"Staircase" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... after the sad departure from Peerout Castle, Lisbeth Longfrock awoke early in the small sleeping room built under the great staircase at Hoel. She opened her eyes wide at the moment of waking, and tried to gather her thoughts together. She was conscious of a delightful, quivering expectancy, and felt that she had awakened to something great and new,—something that she had waited for and been exceedingly glad ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... echoing apartment, used at that date as a guard-room, was well-nigh empty. Only at rare intervals, in the embrasure of a window or the recess of a door, a couple talked softly. At the farther end, near the head of the staircase which led to the hall below, and the courtyard, a group of armed Swiss lounged on guard. Mademoiselle shot a keen glance up and down, then she turned to her lover, ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... word. I come, besides, direct from the torture-chamber. After I had escaped from my torturer I was standing in a damp, narrow, totally dark passage. By groping along I reached a descending staircase; I slowly walked on and only stopped when I felt the moisture under my feet. But what could I do? I cautiously groped ahead, and soon my shoes were filled with water. It shortly afterward rose to my calves; and then, oh joy! I could again ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... stand. A master who went by, a small, jovial man in a big hat, had a word for all the girls, even a chuck of the chin for one unusually saucy face. Inside, classes were filing out of the various rooms, other classes were going in; there was a noisy flocking up and down the broad, central staircase, a crowding about the notice-board, a going and coming in the long, stone corridors. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... had taken some time, and Mrs. Green had already called up the staircase that dinner was nearly ready before Mopsey had commenced to clothe himself in such garments as he supposed Richard the Third wore. First he put on a thin pair of cotton pants that had once been white, ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis
... on being given a turban-cloth, would cut it into three from avarice, met his death, in 950, in an unfortunate manner—being, although living in so remote a period, mistaken for a "profiteer." I quote Ibn Khallikan's words: "He had seated himself on the staircase of the Nilometer, by the side of the river, which was then on the increase, and began to scan some verses according to the rules of prosody, when a common fellow who heard him said: 'This man is pronouncing a charm to prevent the overflow of the Nile, so as to raise ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... inclose the kernel of a walnut. It appears to have been built in a haphazard fashion, though the old plans, with the houses sketched in rows, exhibit an uniformity of streets and buildings. They show us also that the houses were for the most part of wood, having each a covered outside staircase leading to the upper stories. Built so much of wood it was exposed to frequent conflagrations, the last being the great burning at the time of the French invasion in 1812. But so quickly was it always rebuilt and on the same lines that it has ever retained its original and irregular ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... herself as she passed on through the upper hall and down the broad staircase into the lower one, "it can hardly be that Edward's absence alone can distress her so greatly. I fear there is some misunderstanding between them. I think I must telegraph for Edward if she continues so inconsolable. ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... whether he could find his way to the breakfast-room without a guide. In this he would have succeeded without much difficulty, for it opened from the main-entrance hall, to which the huge square-turned oak staircase, by which he had ascended, led; had it not been for the somewhat intricate nature of the passages leading from the wing in which his rooms were (evidently an older and more retired portion of the house) to the main staircase itself. After opening many doors and finding no thoroughfare, ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... Florence with money, fame, and honour, he was commissioned to make a David of bronze, two braccia and a half in height, which, when finished, was placed in the Palace, with great credit to himself, at the head of the staircase, where the Catena was. The while that he was executing the said statue, he also made that Madonna of marble which is over the tomb of Messer Lionardo Bruni of Arezzo in S. Croce; this he wrought, when still quite young, for Bernardo Rossellino, architect and sculptor, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... model—took the guests' hats, and announced their names; there were daffodils and azaleas in profusion; the Red Roumanians performed national airs in the studio-gallery; Italian mandolinists sang and strummed on the staircase, and, in the dining-room, trim maid-servants, in becoming white caps and streamers, dispensed coffee, claret-cup, and ices to a swarm of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... one went out, and then there were hurried footsteps along the shrubbery-path. She thought, of course, that it was Mr. Dunster leaving the house; and went back for Mr. Livingstone's letter. Having found it, she passed through her father's room to the private staircase, thinking that if she went by the more regular way, she would have run the risk of disturbing Miss Monro, and perhaps of being questioned in the morning. Even in passing down this remote staircase, she trod softly for fear of being overheard. When she entered the room, the full light ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... brawn, and arches with lozenges of azure paint in which golden stars appeared rather meretriciously. A plaster statue of Hebe, with crinkly hair and staring eyeballs, stood in a corner without improving matters. That part of the staircase which was not concealed by the brown carpet was dirty white. An immense oil painting of a heap of dead pheasants, rabbits and wild duck, lying beside a gun and a pair of leather gaiters, immediately faced the ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... a pretty face and wavy auburn hair under the sun-helmet. Then turning away and picking up her whip she left the dressing-room and, passing the door of her husband's bedroom where he lay still sleeping, descended the broad marble staircase of the Residency to the lofty hall, where an Indian servant in a long red coat hurried to open the door of the ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... respond she descried the name upon a staircase within the archway, and, thanking the cartman as she would have thanked a prince, hastened to ascend. An inspiring smell of warm rusks, coming from a bakery in the paved court below, rushed through the archway and up the stair and accompanied her into the cemetery-like silence of the counting-room. ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... his wife, who had already reached the door. From which it appears that Mrs. Ambrose was a brave woman. She passed rapidly up the staircase to Goddard's room, but she paused as she laid her hand upon the latch. From within she could hear Mary Goddard's voice, praying aloud, as she had never heard any one pray before. She paused and listened, hesitating to interrupt the unhappy lady in such a moment. Moreover, though her goodwill ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... knew a young lady who, on going to pay a visit to a friend who had recently moved into a new house, was asked to walk up stairs, and on complying saw an old woman preceding her up the staircase. Supposing her to be one of the servants, she took but little notice of her, though struck by the peculiarity of her gait, a sort of jerky limp, as though one leg was shorter than the other. In the course of conversation ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... work to put up shelves, to write labels, and to give it as much as possible the appearance of the one at Nearminster. Ambrose hit upon an idea which added a good deal to this. He printed the words "To the Museum" on some cards, with an arrow to point the way, and when these were pasted on the staircase wall they had a capital effect. But though it began to have quite a business-like air, the museum was still woefully empty. Even when spread out to their widest extent, it was impossible to make three fossils, a few birds' eggs, and one dried snake's skin look otherwise than meagre even in ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... I keep chambers open in the Temple, I attend in Westminster Hall, but there is not the least prospect of my having business.' Ib. p. 344. His chambers, as he wrote to Malone, were 'in the very staircase where Johnson lived.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... is very simple. They are rude towers of timber, twenty to thirty feet in height, the summit of which is reached by a staircase at the back, while in front descends a steep concave of planking upon which water is poured until it is covered with a six-inch coating of solid ice. Raised planks at the side keep the sled in its place until it reaches the foot, where it enters upon an icy plain two to four hundred yards ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... solidification of Ibsen's habits which began about this time, and which marked then even before he left Munich. He had now successfully separated himself from all society, and even his family saw him only at meals. Visitors could not penetrate to him, but, if sufficiently courageous, must hang about on the staircase, hoping to catch him for a moment as he hurried out to the cafe. Within his study, into which the daring Paulsen occasionally ventured, Ibsen, we are to believe, did nothing at all, but "sat bent over the pacific ocean of his own mind, which mirrored for him a world far more fascinating, vast ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... of adjectives, pronounces the Lady Chapel "a dream," and I don't think she exaggerates; but for myself, the things least forgettable in the Cathedral will be the Chapter House Stairs and the beautiful fourteenth century glass. The ascent of the staircase is an exquisite experience, and, as Ellaline cried out in her joy, "it must be like going up a snow mountain by moonlight." The old clock in the transept, too, holds one hypnotized, waiting always to see what will happen next. Peter Lightfoot, the Glastonbury ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... hours at St. Crux. If she waited in her room until half-past eleven, she would wait long enough. At that time she stole out on to the staircase, with the keys in her pocket, and the ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... adjoining bedroom. Here he left her to herself, and, re-entering the kitchen, got ready a meal of tea and buttered oat-cake, which he sent in to Mary Whittaker by the hands of his eldest child, a girl of seven. Then, without further intrusion on the girl's privacy, he climbed the rickety staircase to the upper chamber and set to work at his loom. Eager to make up for the time he had lost, he worked with energy, but every sound from the rooms below came up through the cracks in the raftered floor. He could hear the voices of the children and, ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman
... lock-up." The last word rather frightened me; but I managed to say to him: "To save you a deal of trouble, sir, young Wright isn't going to play in this piece at all," and, with that, directed him down the staircase. I was allowed to go on with my acting without interruption after that; but I hadn't to go on the stage another night. My parents then put their heads together to keep ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... of the staircase was elegantly carved, and the walls exhibited numerous reliefs of scrolls, flowers, and instruments of music. The court-room was another richly-wainscoted apartment, and the ceiling very grand, though, perhaps somewhat overloaded ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Noble Rose sprang an oak staircase, and at this instant a girl began to descend the stairs. She was quite young—a tall slip of a thing, who scarcely seemed nineteen—and she had hair of a yellow that looked as if it loved the sun, and her ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... as I had come straight from a room near McGreggor's, where I had spent the night. As I was leaving the dining-room I went towards the staircase, but Antony stopped me. ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... on the rock impossible. But, indeed, even if this had been effected, the efforts that could have been made with the small fire-engines at that time in use, would have been utterly useless. The fire gradually descended to the different courses of solid timber, the well-hole of the staircase assisting the draught, and the outside timbers and inside mast, or wooden core, forming a double connecting link whereby the devouring element was carried to the very bottom of the building, with a heat so intense that the courses of Cornish ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... rustle attendant upon her ascent of the staircase had died completely out, the colonel turned toward Pen. He spoke quietly enough, but with an emotion that ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... before any mischief had been done in the furious encounter, the doors at either end of the anteroom were opened, and the Prince and the officers from the audience chamber with the guards from the staircase landing rushed in, the former narrowly escaping a thrust from Andrew's sword, as with his own weapon he ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... all tired," said Miss Falconer, as she followed the housekeeper and the two demure maids up the exquisite staircase. ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... themselves: "What will he do? will he increase the number of clerks? will he dismiss two to make room for three?" the cashier tranquilly took out twenty-five clean bank-bills and pinned them together with a satisfied expression on his beadle face. The next day he mounted the private staircase and had himself ushered into the minister's presence by the lackeys, who considered the money and the keeper of money, the contents and the container, the idea and the form, as one and the same power. The cashier caught the ministerial pair at the dawn ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... entrance hall was still full of arrivals, while up the wide central staircase trooped masks and dominos in a changing kaleidoscope of form and colour. Eager heads thrust this way and that, picturesque figures grouping and greeting, cavaliers of all periods, maidens of all nations, monks, barbarians, cardinals, queens, and clowns—sometimes the wisest heads under the ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... on the staircase of a large, new building, one apartment of which was transformed into a private ward. When I entered the porter's lodge, on my way to a friend, I saw that it was filled with wounded soldiers, who had just arrived, while curious spectators ...
— The Shield • Various
... over each other's shoulders, they descended the broad staircase, just as Mrs. Power, in answer to William's summons, was crossing the hall to ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... was received; but Arthur declined to see the bearer. Then Wylie told the servant it was Joseph Wylie, on a matter of life and death. "Tell him I must stand on the staircase and hallo it out, if he won't ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... year; but when I was, the curious arrangements of the dwelling made a strong impression upon my fancy. The whole of the ground floor was one large hall, of which the ceiling was supported by pillars, and whence a staircase led to three apartments, one used as a sitting-room, another as bed-chamber, and the third, which was kept constantly shut, as a study. The sitting-room, instead of doors, had green silk curtains in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... our limit that evening. She went to bed, smiling good-night quite prettily down the big staircase, and I and Willersley went out to smoke in the garden. My head was full of her, and I found it necessary to talk about her. So I made her a problem in sociology. "Who the deuce are these people?" I said, "and how do they get a living? They seem to have plenty of money. He strikes ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... to the staircase, and then Tom left my side. The next instant came a loud report from upstairs, then a crash as of a falling body on the lattice-work of the verandah, and directly after a dull ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... Eugenia, I was not surprised. Burroughs arrived, not as late as I had expected, but almost insultingly supercilious at finding so many strangers at what Atherton had told him was to be a family conference, in order to get him to come. Last of all Edith Atherton descended the staircase, the personification of dignity, bowing to each with a studied graciousness, as if distributing largess, but greeting Burroughs with an air that plainly showed how much thicker was blood than water. Eugenia remained ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... you may fairly judge of them. The Captain came back from going with his father, I am sure, in less than twenty minutes, and smoking a cigar in his elegant way, quite happy and contented, for I saw him down the staircase. As for sign of any haste about him, or wiping of his forehead, or fumbling with his handkerchief, or being in a stew in any sort of way—as the stupid cook who let him in declared, by reason of her own having been at the beer-barrel—solemnly, miss, as I hope to go to heaven, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... the marble staircase, with his arm about her waist, to the roof they went, where the silken awnings lay folded and the scented ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... came last, carrying the basket, and on reaching the bottom lit one of the two remaining matches. By its light we could just see that we were standing in a narrow tunnel, which ran right and left at right angles to the staircase we had descended. Before we could make out any more, the match burnt my fingers and went out. Then arose the delicate question of which way to go. Of course, it was impossible to know what the tunnel was, or where it led to, and yet to turn one ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... down his mechanic's straw-bag upon the hall-table, which he did with great care, as if it were of priceless stuff and contained fragile articles; having done this, he posed himself with one elbow resting on the post at the foot of the staircase, like ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... to him to be quiet, while she put on her dressing-gown, and struck a light. They were fortunately on the side of the house occupied by the offices, the other inhabited bedchambers being far enough off to be approached by a different staircase. Still, in the silence of the night, Jack's reiterated cries of terror and beatings at the door might possibly reach the ears of a light sleeper. She pulled him into the room and closed the door again, with an impetuosity that utterly confounded him. "Sit down ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... we rushed, and he, stepping back, tumbled head over heels, and upset two or three of the first men who got in. Amid shouts of laughter from us, and shrieks and cries from a whole posse of negroes who ran out from their own dormitories, we hurried up to the principal staircase. The hubbub, as well it might, roused the master of the house and his better half from their drowsy slumbers—so we concluded—for a gruff voice in tones irate began scolding away from the top of the stairs at the blacks, demanding why they made so terrific ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... person thus addressed stood gazing up into the darkness of the narrow staircase, and then turned wearily to the steep ascent. No wonder she was weary; for at the dawn of that long August day, now closing so dimly over the smoky town, her feet had pressed the purple heather on the hills that skirt the little ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... seemed to him as though, if he looked round, he should see Paolo's body lying on the floor, ready to be dropped into the space below. He raised the wood and set the trap back against the wall, peering down into the black depths. A damp smell came up to his nostrils from the moist staircase. He struck a match, and held it into the opening, to see in what direction the stairs ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... Lightmark had decided his study should certainly be the river. Rainham had a set of rooms in the house of his foreman, an eighteenth-century house, full of carved oak mantels and curious alcoves, a ramshackle structure within the dock-gates, with a quaint balcony staircase, like the approach to a Swiss chalet, leading down into the yard. In London these apartments were his sole domicile; though, to his friends, none of whom lived nearer to him than Bloomsbury, this seemed a piece of conduct too flagrantly ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... lay them for thee on the Shaykh's curtain, that a blessing may betide thee." Then she went out, leaving the lady in her shift and petticoat-trousers, and hid the clothes and jewels in a place on the staircase; after which she betook herself to the young merchant, whom she found impatiently awaiting the girl, and he cried, "Where is thy daughter, that I may see her?" But she smote palm on breast and he said "What aileth thee?" Quoth she, "Would there were no such thing as the ill neighbour ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... marble staircase into the drawing-room, where we found Sir Alexander reading at a table. He did not raise his head as we entered; and I could not help remarking the great change which a few years had effected in his appearance. His fine chestnut hair was nearly gray, his cheeks had ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... with eager words and tender hands, Kate was made ready for the evening meal, and went down, clinging on one side to Mary, on the other to Sylvia—a matter of no small difficulty on the narrow staircase, and almost leading to a general avalanche of young ladies, all upon the head of little Lily, who was running up to greet and be greeted, and was almost devoured by Kate when at length they did ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at the map], the old man, with his hands locked behind him, his gown floating black, lurched, unsteadily, near the wall; then, upstairs he went into his room. Then another, who raised his hand and praised the columns, the gate, the sky; another, tripping and smug. Each went up a staircase; three lights were lit ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... the Master of Parma. Yet that delicious "Shrimp Girl" which hangs near it, painted with almost a Fragonard's gaiety of palette, shows what our artist might have achieved had he gone, like Morland, for his subjects to the common life of his own country. The staircase paintings of St. Bartholomew's Hospital are not likely, I think, to induce us to revise the above opinion; and Sir Joshua's criticism is here so apposite and so just that I need no excuse for quoting it in some detail. "After this admirable artist had spent ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... soldier, and Castanier inspired the banker with such trust in him, that he was associated in the transactions that went on in the private office behind his little counting-house. The baron himself had access to it by means of a secret staircase. There, matters of business were decided. It was the bolting-room where proposals were sifted; the privy council chamber where the reports of the money market were analyzed; circular notes issued thence; and finally, the private ledger and the journal which summarized the work of all the ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... quite motionless in natural indignation; then, dashing the bottle violently upon the polished floor, he fled down the corridor, uttering hollow groans, and emitting a ghastly green light. Just, however, as he reached the top of the great oak staircase, a door was flung open, two little white-robed figures appeared, and a large pillow whizzed past his head! There was evidently no time to be lost, so, hastily adopting the Fourth dimension of Space as a means of escape, he vanished through the wainscoting, and the house ...
— The Canterville Ghost • Oscar Wilde
... assume on the occasion. But while his son was in this state, Sir Austin considered that he would hardly be brought to see the virtues of the act, and did not make the requisition of him, and heavy Benson remained drawn up solemnly expectant at doorways, and at the foot of the staircase, a Saurian Caryatid, wherever he could get a step in advance of the young man, while Richard heedlessly passed him, as he passed everybody else, his head bent to the ground, and his legs bearing him like random instruments of whose service he was unconscious. It was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and more difficult was yet to follow,—for we now ascended a staircase of uncemented blocks of stone, crossed a passage, and found ourselves in a long gallery or hall, the finest and best-preserved room in the castle, the state-apartment and ball-room of the lords of the manor. Our admiration at once broke forth in words of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... always a narrow passage from the front door to the staircase which led down into those huge underground basements. The guardians had a room inside the door, with a ticket window, where they took five or possibly eight cents from the boarders for their night's lodging. At about eleven o'clock ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... ordered them to stop. In another house I went through there was an immense room which appeared as if two stories had been made into one. The bedroom—I believe there was only one in the house—was gained by an open staircase, run up by the side of the west wall of the large room. After passing the room door you mounted another flight of stairs which terminated in a long lobby, which ran over the top of the adjoining house, to two attics. The gardens of this house were approached ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... admirer and friend, and he remained in Rome to finish the works he had begun. He painted two chapels in the Vatican, the one of the Sacrament for Eugene IV., the other for Pope Nicholas V., whose name it still bears. The former was pulled down by Pope Paul III. to improve the staircase. ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... remember) and courting the Attornies Clerks for Scraps. The extraordinary Observance and Diligence of the Boy, made the Society willing to do him Good. He appeared very ambitious to learn to write; and one of the Attornies got a Board knocked up at a Window on the Top of a Staircase; and that was his Desk, where he sat and wrote after Copies of Court and other Hands the Clerks gave him. He made himself so expert a Writer that he took in Business, and earned some Pence by Hackney-writing. ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... door was opened, as Morgiana would have opened it to let in the forty thieves. A small, pale man, with whitish eyes, and gray hair standing on end, peered at us rather inhospitably; and on the lower step of the staircase a tallow candle, in a brass candlestick, emitted the brilliant light that tallow candles ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... between the walls and the moat, till they had reached the opposite side of the Keep, Eustace stopped at a low doorway; a slight click was heard, as of a latch yielding to his hand, the door opened, and he led the way up a stone staircase in the thickness of the wall, warning his follower now and then of a broken step. After a long steep ascent, Gaston heard another door open, and though still in total darkness, perceived that they had gained a wider space. "The passage from the hall to the chapel," whispered ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... all for the best. Oh, O'Mealey, he was a cunning fellow; but no matter. We went to the ball, and to be sure, it was a great sight. Two hundred and fifty souls, where there was not good room for the odd fifty; such laughing, such squeezing, such pressing of hands and waists in the staircase, and then such a row and riot at the top,—four fiddles, a key bugle, and a bagpipe, playing 'Haste to the wedding,' amidst the crash of refreshment-trays, the tramp of feet, and the sounds of ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... any one either in the entry, or on the staircase, or down below, he slipped out into the little enclosure. The day was cloudy, the sky lowering; a little damp breeze bent the tops of the grass-blades and gently waved the leaves on the trees. The mill rattled and buzzed less than usual at this hour; an ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... sunshine, the colour added by cloud-shadows, and the pearly softness of rising vapours, to rob them of a certain awful grimness. The main street of Montepulciano goes straight uphill for a considerable distance between brown palaces; then mounts by a staircase-zigzag under huge impending masses of masonry; until it ends in a piazza. On the ascent, at intervals, the eye is fascinated by prospects to the north and east over Val di Chiana, Cortona, Thrasymene, ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... about for some time, till he found the staircase in the tower, and then began to feel his way ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... interrupted by the sound of an electric bell, upon hearing which Mrs Vanburgh uttered a sharp exclamation of dismay, and rushed for the hall. Her two assistants followed, but even they in their schoolgirl stage could not keep up with the pace at which she literally flew up the staircase. Her feet seemed hardly to touch the ground; she sprang up two steps at a time, crying continuously, "Quick, quick!" until, just as the head of the staircase was reached, cr-r-r-ur! Came the sounds of ripping seams, and a long dangle of silk flounce ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... of the eight sides there was, however, a small door in the panelling, which opened on a spiral staircase leading to the very summit of the tower, where, as has been said, a gun was placed, and whence a complete view was obtained over every portion of the island, extending far away over the sea beyond, to the Out Skerries, ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... three bards are next led by an angel up another staircase, to the sixth cornice (Dante losing another P. on the way), where the sins of gluttony and drunkenness are punished. As they circle around this ledge, Dante questions how Statius became guilty of the sin of covetousness, ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... with a competent young man for the tuition at home of his three sons. The effect of his rash failure to invite application by letter only was the assault of an army of visitors who filled us with consternation; they hung about the door, cumbered the hall, choked the staircase and sat grimly individual in odd corners. How they were dealt with, given my father's precipitate and general charity, I can but feebly imagine; our own concern, in the event, was with a sole selected presence, that of Scotch Mr. Robert Thompson, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... was on the staircase, struggling, choking with the first tears she had shed. All this fortnight of unceasing vigilance and exertion, her eyes had been dry, for want of time to realize, for want of time to weep, and now she was ashamed that hurt feeling rather than grief had opened the fountain. She could ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stopped at some doorway opening upon the water, where they landed, and, passing through a ware-room golden with heaps of polenta, or dusky with bronzes and wrought iron, they came out into a court-yard embellished by an exquisite old stone staircase, with quaint carved balustrade and leisurely landings, where beauteous dames of by-gone centuries may have paused, as they descended, decked in rich brocades and costly jewels. Or again, an antique well-head, half-concealed by tools and lumber, kept its legend ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... blood rushed back to her cheek with a flush of indignation. Her room was at the end of the passage; there was nothing beyond but a private staircase, long disused, except by herself, as a short cut through the old patio to the garden. No one else knew of it, and no one else had the right of access to it! This insolent human intrusion—as she was satisfied it was now—overcame ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... why in the world don't you come in?" I cried out. But the words dropped into empty air. There was no one there. The fog poured up the dingy staircase in deep yellow coils, but there was no sign of a ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... huge white apron and mob cap appeared at the top of the staircase and came hobbling ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... what a contrivance the Aulic Councillors have hit upon,—there is a wooden stand built, with three staircases leading up to it, one for each person, and three galleries leading off from it into suites of rooms: no question of precedence here, where each of you has his own staircase and own gallery to his apartment! Friedrich Wilhelm looks down like a rhinoceros on all those cobwebberies. No sooner are the Kaiser's carriage-wheels heard within the court, than Friedrich Wilhelm rushes down, by what staircase is readiest; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of the staircase, attended by her ladies, Yolande was waiting to greet her disappointed friend. Charles dismounted and kissed each member of the family in order of precedence, the little duke, his brother, then the duchess, her daughter, and the ladies in waiting. Yolande had had time to move out of her ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... considerable effort was needed even to climb the monumental staircase, so great was the crush of arriving guests. Never, in the old days of wax candles and oil lamps, had this staircase offered such a blaze of light. Electric lamps, burning in clusters in superb bronze candelabra on the landings, steeped everything ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the door opened, and an old man came forth shading a candle with one hand. Locking the door on the outside, he turned to a flight of wooden steps fixed against the end of the cottage, and began to ascend them, this being evidently the staircase to his bedroom. Gertrude hastened forward, but by the time she reached the foot of the ladder he was at the top. She called to him loudly enough to be heard above the roar of the weir; he looked down and said, ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... you enter one large room, which, being too large, was at once made into two. Four highly polished steps lead from this into an exquisite room at the back, which Ito occupies, and another polished staircase into the bath-house and garden. The whole front of my room is composed of shoji, which slide back during the day. The ceiling is of light wood crossed by bars of dark wood, and the posts which support it are of dark polished ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... before the two men rushed upon Bonifacio, who was powerless to defend himself. With poisoned daggers, whose secret had been learned from the Saracens by the Crusaders, he was speedily stabbed to the heart, and then dragged into a dark corner beneath a winding staircase. After seeing her brothers leave the palace, Imelda returned to discover her lover's fate, while they rushed off to raise a hue and cry and plan for further deeds of violence. Imelda found the room where she had ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... the lady back to her senses. Leithcourt himself, it seemed, rushed hither and thither, seizing the jewel-cases of his wife and daughter and whatever valuables he could place his hand upon, while the mother and daughter were putting on their things. As he rushed down the main staircase to the library, where his check-book and some ready cash were locked in the safe, he met a stranger who had just been admitted and shown into the room. Leithcourt closed the door and faced him. What afterwards ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... enemy, are returned! We rose precipitately; Mr. D'H—— took a key from a drawer, and commanded us to follow him. We traversed rapidly the chamber of the invalid lady, each inconsiderately repeating to her—"All is lost!" We ascended a dilapidated staircase, and passing through a small trap-door, what was my astonishment, when I found myself in the Park! There we beheld the said detachment of dragoons—an affrighted mob; and many sinister-looking persons, who seemed well satisfied at ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... tried to fall asleep. At last, hearing voices in the kitchen, he rose quietly from his bed, stole out of his room, and stealthily walked to the little hallway that led to the kitchen stairway. At the head of the staircase he halted. It was clear that Farmer Hare was saying something emphatic, while his wife was entering a feeble protest. An intuition told the listener that his own party was the subject of discussion. Slowly, cautiously, he crept down the stairway, until he almost touched the closed door which ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... fire, and on the distant staircase stands already Cresswell, ready to stop the fight. "A minute more," cries Birket, and the ring is still as when Etna, ready ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... to Castle Garden. One of the things that caught my eye as I entered the vast rotunda was an iron staircase rising diagonally against one of the inner walls. A uniformed man, with some papers in his hands, ascended it with brisk, resounding step till he disappeared through a door not many inches from the ceiling. It may seem ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... was already afoot, and their inquiries led to the discovery of an entrance communicating with the native servants' quarters. This could not be reached from the main hall, but there was a narrow staircase to the left of the lift-shaft by which it might be gained. The two stood looking out across the stone-paved courtyard ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... approached it more like a garrison for several regiments than a residence for a few families, and a store-house for agricultural implements and crops. The lower floor of this long building was taken up with stables and offices, but mounting a wide stone staircase, our artists found themselves in a large room scrupulously neat, with whitewashed walls, very high ceilings, and whips, guns, dogs, tables, account-books, stone floors and rough seats, making a curious mingling of monastery, squire's office, sportsman's chamber, and social hall, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the feeling of awe gently creeping over him and joined the others, investigating a tiny cell where Prynne the Puritan leader was confined for three years. Roger was immensely impressed by the ruins of a secret staircase, connecting a dungeon where the criminals were executed, ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... it gave him always a feeling of imprisonment and choking, a brief agony of the imagination, to pass through the narrow curve, though he did so at least twice every day. It was the oldest-looking thing about the place—that staircase. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... printers, and even as initial letters in books—everywhere one finds the old, familiar emblems.[102] Square, Rule, Plumb-line, the perfect Ashlar, the two Pillars, the Circle within the parallel lines, the Point within the Circle, the Compasses, the Winding Staircase, the numbers Three, Five, Seven, Nine, the double Triangle—these and other such symbols were used alike by Hebrew Kabbalists and Rosicrucian Mystics. Indeed, so abundant is the evidence—if the matter were in dispute and needed proof—especially after the revival of symbolism under Albertus ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... security for him; for the young man could not fail to insure the prosperity of a workshop; besides science and skill, he had the power of invention and bringing to perfection. His father had discovered among his drawings a new plan for a staircase, which had occupied his thoughts for a long time; and he even suspected him of having engaged himself to the Versailles contractor for the very purpose of executing it. The youth was tormented by this spirit of invention, which took possession ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... said he was more comfortable when I came away." And with an almost imperceptible glance round the room he was in, Reuben turned and bounded lightly up the staircase. But all was dark there and in Mr. Linden's room. Reuben could not execute his commission so; and was turning to come down stairs again, when he encountered in the dim ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... the eating-room; through the length of the sumptuously furnished saloon, where the richest Persian carpets, marble tables, brilliant chandeliers, and mirrors, were at the service of the public; by a narrow staircase amidships down to the lowest storey of the vessel, a long apartment lit by candles, and lined at the sides with curtained rows of berths. The usual pause followed for the advent of the ladies: nobody sat down till they ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... panelled with oak to a height of about eight feet, and above that were decorated with elaborate designs in plaster relief, representing lions, wild boars, stags, unicorns, and other heraldic devices from the coat-of-arms of the original owner of the estate. A narrow winding staircase led to a minstrels' gallery, from which was suspended a wooden shield emblazoned with the Welsh dragon and the national motto, "Cymru am byth" ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... of the wooden staircase really creaked beneath the weight of unusually heavy footsteps, and a singular kind of rustling was heard along the thin partition that divided the chamber from the landing-place. Then a ponderous mass, falling against the door of the room, shook it violently; and the girls, at the very height ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... myself in a long and narrow hall, upon which doors opened from either side. At the end of the hall was a staircase with a balustrade which ended in a sweeping curve. The balustrade was covered with heavy, Persian rugs, and the walls of the hall were also hung with them. The door on my left was closed, but the one nearer me on the right was open, and, as I stepped opposite to it, I saw that it was ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... over the way, a tall young figure in a tweed suit marched from one unlighted lamp-post to another; the girl drew back to the staircase, snatching a space for consideration. The next moment she was crossing the street with the air of an art patron anxious to inspect ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... signs for me to hasten our departure; I obeyed, and took leave of Rousseau, with many thanks his punctuality. He accompanied us as before to door, and there I quitted him never to see him more. As we were descending the staircase, M. d'Aiguillon told me that the person who had so hastened our departure was Duclas, and that his hurry to quit Rousseau arose from his dread of being recognised by him. Although M. Duclas was a very excellent man, I must own that I owed no small grudge for ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... belonged to the most able lacemaker in the place, a hard-working woman, who kept seven little pupils in a sort of cupboard under the staircase, with a window into the back garden, "because," said she, "they did no work if they looked out into the front, there were so many gapsies;" these gapsies consisting of the very scanty traffic of the further end of Mackarel Lane. For ten hours a day did these children ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... manner was a little defiant at first, but when Louise drew her unobserved to the side entrance and up the staircase she grew gentle and permitted the other girl ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... when a sharp, brisk footstep in the distance aroused her, rapidly approaching; and she knew very well whose it was, and that it would pause at the door, before she heard the quick run up the steps, succeeded by her husband's tread upon the staircase. And yet she saw him open the door with a kind of startled feeling, which his appearance now invariably caused her; the thought always darted through her head, "perhaps he brings news of Ellen's ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... men and women who sup are mercurial things, and it was a gay leave-taking half an hour or so later in the little Moorish room at the head of the staircase. But Ernestine left her host without even appearing to see his outstretched hand, and he let her go without a word. Only when Francis would have followed her Trent laid a heavy hand upon ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the magnificence of his hotel. After ascending a spacious staircase, and passing through antechamber after antechamber, they reached the splendid salon, blazing with lights, reflected on all sides in mirrors, that reached from the painted ceiling ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... daubs which are preserved in this hall at the Capitol. It is strange that even self-laudatory patriotism should desire the perpetuation of such rubbish. When I was there the new dome was still in progress; and an ugly column of wood-work, required for internal support and affording a staircase to the top, stood in this hall. This of course was a temporary and necessary evil; but even this was hung around with the vilest ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... access, looked as if they must have been miserably damp and unwholesome. But the "Studio Fortini" was not situated in any part of this damp lower floor. In the corner of the cloister nearest to the Cathedral, there was a wide and picturesque old stone staircase, which led to an upper cloister, as sunny and pleasant looking as the lower one was the reverse. There, near the head of the stair, was a round arched deeply sunk stone doorway, closed by a black door, bearing a bright brass plate on it, conveying the information, altogether ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... Diavolo ceased to be all in all to her? She asked herself the question through a mist of tears which gathered in her eyes, but did not fall, and at the same moment her busy mind took note of the singular appearance of a statue on the staircase as she beheld it in blurred outline ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the old house appeared so dismal to poor Hepzibah as when she departed on that wretched errand. There was a strange aspect in it. As she trode along the foot-worn passages, and opened one crazy door after another, and ascended the creaking staircase, she gazed wistfully and fearfully around. It would have been no marvel, to her excited mind, if, behind or beside her, there had been the rustle of dead people's garments, or pale visages awaiting her on the landing-place above. Her nerves were set ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... man passes a lady on a staircase, in the corridor of a hotel, in the elevator of a private apartment house, or in the public rooms of a hotel, he lifts his hat although ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... I just recollect leaning against the wall of the staircase. He came hastily out, and started as he saw me. My face ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... might step aside, five feet or ten, and save themselves, and the pedestrian classes generally, a deal of delay and considerable annoyance? It does not. It never will. If the meeting took place in a narrow passageway or on a populous staircase or at the edge of the orbit of a set of swinging doors or on a fire escape landing upon the front of a burning building, while one was going up to aid in the rescue and the other was coming down to ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... row at that house. It was old and rackady, and I had to scrub off the staircase and the floors all the time, and git the breakfast for Mistress Kate and the two children. Then I could have my own breakfast in the kitchen. Mistress Kate always get ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... populace poured in and mixed with us and the soldiers. Some one fired a gun. Whether it was one of the Swiss or one of the mob I know not, but the fight began. The Swiss in good order marched down the staircase, drove out the mob, seized the cannon the Marseillais had brought, and turning them upon their assailants opened fire. The mob fled in terror, and I believe that one battalion would have conquered all the scum of Paris, had not the king, ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... day, when all the nurses had gone down to dinner at the same time, she escaped from her nursery and tripped down the passages, peering into the corners on every side. After wandering about a long time she came to a staircase, and descending it very quickly she reached a suite of beautiful rooms which had been occupied by her mother. They remained just as the good queen had left them; even the faded roses were turning into dust in the jars. Pet was walking through the rooms very soberly, peering at, and touching ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... his morning visit, he found a most melancholy patient, and held a serious consultation with nurse on the staircase before departing. ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... if I am not mistaken," answered Gilbert, "is separated from you by a corridor and a staircase. So we shall run ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... gave them this air of barbarous bas-reliefs, they succeeded to a miracle: it is impossible at first sight not to conclude that they contain the history of Attila or Tottila, done about the very aera. From hence, under two gloomy arches, you come to the hall and staircase, which it is impossible to describe to you, as it is the most particular and chief beauty of the castle. Imagine the walls covered with (I call it paper, but it is really paper painted in perspective to represent) Gothic fretwork: the lightest Gothic balustrade ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... workman approached the group. "Have you got your killer with you, Eriksen?" cried one, and Eriksen turned on the staircase and exhibited ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... this, ascending by means of the grand staircase to the second floor, and thence to the third and fourth. The latter contained but few rooms, mostly for storage, it seemed, and it was soon evident that no ghost—of the human kind at least—had been at work here. The dust and ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... shelves and the backs of the books, and heard all the accounts of them without receiving any information, we commenced our descent by means of the winding staircase towards the garden. On our way a curious circumstance took place. There was an enormously great Danish boarhound, which had, unperceived by us, followed Mrs. Hailstone from the library; it pushed by without ceremony, and proceeded until it reached the lady, who was some distance in advance. ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... Beside the staircase that has known her hand And in the hall her presence made complete, The home her life endowed with memories sweet Where everything has heard her sweet command And seems to wear her beauty, I shall stand Wondering just how to greet him ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... go upstairs now?" she said. "I've got my breath again," and she led the way up the steep little staircase, which Mona remembered ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Pilate's House, as it is called—a fine Spanish-Moresco palace, now belonging to the Duke of Medina Coeli. It is very rich and elegant, but stands in the same relation to the Alcazar as a good copy does to the original picture. The grand staircase, nevertheless, is a marvel of tile work, unlike anything else in Seville, and exhibits a genius in the invention of elaborate ornamental patterns, which is truly wonderful. A number of workmen were busy in restoring the palace, to fit it for the ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor |
