"Ceiling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the glimmer of a lamp in the street below. He plunged and stumbled through a litter of books. The glimmer fell on the books, on many books; books that covered three walls from floor to ceiling; books ranged above and beside the little camp-bed in the corner; books piled on the table and under it. The glimmer fell, too, on the mantel-piece, reflected from the glass above it, right on to the white statuette of the Venus of Milo that supported a photograph of a dancing Poppy—Poppy, who ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... house, and every drop of water is from a distillery similarly provided. The inn is a grass and bamboo house, very beautifully constructed without nails. It is a longish building with a steep roof divided inside by partitions which run up to the height of the walls. There is no ceiling. The joists which run across are concealed by wreaths of evergreens, from among which peep out here and there stars on a blue ground. The door opens from the verandah into a centre room with a large open brick ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... Now this palace was girt round by the waters and was approached by a causeway twenty cubits wide. It had windows on all sides commanding an ocean- view; its floor was paved with parti-coloured marbles and its ceiling was painted in the richest pigments and figured with gold and lapis-lazuli. They furnished it for Kamar al-Zaman with splendid upholstery, embroidered rugs and carpets of the richest silk; and they clothed the walls with choice brocades and hung curtains bespangled ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... he has simplified the case," remarked Craig, leaning back, his hands behind his head, gazing up at the ceiling. "Hello, here's Leslie! What did you find, Doctor?" The coroner had entered with a look of awe on his face, as if Kennedy had directed him by some sort ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... and historical knowledge to the bending back into constitutional moulds of those despotic twists which new interests and false counsels had developed in the Tudor and Stuart dynasties. It was an exceedingly pretty place; and the kitchen, upon the ground story, which had a noble groined ceiling of stone, indicated, by its disproportionate scale, the magnitude of the establishment to which once it had ministered. Attached to this splendid kitchen were tributary offices, etc. On the upper story were exactly five rooms: namely, a servants' dormitory, meant in Sir Robert's ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... even of importance had been cut bodily out of its setting and placed in one of those immense halls on the ground floor of the Museum in Naples. How well do we remember those gaunt chilly chambers, filled from pavement to ceiling with painted fragments of all sizes, a medley of domestic subjects and of classical myths! Torn from the walls they were specially executed to adorn, divorced from their proper scheme of surrounding ornament, these wan dejected ghosts stare at us like faces out of a mist. The ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... You are doing your best to enact over again the Highland tragedy, of which Sir James Simpson tells in his lectures to the working-classes of Edinburgh, when at a Christmas meeting thirty-six persons danced all night in a small room with a low ceiling, keeping the doors and windows shut. The atmosphere of the room was noxious beyond description; and the effect was, that seven of the party were soon after seized with typhus fever, of which two died. You are inflicting ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... they reached the church, a neat, commodious, frame building, with a blue ceiling, white walls within and without, and large windows with mahogany-colored facings. It was a sight full of pathetic interest to see that group which gathered from miles around. They had come to break bread with each other, ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... shall keep her tavern clean is writ in the books of the provost of Paris town,' the Widow Annot answered, and the shadow of her great white hood, which she wore in the older English fashion, danced over the brown wooden beams of the ceiling. ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... also. There is no possibility of a secret door, and the windows are quite thirty feet from the ground. Both of them were fastened on the inside. The carpet prevents any possibility of a trap-door, and the ceiling is of the ordinary whitewashed kind. I will pledge my life that whoever stole my papers could only have come through ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... above there was the sound of one who sang, vamping an accompaniment upon the piano and emphasising the simple time of his carol by a dully stamped foot upon the floor. His foot—making in soft slippers a dead "dump-dump-dump"—shook the ceiling of the Mintos' flat. They could hear his dry voice huskily roaring, "There you are, there you are, there you ain't—ain't—ain't." They had heard it a thousand times, always with the familiar stamp. It was very gay. Old Perce, ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... borne, impressed her. "Resignation? No, not resignation exactly," her thoughts ran on. "To be resigned is to acquiesce. Resistance? Yes. To resist—but not to resist with rage. Be firm, but be gentle." She sat down at last in an easy-chair and leaned back, looking up at the ceiling. In a few minutes she was fast asleep. When she awoke the room was empty, but outside she heard receding footsteps, and springing up with characteristic impetuosity she followed after "to ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... had been hunting in the neighbourhood of Carcassone. After the stag had been taken, a gentleman of the neighbourhood invited the king to a splendid dinner which he had prepared for him. At the conclusion of the banquet the ceiling of the hall suddenly opened, a thick cloud, descended and burst over their heads like a thunder storm, pouring forth a shower of sugar-plums instead of hail, which was succeeded by a gentle ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... the roses," the fat one whispered; "but throw high, dear sister, or we shall never hit the ceiling." ...
— Very Short Stories and Verses For Children • Mrs. W. K. Clifford
... that have appeared have a handsome swinging crane fastened to the wall near the ceiling, upon which a portiere or curtain is suspended. This can then be swung back against the wall or swung out to make a cozy corner or to shut off one portion of a room from another. These swinging portieres can in many cases be made to take the place of ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... vertically, helicopter wings fluttering like a soaring hawk's. Up to the passenger air lane at nine thousand: higher to twelve, the track of the international and supply ships; higher still, to the fourteen thousand ceiling of the antiquated machine. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... in Rue d'Assas, a retired street half made up of gardens. Here she had one of the most beautiful studios of Paris, the room lighted from the ceiling, the walls covered with paintings, with here and there old armor, tapestry, hats, cloaks, sandals, and skins of tigers, leopards, foxes, and oxen on the floor. One Friday, the day on which she received guests, one of her ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... thinking it may seem a far cry from reactions and external stimuli to loyalty, but not so by any means. The man or woman who has been led to react to the Madonna of the Chair, the Plow Oxen, or the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel will experience a revival and recurrence of the reaction at every sight of the masterpiece, whether the original or a reproduction. That masterpiece has become this person's standard of art and neither ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... middle of the house. There were windows, however, in the upper stories, though they were not protected by glass, but covered with shutters or lattice-work, and, at a later period, were glazed with sheets of mica. Smoking lamps, hanging from the ceiling or supported by candelabra, or candles, gave a gloomy light by night in the houses, and ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... from the window with a sigh, and stepped back to the table for the tinder-box, that for the eleventh time he might relight his pipe. He sat down, blew a cloud of smoke to the ceiling, and considered. His nature triumphed now over his recent preoccupation; the matter of the moment, which concerned him not at all, engrossed him beyond any other matter of his life. He was intrigued to know in what relation one to the ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... autotypes are from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, the glory of the world," went on Miss Inches. "And here, Johnnie, is the most precious of all. This I got expressly for you. It is an education to have such a painting as that before your eyes. I rely very much upon its influence ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... just to be saying something. It was a vast room, vaulted, with walls of rough stone, and lighted by a semi-circular window just under the ceiling. The tiled floor was badly covered by an infamous carpet, and the furniture, very simple, consisted of a round dining-room table, some old bergere armchairs covered with slate-blue Utrecht velours, a little stained walnut sideboard ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... and were put out one by one, and then the children were given permission to plunder the tree. They rushed at it so that all its boughs creaked; if it had not been fastened by the gold star at the top to the ceiling, it ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... we are girt about on all sides by water, shielded only by a frail ceiling of unsubstantial material—the air that we breathe—which bears up the clouds and carries that weight of water, not in obedience to the laws of nature, but by the command of God, or by the power ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... the apartment where the raised floor terminates, is a gilded rod extending along the ceiling. When the King held his court at Rambouillet, a curtain only separated his chamber and the levee-room. In the latter room are several portraits of the Peers of France during the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, with those ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... common among our new saints, as we may see in the Life[230] of St. Philip of Neri, where they relate his ecstasies and his elevations from earth into the air, sometimes to the height of several yards, and almost to the ceiling of his room, and this quite involuntarily. He tried in vain to hide it from the knowledge of those present, for fear of attracting their admiration, and feeling in it some vain complacency. The writers ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... of the shop an iron hoop is suspended from the ceiling by a string with which it can be drawn up and down, and big game is hung ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... had thrown himself back in his leather-covered arm- chair, and was grasping his stubbly chin with one hand, the elbow belonging to which rested on the arm of his chair, while the dark eyes, shining out beneath his contracted forehead, were fixed on the ceiling of ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... Room, which is considered without a rival in Cambridge or Oxford. It is a long panelled room occupying all the upper floor of the north side of the second court and with its richly ornamented plaster ceiling, its long row of windows looking into the beautiful Elizabethan court, its portraits of certain of the college's distinguished sons in solemn gold frames, it would be hard to find more pleasing ...
— Beautiful Britain—Cambridge • Gordon Home
... be kindred illusions. Large pictures would seem to be actually taking place without, and beheld through beautifully carved archways or windows; while the apparent walls would have niches filled with superb marble statues and the ceiling be supported by pillars, behind which people walked and talked or leaned out to watch the ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... the silver chains, holding in her hand the little porter who, in spite of his minute size, opened a secret door with his golden key and let her in. She entered a magnificent room which appeared to occupy the entire Castle, and which was lighted by gold and jewelled stars in the ceiling. In the midst of this room stood a couch, draped with curtains of all the colours of the rainbow, and suspended by golden cords so that it swayed with the Castle in a manner which rocked its occupant delightfully ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... long been melted down. The instruments of music are broken. If frescoes adorned the corridors, they have been whitewashed; the ladies' chambers have been stripped of their rich arras. Only here and there we find a raftered ceiling, painted in fading colours, which, taken with the stonework of the chimney, and some fragments of inlaid panel-work on door or window, enables us to reconstruct the former ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... and Tom Innis shall have latch-keys just like mine, and there is a capital chamber there at the head of the stairs, so that you can be free to come and go. And here now's the library,—fancy this full of books and engravings from the ceiling to the floor; here you shall come just as you please and ask no questions,—all the same as if it ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... themselves in a small paved courtyard, which was roofed with bougainvillea, and provided with stone benches and a small stone table. The sun seemed to drip through the interstices of the bright-colored ceiling and made warm patches on the worn gray stone. The house, with its thick white walls, and windows protected by grilles, confronted ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... faded from his cheeks, the lips seemed ready to yield the little blood left there by the clinch of the white-teeth upon them, while every muscle of the face quivered with spasmodic effort to control emotion. When the eyes were opened and fixed on the ceiling, I saw no trace in them of anger, revenge, or even of wounded pride. They were full of tears, ready to gush in one last flood-tide of feeling over a subdued, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... show-cases has crept every article of small dimension that had no habitat or kind upon the shelves around—from laces to lead pencils. Upon nails in the rafters of the ceiling swing buckets and dippers ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... scarcely see anything as I gazed around me, it was so dark; but gradually my eyes became accustomed to it, and I found that I was in a huge cave, part of the walls of which I observed on each side of me. The ceiling just above me was also visible, and I fancied that I could perceive beautiful glittering objects there, but the farther end of the cave was shrouded in darkness. While I was looking around me in ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... get twice as much for him as before," said the son, holding the notes fast and gazing up at the ceiling, as if he were ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... and at the close of the dance throw off their disguises, so, in this dissipated life, all unclean passions move in mask. Across the floor they trip merrily. The lights sparkle along the wall, or drop from the ceiling—a very cohort of fire! The music charms. The diamonds glitter. The feet bound. Gemmed hands, stretched out, clasp gemmed hands. Dancing feet respond to dancing feet. Gleaming brow bends low to gleaming brow. On with ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... lounge that promised softness; a square cloth-covered table; a whatnot in the corner; fancy shelves; a pretty walnut-wood piano, gilt lined, the cover thrown back, laden with music; on the music-stool a woman's cloak was lying, on the piano a woman's cap. A great book-case reached from ceiling to floor, filled with books, its shelves fringed with some scalloped red stuff. Everywhere were nick-nacks in china, in glass, in terra-cotta, in carved woods, in ivory; photo frames; medallions. On the walls, bright with striped hangings, were some dainty pictures. Half concealed ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... the bed-side and looked up at the ceiling. Beyond that, he thought, was the adored Miss Sidebottom. What a narrow space sundered them! He walked to the fire-place and looked on the mantel for a book. He selected an old copy of Burns, and opened at the pathetic ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... with the key. The door was unlocked, and the light established. The party entered a large and lofty chamber with ceiling of elaborate plaster work and silver-grey walls, the paper on which was somewhat tarnished. A pattern of dim, pink roses as large as cabbages ran riot over it. A great oriel window looked east, while a smaller one opened upon the south. Round the curve of the oriel ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... nobles gave audiences to their subjects while in bed. These latter were therefore necessarily furnished with splendor. The woodwork was usually covered with the same material as the curtains, or stained to harmonize. The canopy never reached to the ceiling but was, from floor to top, about 7 ft. 3 in. high, and the bed was 6-1/2 ft. square. The curtains were arranged on rods and pulleys, and when closed this "lit en housse" looked like a huge square box. The counterpane, ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... Sir Arthur himself, a coroner was instantly summoned to attend, and an inquest was held; nothing, however, in any degree conclusive was elicited; the walls, ceiling, and floor of the room were carefully examined, in order to ascertain whether they contained a trap-door or other concealed mode of entrance—but no ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Carefully estimating the pit alone, I could bring it out as holding little less than fourteen hundred. Every part of the house was well filled, and I had not found it easy to make my way along the back of the boxes to where I sat. The chandeliers in the ceiling were lighted; there was no light on the stage; the orchestra was empty. The green curtain was down, and, packed pretty closely on chairs on the small space of stage before it, were some thirty gentlemen, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... standing on the bed, struck it furiously against the ceiling, intending it as signal to the man above to desist. But Paul, catching the response, began to jump more furiously than ever, finding that he ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... and currents which have previously been spoken of. His lantern swung from his tightly clenched hand. Though the body was erect, the head was thrown back so that the closed eyes were pointed towards the needle of the tell-tale that swung from a beam in the ceiling. Terrible old man! thought Starbuck with a shudder, sleeping in this gale, still thou steadfastly eyest ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... the eye-grip and he appeared to be studying the fresco design of the ceiling over the ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... deep breath. His hands clasped behind his head, and he looked up at the ceiling. He seemed perfectly relaxed. That, Malone knew, was a bad sign. It meant that there was a dirty job coming, a job nobody wanted to do, and one Burris was determined to pass off on him. He sighed and tried to ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... it had been on deck," he remarked, "instead of a place with damned gold chairs and gold on the ceiling, and cloth on the walls, and velvets such as respectable folks use for dress and not for ornament, and candles in gold sticks, and the floor like ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... of the room, Fill it with a scarlet gloom: Lo, the walls with warm flush dyed! Lo, the ceiling glorified, As when, lost in tenderest pinks, White rose on the red rose thinks! But beneath, a hue right rosy, Red as a geranium-posy, Stains the air with power estranging, Known with unknown clouding, changing. See in ruddy atmosphere Commonplaceness disappear! Look around on either hand— ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... calling out, "Signora, you are left in the dark," reassured her and gave her courage to turn and run down to join the others, who were disappearing through a low door. This led into what seemed an immense hall, judging from the echoes. They passed by heavy stone columns supporting a ceiling in round Romanesque arches on their way toward the one spot of light which came from a lucerna that stood on one end of a very long table spread for supper. They were looking around bewildered for their places, when they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... the curtain across the window; the blood had flown to her hair, and a smile chased the sadness from her mouth. Then she raised her hands and pressed the palms against the slope of the ceiling, her dark upturned eyes full of terror. For many moments she stood so, hardly conscious of what she was doing, seeing only the implacable eyes of her mother. Then down the road came the loud regular hoof-falls of galloping horses, and with ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... purpose, however, of stripping off all the wainscot of the other large room. So they set a man to work near the ceiling, close to the place where I was: for the lower part of the walls was covered with tapestry, not with wainscot. So they stripped off the wainscot all round till they came again to the very place where I lay, and there they lost heart and gave ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... Topsy-Turvy, upside down, The ceiling seems the base; Reverse the ground and 'twill be found The things ...
— Fire-Side Picture Alphabet - or Humour and Droll Moral Tales; or Words & their Meanings Illustrated • Various
... if by the touch of magic, and lo! we are at the entrance of a splendid room, which was almost dizzy and alive with waterfalls, that tumbled in all directions—the great cascade, which was opposite to the window that faced us, being reflected in innumerable mirrors upon the ceiling and against the walls. {210} We both laughed heartily, which, no doubt, the gardener considered as high commendation; for he was very eloquent in pointing out the ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... under the statue of Clement XII., was found in the Pantheon, and is supposed to have contained the ashes of M. Agrippa. The nave of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore is supported by forty Ionic pillars of Grecian marble, which were taken from a temple of Juno Lucina: the ceiling was gilded with the first gold brought from Peru. We are here struck with admiration at the mosaics; the high altar, consisting of an antique porphyry sarcophagus; the chapel of Sixtus V., built from the designs of Fontana, and richly ornamented; the chapel of Paul V., adorned with marble ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... Felix for a moment sidewise, mistrustfully; then his eyes slowly wandered over the ceiling. Felix was sure he was secretly struck with the romance of the situation. "I think this is none of our business," ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... He picked up his clothes and went upstairs to the bathroom, which, like the bedrooms, opened on to the gallery. Kirk threw himself on the couch, fixed his eyes on the ceiling, and began to ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... door, and there was a sudden quiet. Whatever made those sounds was there. It was a larger room than any on the others and much higher, for it ran along the whole front of the house. The powerful lamps showed every corner of it at once, but, above, the beams of the open ceiling were dark with shadow. And here the nauseous odour, which had struck them before, was so overpowering that for a while they could not go in. It was indescribably foul. Even Arthur thought it would make him sick, and he looked at the windows to see if it was ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... like a scratch on tin, and lighting a lamp quickly, I went to the kitchen and then listened. But not a sound was to be heard. At the farther end a bank had been cut out to make room for the kitchen, which gave it a dirt wall almost to the low ceiling, and all across this wall were many rows of shelves where tins of all sorts and cooking utensils were kept, and just above the top shelf was a hole where the cat could go out on the bank. I put the lamp back of me on the table and ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... roses, and lifting it tenderly carried it into the house, thinking somewhat sadly that in the old days Innocent would have been grieved had she seen such havoc made. Setting it in a big brown jar full of water, he put it in the entrance hall where its shoots reached nearly to the ceiling, and Priscilla Priday exclaimed at the sight ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... "driven" upward disappears. We at once ask, why not drawn upward through the newly-discovered aperture by a string too small to be visible in the gloom? Assuredly it was drawn upward. And now having established a hole in the ceiling of the room in which Hester stands, is it unreasonable—even without further evidence—to suspect another in the flooring? But we actually have this further evidence. As she rushes to the door she falls, faints, and fractures the lower part of her leg. Had she fallen over some ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... inside the door opening from the street to what would be called a yard in America. The "house" has been converted into a small church, belonging to the Catholics, and it is entirely below the surface. I went down the stairs, and found a small chamber with an arched ceiling and two altars. I also went out and visited the old gateway at the end of the street. The masonry is about thirteen feet thick, and it may be that here Paul, deprived of his sight, and earnestly desiring to do the will of the Lord, entered the city so ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... one of the alcoves, where it had been thrown or wafted by the fan which swung from the ceiling at the middle of the room, was a twisted piece of letter paper burned at one end. It seemed to the boy that the paper had been twisted in the form of a torch and lighted to give a more satisfactory illumination ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... at him blankly for a moment. Then she fled from the room. Kenelm took his pipe from his pocket, filled and lighted it, and smoked, smiling between puffs at the ceiling. The future looked serene ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... silent, looking about him wistfully. Was ever poet, king, or even emperor, housed more sumptuously than this, he thought? ... as his eyes wandered to the domed ceiling, wreathed with carved clusters of grapes and pomegranates,—the walls, frescoed with glowing scenes of love and song-tournament,—the groups of superb statuary that gleamed whitely out of dusky, velvet-draped corners,—the quaintly shaped book-cases, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... lamp hangs from the centre of the boarded ceiling, and under this the big solid table at either side of which two officers write silently and industriously, for the morrow brings ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... the American Continent, it is a revelation of comfort. Its dining-room is extraordinarily attractive, for it is actually the spacious verandah of the building, screened by trellis work into which is woven the leaves and flowers of climbers. The ceiling is a canopy of flowers and green leaves, and to dine here overlooking the lawns is to know an hour of the ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... the room, which was large, were windows reaching from the floor almost to the ceiling, which, when the weather was fair, were opened, giving access to a garden of small, twisted trees and tropical plants with small tables beneath, to which the pleasure-loving population came at night, to sip iced drinks and listen to the music ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... keep them clear, as we insist on silence to hear great music.... If I don't praise Guercino's Aurora in the greater Casino, it's for another reason; this is certainly a very muddy masterpiece. It figures on the ceiling of a small low hall; the painting is coarse and the ceiling too near. Besides, it's unfair to pass straight from the Greek mythology to the Bolognese. We were left to roam at will through the house; the custode ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... third-class accommodation in a triangular cabin under the cock- loft, with a corner fireplace which Master B. must have been exceedingly small if he were ever able to warm himself at, and a corner chimney-piece like a pyramidal staircase to the ceiling for Tom Thumb. The papering of one side of the room had dropped down bodily, with fragments of plaster adhering to it, and almost blocked up the door. It appeared that Master B., in his spiritual condition, always made a point of pulling the paper down. Neither the landlord ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... where I am now," said Jevons, "but it might be better to leave the ceiling alone. They haven't started ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... Claire!" exclaimed the old peasant woman, crossing herself. "She and I have lived down here during the bombardment and the entire occupation. She has protected me. Look, Madame—" and she showed us a corner of the ceiling that had been newly repaired. "The obus passed through here, and never touched us. I kept on praying to the Sainte, and she said, 'Do not move and you will be safe.' All night I was on my knees before her, and toward morning the house was hit—only one meter away the wall fell down, and we were ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall
... sun shone clearly! And straight before her stood the angel of God in white garments, the same she had seen at the church-door; but he no longer carried the sharp sword, but in its stead a splendid green spray full of roses, and he touched the ceiling with the spray, and the ceiling rose up high, and where he had touched it there gleamed a golden star. And he touched the walls and they widened out, and she saw the organ which was playing; she saw the old pictures of the preachers ...
— The Pearl Story Book - A Collection of Tales, Original and Selected • Mrs. Colman
... England is for the most part from manuscript. Her first settlers brought old-world forms, and fashions from the old world, with them. Their preachers were set an appalling distance from their congregations. Between the pulpit, perched far up toward the ceiling, and the seats, was an awful abysmal depth. Above the lofty desk was dimly seen the white cravat, and above that the head of the preacher. His eye was averted and fastened downward upon his manuscript, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... according to their rank and the services to which they were appointed. The genie then showed him the treasury, which was opened by a treasurer, where Aladdin saw heaps of purses, of different sizes, piled up to the top of the ceiling, and disposed in most excellent order. The genie assured him of the treasurer's fidelity, and thence led him to the stables, where he showed him some of the finest horses in the world, and the grooms busy in dressing them; ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... several easels stood piled up in the corner, and a broad table beside them held paint boxes, colour tubes, brushes, all the paraphernalia of the painter, now carefully ordered and covered for a term of idleness. Great bookcases towered to the ceiling, and a huge flat top desk, a costly piece of furniture, was covered with books and papers. It was the room of a man of brains and breeding, a man of talent and ability, possessing, furthermore, the means to indulge his tastes freely. Even now, with its master ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... bland smiling faces almost into his face; as he, nothing loath, nor repelling their caresses, discoursed most eloquent dog-language to them, until, excited beyond all measure, old Whino seated himself deliberately on the floor, raised his nose toward the ceiling, and set up a long, protracted, and most melancholy howl, which, before it had attained, however, to its grand climax, was brought to a conclusion by being converted into a sharp and treble yell! a consummation ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... to offer you the hospitality of my packing-case, as you call it," said Brent, "but the dining-room ceiling fell down Wednesday, and I'm having the others bolstered up as ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... furniture in it consisting of a table and two chairs. It was imperfectly lighted by a small window looking out upon the cloisters which surrounded the courtyard that the prisoners had crossed a quarter of an hour earlier, and a bell suspended near the ceiling and attached to a chain leading out through a slit in the wall seemed to indicate that it was the room in which the warder of the outer gates was accustomed to sit. But the man was certainly not then in the room, nor was there anything ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... like a flash, the dim room began to frown again, and Phil to draw his breath heavily, when the girl came back as suddenly bringing an apple and a length of string. Mounting a chair, she fixed one end of the string to the lath of the ceiling by the peck, the parchment oatcake pan, and the other end she tied to the ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... stones, the regularity of the combination producing a very pleasant effect. Mr. Morgan thinks this room will compare not unfavorably with any of equal size to be found in the more imposing ruins of the South. We must notice the ceiling. The probabilities are that the Rio Chelly, further to the west, afforded another line of retreat. Some ruins are found scattered up and down the river or canyon, which we will not stop to describe. Off to the south-west are the ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... the apse was always covered with mosaic pictures, usually paintings of our Lord, either seated or standing, with St Peter and St Paul, and other apostles and saints, on either hand. The beams of the roof were sometimes concealed by a flat ceiling, richly carved and gilt. The altar, standing in the centre of the chord of the apse on a raised platform reached by flights of steps, was rendered conspicuous by a lofty canopy supported by marble pillars (ciborium, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... feature of the castle is the extensive library—an octagonal room in a small tower, apparently built at a recent date. The stained glass of its oriel window is very beautiful; the handsomely gilded ceiling and pannelled walls have a fine and striking effect; the floor is paved in marble, with inlaid mosaic; the shelves of rosewood and oak are filled with the most costly productions of literature, ancient and modern. This ancient ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... the letter with it, fall together into my lap; my head sinks back on the cushion of my chair; my eyes peruse the ceiling. ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... the ceiling, See his harsh, unrazored features, Ghastly brown against the pillow, ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... boy!" repeated the overseer, addressing the ceiling in a voice of despair. "No, of course I don't want a boy. If I had my will I'd have no boys in the place—I'm sick of the sight ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... some in finishing, &c. The window, which is remarkably large, and situated so as to command a good prospect from without, admits light sufficient to illuminate the room, or rather shop, which shop is at least fifteen feet long. Casting your eye up towards the ceiling, which is equally lofty with the length of the apartment, you are somewhat at a loss to account for a vast quantity of beams, cordage, pullies, and canvasses, all appearing to have their several uses, and all kept in regular order ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... against the wall and the furniture, as would many birds in his position; in fact, he showed unusual self-possession and self-reliance. He was exceedingly curious about his surroundings: tapped the wall, tested the top of picture frames, drummed on the curtain cornice, and closely examined the ceiling. He was beautifully dressed in soft gray all mottled and spotted and barred with white, but he had not as yet put on the red cap of his fathers. While we watched him, he heard outside a sapsucker cry, ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... stared at the windows and the doors and saw no one except Miss Kitty Cat, dozing on a window sill. Then something moved beneath the piazza ceiling. It was a cage, which swayed as a green figure clung to the wires on one ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... turning his eyes from a prolonged stare at the ceiling, "don't go yet! Why, man, this is just the time when—— Say, who would ever think of Jem Oglethorpe's turning up to harrie you! Just at ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... conducted Nejdanov was beautifully neat and spacious, with wide-open windows looking on to the garden. A gentle breeze stirred the white curtains, blowing them out high like sails and letting them fall again. Golden reflections glided lightly over the ceiling; the whole room was filled with the moist freshness of spring. Nejdanov dismissed the servant, unpacked his trunk, washed, and changed. The journey had thoroughly exhausted him. The constant presence of a stranger during the last two days, the many fruitless ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... with movements and twistings more rapid than those of a deer surprised in the forest. Only, my dear Raoul, but so merry a nag look to your stirrups, sit light in the saddle, since with one plunge she would hurl thee to the ceiling, if you are not careful. She burns always, and is always longing for male society. Our poor dead friend, the young Sire de Giac, met his death through her; she drained his marrow in one springtime. God's truth! to know such ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... letter carefully, kissed it, and tucked it away in his pocket. Clasping his hands behind his head, he gazed at the ceiling. ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... better place in which to pass the night! I gathered a quantity of withered leaves, laid them in a corner, and threw myself upon them. A red sunset filled the hall, the night was warm, and my couch restful; I lay gazing up at the live ceiling, with its tracery of branches and twigs, its clouds of foliage, and peeping patches of loftier roof. My eyes went wading about as if tangled in it, until the sun was down, and the sky beginning to grow ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... and hark to the strange noises! Up and down behind the old wainscot, over the ceiling and under the floor they raced, and gnawed, and scratched! Malcolmson smiled to himself as he recalled to mind the saying of Mrs. Dempster, 'Bogies is rats, and rats is bogies!' The tea began to have its effect ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... faster, whirls the ceiling, And wilder, wilder, turns my brain; And still I'll drink, till, past all feeling, My soul leaps ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... reminds me of another thing. Wag had got rather fidgety while we were talking, and was flying up to the ceiling and down again, and walking on his hands, and so ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... gleefully while Dona Elena was raising her eyes to heaven, as though silently calling upon somebody hidden in the ceiling to bear witness to ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... like that of Mecaenas', one divided against itself, the upper half containing the couches and tables, the other reserved for the service and the entertainments that follow, the ceiling was met by columns, the walls hidden by panels of gems. On a frieze twelve pictures, surmounted by the signs of the zodiac, represented the dishes of the different months. Beneath the bronze beds and silver tables mosaics were set in imitation of food that had fallen and ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... the Logs . . . The lock-up, like most bush ones, was built of heavy logs, just roughly squared, with the ceiling the ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... split and flattened bamboo, tied together with the long fibres of a dried climbing plant; the roof was of palm-leaves, and the ceiling of reeds. When an earthquake shook the district—for earthquakes were frequent—the inmates of such a fabric merely felt as if shaken in a basket, without sustaining any harm. In front of the cottage lay a woody ravine, extending almost to the base of ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... not fail to delight the most fastidious wonder-seeker. The entrance was about the size of an ordinary doorway, flanked by twin boulders like columns for an arched shelter. Within was a large room with fairly smooth walls and ceiling of ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... artists become for the preservation of their works, how highly they value permanence in the materials employed, and immunity from the more obvious chances of destruction in the positions they are to occupy. Michael Angelo is said to have painted cracks on the Sistina ceiling to force the architect to strengthen the roof. When Jesus made the assertion that his teaching would outlast the influence of the visible world of nature and the societies of men—the kingdoms of earth and the glory of the earth—he ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... said Margaret, sinking into the soft chair and glancing at the walls and ceiling, which were elaborately adorned in the Japanese fashion. The chairs also were framed of bamboo, and the table was of an unusual shape. It was the "Japanese parlour[3]," as Mrs. Van Sueindell would have called it. Every great house in New York ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... prodigious heap of bags of money, which were piled upon one another so high that they touched the ceiling. The floor on her right hand and on her left was covered with vast sums of gold that rose up in pyramids on either side of her. But this I did not so much wonder at, when I heard, upon inquiry, ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... where his brother lay. It was one of the oldest apartments in the house, and much of the ancient splendour that belonged to the mansion ere its size had been reduced, with the fortunes of its successive owners, still distinguished the chamber. The huge mantelpiece ascending to the carved ceiling in grotesque pilasters, and scroll-work of the blackest oak, with the quartered arms of Brandon and Saville escutcheoned in the centre; the panelled walls of the same dark wainscot; the armorie of ebony; the ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... alluded to, after our ride we attended morning service, held as usual in the neat little church, which, with the exception of a few gashes in the ceiling rafters, caused by fragments of shell, had up to date escaped serious injury. The Dutch Church, on the other hand, curiously enough, was almost demolished by shell-fire at the beginning of the siege. We then drove up to the hospital, where Miss Hill, the plucky and youthful-looking ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... the sounds, they were playing blindman's buff with scampering of heavy shoes, scraping of chairs, banging against walls, flopping on mattresses. Even reluctant Robbie Belle looked upward in fear that the ceiling might fall. When a deputation of wild eyed sophomores from an adjacent study arrived to protest against a continuation of the outrage, the shrinking corridor-warden had no loophole for escape from her duty. Outwardly calm, inwardly quivering, she mounted the stairs to expostulate on ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... all square, and high; many of the walls were of wood throughout, panelled from the floor to the ceiling, and with curious china tiles set in around the fire-places. In the room in which I always slept when I visited there, these wooden walls were of pale green; the tiles were of blue and white, and afforded me endless study ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... that familiar place; he sat down in a chair and leaned back in it and caressed the armrests with his palms as though it were an honored seat in his own home. And, finally, he undressed, put on his nightclothes, and lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling with a soft smile on his face. After ten minutes or so, his eyes closed and remained that way for three-quarters of ...
— What The Left Hand Was Doing • Gordon Randall Garrett
... washer-up at one of Veglio's many restaurants. After six weeks he was rescued from the uncongenial drudgery of scullion by a comrade, a fellow-Calabrian, who earned a good living as decorator of West-end cafes, and who took on Bonafede to assist him in frescoing a ceiling at the Trocadero, not, however, before the latter had laid the foundations of a lega di resistenza between the Italians employed in restaurant kitchens. At the end of a month the ceiling was painted, and Bonafede parted company with his compatriot, pocketing ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... strength of my voice). I imitated the calf, the whipped child, the cat in the night, the wind under the door. Little by little I grew enraptured with my own song, so that long after She had finished soiling me with cold water I continued wailing, my eyes fixed on the ceiling. Then She laughed tactlessly and cried out, "You're as untruthful ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... unconcernedly. They did not expect to see or hear anything new. At times the fat judge yawned, covering his smile with his puffy hand, while the red-mustached judge grew still paler, and sometimes raised his hand to press his finger tightly on the bone of his temple, as he looked up to the ceiling with sorrowful, widened eyes. The prosecuting attorney infrequently scribbled on his paper, and then resumed his soundless conversation with the marshal of the nobility, who stroked his gray beard, rolled his large, beautiful eyes, and smiled, nodding his head with importance. The city ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... which opened some six or more small bedrooms, slept in, whenever sleep was possible, by an equal number of Miss Teetum's boarders. The construction and appointments of this open garret, with two exceptions, were similar to those of all other garrets of its class: it had walls and ceiling, once whitewashed, and now discolored by roof- leaks from a weather-beaten skylight; its floor was bare of carpet, and its well-worn woodwork was stained with time and use. Chairs, however, were scarce, most of the boarders and their guests ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... where a subtle sweetness of orris-root met him; and a fantastic brightness of gaslight and moonlight, coming in through open windows, chequered the handsome dark-polished brass-inlaid furniture, the green silk coverlet and hangings, the dimly patterned ceiling and walls. Without hesitation or apology, Poppy walked straight through this apartment, and passed out on to the white-planked and ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... looking through my files," Jones sighed, looking at the ceiling light. "Dwindle, my files include every gainfully employed person in the United States of America and its possessions. Millions of them. One doesn't just browse through the ...
— Master of None • Lloyd Neil Goble
... arm-chair, and leaned back with his dark, delicately-beautiful face slanted reflectively towards the ceiling. He was too much disturbed in mind to afford himself ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... surroundings aboard the ship, the little creature grew bored sitting on Dal's shoulder and wanted to be in the middle of things. Since the early tension had eased, he was willing to be apart from his master from time to time, so Dal and Tiger built him a platform that hung from the ceiling of the control room. There Fuzzy would sit and swing by the hour, blinking happily at the activity ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... irreproachable, so that Brian, in spite of his worries, was glad that he had accepted the invitation. The bright gleam of the silver, the glitter of glass, and the perfume of flowers, all collected under the subdued crimson glow of a pink-shaded lamp, which hung from the ceiling, could not but give ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... while supper was preparing. The intense cold prevented the fire from melting the snowy walls of this encampment, which shone and sparkled in the red blaze like pink marble studded all over with diamonds, while the spreading branches formed a ruddy-looking ceiling. When they had finished supper, the heat of the fire and the heat of their food made the travellers feel quite warm and comfortable, in spite of John Frost; and when they at last wrapped their blankets round them and laid their heads together on the ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... mangers, low enough for sheep, and built of stones laid in cement. There were no stalls or partitions of any kind. Dust and chaff yellowed the floor, filled all the crevices and hollows, and thickened the spider-webs, which dropped from the ceiling like bits of dirty linen; otherwise the place was cleanly, and, to appearance, as comfortable as any of the arched lewens of the khan proper. In fact, a cave was the model and first suggestion ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace |
