain whether they extended to the extreme edge of the eastern and western courts, thus dividing each of there into two; ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... both sexes are permitted to visit me without interruption, without inquiring their business, and without the presence of a spy. It is well that I have an antechamber, or I should often be gene ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... the faithful valet de chambre. "I heard in the antechamber your majesty's groans and cries; I rushed in and saw you writhing on the easy-chair. A bad dream seemed to torment your majesty, and I therefore ventured to ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... house, which remains undivided, forms a single long gallery serving as a common antechamber to all the private rooms, each of which opens to it by a wooden door (Pls. 36, 38). It is in a sense, though roofed and raised some 20 feet above the ground, the village street, as well as a common living and reception room. Along the outer border of the floor runs ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... article of furniture in the antechamber was a wooden bench on which Pierre perceived two female patients awaiting their turn in the charge of a young hospitaller. But on entering the meeting room the number of persons packed inside it quite surprised him, whilst the suffocating ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... they did not lose much, for they found that they would have to be a good deal on duty, and the consequence was that much of the early part of the day was spent in the antechamber to help usher in quite a long string of gentlemen, who wished for an ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... well as the great author. MICHAEL ANGELO, invited by Julius II. to the court of Rome, found that intrigue had indisposed his holiness towards him, and more than once the great artist was suffered to linger in attendance in the antechamber. One day the indignant man of genius exclaimed, "Tell his holiness, if he wants me, he must look for me elsewhere." He flew back to his beloved Florence, to proceed with that celebrated cartoon which afterwards became a favourite ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... foment their contusions, and to heal the wounds of their pride. They live there agreeably, surrounded by the few followers who have remained faithful to them. A miniature court, assembled in their antechamber, crowns them in private, hails them on rising with epithets of royalty, and pours forth incense in their dressing-room. The Roman nobility, and foreigners of distinction, live with them in an unequal intimacy, humbling ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... coffee. Bread we brought with us, not caring to exercise our teeth on last month's bake. In any case, nothing more solid than bread and cheese is to be found here, tavern though it is. A fire blazes in the first room, which has no window, and might properly be styled the antechamber of the cow-house, into which there is a fine view through an open door. Sixty tails are peacefully whisking to and fro, for in the middle of the day the cattle are housed to protect them from flies. All the implements of cheese-making—the immense copper kettle, the presses, pails, etc.—are ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... the next, on the throw of the black and yellow balls, but I smoked my pipe, and let them brag and squabble. The bees were droning, the sun lay warm on my back, and the forest was at peace. Two years before, I remembered, I had worn lace and periwig on this day, and had stood in his majesty's antechamber. Now I was gaunt and rusty as a bear in spring. I looked at the secret forest, the uncharted water, and at my smoke-grimed men squatting like monkeys over a savage game, and I smote my knee with content. Truly it was a satisfying thing to live while ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... Roman provinces from Mount Haemus to the Tigris. One man, at the expense of his villa, is made proconsul of Asia; a second purchases Syria with his wife's jewels; and a third laments that he has exchanged his paternal estate for the government of Bithynia. In the antechamber of Eutropius, a large tablet is exposed to public view, which marks the respective prices of the provinces. The different value of Pontus, of Galatia, of Lydia, is accurately distinguished. Lycia may be obtained for so many thousand pieces of gold; but the opulence of Phrygia will require ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... lad as singular. One of the provost's men bound his hands with a rope and held him by the end of it until they reached one of the lower halls of the chateau of Louis XII., which was evidently the antechamber to the apartments of some important personage. The provost and his men bade him sit upon a bench, and the man then bound his feet as he had before bound his hands. On a sign from Monsieur de Montresor the man ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... empire of Alexander the Great had fallen to the Roman commonwealth just as if the city had inherited it from his heirs. From all sides kings and ambassadors flocked to Rome to congratulate her; and they showed that fawning is never more abject than when kings are in the antechamber. King Massinissa, who only desisted from presenting himself in person on being expressly prohibited from doing so, ordered his son to declare that he regarded himself as merely the beneficiary, and the Romans as the true ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... here silence reigned supreme. A crucifix, roughly carved, was fixed to the wall in the niche of a high window, which was carefully barred with iron. Except for this image of resignation and mercy, the walls were bare. Well might this dungeon serve as antechamber to the tomb. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... winter of 1907 was a very pretty affair. Up the rose-red carpeted stairs the guests walked, the statues looking silently on, but apparently there was no Galatea to step down from her niche and join the happy throng. In the antechamber each guest was asked to write his name in the large autograph books kept for that purpose, and then, passing on, was received by the Ambassador and Ambassadress in the first of the splendid series of salons thrown open for the occasion. At this time it was Mr. and Mrs. Henry White who represented ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... nine o'clock as he roamed the vast garden surrounding the Palace of a Thousand Sounds—thus named because of the tiny bells tinkling about its marble dome. He had eaten an unsatisfying meal in a small antechamber, waited upon by a stupid servant. And worse still, the food was ill cooked. On presenting his credentials, earlier in the evening, the grand vizier, a sneaky-appearing man, had welcomed him coldly, telling him that her Serene ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... that the cause of the lovelorn Duc de Vitry was in great peril just at the moment when de Jars and Jeannin resolved to approach the fair one anew. She was sitting lost in thought, pondering in all good faith on the small profit it was to a woman to be virtuous, when she heard voices in the antechamber. Then her door opened, and the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... seen ladies who were very much like her. But I had seen them very far away from Grimwinter, and it was an odd sensation to be seeing her here. Whither was it the sight of her seemed to transport me? To some dusky landing before a shabby Parisian quatrieme,—to an open door revealing a greasy antechamber, and to Madame leaning over the banisters, while she holds a faded dressing-gown together and bawls down to the portress to bring up her coffee. Miss Spencer's visitor was a very large woman, of middle age, with ...
— Four Meetings • Henry James

... those Greek gymnasia which now every one of us must have in his town house, nor did they deem that in order to enjoy a house in the country one must give sounding Greek names to all its apartments, such as [Greek: prokoiton] (antechamber) [Greek: palaistra] (exercising room) [Greek: apodutaerion] (dressing room) [Greek: peristulon] (arcade) [Greek: ornithon] or (poultry house) [Greek: peristereon] (dove cote) [Greek: oporothaekae] (fruitery) ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... England and in France. The German potentates were bitterly reviled for yielding precedence to an upstart. Indeed the most illustrious among them paid to him such marks of deference as they would scarcely have deigned to pay to the Imperial Majesty, mingled with the crowd in his antechamber, and at his table behaved as respectfully as any English lord in waiting. In one caricature the allied princes were represented as muzzled bears, some with crowns, some with caps of state. William had them all in a chain, and was teaching them ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... only one among many favourites. The court was full of flatterers as assiduous and as obsequious as himself; his proud Castilian blood could brook no companions.... But one day, as he was moodily waiting in the royal antechamber, thinking of these things, it occurred to him that a certain profession had always been in great honour among princes, and he remembered that he had a cousin of eighteen, who was being educated in a convent near Xiormonez. She was beautiful. With buoyant heart he went to his house ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham

... hardly found a place in the glories of the time. But from the moment when the Armada drifted back broken to Ferrol the figures of warriors and statesmen were dwarfed by the grander figures of poets and philosophers. Amidst the throng in Elizabeth's antechamber the noblest form is that of the singer who lays the "Faerie Queen" at her feet, or of the young lawyer who muses amid the splendours of the presence over the problems of the "Novum Organum." The triumph at ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... really a good deal more than a joke in calling Perez, Duke of Stockbridge. The antechamber of the headquarters room, at the guardhouse, was often half full of a morning with gentlemen, and those of lower degree as well, waiting to see him with requests. Some wanted passes, or authority to go out of town, or carry goods away. ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... in Carentan struck half-past nine as he spoke. Lanterns were being lit in Mme. de Dey's antechamber, servants were helping their masters and mistresses into sabots, greatcoats, and calashes. The card players settled their accounts, and everybody went out together, after the fashion of all ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... worried personage in Grand Uniform. The personage was the Cerberus of the Emperor's antechamber, and he barred her way. He was newly a personage, and ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... things in Scotland are—1. Edinburgh; 2. The antechamber of the Fall of Foyers; 3. The view of Loch Lomond from Inch Tavannach, the highest of the islands; 4. The Trosachs; 5. The view of the Hebrides from a point, the name of which I forget. But the intervals between the fine things in Scotland are very ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... his contempt and indignation. The world has been for many years amused with a story confidently told, and as confidently repeated with additional circumstances[751], that a sudden disgust was taken by Johnson upon occasion of his having been one day kept long in waiting in his Lordship's antechamber, for which the reason assigned was, that he had company with him; and that at last, when the door opened, out walked Colley Gibber; and that Johnson was so violently provoked when he found for whom he had been so long excluded, that he went ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... himself to the utmost in Matilda's behalf. He turned away from her, again and again, with a disgust which his compassion could scarcely restrain. Philip was so far roused by the few words which had been let drop below-stairs, as to choose to hear what passed now, in the antechamber to the patient's room. It was he who decidedly interposed at last. He sent his brother-in-law to Matilda's bedside, dismissed Mr Walcot from the room, ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... and no trouble had been spared to justify the expectations of Radstowe. The antechamber was luxuriously carpeted, arm-chaired, cushioned, palmed and screened, and the hired flunkey at the ballroom door had a presence and a ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG

... a storm, as is every storm by its calm; for, after supper, in order to give my bride the opportunity of undressing alone, which I thought might be most agreeable the first night, I withdrew into the antechamber till I thought she was laid; and then, having first disposed of my lamp, I moved softly towards her, and stepped into bed too; when, on my nearer approach to her, I imagined she had her clothes on. This struck ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock

... Suffice it to say that the bridegroom entered the hall in his usual dress, without ornament of any kind; as groomsman he had with him a cousin of Luscinda's and except the servants of the house there was no one else in the chamber. Soon afterwards Luscinda came out from an antechamber, attended by her mother and two of her damsels, arrayed and adorned as became her rank and beauty, and in full festival and ceremonial attire. My anxiety and distraction did not allow me to observe or notice particularly what she wore; I could only perceive the colours, which were ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... answer to the cross-piece at the hilt. It was undoubtedly a prehistoric habitation, probably enlarged by the Saracens and used by them as a storehouse for their spoils. It is entered through an oval antechamber which resembles the hilt of the sword; and which most likely was the original prehistoric dwelling. But the largest of the islands was Montmajeur, that now rises abruptly from the plain, crowned with ruins. I walked to it in driving rain and mistral. ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... went out, passing through an antechamber, opened a second thick door, studded with nail-heads, in the Dutch fashion, cautiously entered the court (so as not to be heard by the people in the house), and drew back the secret bolt of a gate six feet high, formidably garnished with iron spikes. Leaving ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... politicians of both parties, with people with schemes and intrigues of all kinds. I have to be in attendance at the palace, and to see into the whole details of the organization of the army. I have no doubt that, at present, my antechamber is crowded with people who want ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty

... little antechamber, redolent with the peculiar and indescribable odor of human flesh and its preservatives, was a long ice-chest, a big iron sink, an old-fashioned range, pots, pans, shelves with ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... coachman the address of one of the most illustrious dress-makers in Paris. She arrived a little agitated, and to reach the great artist was obliged to pass through a veritable crowd of footmen, who were in the antechamber chatting and laughing, used to meeting there and making long stops. Nearly all the footmen were those of society, the highest society; they had spent the previous evening together at the English Embassy, and were to be that evening at ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy

... deaf, a mute, and a eunuch.' Alroy could scarcely refrain from smiling, and the Prince of the Captivity and the physician of the Caliph entered the kiosk together. Two women, veiled, and two eunuchs of the guard, received them in an antechamber. And then they passed into a room which ran nearly the whole length of the kiosk, opening on one side to the gardens, and on the other supported by an ivory wall, with niches painted in green fresco, and in each niche a rose-tree. Each niche, also, was covered ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli

... golden gods and scripts. Lulled by the cadence of the garden stream, Thus lay they on the clustered carpets, each A girlish rose with shut leaves, waiting dawn To open and make daylight beautiful. This was the antechamber of the Prince; But at the purdah's fringe the sweetest slept— Gunga and Gotami—chief ministers In that still house ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold

... day, with mingled feelings, I again sought the Zaddik's doorway, through which was pouring the stream of those who had waited so long; but access to the holy man was still not easy. In the spacious antechamber sat the Saint's scribe, at a table round which the crowd clustered, each explaining his or her want, which the scribe scribbled upon a scrap of paper for them to take in to the Saint. I listened to the instructions of the clamorous applicants. "I, Rachel, daughter of Hannah, wish to have children," ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... the document which he took from the table, his attention was in fact wholly concentrated upon the departing burgers. He listened with a satisfied air as they slowly moved away, and, when the door of the antechamber closed behind them, with a deep-drawn breath deposited the document ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... of the outer courts of Love, and the intended patience is here only the long-suffering of love; and the intended beheste, its promise; and the intended art, its cunning,—the same powers companion each other necessarily in the courts and antechamber of every triumphal home of man. I say triumphal home, for, indeed, triumphal arches which you pass under, are but foolish things, and may be nailed together any day, out of pasteboard and filched laurel; but triumphal doors, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... they came to a smaller building with iron bars at the windows. Private Watson had to stop and tell the nature of the errand to the soldier at the door, who finally saluted and let them in. They found themselves in a rather large antechamber. After a talk with the Captain in charge, the boys were led to a bright airy room on the ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton

... years of age was still considered only fourteen, was expected to groom the horses, clean the cabriolet, or the tilbury, and the harnesses, accompany his master, take care of the apartments, and be in the princess's antechamber to announce a visitor, if, by chance, ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac

... stretching as far as the eye can reach, the Royal Drive, leading through a fine avenue of trees, and reminding us of the "Long Walk" at Windsor Castle. Retracing our steps, and crossing one of the court-yards, we ascend a modest staircase, and are in the antechamber of the apartments of the Commander-in-Chief. There are sentinels at the outer door, others at the first landing, and a guard of honor, armed with halberds, in the antechamber. Our courteous companion, by virtue of his official rank, has ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various

... passed into a proverb; and such was Theresa's character for coldness and reserve, that I attributed to her temper of mind, the evident indifference with which she received my attentions. Meeting her as I did, either in public assemblies, or in the antechamber of the Queen among the other ladies in waiting, I had no opportunity of making myself more particularly acquainted with her sentiments and character. When I addressed her in the evening circle, although she readily entered into conversation on general subjects, ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore

... My life long will it anger me to think, How when I went to court seven years ago, To see about new horses for our regiment, 90 How from one antechamber to another They dragged me on, and left me by the hour To kick my heels among a crowd of simpering Feast-fattened slaves, as if I had come thither A mendicant suitor for the crumbs of favour 95 That ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... had some time before retired from the siege of Port—au—Prince, and we found the town in a very miserable state. Many of the houses were injured from shot; the President's palace, for instance, was perforated in several places, which had not been repaired. In the antechamber you could see the blue heavens through the shot holes in the roof.—"Next time I come to court, Tom," said Mr Bang, "I will bring an umbrella." Turning out of the parade, we passed through a rickety, unpainted ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... candelabras, which shed a dim and uncertain light into the more distant parts of the hall. One or the other occasionally threw an inquiring glance toward the door, and leaned forward as if to listen. After a while, steps were heard in the antechamber, and the countenances of the honorable members of the Council ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach

... powers of the conscious mind seem almost insignificant. Derived from the Unconscious during the process of evolution, the conscious is, as it were, the antechamber where the crude energies of the Unconscious are selected and adapted for action on the world outside us. In the past we have unduly exaggerated the importance of the conscious intellect. To claim for it the discoveries of civilisation is to confuse ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks

... occupies one side of the square, but is no way remarkable in its architecture. At the end of every flight of steps that we mounted we came upon lounging soldiers, in their yellow cloaks, and women in rebosos, standing about. We passed through a hall filled with soldiers, into the antechamber, where we were received by several aides-de-camp, who conducted us into a very well-furnished room, where we sat a few minutes, till an officer came to lead us into the reception-room, which is a handsome apartment, about a hundred feet long, and fitted up with crimson and gold, also ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... eyes so that mother or father might keep them from their books for a while. There were of course academies of a better class than these schools open to the street, and probably Publius Silius would be taken to one where his "guardian" waits with others in an antechamber, while he is himself being taught in a room where the walls are pictured with historical or mythological scenes, or with charts or maps, and where there stand busts of eminent writers. The boys are ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... supremacy. Success, that Menaechmus of talent, has one dupe,—history. Juvenal and Tacitus alone grumble at it. In our day, a philosophy which is almost official has entered into its service, wears the livery of success, and performs the service of its antechamber. Succeed: theory. Prosperity argues capacity. Win in the lottery, and behold! you are a clever man. He who triumphs is venerated. Be born with a silver spoon in your mouth! everything lies in that. Be lucky, and you will have all the rest; be happy, and people will think ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... be alone, Beryl had shut out even Sister Serena, and as the officer locked her into a dark antechamber, adjoining the court-room, she began to pace the floor. One tall, narrow window, dim with inside dust, showed her through filmy cobwebs the gray veil of rain falling ceaselessly outside, darkening the day that seemed a fit type of her sombre-hued life, drawing swiftly to its close, with no hope ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... the Kalevide finds some demons cooking at the entrance to a cave. He enters the cavern, which leads him to the door of the palace of Sarvik,[5] which he breaks open. In the antechamber, he finds three maidens. ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... lapsed into a reverie, or else he slept with open eyes. Calling up his courage the gallant rose at last and moved across the room. All unversed in tavern ways was the magnificent Gonzaga, and he who at court, in ballroom or in antechamber, was a very mirror of all the graces of a courtier, felt awkward here and ill ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... household. The young aide-de-camp had been popular with the servants, and, with the exception of Gregory, there was not a soul who wished him harm, so that, when it became known that he had not been sent on a mission, but had disappeared, the matter became the constant subject of conversation in the antechamber, the kitchen, and the stables. There was another place where people busied themselves about it a great ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... is a large matted room, forty-two feet long by twenty-seven feet deep, with an antechamber at each end. The chapel and the antechambers are all very profusely decorated with pictures on the walls, with carved panels and painted ceilings. The Holy of Holies of this temple is accessible to the public only by special ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck

... off he after a while addressed himself to work. He had the negro thrust the edge of the bar under the lid, and raise it gently. Having thoughtfully provided himself in the antechamber with pieces of stone for the purpose, he placed one of them so as to hold the vantage gained. Slowly, then, by working at the ends alternately, the immense slab was turned upon its centre; slowly the hollow of the coffin was flooded with light; slowly, and with seeming ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... ancient dynasty humbled before the first consul; more humbled by his gifts than he ever could have been by his persecution. Bonaparte tried upon this royal lamb the experiment of making a king wait in his antechamber: he allowed himself to be applauded at the theatre, upon the recitation ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... King my husband was safe, and actually at that moment in the King's bed-chamber. He made me muffle myself up in a cloak, and conducted me to the apartment of my sister, Madame de Lorraine, whither I arrived more than half dead. As we passed through the antechamber, all the doors of which were wide open, a gentleman of the name of Bourse, pursued by archers, was run through the body with a pike, and fell dead at my feet. As if I had been killed by the same stroke, I fell, and was caught by M. de Nancay before I reached the ground. As soon as I recovered ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... done, a town council meant more than the "Order of the Golden Fleece"; and, pari passu, with the humiliation of the noble came the elevation of the bourgeois. A nameless adventurer would be admitted to confidential intimacy when a Montmorenci could not get beyond his antechamber. ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele

... B. Pahloeuk, porch. C. Wadl-leek, passage. D. Haddnoeweek, for the reception of the sweepings of the house. E. G. Tokheuook, antechamber, or passage. F. Annarroeartoweek. H. Eegah, cooking-house. I. Eegah-natkah, passage. K. Keidgewack, for piling wood upon. L. Keek kloweyt, cooking side. M. Keek loot, fireplace built of stone. N. Eegloo, house. O. Kattack, ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... what a work there would be of pages, and grooms of the chamber, to get the pretty rogue clandestinely shuffled out by the backstairs, like a prohibited commodity, when the step of the Earl of Woodstock was heard in the antechamber!" ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... a girl with talents," said she. "I shall ask for her as a souvenir of my visit here; she may do very well as a statue to ornament my great-grandchildren's antechamber;" and she ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... completion of the temple. This great temple was wholly rock-cut, and is now threatened by gradual ruin by sliding on the planes of stratification. A small temple, immediately to the south of the first, is believed to have had a built antechamber: it is the earliest known example of a "birth chapel,'' such as was usually attached to Ptolemaic temples for the accommodation of the divine mother-consort and her son. The third and northernmost temple, separated from the others by ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... the slide shifts in the lantern,—we are at Paris. In the antechamber at the Tuileries a crowd of expectant courtiers and adventurers gaze upon a figure who passes with modest and downcast eyes through the throng; he has just left the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Saint Bernard, through a singular dissonance, excited and consecrated. No more over-wealthy superiors, usufructuaries of a vast abbatial revenue, suzerain and landlord seigniors, with the train, luxury and customs of their condition, with four-horse carriages, liveries, officials, antechamber, court, chancellorship and ministers of justice, obliging their monks to address them as "my lord," as lax as any ordinary layman, well fitted to cause scandal in their order by their liberties and to set an example of depravity. No more lay intrusions, commendatory ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... frenzy seized the father's brain, And Mercy from that hour implored in vain. Ah! who will e'er believe the words I say? His daughters he accused, and the same day They both were cast into the dungeon's gloom, That dismal antechamber of the tomb, Arraigned, condemned, and sentenced to the flame, The secret ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... there occupied a suite of three rooms and a dressing-room. You first passed through an antechamber, containing nothing but chairs, and then a small sitting-room, whose furniture, shrouded in white covers, slumbered in the gloom cast by the Venetian shutters, which were always kept closed so as to prevent ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... Boisdaulphin and de Bonoeil came with royal coaches to the Hotel Gondy and escorted the ambassadors to the Louvre. On the way they met de Bethune, who had returned solo from the Hague bringing despatches for the King and for themselves. While in the antechamber, they had opportunity to read their letters from the States-General, his Majesty sending word that he was expecting them with impatience, but preferred that they should read ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... confusion of mind Miss Garth was incapable of reasoning with herself, as she might have reasoned at a happier time. She hastened to the antechamber of Mrs. Vanstone's room; and, after explaining Mr. Pendril's position toward the family, placed his letter in the hands of the medical men. They both answered, without hesitation, to the same purpose. Mrs. Vanstone's condition rendered any such interview as the lawyer desired a total impossibility. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... the like never seen for splendor, for [rather copious on this sublimity]—After which we played ROME SAUVEE [my Anti-Crebillon masterpiece], in a pretty little Theatre, which I have got constructed in the Princess Amelia's Antechamber. I, who speak to you, I played CICERO." Yes; and was manager and general stage-king and contriver; being expert at this, if at anything. And these beautiful Theatricals had begun weeks ago, and still lasted many weeks; [Rodenbeck, "August-October," 1750.]—with such divine consultings, directings, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... and conversed with great humour and vivacity. While the multitude were talking of "Bennet's grave looks," ["Bennet's grave looks were a pretence" is a line in one of the best political poems of that age,] his mirth made his presence always welcome in the royal closet. While Buckingham, in the antechamber, was mimicking the pompous Castilian strut of the Secretary, for the diversion of Mistress Stuart, this stately Don was ridiculing Clarendon's sober counsels to the King within, till his Majesty cried with laughter, and the Chancellor with vexation. There perhaps never was a man whose outward demeanour ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... remained long in the gallery. We retired with a select few, and were served in an antechamber, separated from the grand reception-room by an arch, through which, by putting aside a silk curtain, Honoria could see, at a distance, any that entered, as they passed in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... minutes later they were in the antechamber of the apartment in which Aurore was sleeping, and seating themselves on a bench ...
— The Story Of The Duchess Of Cicogne And Of Monsieur De Boulingrin - 1920 • Anatole France



Words linked to "Antechamber" :   entrance hall, hall, lobby, anteroom, room, edifice



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