"Stair" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... emblematic of youth, so it is here that the intellectual education of the candidate begins. And therefore, here, at the very spot which separates the Porch from the Sanctuary, where childhood ends and manhood begins, he finds stretching out before him a winding stair which invites him, as it were, to ascend, and which, as the symbol of discipline and instruction, teaches him that here must commence his masonic labor—here he must enter upon those glorious though difficult researches, the end of which is to be the possession of divine truth. ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... in the upper part of a closet-door. Emily believed her father to be in the closet, and, surprised that he was up at so late an hour, apprehended he was unwell, and was going to enquire; but, considering that her sudden appearance at this hour might alarm him, she removed her light to the stair-case, and then stepped softly to the closet. On looking through the panes of glass, she saw him seated at a small table, with papers before him, some of which he was reading with deep attention ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... woods, and carpeted with what to his feet felt like down. The tiny light which his guide bore before her half revealed, as they passed in their ascent, tall lengths of tapestry, and the dull glint of armor and brazen discs in shadowed niches on the nearer wall. Over the stair-rail lay an open space of such stately dimensions, bounded by terminal lines of decoration so distant in the faint candle-flicker, that the young country minister could think of no word but ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... One case is of the very best spirits for our own use. The rest is common stuff and is intended as presents. Our main drink will be tea and chocolate. These are invaluable for the traveler. I have, besides, large quantities of calico, brass stair rods, beads, and powder. These are the money of Africa, and pass current everywhere. With these we shall pay our carriers and boatmen, with these purchase the right of way through the various tribes we shall meet. Moreover ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... the other nurses. Small emergencies were constantly arising and finding her at a loss. Once at least every night, Miss Harrison would hear a soft hiss from the back staircase that connected the two floors, and, going out, would see Sidney's flushed face and slightly crooked cap bending over the stair-rail. ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... grinding of the immense door near the altar; it was opened; steps entered hurriedly. She heard, next instant, her father's voice,—impregnated with icy ire, low with smothered hatred, distinct with the only purpose he ever entertained,—punishment. She flew, with feet that gave no echo, up the stair on her side of the lobby. Rodomant was sitting dead-still, with his face in his hands; they looked rigid; the veins in his forehead, as it showed above his hands, were swollen and stood out, but colorless as the keys that stretched beneath. His ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... plunged bravely on, concluding 'there' to be up a narrow, uncarpeted stair, with a nursery wicket at the top, in undoing which, she was relieved of all doubts and scruples by a melancholy little duet from within. 'Mary, Mary, we want our breakfast! We want to get up! Mary, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pressed my hand as she turned into her own porte-cochere. Frightened servants and their friends were in the porter's lodge, who gazed after her with exclamations as she went up the common stair. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... peril, fear Bade wrath and grief awake and hear What shame should say in fame's wide ear If she, by sorrow sealed more dear Than joy might make her, so should die: And up the tower's curled stair he sprang As one that flies death's deadliest fang, And leapt right out amid their gang As fire from heaven ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... it must be owned, had an incumbrance, which she kept as far as might be in the lower regions of her house, but which was now and again encountered on the stair—a shambling son, one Joe, mostly in shirt —sleeves, distilling familiarity and beer from every pore. He was a ne'er- do-well, whom it was his mother's cross and crown to keep in complete idleness. He cast dreadful looks, as of an equal in snugness, a fellow- minion, at the ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... home that day. The spot where he had been lying was several miles from the white cottage, yet he was conscious of no time, no distance. It seemed one burning moment, a moment never to be forgotten while he lived, till he found himself at the foot of the outer stairway, the stair that led to the attic. She might still be living, and he would not go to her without the thing she craved, the thing which could speak to her ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... she opened, and there beyond it, a drawn scimitar in his hand, stood a tall Moor on guard. Inez spoke a word to him, whereon he saluted with his scimitar and let them pass across the landing to a turret stair that lay beyond, which they descended. At its foot was another door, whereon she knocked four times. Bolts shot back, keys turned, and it was opened by a black porter, beyond whom stood a second Moor, also with drawn sword. They ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... Bohemian cabinet-maker; his wife, a Viennese, who kept everything in the neatest order. I do not know how many families lived in this house; but it was a huge parallelogram with a paved courtyard, in the centre of which stood a wooden pump. There was a common stair in each corner, all of stone, and a common closet at the bottom of each staircase, equally of stone, seat and all, and very common indeed. Each lodging consisted of three continuous rooms, with only one entrance from the common stair: first was the ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... for Whitehall Stair; Salute th' Exchequer Barons there, Then summon round thy civic chair To dinner Whigs and Tories— Bid Dukes and Earls thy hustings climb; But mark my work, Matthias Prime, Ere the tenth hour the scythe of Time Shall amputate, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... They descended the stair, Toad shouting abuse at them through the keyhole; and the three friends then met in conference ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... and although in two of them some items of massive furniture remained, covered with dust-sheets, no sign of habitation did I come upon. The whole of the ground floor proved to be vacant and a broad uncarpeted stair suggested that the floors above were ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... picturesque a custom, and he said if I visited one of his castles that these estimable people, at a word from him, would form a corduroy road in the mud with their bodies, so that I might step dry-shod from the carriage to the castle doors, and I stipulated that he should at least spread a bit of stair carpet over the poor wretches before I made my progress across his ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... the doughty little knight of the Good Turn, and several nurses watched him amusedly from the foot of the broad stair.... ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... sat down on the top stair, overcome with excitement and surprise. "To-day! this very day! Oh dear! oh dear! how careless of Lizzie not to tell us! The poor child might come at any time, and nobody be there to meet her, and we can't write and ask, for she didn't give us any address ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... had taken his key from Diaz' helpless hand, and opened his door and guided him within, and closed the door definitely upon the outer world, I breathed a great sigh. Every turn of the stair had been a station of the cross for me. We were now in utter darkness. The classical effluvium of inebriety mingled with the classical odour of the furnished lodging. But I cared not. I had at last successfully hidden his shame. No one could witness ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... slight, persistent fear of seeing these wounded whom I cannot help. It is not very active, it has left off visualizing the horror of bloody bandages and mangled bodies. But it's there; it waits for me in every corridor and at the turn of every stair, and it makes me ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... drew nearer. The singers paused at the landing of the stair. Hester could distinguish Erma's loud, clear notes which soared upward like a bird and ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... eye of faith beholds A golden stair, like that of old, whereon Fair spirits go and come; God's angels coming down on errands sweet, ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... had returned and held the stair-door open for him. Sommers looked at her searchingly, curious to find where this power lay. Her face had grown white and set. The features and the figure were those of a large woman. Her hair, bronzed in the sunlight ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Bohemia, and the stair-carpet the sea, because then the aunts won't hear the lion ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in black drew herself up proudly. "Yes, one; better than killed. Wait." The women shrunk from her as she darted up the stair. They looked at each other wonderingly. The woman returned with something in her grasp. She flung it on the table. "It is an Indian's hand. His arm will shrivel to the bone. They will leave him some day to die in the sand." The women ...
— The Indian's Hand - 1892 • Lorimer Stoddard
... dining-room are two windows; in the right-hand wall is a door leading to the kitchen; and in the left-hand wall a door opens from a vestibule, where, opposite this door, there is another door which gives on to the landing of the common stair. ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... the uppers are worn you can move the whole thing down one file and put the steps where the uppers were. None of your cocoanut stuff or gimcracks for the honest house: when there is money you should have Brussels, when you have none linoleum—but I digress). The stair-rods were of brass and beautifully polished, the banisters of iron painted to look like mahogany; and this staircase, which I may take to be the emblem of a good life lived for duty, went up one pair, and ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... cabman had finished his late midnight meal and departed. But another passer-by dropped in, who was left over a plate of stew while the waiter led Ned to a narrow stair at the end of the room, passing round a screen behind which a stout, gray-haired man slumbered in an arm chair with all the appearance of being the proprietor. The waiter showed Ned the way with a lighted match, renewed when burnt out. Ned noticed that the papered ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... indifference. My friend reached the Boulevard Haussmann; there the corpses were in large numbers. He counted thirty in less than a hundred yards. Some were lying under the doorways; a dead woman was seated on the bottom stair of one of the houses. Near the church of "La Trinite" were two guns, the reports from which were deafening; several of the shells fell on a bathing establishment in the Rue Taitbout opposite the Boulevard. ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... just like the steps of a stair. Gerald's the oldest. He's twelve and they call him Jerry. He's a clever boy. Faith is eleven. She is a regular tomboy but pretty as a picture, ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... white, The bride came forth on her wedding night; There, in that silent room below, The dead lay in his shroud of snow; And in the hush that followed the prayer, Was heard the old clock on the stair,— "Forever—never! Never—forever!" ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... woman of genuine ability, who has been too busy with teaching and concert pianism to find as much leisure as she deserves for composition, is Patty Stair, a prominent musical figure in Cleveland. Her theoretical studies were received entirely at Cleveland, under F. Bassett. Her published works include a book of "Six Songs," all of them interesting and artistic, and the "Madrigal" particularly ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... on the stair. He and all the others had listened to Paddy's speeches in a blank amazement which had much ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... the hallway and sat down in a fainting condition upon one of the stair steps. Still dizzy, with severe pains in the head and sensations of nausea, I was shown ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... down the blinds at the back and shut the kitchen door to conceal his arrangements from casual observation. At the end he would open the door on the yard and so make a clean clear draught right through the house. He hacked at, and wedged off, the tread of a stair. He cleared out the coals from under the staircase, and built a neat fire of firewood and paper there, he splashed about paraffine and arranged the lamps and can even as he had designed, and made a fine inflammable pile of things in the little parlour behind the shop. "Looks ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... "presented" Mr. and Mrs. Robert K. Cassatt of Philadelphia, Mrs. Ernest Wiltsee, Mrs. and Miss Luce and Mrs. Norman Whitehouse. On the arrival at the palace with these and all the members of the Embassy Staff and their wives, we were shown up a long stair-case, at the top of which a guard of honour, dressed in costume of the time of Frederick the Great, presented arms to all Ambassadors, and ruffled kettle-drums. Through long lines of cadets from the ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... stone or steel But doth some stir unwonted feel, When to the day new brightness bringing Thou standest at the stair-foot singing! ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... had disappeared into the little house near the corner, the hidden door in the damp cellar below "The Pidgin House" opened and a bent old woman, a ragged, grey-haired and dirty figure, walked slowly up the rickety wooden stair and entered a bare room behind and below the shop and to the immediate left of the den of the opium-smoker. This room, which was windowless, was lighted by a tin paraffin lamp hung upon a nail in the dirty plaster wall. The floor presented a litter of straw, ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... oak about the palace there, The king came back from battle, and I stood To meet him, with my ladies, on the stair, My face made beautiful with my ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... insert his reply to the Query of MATFELONESIS, because we do not regard a newspaper paragraph as an authority. The story of Lord Stair being the executioner of Charles I. is related, we believe, in Cecil's Sixty Curious Narratives, an interesting compilation made by the late W. Hone, who does not, however, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various
... reached the palace, the massive doors were thrown open, and the court passed in. The nurses bore the Princess Rosetta's basket up the grand marble stair, and carried it ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... now, thinking there was something extraordinary in the case, after looking to God for direction, inclined to do. The apparition went down some steps with the candles, and carried them into a long trance, at the end of which there was a stair which carried down to a low room. This the spectre went down, and stooped, and set down the lights on the lowest step of ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... himsel' in their verra herts. Come thou, an' abide in us, an' tak' us to bide in thee; an' syne gin we be a' in thee, we canna be that far frae ane anither, though some sud be in haven, an' some upo' earth. Lord help us to do oor wark like thy men an' maidens doon the stair, remin'in' oursel's, 'at them 'at we miss hae only gane up the stair, as gin 'twar to haud things to thy han' i' thy ain presence-chamber, whaur we houp to be called or lang, an' to see thee an' thy Son, wham we lo'e aboon a'; an' in his name we ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... senses almost leaving me; but I did what I could to hold the door shut just as I heard the strange step come from the last stair on to the landing. Then there was a horrid sound, and some one began trying the lock ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... raged. The boys had both received several blows, for the weight of the heavy weapons sometimes beat down their guard; but they still fought on, retiring a step or two up the stair when hardly pressed, and occasionally making dashes down upon their assailants, slaying the foremost, and hurling the others backwards. Presently the girl ran ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... certain wistful, half-envious admiration. She had once been shaken by all these emotions herself, years ago, when she was in love. She had regarded them as a revelation while they lasted; and afterwards, as a steep step—a very steep step—upon the stair of life. But she realized now that such as Hester live constantly in the world which the greater number of us can only enter when human passion lends us the key; the world at which, when the gates are shut against us, the coarser minded among us are not ashamed to level their ridicule ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... indicate varieties and states of more or less altered basalts and dolerites, though no longer held to differ in any essential respects from the better preserved basalts. Still older is the term trap, which is derived from a Swedish word meaning "a stair," for in many places superposed sheets of basalt weather with well-marked step-like or terraced features. This designation is still used as a general term for the whole suite of basaltic rocks by many geologists and travellers (e.g. trap-dikes, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... English feet, by twelve in diameter at the base, and ten below the capital, which is Doric and carved out of a single block; the column is composed of thirty-four blocks, hollowed out internally and cut into a winding stair. A series of bas-reliefs, divided from one another by a narrow band, run spirally around the shaft parallel to the inner staircase of a hundred and eighty-two steps, and describes twenty-three circuits to reach the platform on which the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... polished floor. Holly and mistletoe, rosemary and bay, and all the decorations of an old-time English Christmas were tastefully arranged. A burst of laughter ran through the hall, as through the ample doorway, and down the broad stair, trooped the Motley train of the Lord of Misrule to open the Christmas revels. A fierce and ferocious-looking fellow was he, with his great green mustache and his ogre-like face. His dress was a gorgeous parti-colored jerkin and half-hose, trunks, ruff, slouch-boots of Cordova ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... centuries it took her to climb the first three flights of stairs, Una realized how hot she was, how the clammy coolness of the hall was penetrated by stabs of street heat which entered through the sun-haloed windows at the stair landings. ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... shock! While writing alone here (almost all have gone to church), I heard a step ascending the stair. What, I asked, if it should be Will? Then I blamed myself for supposing such a thing possible. Slowly it came nearer and nearer, I raised my head, and was greeted with a ghastly smile. I held out my hand. "Will!" "Sarah!" (Misery ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... community must have been reenforced from time to time, as they have maintained, in a marvellous way, the fairness of their complexion. It will not require much imagination, as one enters their synagogue, to think of the synagogue of Nazareth of old. As we ascend the stair-way into the little schoolroom above, and hear the little ones reciting, in pure Hebrew, passages from the Pentateuch, we can easily imagine that we are listening to the voice of a dear little Boy, nineteen centuries ago, reciting to His master those ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... not know anything about the august memory that with him inhabits the dilapidated rooms. He doubtless fails to appreciate the honour of placing his hand upon the selfsame polished mahogany stair rail which our immortal "infidel's" hand once pressed, or the rare distinction of reading his evening paper at the selfsame window where, with his head upon his hand, that Other was wont to read ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... tower—the Keep. I believe you have not been in here before, Mr. Copplestone—just pay particular attention to this place. Here you see is the Keep, standing in the middle of what I suppose was the courtyard of the old castle. It's a square tower, with a stair-turret at one angle. The stair in that turret is in a very good state of preservation—in fact, it is quite easy to climb to the top, and from the top there's a fine view of land and sea: the Keep itself is nearly a hundred ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... absurdity of such a conjecture he was blind in his anger. But that he was helpless, befooled, he recognized; and with a final muttered imprecation he turned and slowly descended the stair. A lingering hope was dispelled when, looking right and left along Bond Street, he failed to perceive the ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... beckoned to the constable who stood on the steps below. He bade him first shut me up in one dungeon, seeing that I was an eavesdropper, and then return and thrust my child into another. But he thought better of it when we had come halfway down the winding-stair, and said he would excuse me this time, and that the constable might let me go, and only lock up my child very fast, and bring the key to him, seeing she was a stubborn person, as he had seen at the very first hearing which ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... shapes that passed and repassed. Once it seemed to me that a hand was laid on my shoulder and was not lifted, but instead dissolved into the other shadows around. The sudden striking of the clock on the stair landing completed my demoralization. I turned and fled upstairs, pursued, to my agonized nerves, by ghostly hands that came toward me from between the spindles of ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... window the moment that she had barred the kitchen door, and knew that he would be within the house. She could hear him knock at the parlour door, and then enter the parlour. But he did not stay there a moment. Then she heard him at the foot of the stair, and with a low voice he called to her by her name. "Linda, are you there?" But, of course, she did not answer him. It might be that he would fancy that she was not within the house and would retreat. He would hardly intrude into their bedrooms; but it might be that he would go as far as his ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... mill. They might have noted in his manner a continual restlessness; a wandering about the mill from room to room; prying into odd corners here and there; pounding upon the beams and partitions; poking under stair-ways; rummaging into long unused chutes and bins; for ever hunting, anxious-eyed; as though the mill had an evil and troublous influence ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... "Trained stair-climbers should be the healthiest as well as the most beautiful of women, yet," says Mrs. Russell, "a town of stairs given, and I will prophesy thin, eye-circled, cross-looking women." All of this is to be laid to the fact that most women ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... being able to force the door, which Thompson had secured, collected piles of wood, which, being placed against the door and set fire to, in process of time not only burnt through the door, but also set fire to the stair-case conducting to the lantern, into which Thompson and the negro were compelled to retreat. From this, too, they were finally driven by the encroaching flames, and were forced outside on the parapet wall, which was not ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... amazement, Ben skipped in through the hall and up the stair as fast as his wooden leg would allow him. He reached the office door. "Miss Margaret," he gasped, "Barney's at the door with a sick man. Wants a bed ready. We ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... down, and making signs to her to mount up by it. It was quite easy; up went Olive, step by step, and when she reached the place where the two dwarfs were standing, she saw how it was that they had all disappeared. The tree trunk was hollow, and there were steps cut in it like a stair, down which the dwarfs signed to her that she was to go. She did not need to be twice told, so eager was she to see what was to come. The stair was rather difficult for her to get down without falling, for the steps were ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... beyond the curb and signaled, then as the 'bus drew over and came to a stop, she nodded to the man as she started up the stair to the roof. "Good-night, Mr. Burton," she called over her shoulder. "You are ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... used for the cresting of some large piece of furniture, or may be adapted to fill screens or partitions, stair newels, and balusters, or it may be used as a cornice decoration in the manner suggested by No. 26, where the pierced work can be backed by a hollow cornice ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... moment before so ghostly, now rang with the sound of voices as Rosalind, leaning over the stair rail, joyfully ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... plotting ill against him in her mind, thinking that by doing evil to him she might find favor with his enemies. Nevertheless, she kept this well to herself and received Robin with seeming kindness. She led him up the winding stone stair to a room which was just beneath the eaves of a high, round tower; but she would not let Little ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... stuck-up and wished to cut old friends. He picked his way through the nine brats who clung affectionately to his wet knees, dispersing them finally by a jet of coppers to scramble for. Peter met him on the stair and shook his hand lovingly and admiringly, and took him into Mrs. ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... into the fire-place, mistaking it for the door, yet their escape was at length happily effected—and half after twelve o'clock found our heroes ripe for mischief, and running for life down a dark alley in the direction of St. Andrew's Stair, hotly pursued by the landlady of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... A softened melancholy rested upon her heart, and she would wander about her house looking at the relics of her lost one. And day by day the roses faded from her cheek, her step grew lighter on the stair, and she rapidly declined, till at length she was startled at the shadowy form and face her mirror revealed to her. Her long-neglected Bible was once more sought for, and she read with all the desperate eagerness of a drowning man, who catches at every chance of safety. It was her mother's ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... Rab and I retired. I noticed that he and she spoke a little, but seemed to anticipate everything in each other. The following day at noon, the students came in, hurrying up the great stair. At the first landing-place, on a small well-known blackboard, was a bit of paper fastened by wafers and many remains of old wafers beside it. On the paper were the words—"An operation to-day. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... had almost answered bidding him go to the devil, when a damsel put her head over the stair-rail of the landing above and called down to us to obey and open at once: and looking up in the dim light of the passage I recognized her for the one who had scattered the flowers, just now, to ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... courtyard that the King had builded especially for her. But to this little chapel, that was of Edward IV's time, small and round-arched, all stone and dark and bare, she went with the Lady Mary alone. Her ladies and her doorguards they left at the stair foot, on a level with the sleeping rooms of the poorer sort, but up the little stairway they climbed by themselves, in darkness, to pray privately for the conversion of England. For this little place was so small and so forgotten that it had never been desecrated by Privy ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... and shield, and scimitar against the wall, and then followed the duenna, with silent steps, up a winding stair-case, to the apartment of Xarisa. Vain would be the attempt to describe the raptures of that meeting. Time flew too swiftly, and the Abencerrage had nearly forgotten, until too late, his promise to return a prisoner to the Alcayde of Allora. The recollection of it came ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, Italian, and Spanish, respectively distributed in their several cantons, according to the diversity of these languages. In the midst there was a wonderful scalier or winding-stair, the entry whereof was without the house, in a vault or arch six fathom broad. It was made in such symmetry and largeness that six men-at-arms with their lances in their rests might together in a breast ride all up to the very top of all the palace. From the tower Anatole to ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... again that holy face. In a dream of loss he gazes upon her, as the angels lift up the flower-garnished sheet; and not only her face, but every detail of that room of death is etched in tears upon his eyes,—the distant winding stair, the pallid death-lamps, the intruding light of day. All Passion and all Loss, all Youth, all Love, and all Death met together in an everlasting requiem ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... assaulted it, and it was open. They passed rapidly within, and closed it behind them, and with the woman's hand guiding, Dawson stumbled up a long, narrow, sloppy stair that gave on to the flat roof of the building. Above them was sky again. The rain had passed, and the frosty stars of Mozambique shone faintly. He took a deep breath as he received the image from ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... with considerable difficulty I persuaded this functionary to permit my carrying my hat with me to the drawing-room, a species of caution on my part—as he esteemed it—savouring much of distrust. This point however, I carried, and followed him up a very ill-lighted stair to the drawing-room; here I was announced by some faint resemblance to my real name, but sufficiently near to bring my friend Tom at once to meet me, who immediately congratulated me on my fortune in coming off so well, for that the person who preceded me, Mr. Jones Blennerhasset, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... to give way: to my bewilderment, it shook, it sunk, it rolled back into nothing; its vanishing left an opening arched, leading into an arched passage, with a mystic winding stair; both passage and stair were of cold stone, uncarpeted and unpainted. Down this donjon stair descended a tap, tap, like a stick; soon there fell on the steps a shadow, and last of all, I was aware of ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... their revolvers in their right hands, glided after the Mungana. In the corner of the big room they came to a little stair. How it opened in that place where no stair had been, they could not see or even guess, for it was too dark, only now they knew the means by which the Asika had been able ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... small room, I somehow snatched five valses from the fire. And I did stout supper-service for your mother, While you wove the self-same spells o'er many another, And I said, no doubt, the sort of things that they did, In the shaded Little nook beneath the palms upon the stair, To my fair. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various
... In thy boldness over-rash Madly thou thy foot didst dash 'Gainst high Justice' altar stair. Thou ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... the broad, winding stairway. Save for the glimmer of the solitary candle all was in darkness; the bare floor, the paneled walls, echoed to his tread. On either hand squares of blackness proclaimed the open doors of large, empty rooms, and down the stair came a wind that bent the weak flame. The negro took the light from the hand of the man who had opened the door, and, pressing past his master, lit three candles in a sconce ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... she after a while, as one awaking from thought, "has done his business zealously and well. I will go to my room now and rest: but let me be aroused when this visitor comes, for I believe that I can deal with him." And she rose and walked away to the stair, with the hound ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... iron hinges of her prison, and her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault! O, whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? Madman!"—here he sprang furiously to his feet and shrieked out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul—"Madman! I tell you that she now stands without ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... English spelling you'll surely beware, When you notice how stair, pear and heir rhyme with there; The sad English spelling, The mad English spelling, Sing hi! for the mare and ...
— How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee • Owen Wister
... them possessed this important peculiarity had been one of the last things he did before quitting Mr. Bumble's service. Was it the fifth or sixth? He hesitated, then avoided the fifth gingerly, and hoped for the best.... Beneath the increased pressure the sixth stair fairly shrieked. Mr. Morgan skipped on to the seventh and broke into a cold sweat. Again he was confronted with the choice of the eighth or ninth. After a moment of agonized indecision, he decided to miss them both.... Man but proposes. In his anxiety he missed the tenth ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... years before Airy, and his reputation, both for mathematical and all-round knowledge, was extremely and deservedly great, but he was always most generous in his recognition of Airy's powers. Thus in a letter of Mar. 16th, 1823 (Life of William Whewell by Mrs Stair Douglas), he says, "Airy is certainly a most extraordinary man, and deserves everything that can be said of him"; and again in the autumn of 1826 he writes to his aunt, "You mentioned a difficulty which had occurred to you in one of your late letters; how Airy should be made ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... a loose nail in the stair-carpet, which, apparently resenting her hasty progress past it, had torn a yard of filmy ruching off her skirt before ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... would accept it. Before departing, Janet lifted her veil, with a beautiful gesture, and offered her lips to kiss. They embraced affectionately. The next moment Hilda, at the top of the dim, naked, resounding stair, was watching Janet descend—a figure infinitely stylish and agreeable to ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... this new organist," he thought, "who can afford to bury his talents at Audley, and play Mendelssohn's finest fugues for a stipend of sixteen pounds a year." He lingered in the porch, waiting for the organist to descend the awkward little stair-case. In the weary trouble of his mind, and with the prospect of getting through the five hours in the best way he could, Mr. Audley was glad to cultivate any diversion of thought, however idle. He therefore freely indulged his curiosity about ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... may be so, but I still think that there must be some way out from here. Why should men go to the labour of cutting this long stair, and excavating this chamber here, without any reason whatever? Let us look ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... looked greatly disturbed and excited. His face was lit up by the now fiery glare of the sun, and when, in passing, she nodded to him, and he took off his hat, he cast at her a glance that was like an accusation. As soon as she gained the verandah she heard his heavy step upon the stair. For a moment she hesitated. Should she go into her room and so avoid him, or remain and let him speak to her? She knew that he was following her with that purpose. Her mind was almost instantly made up. She crossed ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... down was by a cellar-stair lighted by a small lamp with a sputtering wick darkening the chimney with smoke; having safely reached the bottom, he turned to the left in the darkness; here and there, at an angle, a floating wick threw a ruddy light on the circuit which he made in alternate light and shade, till at last he had ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... therefore, the Wavertree carriage stopped at the foot of the wide flight of steps, flanked by urns of blooming flowers, which led up to Mrs. Rushton's great hall door, the mistress of Amber Hill was seen descending the stone stair leading a little child by the hand. This was Hetty, dressed in a white frock of lace and muslin, and decked ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... barrel of rain water and threw flour all over Mrs. Maloney. The workmen in the hotel jumped out of the windows and ran into the woods when the knights began firing their guns. They wakened me up and I peeped down the stair. And then the Prince came up and wrapped me in the bedclothes and carried me out. He was so tall and strong and fine. His face was as rough as a scrubbing brush, and he talked soft and kind and smelled of schnapps. He took me on his horse before him and we rode away among ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... the foot of the stair had been in low whispers, and I whispered back her good-night, and turned to go. Then, like Lot's wife, I looked behind me. She had reached the first landing, where the stairway curved. She saw me, and peered forward, holding ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... his foot on the bottom stair, at the same time peering aloft. He saw nothing, yet as he proceeded upward every inch of the way was perceptible to his inner feelings. The staircase was cold, dismal, and deserted, but it seemed to him, in his exaltation of soul, ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... let us say, there were compensations. The love of luxury is only dormant in the heart of the hardiest barbarian; and the polished floors and soft-piled rugs, the bath-room with its great china dish, and the carpeted stair with the old grandfather clock ticking bravely on the landing, presently began to thrum the tuneful chord of pride. Perhaps Ardea Dabney would not laugh and say, "What a funny, funny old place!" as she had once said when the Major ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... exhibit great skill on the part of the tailor, and was, in fact, baggy and ugly. Seeing how the matter stood, Akakiy Akakievitch decided that it would be necessary to take the cloak to Petrovitch, the tailor, who lived somewhere on the fourth floor up a dark stair-case, and who, in spite of his having but one eye, and pock-marks all over his face, busied himself with considerable success in repairing the trousers and coats of officials and others; that is to say, when he was sober and not nursing some ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... Kirkwood moved toward the stair-head, and drew back with a cry of disgust. "Too late!" he told himself bitterly; his escape was cut off. He could run up-stairs and hide, of course, but the boy would ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... head; then I blew out my cruse, and out we came, jolting each other in the dark passage through sheer hurry and confusion—down the Canongate, t'll we came to Meggat's Land, in at the kitchen door, ben a dark passage, up a stair, then ben another passage, till we came to a back room, the door of which was opened by somebody inside. I was bewildered—the light in the room made my een reel; but I soon came to myself, when I saw a man and Mrs. Kemp the howdie ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... Orleans was a little man fondly known among his people as Pere Jerome. He was a Creole and a member of one of the city's leading families. His dwelling was a little frame cottage, standing on high pillars just inside a tall, close fence, and reached by a narrow out-door stair from the green batten gate. It was well surrounded by crape myrtles, and communicated behind by a descending stair and a plank-walk with the rear entrance of the chapel over whose worshippers he daily spread his hands in benediction. The name of the street—ah! ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... into the hall, switched on the light and tore open the envelope. Then she gasped suddenly and sat down on the stair steps with ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... the weaker prey. Oh! I forgot—but Heaven will not forgive If at my word the helpless cease to live; Follow who will—I go—we yet have time Our souls to lighten of at least a crime." He climbs the crackling stair—he bursts the door, Nor feels his feet glow scorching with the floor; His breath choked gasping with the volumed smoke, But still from room to room his way he broke. 820 They search—they find—they save: with lusty arms Each bears a prize of unregarded charms; ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... went to my head, and with my delicate nerves you will readily understand that I was about to faint. I mastered this sensation, however. She took a firm grip of my hand, as one would clasp the knob of a cane or the banister of a stair, and we advanced into the stream ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... there is but one entrance to it; an arched doorway opening upon a low-roofed stone hall; in place of a door there are heavy gates of iron, with a smaller wicket-gate set in their midst; from the stone hall a stone stair leads to the various chambers above; in the outer walls the windows are high and narrow; each is filled with old painted glass. A strong, grim building, this; and when the iron gates are locked, as they are every night when the curfew bell—an ancient institution ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... Roland feared to call, "Denasia!" He hesitated at the foot of the narrow stair and then went softly to the door. All within was still as the grave, but a glimmer of pale light came from under the ill-fitting door. He might be mistaken in the room, but he resolved to try. He turned the handle and there was an instant movement. He ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... who had offered their services to William for the settlement of Scotland, three were eminent above the rest: the Duke of Hamilton, the Marquis of Athole, and Lord Stair. The Duke of Hamilton had disapproved of the measures of the late reign, but without publicly opposing them. He had observed the same cautious conduct with regard to the parties of his countrymen. He took advantage of his rank to attend none of ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... Jobson," he replied, sitting down upon the bottom stair, and leaning his head against ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... abused with no thought given its architectural merits and much of the woodwork has been removed. The stair is perhaps the finest in Alexandria, with spindles and risers carved in a more elaborate fashion than was the practice of the thrifty Scotsmen of Alexandria. At the rear of this large house, separated only by a narrow area, stands another ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... of the adherents was appointed for the next afternoon. We decided to have it on the Queen's Stair-way, which is a long flight of steps, cut in the solid limestone, and leading up out of a deep and shadowy ravine, where the people of the town many years ago cut out the calcareous material for their houses. There has been no stone cut here for a long time, and the walls of the ravine, which ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... together and descended the stairs in company, Richelieu attending Louis until he had reached the foot of the stairway, and gone into an adjoining room. The cardinal turned to ascend again, without a moment's suspicion that the two gentlemen at the stair-foot clutched hidden daggers in their hands, ready, at a signal from the duke, who stood near by, to ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... farmer's course in the Kansas College provides for a general training in mechanical handiwork, but facilities are given also to those who wish to follow out the trade, and special instruction is provided in the whole range of work, from framing to stair-building, as also in iron work, such as ordinary forging, filing, tempering, etc. Of the students attending this college, 75 percent, are from farmers' homes, and the majority of the remainder from the families of mechanics ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... cumbrous graver's implements. It is situated at the furthest part of the garden from the house; a small door in the garden-wall leads into a little inclosure, one side of which is occupied by the stable. The painting-room is over the stable, and is reached by a stair; it has but one window which looks towards the road. It must have been sufficiently commodious for Hogarth's purposes; but possesses not the conveniences of modern painting-rooms. The house at Chiswick could only have been a place ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... up the stair, and a man entered. It was her husband. On his return he had missed his wife, and guessed whither she had gone, and had followed her. ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... post of secretary for Scotland was bestowed upon lord Melvil, a weak and servile nobleman, who had taken refuge in Holland from the violence of the late reigns: but the king depended chiefly for advice upon Dalrymple lord Stair, president of the college of justice, an old crafty fanatic, who for forty years had complied in all things with all governments. Though these were rigid pres-byterians, the king, to humour the opposite party, admitted some individuals of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... basins, or soap, no tables, chairs, or other furniture, are provided. Wood for cooking and washing for the family is found, but when the master's work is done, the slave must find wood for himself if he has a fire. I have repeatedly known slave children kept the whole winter's evening, sitting on the stair-case in a cold entry, just to be at hand to snuff candles or hand a tumbler of water from the side-board, or go on errands from one room to another. It may be asked why they were not permitted to stay in the parlor, when they would be still more at hand. I answer, because waiters are not allowed ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... stairs with a lady, it is proper to offer your arm, provided the stair-case is sufficiently wide to permit two to go up ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... close behind her head as it seemed, and turning, was surprised to see Hall a dozen feet off on the topmost stair. But in another moment he was beside her. She bent forward and put her hand on the pillow and then ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... work of Grinling Gibbons; and he built the chapel, which also has some fine carving. A later and most princely Bishop, Anthony Thorold, who held the See from 1891 to 1895, laid down a mile and a hundred yards of stair carpet, and repaired an acre and a fifth of roof. He also fitted up rooms for ordination candidates, each room with a name. St. Francis and other saints preside over the slumbers of some; some sleep in Paradise; a Bishop who is an occasional ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... as he talked, looking after window fastenings, and examining things generally. Celia watched him from her place on the bottom stair. He was approaching her with the intention of putting out the hall light and joining her to proceed up-stairs, when he stopped still, wheeled, and made for the back of the hall, where the cellar ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... which an acquaintance with the more modern works of Biblical criticism will pour upon him, and for which his mind is wholly unprepared. To meet with a far weaker evidence than we had taken it for granted we were to find, gives the same shake to the mind, that missing a stair gives ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... noiseless step and suppressed breath, trembling at every rustle of their own apparel, one after another the fair prisoners glided down the winding stair, under the guidance of Roland Graeme, and were received at the wicket-gate by Henry Seyton and the churchman. The former seemed instantly to take upon himself the whole direction of the enterprise. "My Lord Abbot," he said, "give my sister your arm—I will conduct the Queen—and that ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... and up, as high as they will stand; give us plenty of sky-parlors, but also plenty of steam-elevators to go to and from "my lady's chamber." It is not a wise economy to devote one's precious power to this enormous amount of stair-work. It is not a kind of exercise that is sanitive. The Evans House and Hotel Pelham, for instance, are very pretty Bostonianisms, but all their rooms within range of ordinary means are beyond the range of ordinary strength. The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... up, darling!" You see, Sally had manifestoed down into the garden from the landing of the stair, which was made of iron openwork you knocked flower-pots down and broke, and you have had to have a new one—that, at least, is how Ann put it. On the stair-top Mrs. Nightingale stems the torrent of her daughter's revelation because it's ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... she sat, rosy cheeked and laughing, on the lowest stair, and stood before her. "That wasn't so bad," he said, approvingly. "You and Jarve had better get out a copyright on that—you worked in some pretty fancy steps. Got your skates on ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... series of waterfalls until it beat itself into a turbulent spray in the bed of the chasm below. The laughing moon filtered its beaming rays through the thin sheet of shimmering water as it danced down its course from precipice to precipice, and seemingly converted it into a great silvery stair-way connecting earth with heaven. Marie's heart throbbed with emotion. The dashing of the falling water on the rocks below in the bed of the canon made a hollow sound as its echoes reverberated ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey |
