"Coffer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... every effort of religion consisted in loosening the purse strings, in emptying the pockets of men in order to fill the heavenly coffer. It was a kind of huge commercial establishment, of which the cures were the clerks; sly, crafty clerks, sharp as any one must be who does business for the good God at the expense of the ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... of the hall near where the Great Kaan holds his table, there [is set a large and very beautiful piece of workmanship in the form of a square coffer, or buffet, about three paces each way, exquisitely wrought with figures of animals, finely carved and gilt. The middle is hollow, and in it] stands a great vessel of pure gold, holding as much as an ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... knick-knacks treasured up in the housekeeper's room. Indeed the old housekeeper has the reputation among the servants and the villagers of being passing rich; and there is a japanned chest of drawers and a large iron-bound coffer in her room, which are supposed by the housemaids to hold treasures ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... morning she took from a coffer a prism of rock-crystal. "This is one of the playthings my father gave me," she said. "Look how it makes the colors ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... she added, half taking pity on my real thought, "Those things were THERE." And she pointed to a small, low trunk which stood under a sofa where there was just room for it. It appeared to be a queer, superannuated coffer, of painted wood, with elaborate handles and shriveled straps and with the color (it had last been endued with a coat of light green) much rubbed off. It evidently had traveled with Juliana in the olden time—in the days of her adventures, which it had shared. ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... it stood completed, and beneath the small tomb in the sanctuary, veiled with screens of wrought marble so fine that they might lift in the breeze,—the veils of a Queen,—slept the Lady Arjemand; and above her a narrow coffer of white marble, enriched in a great script with the Ninety-Nine Wondrous Names of God. And the Shah-in-Shah, now grey and worn, entered and, standing by her, cried in a loud voice,—"I ascribe to the Unity, the only Creator, the perfection of his handiwork made visible here ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... candlesticks, and brass mortars, iron in plates and bars, and some other small wares of little value. They captured twelve pieces of artillery—eight heavy and excellent pieces of cast iron, and four small ones. Among other things captured, was found a small iron coffer which was kept in the after-cabin, and in which the admiral carried the papers and commissions which the prince of Orange had given him when he appointed him captain of that ship. One was in his own tongue and the other in ours, which is the one ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... "box" (apart from three technical meanings, one in botany, and two in mechanics), has six different significations for things that have nothing in common with each other;—"a slap on the chaps"; "a coffer or case for holding any materials"; "seats in a theatre"; "a Christmas present"; "the case for the mariner's compass," and "the seat on a coach for the driver." The Roman word, too, "locus," has just the same half-dozen meanings for things as unconnected;—"a passage"; ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... properly speaking, three types of chest—the domestic, the ecclesiastical and the strong box or coffer. Old domestic chests still exist in great number and some variety, but the proportion of those earlier than the latter part of the Tudor period is very small; most of them are Jacobean in date. Very frequently they were made to contain the store of house-linen which a bride took to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... hesitatingly. "We might build a crib across the space still to be filled in, and make it serve the purposes of a coffer dam in some degree. By doing that, we can keep the work going, even if the overflow from the rivers comes upon us. But the building of the crib will take time, and we've no ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... raised his bandaged head and stretched out a long thin hand; he could stir nothing else, for his right thigh was in splints beneath a coffer-like erection designed to keep the pressure of the blankets from ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... wrought iron, riveted, and forming a kind of trellis-work over the whole. On each side of the chest, near the top, were three rings of iron —six in all—by means of which a firm hold could be obtained by six persons. Our utmost united endeavors served only to disturb the coffer very slightly in its bed. We at once saw the impossibility of removing so great a weight. Luckily, the sole fastenings of the lid consisted of two sliding bolts. These we drew back—trembling and panting ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... landlady had the courage to go but no sooner had she crossed the threshold than the Evil Spirit blew the light out; she got a light again, but this also was blown out. Instead of returning for another light, she went straight to the coffer in the dark, and brought the books to the house, and ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... door I heard the sighing of the wind and the roar of the surf, soft with distance, infinite plaintive and despairing. Then, because sleep was not for me, I arose and came groping within my inner cave where stood a coffer and, lifting the lid, drew forth that I sought and went and sat me on my bed where the moon made a glory. And sitting there, I unfolded this my treasure that was no more than a woman's gown and fell to smoothing its folds with reverent hand; very tattered it was and worn by much hard ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... this is figured in the work of M. CHIPIEZ, Histoire critique de l'Origine et de la Formation des Ordres grecs, p. 20. See also LAYARD, Discoveries, p. 444, where a bas-relief from the palace of Sennacherib is figured, upon which appears a coffer supported by a foot in the shape of a column, which ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... the laws of Venice, If it be prov'd against an alien That by direct or indirect attempts He seek the life of any citizen, The party 'gainst the which he doth contrive Shall seize one half his goods; the other half Comes to the privy coffer of the state; And the offender's life lies in the mercy Of the duke only, 'gainst all other voice. In which predicament, I say, thou stand'st; For it appears by manifest proceeding That indirectly, and directly too, Thou hast contrived ...
— The Merchant of Venice • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... days' journey from here, in a particularly wild and desolate part of the country which is practically inaccessible, save to the boldest and hardiest mountaineers among us. It has only been known for about twenty years, and the contents of this coffer represent the labour of only six men during that time. But the mine is enormously rich, and, as you may see, the size and quality of the stones improve as the miners penetrate deeper, the largest and finest stones, which are those most recently extracted, being at the top of ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... the palace, Alcestis prepared herself for death. And first she washed her body with pure water from the river, and then she took from her coffer of cedar her fairest apparel, and adorned herself therewith. Then, being so arranged, she stood before the hearth and prayed, saying, "O Queen Here, behold! I depart this day. Do thou therefore keep ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church
... in a land-locked haven, protected from the tidal bore by a ridge of sunken rock. The LAMPREY had fallen behind, but fires of driftwood built on the shore guided her into the harbour, and Munck constructed an ice-break round the keels of his ships. Piles of rocks sunk as a coffer-dam protected the boats from the indrive of tidal ice; and the Danes prepared to winter in the new harbour. To-day there are no forests within miles of Churchill, but at that time pine woods crowded to the water's edge, and the crews laid up a great store of firewood. With rocks, they ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... the magic coffer stocked With convoluted runes Wherein thy very voice was locked And linked to ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling
... worthless. There was also the foot of some small animal set in a battered silver holder. On a deal table stood a smoking oil lamp of mean design and cheap material. Underneath it was a large wooden chest or coffer, studded with huge brass nails, clamped with brass, and painted a brilliant green. Near it, touching the canvas wall, was a mattress covered with gaudy rugs that served ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... that it was necessary to excavate part of the foundation-pit of the building to the depth of seven feet. The difficulties were still further increased on account of the foundation being partly under the level of the lowest tides, so that a coffer-dam was required. It was further necessary, after each tide's work, to remove and carry ashore part of this coffer-dam; so that on the return of the workmen at ebb-tide much time was lost in readjusting the coffer-dam, and in pumping the ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... fig-trees in a garden three Moors sat at tea. A carpet was spread, and I caught a glimpse of the copper kettle, the squat charcoal brazier tended by a slave, the quaint little coffer filled no doubt with fine green tea, the porcelain dish of cakes. It was a quite pleasing picture, at which, had courtesy permitted, I would have enjoyed ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... hundred light-years of space. Ingots of gold and platinum and gadolinium. Furs and biochemicals and brandy. Perfumes that defied synthetic imitation; hardwoods no plastic could copy. Spices. And the steel coffer full of sunstones. Almost all luxury goods, the only really dependable ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... league yet partly by the longing he had to see, & partely the desire he had to enioy the frute of the excellent experiment, hauing for his own securitie (& the others Satisfaction) some testimonie at the opening thereof, to witnes his sincere dealing, he brake vp the coffer, & loe, he soone espied the Ball of ware which he himselfe had layd vpp there with his owne handes, so as he thought, if the hardest should fall, he should finde his principall, and why not as good incrase now, as of the other before? But alas, when the ware was broken and the mettall ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid
... squalid hovels, the triumphal arch of Septimus Severus and of Caracalla extends its luminous bow; and high above the heavy mass of architecture, resting upon slim aerial little columns, a buoyant aediculus shines like a coral tabernacle or a coffer of ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... described to himself as agony. Why should this rich, debauched, disreputable lord have the power of taking the cup from his lip, the one morsel of bread which he coveted from his mouth, his one ingot of treasure out of his coffer? Fight him! No, he knew he could not fight Lord Ongar. The world was against such an arrangement. And in truth Harry Clavering had so much contempt for Lord Ongar, that he had no wish to fight so poor a creature. The man had had delirium tremens, ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... whether wood or stone. They are used on a journey in a heretical or heathen country, or in private chapels. In the inventory of the field apparel of Henry, earl of Northumberland, A.D. 1513, is included "A coffer wyth ij liddes to serue for an Awter and ned be'' ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... now, with the aid of the torch, saw that his pickaxe had in reality struck against iron and wood. He planted his torch in the ground and resumed his labor. In an instant a space three feet long by two feet broad was cleared, and Dantes could see an oaken coffer, bound with cut steel; in the middle of the lid he saw engraved on a silver plate, which was still untarnished, the arms of the Spada family—viz., a sword, pale, on an oval shield, like all the Italian armorial bearings, and surmounted by a cardinal's hat; Dantes easily ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... spoke, and going to another part of the studio, opened a black oak coffer, and took out of it a long object wrapped up in a piece of faded yellow silk. He handed it to me, and when I had unwrapped it, there appeared a thing that might once have been a banjo, but had little resemblance to one now. It bore every sign of extreme age. The wood of the handle was honeycombed ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... not the debts of others, so that time is not spent in paying of small sums, neither in the keeping of account of such; but he that buyeth counteth up, and doubtless when the day of reckoning arrives, each cometh and casteth the money he oweth into the merchant's coffer, and ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... Then he saw the coffer, lying beyond the piled, gleaming ingots—a huge box, eight feet long; made of some crystal that glittered with snowy whiteness, filled with sparkling, iridescent gleams, and inlaid with strange ...
— Salvage in Space • John Stewart Williamson
... discontented by reason of the favour shown to the rest of the army. I promised to do what I could, and went into the room where my jewels are kept, to see if I had anything left that might satisfy them. Kneeling before a coffer, I heard my son shriek without, but when I ran to see what ailed him, certain of my women—daughters of shame, whose end is even as they deserved—pushed me back into the room, and held the door against ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... she had been invited to the mysteries, she pushed the door open with her arm, and entered the building. She found a numerous assembly of women, children, and old men, on their knees before a tomb, which stood against the wall. The tomb was nothing but a stone coffer, roughly sculptured with vine tendrils and bunches of grapes; yet it had received great honours, and was covered with green palms and wreaths of red roses. All round, innumerable lights gleamed out of ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... on her sandals she threw a curious look towards the open coffer, and seeing that it was full of jewels and finery, she smiled ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... celebrated in Shelley's "Adonais," is one of the saddest and most interesting figures of the romantic revival. During his childhood he haunted the old church of St. Mary Redcliffe, in Bristol, where he was fascinated by the mediaeval air of the place, and especially by one old chest, known as Canynge's coffer, containing musty documents which had been preserved for three hundred years. With strange, uncanny intentness the child pored over these relics of the past, copying them instead of his writing book, until he could imitate not only the spelling and language but even the ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... she took with her the bough on which the apple hung on. Then perceived she that the branch was fair and green, and she remembered her the loss which came from the tree. Then she thought to keep the branch as long as she might. And for she had no coffer to keep it in, she put it in the earth. So by the will of Our Lord the branch grew to a great tree within a little while, and was as white as any snow, branches, boughs, and leaves: that was a token a maiden planted it. ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... Burmah, China and India; the procession of the Elephants—a weird portion of the Buddhist ritual; the devil dancers, who excel the Dervishes of the Soudan in the fantastic nature of their antics. On the succeeding day the Duke received an address from the planters of the Island, enclosed in a beautiful coffer of ivory; presented colours to the Ceylon Mounted Infantry, and medals to men who had returned from South Africa; and in the evening held a Durbar, at which the native ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... some six paces to the right, and tilted her gaze up at the coffer as though she would crick ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... barrier was required to be constructed between the excavated basins made and the bank of the river, to prevent the water of the river from bursting in upon the workmen while they were digging. In such a case as this they make what is called a coffer dam, which is a sort of dam, or dike, made by driving piles close together into the ground, in two rows, at a little distance apart, and then filling up the space between them with earth and gravel. By this means the water of the river can be kept out until ...
— Rollo in London • Jacob Abbott
... times may be cited a casket with ornamental colonettes sent by Eginhard to his son. In 823, Louis le Debonaire owned a statuette, a diptych, and a coffer, while in 845 the Archbishop of Rheims placed an order for ivory book covers, for the works of St. Jerome, ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... some of my wages from time to time, I could obtain this favour only by paying court to Mme. Bethmann. This time I preferred once more to appeal to my family for help, and therefore travelled to Rudolstadt through Leipzig, where, to the sad astonishment of my mother, I had to replenish my coffer with the necessary supplies. On the way to Leipzig I had travelled with Apel through his estate, he having fetched me from Lauchstadt for the purpose. His arrival was fixed in my memory by a noisy banquet which my wealthy friend gave at the hotel in my honour. It was on this occasion that I ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... them away. Satni enters with some men bearing Pakh, who is wounded. Kirjipa almost swooning follows, supported by some women who lead her into the house. The Exorcist, who with his two assistants follows Pakh, takes some clay from a coffer carried by one of his men, shapes it into a ball, and ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... a poor Italian girl who buried her murdered lover's heart in a pot of basil, which she watered day and night with her tears, just as I do my coffer. Will hath promised it shall be buried with me; layd upon my heart, and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... and as life, like blood, is most aptly typified by reviving and inspiring wine, it was not wonderful that renewed strength, generation, and birth should gather around the incarnation of the vine, and that the cup should become the holiest of symbols. Like the ark, the chest or coffer, the egg, and a thousand other receptive or containing objects, the cup appeared to the ancient Initiated as a womb, or as the earth, taking in and giving forth life. It was in this spirit that NONNUS, in the fifth century, wrote The Dyonisiacs, a vast poem on Bacchus, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... aside this lack of coffer, Which you can supply, Fabullus, Accept good welcome—and I offer, For company, your friend Catullus. Yet, though so hard my purse's case is, With such rare unguents I'll present you, Compounded by the Loves and Graces For my dear girl, that you shall scent you With perfume more divine ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... lifted up their eyes, and saw the Ark, and rejoiced to see it, and the cart came into the field of Joshua the Bethshemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone, and they clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine as a burnt-offering. And the Levites took down the Ark, and the coffer that was with it, wherein the jewels of stone were, and put them on the great stone, and the men of Bethshemesh offered burnt offering and sacrifices. When the Philistines had seen all these things, ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... Whenever the name of any lady who runs the risk of being compromised is concerned, my memory is like a coffer of bronze, the key of which I ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... stories, like their lives, become united, and merge, with a rare concord, into one. They have had no bickerings, no misunderstanding, no difference of view which a consultation did not at once reconcile; they have never known a division of interests; from their common coffer each has always drawn whatever he chose; and, down to this day, there has never been a settlement of accounts between them. What facts could better attest not merely a singular harmony of character, but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... seemed in nothing like others. Her dress was strange; it had folds and amplitudes and dim disks of silver broideries at breast and knee that made it like the dress of some Venetian lady, drawn at random from an ancestral marriage coffer and put on dreamily with no thought of aptness. Her hair was strange; no other woman's hair was massed and folded as was hers, hair dark as night and intertwined and looped with twisted strands of pearl and ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... public charge, others, that the state should be put to no expense, but that they should not be prevented redeeming themselves at their own cost; and that those who had not the money at present should receive a loan from the public coffer, and security given to the people by their sureties and properties; Titus Manlius Torquatus, a man of primitive, and, as some considered, over-rigorous severity, being asked his opinion, is reported thus to have spoken: "Had the deputies confined themselves to making a request, in behalf of ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... Phoebe, after two days of whispered colloquies upon her cherished property, could bear it no longer, and left Newtake with her own little daughter and little Timothy. The Rev. Shorto-Champernowne himself called, stung Will into sheer madness, which he happily restrained, then purchased an old oak coffer for ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... knows not that he speaks truly. For 'ere is a braver jest than 'is. Good folks, wilt please ye to examine yon coffer?" ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... what had never been moved before—the oak coffer, containing the miller's wardrobe—a tremendous weight, what with its locks, hinges, nails, dirt, framework, and the hard stratification of old jackets, waistcoats, and knee-breeches at the bottom, never disturbed since the miller's wife died, and half pulverized by the moths, whose flattened ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... brocades, my laces; take each household key; Ransack coffer, desk, bureau; Quiz the few poor treasures hid there, con the letters ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... enthusiastic, and warming more and more into German gutturals and pronunciation, the good Doctor would lift up his hands, with two great rings on his thumbs, and exclaim: "Und Du! and dou, Aphrodite,—dou, whose bert de seasons vel-coined! dou, who didst put Atonis into a coffer, and den tid durn him into an anemone! dou to be called Venus by dat snivel-nosed little Master Budderfield!—Venus, who presided over Baumgartens and funerals and nasty tinking sewers!—Venus Cloacina, O mein Gott! Come here, Master ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... number of things to be provided at the charges of the parish, which may be included under this head, such as Communion Table, Pulpit, Reading-desk, Font, Alms-chest, Alms-basin, Vessels for Holy Communion, Bible, Common Prayer Book, Book of Homilies, Parchment Register Book and Coffer. It would not be easy to make a complete list of things authorised by ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... the wide bed that Neale remembered had been a dry, sand- and-gravel waste. On each side the abutment piers had been undermined and washed out. Not a stone remained in sight. The banks were hollowed inward and shafts of heavy boards were sliding down. In the middle of the stream stood a coffer-dam in course of building, and near it another that had collapsed. These frameworks almost hid the tip of the middle pier, which had evidently slid over and was sinking on its side. There was no telling what had been sunk in that hole. All the surroundings—the tons of stone, ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... Upper Country,** for Shu the god of creation, when I enter, he entereth, and when I go out, he goeth out, and none may repel my attacks. I will present offerings to Phtah and to the divinities of the White Wall, I will honour Sokari in his mysterious coffer, I will contemplate Eisanbuf,*** then I will return from thence in peace. If ye will trust in me, Memphis shall be prosperous and healthy, even the children shall not cry therein. Behold the nomes of the South; not a soul has been massacred there, saving only the impious who blasphemed ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the key to that coffer, and the key, too, of the private cipher in which the inventor records ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... 've no sheep on the mountain, nor boat on the lake, Nor coin in my coffer to keep me awake, Nor corn in my garner, nor fruit on my tree— Yet the maid of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... Roman doctors call me learned, and because Nature gave me a wild wit, which to them is pleasanter than the stale jests of a hired buffoon. Yes, they would advance my fortunes—but how? by some place in the public offices, which would fill a dishonoured coffer, by wringing, yet more sternly, the hard-earned coins from our famishing citizens! If there be a vile thing in the world, it is a plebeian, advanced by patricians, not for the purpose of righting his own ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Zollie Coffer a southern general had camped at Wild Cat, Ky. but was forced to retreat when general Garrad and Lucas and Stratton two captains under him, all from Clay county, with a large crowd came in. He, on his ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... the Gnomon dooth euer beholde the north starre, whether it be closed and shutte uppe in a coffer of golde, siluer, or woode, neuer loosing his nature: So a faithfull Christian man, whether hee abound in wealth, or bee pinched with pouertie, whether hee bee of high or lowe degree in this worlde, ought continually ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various
... on a sort of dais at the further end; there was a toilet-table adorned with curiously shaped boxes, and coloured Venetian glasses, and filagree pouncet-boxes, and with a small mirror whose frame was inlaid with gold and ivory. A large coffer, likewise inlaid, stood against the wall, and near it a cabinet, of Dutch workmanship, a combination of ebony, ivory, wood, and looking-glass, the centre retreating, and so arranged that by the help of most ingenious attention to perspective and reflection, it appeared like the entrance ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gave gifts to Odysseus, and the gifts were brought to the palace and left by the side of the Queen. And Arete herself gave Odysseus a beautiful coffer with raiment and gold in it, and Alcinous, the King, gave him a beautiful cup, all ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... tapestry on the walls with a gray ground sprinkled with violets, a little coffer of ebony, an antique mirror, an immense and very old arm chair also in ebony and covered with tapestry, a table with twisted legs, a pretty carpet on the floor, near the table a single chair; and that was all. On the table, however, were flowers ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... by himself. Perchance, some spring a higher freshet will float them within his reach, though they may be watery and frost-bitten by that time. Such shrivelled berries I have seen in many a poor man's garret, ay, in many a church-bin and state-coffer, and with a little water and heat they swell again to their original size and fairness, and added sugar enough, stead mankind for sauce to this ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... could see nothing unusual in the appearance of the hardwood floor. She watched his finger, however, count the cracks from a knot in the wood. Then he pressed a certain spot, and one of the blocks sprang up a little way and was easily removed. Beneath it was the steel lid of a small coffer, ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the refreshment of supper, had been forgetting both her fatigue and the other two in the entertainment provided her by the shoes and the Oriental dresses, had now found a little inlaid coffer on a distant table, full of Algerian trinkets, and was examining them. Suddenly a loud crash was heard ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... applied the principle of the coffer-dam to the replacement of the copper around our delivery or blow-pipe, some three feet below water. The operation proved quite simple and easy of accomplishment. Getting ready for sea. The news of our "whereabouts" probably reached Singapore on the evening of Saturday, and it is only two ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... man, Sir Thomas Browne, Knight, Doctor of Medicine, aged 77 years, who died on the 19th of October, in the year of our Lord 1682, sleeping in this coffin of lead, by the dust of his alchemic body, transmutes it into a coffer of gold. ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... from its master all his pleasure and his life, too. For many a man is slain for his riches. And some keep their riches as a thing pleasant and commodious for their life, take none other pleasure of it in all their life than as though they bore the key of another man's coffer. For they are content to live miserably in neediness all their days, rather than to find it in their heart to diminish their hoard, they have such a fancy to look thereon. Yea, and some men, for fear lest thieves should steal it from ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... gratefully, and he began to sound me about Therese, but found my lips as tightly closed as the lid of a miser's coffer. I told him she was a child when I made the acquaintance of her family at Bologna, and that the resemblance between her brother and myself was a mere accident—a freak of nature. He happened to catch ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... caution. About a yard in depth had been taken away when the spade struck upon something hard. The strokes were redoubled, and a narrow flag appeared. Raising this obstacle they beheld a wooden coffer. Dee sung out a Latin prayer as usual; for he failed not to pour out his thanks with great fervour for any selfish indulgence that fell in his way, or, as he imagined, was granted to him by the special ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... the truth?" asked Robin, making a sign to Little John, who arose, and, going to the knight's steed, unstrapped a small coffer, which he brought back and placed before his master. "Search it, Little John," said he, and "You, sir, tell me the very truth, by your honour as a belted knight." "It is truth, on my honour, that I have but ten shillings," replied the ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... other American captives there, Captain Nathan Bullit and Jesse Coffer. Escape seemed impossible, as it could only be effected through a wilderness four hundred miles in extent, crowded with wandering Indian bands, where they would be imminently exposed to recapture, or to death ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... Send thou unto me certain of thy people, and I will gladly give into their hands whatsoever among these treasures shall seem like to please thee." The envoys of Clovis came, and, as they were examining in detail the treasures of Sigebert, Cloderic said to them, "This is the coffer wherein my father was wont to pile up his gold pieces." "Plunge," said they, "thy hand right to the bottom, that none escape thee." Cloderic bent forward, and one of the envoys lifted his battle-axe and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... ponderous iron coffer, secured by locks inscribed with Arabic characters. 'That coffer,' said he, 'contains countless treasure in gold and jewels and precious stones. Break the magic spell by which I am enthralled, and one half of this ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... first hour of the night the lady arose, and took all pennies that she had in her coffer, and took a nag and a harness thereto, and gat her to the road; and she had let shear her fair tresses, and was otherwise arrayed like to an esquire. So much she went by her journeys that she came to Paris, ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris
... himself very desirous of killing him, but he was overruled by Corsack. However, he was taken away a prisoner, Captain Gray mounting him on his own horse, though, as Turner naively remarks, 'there was good reason for it, for he mounted himself on a farre better one of mine.' A large coffer containing his clothes and money, together with all his papers, were taken away by the rebels. They robbed Master Chalmers, the Episcopalian minister of Dumfries, of his horse, drank the King's health at the market cross, and then left ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... poor man, mistress; and there is that in my coffer upstairs put by, as would please thee ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... for his generous proposition, which so truly accorded with his own wishes. He took a large sum of gold, and enclosed it in a rich coffer; and, on his own part, sent six beautiful horses, superbly caparisoned; with six shields and lances, mounted and embossed with gold. The beautiful Xarisa, at the same time, wrote a letter to the Alcayde, filled with expressions of gratitude ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... treasure-room: it was circular in shape and built of black marble, and at equal distance one from the other, along the curving wall, stood a hundred statues of armed men, holding ever-burning lights. A hundred coffers of green stone lay on the floor, one at the base of each statue, each coffer piled high with gems. ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... of the Cordeliers that this miracle occurred. The crowd rushed there. It was much that the Virgin should weep; but a rumor spread at the same time that brought the excitement to a climax. A large coffer, tightly sealed, had been carried through the city; this chest had excited the curiosity of all Avignon. What did it contain? Two hours later it was no longer a coffer; but eighteen trunks had been seen going toward the Rhone. As for their contents, a porter ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... day following Rallywood's interview with Selpdorf, three men lounged over their lunch. Any one of them, had he cared to take the regimental rolls from their brass-bound coffer in the ante-room, could have read his own name repeating itself down the columns as generation after generation lived through its identical life in the same surroundings, and died, most of them going to the devil with a fine inherited pride ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... was forced to use great ingenuity. He made, therefore, a structure of grey-stone in the Corinthian Order, with twelve round columns, six on either side; and having laid architrave, frieze, and cornice over these columns, he then raised a barrel-shaped vault, all of the same stone, with a coffer-work surface full of carvings, which was something novel, rich and varied, and much extolled. It is true, indeed, that if the mouldings of that coffer-work ceiling, which serve to divide the square and round panels by which it is adorned, had been contrived so as to fall in a straight ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... below. This panel is brought out every year on the second day of June, and, after it has been borne in solemn procession by the men of the said Company as far as the church of the said Saints, there is placed over it a coffer of silver, wrought by the goldsmith Forzore, brother of Parri, within which are the bodies of the said SS. Laurentino and Pergentino; it is brought out, I say, and the said altar is made under covering of a tent in the Canto alla Croce, where the said church stands, because, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... with Bilat Ili—"the mistress of the gods"—who is, perhaps, the Sun-goddess, Gula. Sennacherib, after a successful expedition across a portion of the Persian Gulf, offers sacrifice to Hoa on the seashore, presenting him with a golden boat, a golden fish, and a golden coffer. But these are exceptional instances; and on the whole it is evident that in Assyria Hoa was not a favorite god. The serpent, which is his emblem, though found on the black stones recording benefactions, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... been light, he would have seen the danger, but, all he realised was that the table came along more and more easily, and then in the black darkness there was a loud crash, the coffer placed upon the table had, consequent upon its being inclined, glided slowly over the polished surface, till it was right beyond the edge, and then it was but a matter of moments ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... with the Virgin Mary, bade all his disciples to the wedding, and exhibited himself before an immense crowd in company with an image of his holy bride. He then ordered the people to provide for the expenses of the nuptials and the dowry of his wife, placing a coffer upon each side of the image, to receive the contributions of either sex. Which is the most wonderful manifestation in the history of this personage—the audacity of the impostor, or the bestiality of his victims? ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... artificer. Her curiosity in some measure getting the better of her fears, she ventured to touch one of these tempting heaps—not being sure but that her night visions were answerable for the illusion. She laid her hand on a hoard of bright nobles. Another and another succeeded, yet each coffer held some fresh denomination of coin. There were moneys of various nations, even to the Spanish pistole and Turkish bezant. Such exhaustless wealth it had never yet entered into her imagination to conceive—the very idea was too boundless even for fancy ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... mule. They had four golden gods, a hundred emeralds, fifty-two rubies, a large silver gong, two sticks of malachite with amethyst handles for holding incense at religious feasts, four beakers one foot high, each carved from a rose-quartz crystal; a little coffer carved out of two diamonds, and (had they but known it) the written curse of a priest. It was written on parchment in an unknown tongue, and had been slipped in with the ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... devoted to this purpose, Poggio the Florentine stands distinguished; but he complains that his zeal was not assisted by the great. He found under a heap of rubbish in a decayed coffer, in a tower belonging to the monastery of St. Gallo, the work of Quintilian. He is indignant at its forlorn situation; at least, he cries, it should have been preserved in the library of the monks; but I found it in teterrimo quodam et obscuro carcere—and to his great joy drew it out ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... that haunted the poor soul with such manifold hindrance and obstruction! The world, and all that is in the world, drops and slips, from his feet, from his hands, carrying with it his body, his eyes, his ears, every pouch, every coffer, that could delude him with the fancy ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... the soul, redolent of sentiment and tenderness, and rich in suggestions of crime, I now repaired for hints upon assassination. To my unspeakable astonishment and grief I found it empty! Every shelf, every chest, every coffer had been rifled. Of that unique and incomparable collection not a vestige remained! Yet I proved that until I had myself unlocked the massive metal door, not a bolt nor bar had been disturbed; the seals upon the lock had ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... Grange entered the castle in the morning, just as one of his harlots Mrs Ogilvie was gone out of bed from him. The noise soon alarmed the cardinal, who was but a little before fallen asleep. He got up and hid a coffer of gold in a corner. Afterward with some difficulty they got in. John Lesly drew his sword, and in sober terms told him their errand, but could bring him to no signs of repentance or preparation for ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... left behind me," He'll sing, nor hear her moan, "The tears they come to blind me As I sit here alone." What else had you to offer, Poor spendthrift of the town? Lay out your unlockt coffer— The ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... mother I knew naught, for she died when I yet hung at the breast. But before she died in the reign of Ptolemy Auletes, who is named the Piper, so did the old wife, Atoua, told me, my mother took a golden uraeus, the snake symbol of our Royalty of Egypt, from a coffer of ivory and laid it on my brow. And those who saw her do this believed that she was distraught of the Divinity, and in her madness foreshadowed that the day of the Macedonian Lagidae was ended, and that Egypt's sceptre should pass again to the hand of Egypt's true and ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... went to ease her selfe, and so she deceiued them, and hid her selfe in the wood; and though they sought her they could not find her. She carried away with her a little chest made of canes in manner of a coffer, which they call Petaca, full of vnbored perles. Some which could iudge of them, said, that they were of great value. An Indian woman that waited on her did carrie them. The Gouernour not to discontent her altogether, left them with her, making account ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... this extravagant work is going to get hold of me. Oh! how I would like not to think any more of my poor Moi, of my miserable carcass! It is getting on very well, my carcass. I sleep tremendously! "The coffer is ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... shall it take one Man turned Tailor To keep a Cat in Tails, until she die? [CHEAT-THE-DEVIL looks subdued; the children whirl about. But here's no game for Jan.—Stay! Something else.— [He runs to a wooden coffer, rear, and takes out a long crystal on the end of a string, with a glance at the shaft of sunlight from the roof. The ...
— The Piper • Josephine Preston Peabody
... I answered, somewhat bitterly. "It is not an uncommon one. My funds ran out, as you know, rather unexpectedly. When I had paid my examination and registration fees the coffer was absolutely empty, and though, no doubt, a medical diploma contains—to use Johnson's phrase—the potentiality of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, there is a vast difference in practice between the potential and the actual. I have, ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... grunted and scowled as he crunched a log and set it sizzling under his wet heel. He thought of Malpas and cursed Lionel's folly, as, without a word, he loosed his cloak and flung it on an oaken coffer by the wall where already he had cast his hat. Then he sat down, and Nicholas came forward ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... gladly. Then he died, and the whole city was afraid and knew not what to do, till while they were in counsel a voice came to them and bade them choose the youngest of the three strange Knights for their King. And they did so. After Galahad was proclaimed King, he ordered that a coffer of gold and precious stones should be made to encompass the table of silver, and every day he and the two Knights would kneel before it ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... practicality about the notion of taking refuge from floods and storms in a ship provided with a steersman; but, surely, no one who had ever seen more water than he could wade through would dream of facing even a moderate breeze, in a huge three-storied coffer, or box, three hundred cubits long, fifty wide and thirty high, left to drift without rudder or pilot. [8] Not content with giving the exact year of Noah's age in which the flood began, the Pentateuchal story adds the month and the day of the month. It is the Deity himself who ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... the women would laugh and say, How now, do you fart, Panurge? No, no, madam, said he, I do but tune my tail to the plain song of the music which you make with your nose. In another he had a picklock, a pelican, a crampiron, a crook, and some other iron tools, wherewith there was no door nor coffer which he would not pick open. He had another full of little cups, wherewith he played very artificially, for he had his fingers made to his hand, like those of Minerva or Arachne, and had heretofore cried treacle. And when he changed a teston, cardecu, or any other piece of money, the changer ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... now nearly three hours since dinner, and the house-floor is perfectly clean again; as clean as everything else in that wonderful house-place, where the only chance of collecting a few grains of dust would be to climb on the salt-coffer, and put your finger on the high mantel-shelf on which the glittering brass candlesticks are enjoying their summer sinecure; for at this time of year, of course, every one goes to bed while it is yet light, or at least light ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... you may be sure. And I learned afterward that they sailed away safely from Cartagena, box and all, for sunny Spain, where, I doubt not, they are now living in idleness and gentlemanly ease on what they found in the big coffer they dug up near ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... to go into the water," Norton agreed. "That would have meant a coffer dam, and the Company won't stand ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... either hand, and, above these, grey points and needles of granite glimmering against the night. But at every stride I drank in the odours of the macchia, my very skin seeming to absorb them, as my clothes undoubtedly did before my journey's end; for years later I had only to open the coffer in which they reposed, and all ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... had been hid, since the world began, in a coffer of metal and acid,—the genie of the lightning,—shut down, as by the seal of Solomon in the Arabian tale, was let loose but the other day, and commenced to do the bidding of man. Every one found that he could transport his thought to the ends of the earth in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various |
