"Balustrade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would subsequently have had to pay for the ball's liquid refreshment. The Bal Jasmin did not employ meretricious ornament to attract custom. A low gallery containing tables ran around the bare hall, the balustrade being of convenient elbow height from the floor, so that the dancers during intervals of rest could lounge and talk with the drinkers. In the middle was a circular bandstand where greasy musicians fiddled with perspiring zeal. At the doors a sergent de ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... until he reached the staircase, and grasping the balustrade, said: "You see how shamefully ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... with courage, so he let go his hold of the balustrade, whereupon he promptly fell on the physician, and both rolled to the ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... right of the road and a bridge of white marble having the balustrade ornamented with figures, meant to represent lions and other animals cut out of the same material, were the only objects that attracted any notice, until the walls and the lofty gates of the capital appeared in view. None of the buildings within, on this side of the city, overtopped the walls, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... coming into these parts, that her head was no more steady than my own on high places, for she up had never been used to such in our own level country, except, indeed, on the stair that led down to the old quarry and the well, where, I can remember now, she always laid her hand on the balustrade with some degree of tremor, although she had been in the way of going up and down from childhood. But if she could not cross that narrow and really dangerous isthmus, still less could she call to a man she had never seen but once, across the intervening chasm. ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... place! I wonder they don't pull it down,' said Horatia, as she picked her way over uneven and broken paving-stones to the house, which had steps, with no balustrade, leading down to an open cellar-door and ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... of fact, Henry Allegre caught her very early one morning in his own old garden full of thrushes and other small birds. She was sitting on a stone, a fragment of some old balustrade, with her feet in the damp grass, and reading a tattered book of some kind. She had on a short, black, two-penny frock (une petite robe de deux sous) and there was a hole in one of her stockings. She raised her eyes and saw him looking down ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... desirous to see more of her. I am aware that this is a very unromantic view to take of one of the sweetest subjects in life, and I am free to confess that I should prefer that Mr. King should first have seen Irene leaning on the balustrade of the gallery, with a rose in her hand, gazing out over the sea with "that far-away look in her eyes." It would have made it much easier for all of us. But it is better to tell the truth, and let the girl ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... as he looked over the balustrade to where the lamp shed its yellow rays all round, and to his mind more strangely upon the object he ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... great front below the terrace of the castle. This morning the wind was coming from the west. The sun, indeed, seemed already to have gained some strength. The Prince sat for a moment or two upon the gray stone balustrade, looking to where the level country took a sudden ascent and ended in a thick belt of pine trees. Beyond lay the sea. As he sat there with folded arms, he was surely a fatalist. The question as to whether or not he should ever reach it, should ever find himself really bound ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... park, is halved by a stream so narrow that the deer leap across. The gardens are estraded upon the slope. Round the house runs a wide paven terrace. There are always two or three peacocks trailing their sheathed feathers along the balustrade, and stepping how stiffly! as though they had just been unharnessed from Juno's chariot. Two flights of shallow steps lead down to the flowers and fountains. Oh, the gardens are wonderful. There is a Jacobean garden of white ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... he saw Corinne, whose presence he had not hoped to behold so soon, enter the women's gallery, behind the grating which separated it from that of the men. She was dressed in black, all pale with absence, and trembled so when she perceived Oswald, that she was obliged to lean on the balustrade for support as she advanced; at this moment the ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... selfishly. Neither one but would have wellnigh sacrificed half her life to him, even now. The tears which his possibly critical situation could not bring to her eyes surged over at the contemplation of these fellow-women. She turned to the balustrade, bent herself upon it, ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... sensation. Her companion followed her, watching, with a certain excitement of his own, this tall, interesting-looking girl, dressed in her clear, crisp muslin. He paused in the hall, where there was a broad white staircase with a white balustrade. "What a pleasant house!" he said. "It 's lighter inside than it ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... his vague plans for a sofa-bed in Bronson's office had possession of his mind as he went upstairs, moving his hand slowly along the smooth walnut railing of the balustrade. Half way to the landing he stopped, turned, and stood looking down at the heavy doors masking the black emptiness that had been the library. Here he had stood on what he now knew was the worst day of his life; here he had stood when his mother passed through that doorway, hand-in-hand ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... was just coming up the front steps from the garden, pulling herself up upon the veranda wearily by the balustrade. She came forward, and, with graceful acknowledgment, accepted the physician's ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... not really a bridge at all. It was only the eastern extremity of the Serpentine; but as the boy leant over the stone balustrade, and gazed upon the artificial flood, broadening out indefinitely in the darkness, it might have been the noblest river in the world. Its banks were muffled in a feather boa of trees, bedizened by a chain of many lights; the lights of a real bridge ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... the revival of pointed architecture. He spoke of Strawberry Hill as a castle, but it was, in fact, an odd blend of ecclesiastical and castellated Gothic applied to domestic uses. He had a cloister, a chapel, a round tower, a gallery, a "refectory," a stair-turret with Gothic balustrade, stained windows, mural scutcheons, and Gothic paper-hangings. Walpole's mock-gothic became something of a laughing-stock, after the true principles of medieval architecture were better understood. Since the time when Inigo Jones, court architect ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... round the wall. The proportion of the interior is beautiful; you see from the bottom to the top. From the apparent size of the three or four loopholes seen from the outside I imagined it would be dark and gloomy from within, but I was agreeably surprised to find the whole extremely light. The balustrade is Egyptian in form, and banisters bronze. On reaching the top you find a square apartment containing twelve windows, each a piece of plate glass, the floor covered with red cloth and crimson window ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown
... thrice-repeated dip in the candle-decked font, with the priest's hand covering his eyes, ears, mouth, and nostrils, and now undergoing the ceremony of anointment or confirmation. Or we may come upon a bridal couple, in front of the solid silver balustrade; or the exquisite liturgy, exquisitely chanted by the fine choir in their vestments of scarlet, blue, and silver, with the seraphic wings upon their shoulders, and intoned, with a finish of art unknown in other lands, by priests robed in rich brocade. ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... supported by caryatides, have been passed through, has the principal front of the main building opening upon a vast, so-called, court of honor, inclosed by deep ditches, bordered by a magnificent stone balustrade. Nothing could be more noble in appearance than the central forecourt raised upon the flight of steps, like a king upon his throne, having around it four pavilions at the angles, the immense Ionic columns of which rose majestically to the whole ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... overhangs the walls of the fort and is surpassingly beautiful: a series of rooms entirely of marble—roof, walls and floor—and surrounded by a broad marble veranda supported, by noble arches springing from graceful, slender pillars arranged in pairs and protected by a balustrade of perforated marble. One could scarcely imagine anything more dainty than these lacelike screens of stone extremely simple in design and exquisite in execution. The interior walls are incrusted with mosaic work of jasper, carnelian, lapis-lazuli, agate, turquoise, ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... Nelly had remained alone at the extreme end of the terrace, absorbed by confused and distracted thoughts. Suddenly, she observed Velmont approaching her. She would have avoided him, but the balustrade that surrounded the terrace cut off her retreat. She was cornered. She could not move. A gleam of sunshine, passing through the scant foliage of a bamboo, lighted up her beautiful golden hair. Some one spoke to her in ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... red woollen cloth similar to that of the clothes worn by the Lamas. From it hung hundreds of strips of silk, wool, and cotton of all colors. The roof was supported by columns of wood forming a quadrangle in the centre of the temple. These were joined by a balustrade, compelling the worshippers to make a circuit from left to right, in order to pass before ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... the squares where fountains played, And up the spiral balustrade, Along the drowsy corridors, Even ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... themselves into the skies, whose carved rafters and engraved balustrades nestled entirely among the depressions of the hills and the tops of the trees. They lowered their eyes and looked, and beheld a pure stream flowing like jade, stone steps traversing the clouds, a balustrade of white marble encircling the pond in its embrace, and a stone bridge with three archways, the animals upon which had faces disgorging water from their mouths. A pavilion stood on the bridge, and in this pavilion Chia Chen and the whole party ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... princes and ambassadors and dukes and duchesses announced long before my poor plebeian name puzzled the porter and was bandied from footman to footman. As I ascended the marble stairs with their gilt balustrade, I was agitated by emotions similar to those which drew from a frightened countryman his frank exclamation in the heat of the battle of Vittoria: 'Oh, jabbers! I wish some of my greatest enemies was kicking me down Dame street.' Lady ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... her. She started up as from a dream, recognizing at once the touch of the same hand that she had heard in the distance the night before, and it was coming from their own parlor window, right beneath hers! She held her breath almost as she stole out and leaned over the balustrade to peer into the parlor. Why, it was Arthur! Was it possible he could play like that? She made a striking picture as she stood there on the stairs, her great grey eyes drinking in the music: but she was relieved somehow when it ceased. It was bright, quick, inspiring; but it seemed to make her forget ...
— Beth Woodburn • Maud Petitt
... threshold of the villa was of magnitude. A great fireplace built of granite blocks faced the hospitable entrance, and the interior lifted to the beamed roof, with a gallery midway, on which opened the upper rooms. The stairs rose easily in two landings, and the curving balustrade formed a recess in which was constructed a stage. Near this a pipe organ was being installed. It was all luxurious, created for entertainment and pleasure, but it lacked the ostentatious element for which ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... in a livery of white linen and a red sash, had squatted for a moment behind his heels to unstrap the heavy, blunt spurs in the patio; and then the Senor Administrator would go up the staircase into the gallery. Rows of plants in pots, ranged on the balustrade between the pilasters of the arches, screened the corredor with their leaves and flowers from the quadrangle below, whose paved space is the true hearthstone of a South American house, where the quiet hours ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... arm, she led her through the Gothic archway to a second smaller hall, and on up a wide oak staircase with a carved balustrade that was lighted half-way up by another great window of ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... diameter, and M. Pilatre de Rozier, superintendent of the royal museum, and the Marquis de Arlandes, volunteered to make an aerial voyage. At the bottom, it had an opening of about 15 feet in diameter, around which was a gallery of wicker-work, three feet broad, with a balustrade all around the outer edge, of the same material, three feet high; and, to enable the aeronauts to increase or diminish at pleasure the rarified state of the air within, it was provided with an iron brazier, intended for a fire, which could easily be regulated ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... Vines were gently waving in the morning air between the pillars of the piazza, where he had lingered entranced to hear the tones of "Buena Notte." The bright turban of Tulipa was glancing about, as she dusted the blinds. A peacock on the balustrade, in the sunshine, spread out his tail into a great Oriental fan, and slowly lowered it, making a prismatic shower of topaz, sapphires, and emeralds as it fell. It was the first of March; but as he rode on, thinking of the ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... the three thousand roubles had been put ready for Grushenka, the narrow pink ribbon with which it had been tied, and many other articles I don't remember. In the body of the hall, at some distance, came the seats for the public. But in front of the balustrade a few chairs had been placed for witnesses who remained in the court after ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... hollow laughter, quitting the door, and leaning over the massive balustrade. "Really that animal alarmed Donne. He is a little timid," he proceeded, stiffening himself, and walking trimly to the stairhead. "I thought it better to follow, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... the little deerlike step had already gone beyond him. When strength returned and he was able to turn about her skirt was disappearing at the turning of the arcade which looks upon the Rue de Seine. He did not try to follow her. Leaning against the balustrade of the bridge, he saw her own look in the stream that flowed below. For some time his heart had a pasture ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland
... when you have known me twenty years will you understand the strength and power of my heart, and the nature of its aspirations for happiness. This plant," he went on, pointing to the yellow jasmine which covered the balustrade, "does not climb more eagerly to spread itself in the sunbeams than I have clung to you for this month past. I love you with unique passion. That love will be the secret fount of my life—I may ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... hoarse shouting of cattle drivers reached his ear and prepared his eye for the picture of activity it would behold in the Outer Court. With every step he took, the noise and confusion grew. Wishing to study the crowd without himself being seen, he climbed on to the marble balustrade of the Outer Court where it ran between two pillars and in the niche ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... one hand easily upon the balustrade, "could you inform me if General Sheridan and those members of the staff who accompanied him down the lines this afternoon have ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... of the staircase Little Ann could see over the balustrade into the dining-room. The strange man was sitting by the table, his disordered, black-haired head on his arm. He looked like an exhausted thing. Tembarom was sitting by him, and was talking in an encouraging voice. ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... all I said—just affectionate, lambent, helpful criticism, with a little Tarragon in it. Yet next day when I met her on the staircase she said she didn't want to talk to me any more. So I heaved her over the balustrade and she had a forty-foot drop on to the marble below. I am too impulsive—I have always said so. Rather a pathetic touch was that she died just as the ambulance reached the hospital. I have lost quite a lot of nice friends ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... a moment. He kept turning his head, which he carried very upright, this way and that as he spoke; now he would catch sight of someone in the audience to whom he directed his glance, now he would peer over the edge of the low balustrade, now look at the group of officers who stood apart at the back of ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... glow, the view is quite romantic: there is something ecstatically snug in hiding here and watching it." Douglas smiled, and seated himself as she suggested, near her, with his shoulder against the stone balustrade. ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... the picture was completed at first without these cherubs and that they were afterwards added when Raphael found two little boys resting their arms on a balustrade, gazing intently ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... was, a descent of the dark stone stairs on all fours was beyond him; so he rose up, and reaching over, glided silently down the balustrade, to the great detriment of his buttons. But, arrived upon the mat at the bottom, he once more resumed his quadrupedal attitude, thrust his hands well into the Wellington boots, and trotted with a soft patter into a dark back kitchen, out of which ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... if it had finished its work, it rose again in the air, and in an instant was out of sight; but the next moment, another bird appeared; this was a black bird, strong and even clumsy, but it alighted in the same way on the balustrade, a little further off, and Linus could see its sparkling eye and strong claws. Then came a little bird like a wren, which went as noiselessly as it came; then several birds all at once. Linus was so much surprised at the sight of these ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... from years of neglect, the shrubs grew rank and stalky, the paths were covered with weeds, but there was a slight feeling of spring in the air, the bare branches of the trees seemed swollen with the rising sap, and upon the edge of the terrace balustrade a red-breasted robin cocked its mischievous little ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... listening to the music had left the church. He went towards the door by which he had entered. Before going out he paused, and looked towards the little chapel on the right of the entrance. He hesitated, and then went to it and stood leaning with his hands upon the heavy marble balustrade, that was low for his great height as he stood ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... impressively towering building against the ragged sky, and as he walked a gleam broke through from the hidden sunset and spotlighted it and the low scudding clouds in a sudden glowing red. He stopped and leaned against the balustrade to watch the red gleams reflecting from the bay. Red and purple clouds fled by low overhead, their colors changing as they moved. This was something a man couldn't see in space ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... temple by a flight of steps, and found yourself in a great oblong room of white walls, with white pillars supporting the gallery that ran all round it. The railing of the gallery was of iron tracery, painted green, with a brass balustrade. The great clean white space, the long ropes for the trapezes which hung from the ceiling and were looped up now to the stanchions, the coarse canvas of the mattresses, the disciplined lines, the tramping feet, the commanding voices of the ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... she read and for a minute could get no farther, for it seemed as if a mist had formed before her eyes. She clutched at the balustrade. Then pride, jealousy, and a certain anger surged up within her and she ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... whom I had seen yesterday. "Hast thou the cloak?" he asked me. "Yes, sir," I replied; "but it cost me a hundred sequins ready money." "I know it," replied the other. "Look here, here are four hundred." He went with me towards the wide balustrade of the bridge, and counted out the money. There were four hundred; they sparkled magnificently in the moonlight; their glitter rejoiced my heart. Alas, I did not anticipate that this would be its ...
— The Severed Hand - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Wilhelm Hauff
... and Ham House cast their dense shadows on the water. Don Gomez and his companion wandered by the river side to a spot where a group of magnolias sheltered them from the open lawn, and where there were some rustic chairs close to the balustrade which protected the parapet. In this spot, which was a kind of island, divided from the rest of the grounds by the intervening road, they found themselves quite alone, and in the midst of a summer stillness which was broken only by ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... one's time of life, that amusements and pursuits ought to alter naturally and easily, and not be regretfully abandoned. One ought not to be dragged protesting from the scene, catching desperately at every doorway and balustrade; one should walk off smiling. It is easier said than done. It is not a pleasant moment when a man first recognizes that he is out of place in the football field, that he cannot stoop with the old agility to pick up a skimming stroke to cover-point, that ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of the water under the arches, forgot every thing else for a time. It was amusing to walk up and down the pier and look at the countenances passing by, while the phantasy was ever ready, weaving a tale for all. My favorite Tyrolese were there, and I saw a Greek leaning over the stone balustrade, wearing the red cap and white frock, and with the long dark hair and fiery eye of the Orient. I could not but wonder, as he looked at the dim hills of the Odenwald, along the eastern horizon, whether they called up in his mind the purple isles of ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... pearl in sober setting, Where the arches garner shade! Cones of maize like golden netting, Fringe the sturdy colonnade, And the lizards pertly pausing glance across the balustrade. ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... balustrade of a house, a young girl, whose features were illuminated by the rays of a street lamp, sang in a clear voice to the accompaniment of a guitar. A large crowd of passers-by had assembled around the singer, who was ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... which is the choir, handsomely carved in oak, and with good pictures let into the panels. It is in better taste, more solid, and less meretricious in its ornaments, than any I know of. It has also a very fine pulpit, the whole of which, as well as the steps and balustrade leading up to it, is of fine marble. At Colmar, the eye will be struck with the peculiarity of architecture in some of the old buildings; it very often is pure Saracenic. The roads being excellent, we arrived ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the next table is hard at work on a decorative panel for a ceiling. It is already laid out and squared up, from careful pencil drawings. Two young architects are working for him, laying out the architectural balustrade, through which one, a month later, looks up at the allegorical figures painted against the dome of the blue heavens, as a background. And so the painter swallows his eggs, mayonnaise, and demi ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... in red woollen cloth similar to that of the clothes worn by the Lamas themselves, and from it hung hundreds of strips of silk, wool and cotton of all imaginable colours. The roof was supported by columns of wood forming a quadrangle in the centre of the temple and joined by a balustrade, compelling the worshippers to make a circuit from left to right in order to pass before the several images. In a shrine in the central part of the wall facing the entrance was Urghin or Kunjuk-chick, "God alone," and in front of it on a kind of altar covered with ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... mutilation,—while stones were torn from the pavement, and monumental brasses from tombs,—while carved stalls were burnt, and statues plucked from their niches,—a similar fate attended the portico. Shops were built beneath it, and the sculptures ornamenting its majestic balustrade were thrown down. ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... just before sunrise. Both door and windows are open, and a light breeze sways the curtains. Outside is a tree-shaded and vine-clad porch, with balustrade, beyond which is a tangle of flowering bushes and fruit trees in bloom. The effect is of a rich warm dawn—a sudden onset of summer weather after a ...
— The Faith Healer - A Play in Three Acts • William Vaughn Moody
... Hohenstauffen is another mountain in this range; but you cannot see it from here, it is too far.' The student spoke dreamily, as though the changing destinies of master races lay before him in a vision. Wilhelmine leant against the stone balustrade and gazed at the beautiful country. She was interested in the scholar's talk, and she waited, hoping he would continue; but as he did not speak, she asked him whether the castle of the Hohenstauffens still existed. He told her that not one stone ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... not alone. Leaning against the balustrade by her side, and so close to her that he could almost have touched her lips with his, stood a smart young lieutenant. Earlier in the day he had been presented to Mansana, who had been informed that he was quartered at a neighbouring garrison, and that he was generally known by the ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... by a series of small pavilions with their frontons of colonnettes preceded only by a staircase and two drawbridges crossing the moat, which at that time surrounded the entire confines of the palace. The moat is to-day surrounded, where it still exists, by a balustrade, due to the rather shabby ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... They rose from the balustrade where they had been sitting, and, for the first time, he discovered that he had had his left arm over her shoulder and that she had had her right hand resting on the point of his right hip, just above his pistol. ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... little personage, who was not twenty feet from the spot where we stood. My movement attracted her attention; and, after looking down a moment into the small area in which we were enclosed, she disappeared. Presently a lady looked over the balustrade, and our Englishman seemed to be on tenter-hooks. Some thirty or forty French gathered round us immediately, and I presume it was thought none but loyal subjects could manifest so much desire to gaze at the family, especially ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... brick, the wall at the bottom is of stone. One enters the garden first. It slopes downwards, is planted with gooseberry bushes, choked with a wild growth of vegetation, and terminated by a monumental terrace of cut stone, with balustrade with a ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... things mechanically, and came back in a few minutes to find him standing where she had left him. In silence they went down-stairs, and through the piazza with its flowering orange-trees, out into the gardens, where, on the stone balustrade, the peacocks were attitudinizing and conversing in the high key in which they always proclaim a change of weather and their innate vulgarity to the world. Charles led the way towards a little rushing brook which divided the gardens from ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... Mr. Jeffrey looking as if he would fall to the ground before I could finish, I repeated her words to him and was surprised enough when he suddenly started upright and went flying upstairs. But I was more surprised yet when, at the top of the first flight, he stopped and, looking over the balustrade, asked in a very strange voice where Miss Tuttle was. For he seemed just then to want her more than anything else in the world and looked beaten and wild when I told him that she was already gone to ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... with her finger on her lip, and a key in her hand; and in the centre Hibernia, resting on her spear, and holding her shield. The entablature, with the exception of the architrave, is continued along the rest of the front; the frieze, however, is not decorated over the portico. A handsome balustrade surmounts the cornice of the building, which is 50 feet from the ground. With the exception of the portico, which is of Portland stone, the whole is of mountain granite. The elevation has three stories, of which the lower or basement ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... office of the Censor in a large building with a courtyard. It was a large room on the top floor, with a long table occupied by busy orderlies opening and stamping letters with astonishing rapidity. At the back, flanking an open balcony over whose balustrade I could see the blue Mediterranean and a flawless sapphire sky, were two roll-top desks concealing two officers whose polished bald heads shone above stacks of papers. At the deferential insistence of an orderly, one of the heads rose, and a large, ruddy ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... in hand, followed the Countess to the balustrade and watched. One would never have supposed from the way she played that this girl had been up since dawn and suffered an accident which had temporarily incapacitated her. Youth was triumphant. Vigor, suppleness and grace marked every ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... the girl, and while he exchanged some words of welcome with her, Kalonay brought up one of the huge wicker chairs, and she seated herself with her back to the others, facing the two men, who stood leaning against the broad balustrade. They had been fellow-conspirators sufficiently long for them to have grown to know each other well, and the priest, so far from regarding her as an intruder, hailed her at once as a probable ally, and endeavored to begin again ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... night—too perfect for bed. Jimmy strolled on to the Embankment, and stood leaning over the balustrade, looking across the river at the vague, mysterious mass of buildings on ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... over the water, communication is carried on between them and the shore by means of a kind of bridge resting upon trestles, the movable flooring of which can be quickly taken up. Every house is also surrounded by a kind of balcony furnished with a balustrade. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... grandeur of conception nor good taste when building such large corridors, massive staircases, lofty vestibules, and spacious, resounding rooms. That given to the Queen was like an alcove, decorated by six large marble caryatides, joined by a handsome balustrade high enough to lean upon. The four-post bed was of azure blue velvet, with flowered work and rich gold and silver tasselling. Over the chimneypiece was the huge Bleink-Elmeink coat-of-arms, supported by ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... by a massive balustrade of some dark, polished wood, ascended in spirals by a short series of flights and landings. Twice she rested, her knees almost giving way, for the climb upward seemed interminable. But at last, just above her, she saw a skylight, and a great stair-window giving on a court; and, ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... sir, when one of us has been up and driven a peg here and a peg there into some of those cracks. The stones are quite in layers; and after that we'll drive a very strong one in, and tie a lariat to it to hang down like a balustrade to ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... which even the martial music of his own spirit-stirring recollections could do little towards lightening. The step was palsied now that had been foremost in the charge. It was only with the assistance of a servant, and by leaning his hand heavily on the iron balustrade, that he could slowly and painfully ascend the Custom-House steps, and, with a toilsome progress across the floor, attain his customary chair beside the fireplace. There he used to sit, gazing with a somewhat ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the first constable—"no man can stand up against the wind on such a devil's gallery: what the devil? it has no balustrade." ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... again, and he drew near the door once more. He became certain that something was moving stealthily on the stairs. He heard the boards creak again, and once the rails of the balustrade rattled. The silence and suspense were frightful. Suppose that the something which had been Fletcher waited for him in ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... a man estimating the value of the staircase lamp, the balustrade, the carpet, as if he were a furniture dealer ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... whispers. After a few minutes, she apparently forgot the dog and lifted her hand to adjust something in her hair. He again barked at me, quite ferociously for a chow. This time it was quite plain to her that he was not barking at the now shadowy moon. She peered over the stone balustrade and an instant later disappeared from view through the high, ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... instant against the door-post, gazing at them. Little by little as she looked the expression in her eyes changed, and they took the cold, fixed, distant look of a sleep-walker. A moment and she drew a shuddering breath, and turned and went out, and, groping in the outside darkness for the balustrade, went unfaltering into ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... seem—so dependent are we on first impressions—to be always bathed in a rain-cloud. It is quite impossible, for instance, for me to think of London Bridge save as a great reeking thoroughfare, slimy with thin mud, with piles of umbrellas crowding over it, like an army of turtles, and its balustrade steaming with wet. The charming little Dulwich Gallery, with its Bonningtons and Murillos, I remember as situated somewhere (for I could never find it again of my own head) at a very rainy distance from London, under the spout of an interminable waterfall. The guide-books ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... which at his arrival he had secured to a balustrade in front of the castle, rode very slowly past Bucklaw and Colonel Ashton, raising his hat as he passed each, and looking in their faces steadily while he offered this mute salutation, which was returned by both with the same stern ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... of each cell had all along its right side a reservoir, made of freestone, from three to four feet in width and the same in depth, receiving through conduits placed in the balustrade of the terrace the waters of the mountain, and distributing them in the flower garden by means of a stone cross, which divided it into four ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... Pauline Lister, painted six months after the Shenstone visit, had proved the finest bit of work he had as yet accomplished. He had painted the lovely American, in creamy white satin, standing on a dark oak staircase, one hand resting on the balustrade, the other, full of yellow roses, held out towards an unseen friend below. Behind and above her shone a stained-glass window, centuries old, the arms, crest, and mottoes of the noble family to whom the place belonged, shining thereon in rose-coloured and golden glass. ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... for his cigar case, chose and lit a cigar, and rested his elbows on the balustrade of the terrace, watching, while the old man brought his boat to the landing-quay, landed leisurely, and crossed the meadow to the foot of the gardens, where, at the pace he was keeping, one might allow him a couple of minutes at least before he re-emerged into view at ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... were on the landing now; he heard the crack of the balustrade; but it seemed they were coming ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... up at him, after the first fluttering glance of surprise when he began. Even when Hannaford stopped, and waited, she still kept her eyes on the water; but he saw that her hand trembled on the balustrade, and that a little pulse ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... on the front walk, and following our previous plans, at the invitation of the white cloth on the balustrade, we soon found ourselves in the attic. She remained here two weeks, not daring to move in any direction, as the wealthy New Orleans planter's biped bloodhounds were seen and heard from in almost every ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... argument in favour of Mr. M——, is only, that there is an elliptical bridge at Florence, and an iron balustrade at Rome; the bridge is owned to be weak, and the iron balustrade we consider as mean, and are loath that our own country should unite two follies in a ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... the balustrade which divided his sanctum from the main office, and listen with an astute expression, and just the glimmer of a smile, to the talk of the incipient millionaires, who bragged with such ease and fluency of this or that Bonanza. When all ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... the rug tells me that a breeze has blown my papers off the table. A round thump is a signal that a pencil has rolled on the floor. If a book falls, it gives a flat thud. A wooden rap on the balustrade announces that dinner is ready. Many of these vibrations are obliterated out of doors. On a lawn or the road, I can feel only running, stamping, and the rumble ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... balustrade and flooring of the veranda were broken. So also were the faded green shutters. The patio was but a little square of dust and stringy grass. A few dilapidated chairs stood about, homemade looking chairs with concave ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Midas was so exalted by his good fortune, that the palace seemed not sufficiently spacious to contain him. He therefore went downstairs, and smiled, on observing that the balustrade of the staircase became a bar of burnished gold, as his hand passed over it, in his descent. He lifted the doorlatch (it was brass only a moment ago, but golden when his fingers quitted it), and emerged into the garden. Here, as it happened, he found a great number of beautiful roses ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... a feather to the mighty prize. So, with unusual gladness, on he hies Through caves, and palaces of mottled ore, Gold dome, and crystal wall, and turquois floor, Black polish'd porticos of awful shade, And, at the last, a diamond balustrade, Leading afar past wild magnificence, Spiral through ruggedest loopholes, and thence 600 Stretching across a void, then guiding o'er Enormous chasms, where, all foam and roar, Streams subterranean tease their granite ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... had given to the General's wife her proper setting. She had trailed her satins and silks up and down the marble stairway. Her slender hands, heavy with their rings, had rested on its balustrade, its mirrors had reflected the diamond tiara with which the General had crowned her. In the vast drawing room, the gold and jade and ivory treasures in the cabinets had seemed none too fine for this greatest treasure of them all. In the ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... lights were out, and all life lay in trance On floor or pallet, blanketed to chin, Each in his mask of sullen-seeming death— Fond souls that recked not what was in the air, Else had the dead man's scabbard as it clashed Against the balustrade, then on the tiles, Brought awkward witness. One base hind there was Had stolen a venison-pasty on the shelf, And now did penance; him the fall half roused From dreadful nightmare; once he turned and gasped, ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... throat. I took the blade on the cane; then, as he disengaged and came at me lower, I made counter-parry, and pursuing the circle after I had caught his steel, I carried it out of his hand. It whirled an instant, a shimmering wheel of light, then it clattered against the marble balustrade half a dozen yards away. With his sword it seemed that his courage, too, departed, and he stood at my mercy, a curious picture of ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... Nehal Singh of a dog he had once seen confronted suddenly with an infuriated rattle-snake. It was the expression of hypnotized fear which held him back from intruding himself upon them, and he was about to retrace his steps quietly when the man who was seated next the balustrade turned and glanced so directly toward him that Nehal Singh thought his presence was discovered. The officer's next words showed, however, that his gaze had passed over Nehal Singh's head to the brightly lighted marquee on the other side ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... Savinien presented himself, and found the doctor walking with Ursula by the balustrade of the terrace overlooking the river. The viscount had received his clothes from Paris, and had not missed heightening his natural advantages by a careful toilet, as elegant as though he were striving to please the proud and beautiful Comtesse de Kergarouet. Seeing him approach ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... gravel-walks and overhung by the frequent elm, with here a cottage and there a villa, on one side a wooded plantation, and on the other a rich field of grass or grain, until, turning at right angles, it brings you to an arched bridge over the Avon. Its parapet is a balustrade carved out of freestone, into the soft substance of which a multitude of persons have engraved their names or initials, many of them now illegible, while others, more deeply cut, are illuminated with fresh green moss. These tokens ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... hour of the day only a single human being was in sight,—a young man, perhaps five-and-twenty years of age, jauntily dressed, and his upper lip adorned with a long moustache, who was leaning lazily upon a marble balustrade, and staring, with a stupid, vacant look, at the massive monument it surrounded. As nothing appeared at the moment more attractive to my eyes, I fixed them upon him. No great skill in deciphering human character is required to tell his past ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... Tower; a high-hung, airy place, running the length of the house, contrived on the level of the second floor, with the first floor roof beneath and overhanging attics above. It was supported on massive oak beams, and protected from the street by a low balustrade of a height to lean the elbows upon it. It was on this balustrade that Marjorie leaned, looking ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... bird by holding it against her breast with a hand supersensitive to its warm little feathers, she walked till she found a deserted tenement doorway. She hastily set the bird down on a stone balustrade beside the entrance steps. Dickie chirped more cheerily, more sweetly than for many days, and confidingly hopped back ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... divided into three parts, a central and two laterals, each of which extends forward, after the manner of a cutwater, in the form of the bow of a vessel of the fifteenth century, bringing to mind the two caravels, the Pinta and Nia; two great lights occupy the advance points on each side; a rich balustrade and four statues of celebrated persons complete the magnificent frontage. A noble monument, surmounted by a statue of the discoverer, is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... surprise, but I never saw a good illuminated border without one at least; and no series of any kind was ever introduced by a great composer in a painting without a snap somewhere. There is a pretty one in Turner's drawing of Rome with the large balustrade for a foreground in the Hakewell's Italy series: the single baluster struck out of the line, and showing the street below through the gap, simply makes the whole composition right, when otherwise it would have been ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... has a close affinity to the dresser. Few articles of furniture, while preserving their original purpose, have varied more widely in form. In the beginning the buffet was a tiny apartment, or recess, little larger than a cupboard, separated from the room which it served either by a breast-high balustrade or by pillars. It developed into a definite piece of furniture, varying from simplicity to splendour, but always provided with one or more flat spaces, or broad shelves, for the reception of such necessaries of the dining-room as were not placed upon the table. The early buffets ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... Klara began to creep along the low wall which supported the balustrade. Her feet made no noise in the soft, sandy earth, her skirts clung closely to her limbs; at every minute sound she started and paused, clinging yet closer to the shadow ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... shiver convulsed her—kneeling there in her balcony; her bare arms resting on the balustrade. The new Aruna shrank from thought of death. She craved the fulness of life and love—kisses and rapture and the ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... also used for a dwarf-wall of plain masonry, carrying the roof of a cathedral or church and masked or hidden behind the balustrade. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... them to the Old World. When his party hurriedly entered the dining-saloon, the grand staircase was entirely overlooked. How wide and roomy it was, and how beautifully carved and finished, especially the balustrade and newel posts, the whole being built of selected white oak, which mellows with age, and will assume a richer hue like the wainscoting in the famous old English abbeys and ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... at the gilded balustrade, and fired down into the mob below them. A sea of upturned faces was turned to the gallery, and a stout Prussian officer, who took very good care to jump back under the shelter of the fireplace, pointed ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... cushions were thrown, and upon these squatted now Asad-ed-Din with Marzak, whilst Biskaine and some three or four other officers who had escorted him aboard and whom he had retained beside him for that voyage, were lounging upon the gilded balustrade at the poop's forward end, immediately above ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... pyrotechnical display have been heaped up; it is from these that the rockets will ascend, it is here the blue and red Catherine wheels will revolve. The vaulted ceiling of the cavern is so high that the rockets in their highest flight will not graze it. An orchestral-like balustrade has been provided for the musicians. The shareholders themselves will do their best to enliven the festivities with fiddles, flutes and bagpipes. The guests are already appearing, singly and in groups, down through the machinery of the mill. The men are all accompanied by ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... led Linforth to the right between the Chisti's tomb and the raised marble court surrounded by its marble balustrade in front of the long mosque of Shah Jehan. Behind the tomb there were more trees, and the shrine of a dancing saint, before which dancers from Chitral were moving in and out with quick and flying steps. The Pathan led Linforth quickly through the groups, and though here and there ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... he says, "I hope so. Because if you haven't, I have. I wonder where we are. What's this?" He pats a building at its reachable point—a stone balustrade at a step corner. "Why, here we are! This is the Club. Can I do ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... with an elaborate chimney piece in the middle of the outside wall. The dining room occupies the west front, and back of it, in an L extension from the hall, a handsome staircase with gracefully turned balustrade leads to the bedrooms on the second floor. Throughout the interior the wood finish is worthy of the exterior trim. Beautifully tooled cornices, graceful pilasters, nicely molded door and window casings, heavy pedimental doorheads,—all ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... the roof, and was surmounted by an open pediment, in the cleft of which stood a black-marble figure of an Egyptian, erect, and gazing steadfastly at the midday sun. On the ground beneath was an Italian terrace with two great stone elephants at the ends of the balustrade. The windows on the upper story were, like the entrance, Moorish; but the principal ones below were square bays, mullioned. The castle was considered grand by the illiterate; but architects and readers of books on architecture condemned it as a nondescript ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... wide-columned vista of the hall, and the infinite seemed open before my eyes as I saw the blue and opal-tinted sea. But still there was no sound except the murmur from the shore, and nothing stirred except the sunbeams as they climbed the carved balustrade of the great staircase and gleamed on the frozen faces of a marble group in a niche. I did not ring at first, for it seemed as if my mother or Helen must come out—that they were close at hand, picking roses on the terrace or descending from their rooms. But it was Mills who presently issued from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... roof looking as if two cards were set up one against the other,—thus presenting a gable to the street and a gable to the water. This roof, like the roof of a Swiss chalet, overhung the building so far that on the second floor there was an outside gallery with a balustrade, on which the owners of the house could walk under cover and survey the street, also the river basin between the bridges and the two ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... occasional angry ejaculation from some unlucky subaltern who saw his last dollar drawn into the vortex, without any means occurring to him whereby to replenish his empty pockets. The other apartments were thronged to suffocation; even the balconies were filled with idlers, leaning over the balustrade, puffing their cigars and listening to a band of amateur musicians, who performed a serenade, in honour of his late victory, under the windows ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... upper story, which had nothing but a yellow smear of paint where custom would have placed the tenant's name, he began to beat the dust out of one of these keys, very deliberately, upon the great broad handrail of the balustrade. ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... but prepared to obey him. Steadying herself by the stone balustrade, she slowly descended the steps and advanced towards the carriage. I watched her from the doorway and Mr. Gryce from the vestibule. It seemed an ordinary situation, but something in the latter's face convinced me that interests of no small moment ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... staircase. Already were they descending the first steps, when a loud cry, that sent a thrill of terror through their blood, was heard from without the fort. For a moment Miss de Haldimar continued irresolute; and leaning against the rude balustrade for support, passed her hand rapidly across her brow, as if to collect her scattered energies. The necessity for prompt and immediate action was, however, evident; and she alone was capable of exertion. Speechless with alarm, and trembling in every joint, the unhappy Clara had now ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... was before Craven, with a hooded chair and a big fire burning on a wide hearth. Beyond was a fine staircase, which had a balustrade of beautifully wrought ironwork with gold ornamentations. He gave his hat, coat and stick to the footman—after taking his name, the butler had moved away, and was pausing not far from the staircase—Craven suddenly felt as if he stood in a London more solid, more ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... powerful, and prosperous. I myself am clothed in shadow, and I look with interest upon the shred of heavenly blue which is called a lord. You enter Marmaduke Lodge by an exceedingly spacious courtyard, which forms an oblong square, divided into eight spaces, each surrounded by a balustrade; on each side is a wide approach, and a superb hexagonal fountain plays in the midst; this fountain is formed of two basins, which are surmounted by a dome of exquisite openwork, elevated on six columns. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... bathed in sunshine. It was an ugly house, following as it did the fashion of the late seventies; but it was not undignified, with its big door flanked by bay-windows and its narrow porch bounded by a fat wooden balustrade and heavy columns. The porch and steps were weather-stained and faded, and littered now with fallen leaves ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... vague; and—the stairs ending in ruin at the fourth story—handed her carefully through the window to a small outer balustrade. As they stood together at the rail, he knew not whether to ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... not settle it in a moment: it was far too weighty a consideration—it required serious deliberation. So, I paced on, still moodily to the end of the Prebend's Walk; and, although it was raining heavily, sat down on the stone balustrade of the little rustic bridge over the fosse, facing the river.—"Ah me!" I reflected, calling to my memory Thackeray's sad lament, in that seemingly-comic "Ballad of the Bouillabaisse," which is all the more pathetic from its ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... such heretical inventions as pews in the parish church of Sant' Alessina. You sit upon orthodox rush-bottomed chairs, you kneel upon orthodox bare stones. But at the Epistle side of the altar, at an elevation of perhaps a yard from the pavement, there is a recess in the wall, enclosed by a marble balustrade, and hung with faded red curtains, which looks, I'm afraid, a good deal like a private box at a theatre, and is in fact the tribune reserved for the masters of the Castle. (In former days those masters were the Sforzas. So, from this tribune, the members of that race of iron and blood, of fierceness ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... on a lounge under the Cherokee rose her mother had trained, which was now a mass of blossoms. He seated himself in front of her, and they remained silent for some minutes, watching the vine-shadows play in the moonlight. As Loo Loo leaned on the balustrade, the clustering roses hung over her in festoons, and trailed on her white muslin drapery. Alfred was struck, as he had been many times before, with the unconscious grace of her attitude. In imagination, he recalled ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... did on dismounting was to try to find out where he was, and, as far as he could discover in the thick darkness, he found himself on the terraced roof of a huge palace, with a balustrade of marble running round. In one corner of the terrace stood a small door, opening on to a staircase which led ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... By balustrade and corridor That lead him to his lady's bower, He stands before that crape-draped frame— Its hidden face of beauteous shame— And holds aloft in his shaking hand The glimmering lamp, nor can withstand The fierce desire to feed his eye With that fair-painted ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... about the most thorough piece of this kind of sorcery that I remember in art; but of the general principle, not one of his works is without constant evidence. Take the vignette of the garden opposite the title-page of Rogers's Poems, and note the drawing of the nearest balustrade on the right. The balusters themselves are faint and misty, and the light through them feeble; but the shadows of them are sharp and dark, and the intervening light as intense as it can be left. And see how ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... central courts of the Exposition. Most of the plastic work here is purely decorative. The gardens are formal, French in style, laid out with long rectangular pools, each with a formal fountain, and each surrounded by a conventional balustrade with flower receptacles and lamp standards. In harmony with their surroundings, the buildings, too, are French, of ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... same instant a dirty hand reached through the grim balustrade of the staircase beside them and clutched the Phoenix, ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... At the balustrade, they paused. Reconnoitering at the turn, they were afforded full survey of the lower hall where the latest comers had taken possession. Few in numbers, the gathering had come to a dead stop, regarding in surprise the broken ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... the Shepherds (a fresco now transferred to canvas), is now in the London National Gallery, where is also his charming Virgin with the little Jesus and St. John, a signed work from the late Mr. Beckford's collection. The child Jesus stands, naked and upright, upon a stone balustrade, and plays with a lock of His mother's hair, who is herself of the pure virginal type imaged by Rafaelle in his earlier creations, notably the famous "Madonna del Granduca"; while the "Adoration," the master's last ...
— Perugino • Selwyn Brinton
... Mrs. Adair," said Durrance, sharply. He had put his questions rather to himself than to his companion, and he was not sure that he wished her to answer them. He walked abruptly away from her and leaned upon the balustrade with his ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... broad walk, with the pavilion at its extremity, while the rays silvered the foliage of the high trees and shrubs, that bordered it on the right, and the tufted summits of those, that rose to a level with the balustrade on the left, from the garden below. Her distance from the chateau again alarming her, she paused to listen; the night was so calm, that no sound could have escaped her, but she heard only the plaintive sweetness ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... a house in Hancock Street, now Eighth Street, and resided there for a year or more. Any accurate description of Pittsburgh at that time would be set down as a piece of the grossest exaggeration. The smoke permeated and penetrated everything. If you placed your hand on the balustrade of the stair it came away black; if you washed face and hands they were as dirty as ever in an hour. The soot gathered in the hair and irritated the skin, and for a time after our return from the mountain atmosphere of Altoona, life was more or less miserable. We soon began to consider how we ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... now a favourite spot for people to be laid to their eternal rest, and near this Ziarat were to be found a great many graves which were quite modern. These modern tombs, more elaborate than the old ones, rose to about five feet above the ground, had a mud and stone perforated balustrade above them all round, and three steps by which the upper part could be reached. They seldom, however, had more than three bodies ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... to faithful ones in these little-read pages. They were picturesque creatures, men of great force of character and will, who reached the limits of human bravery and endurance. There is Jackson on the cover, gold upon brown, "gentleman Jackson," Jackson of the balustrade calf and the noble head, who wrote his name with an 88-pound weight dangling ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the adding of age or ade: as, patron, patronage; porter, porterage; band, bandage; lemon, lemonade; baluster, balustrade; wharf, wharfage; ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... balustrade, these lords and lusty ladies are met to romp and wanton in the fulness of love, under the solstice of a noon in midsummer. Water gushes in fantastic arcs from the grotto, making a cold music to the emblazoned air, while a breeze swells the sun-shot satin ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... House is constructed of brick, which seems recently to have been overlaid with a coat of light-colored paint. A flight of red freestone steps fenced in by a balustrade of curiously wrought iron ascends from the court-yard to the spacious porch, over which is a balcony with an iron balustrade of similar pattern and workmanship to that beneath. These letters and figures—"16 P.S. 79"—are wrought ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the Fort, and gave direct onto the wide and shady walk which runs along the crest of the city walls; from where she stood Marguerite was looking straight along the ramparts, some thirty metres wide at this point, flanked on either side by the granite balustrade, and adorned with a double row of ancient elms stunted and twisted into grotesque shapes by the ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... phrase, smothering the Menta of his natural man in lettuce culled from Academe and thyme of Mount Hymettus. In yonder loggia, lifted above the garden and the court, two lovers are in earnest converse. They lean beneath the coffered arch, against the marble of the balustrade, he fingering his dagger under the dark velvet doublet, she playing with a clove carnation, deep as her own shame. The man is Giannandrea, broad-shouldered bravo of Verona, Duke Guidobaldo's favourite and carpet-count. ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... shone warmly, early as it was. It was ten o'clock, and the traffic in Young's Market was in full swing. Which way should I take? I slapped my pockets and felt for my manuscript. At eleven I would try and see the editor. I stand a while on the balustrade, and watch the bustle under me. Meanwhile, my clothes commenced to steam. Hunger put in its appearance afresh, gnawed at my breast, clutched me, and gave small, sharp stabs that ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... will always feel," his mother used to say, "wherever you live, that Torrington belongs to you." He said himself, in later years, "I want to be a Devon man and a Torrington man." His memory lingered over the vine-shaded verandah, the jessamine that grew by the balustrade of the steps, the broad-leaved myrtle that covered the wall of ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... was raised a few steps distant from this ruin, a little in rear of it. It was covered with long planks, laid transversely, that masked the framework. A ladder without banisters or balustrade was at the back, and what they venture to call the head of this horrible construction was turned towards the Garde-Meuble. A basket of cylindrical shape, covered with leather, was placed at the spot where the head of the King was to fall, to receive it; and at one ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... switch arrangements make it possible to turn on the upper hall lights from below, or the lower hall lights from above, and the lights in each room from the hall. When there are unseemly noises downstairs in the wee sma' hours it is much more agreeable to gaze over the balustrade into a bright hall than to go prowling about in the darkness for the bulb or gas jet, with the chance of grasping a burglar instead. Some burglars are very sensitive about familiarities on the part ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... in height, the mansard roof is gone, and a row of attic windows surmount the second story. In 1809 it was again remodelled at a cost of ten thousand pounds sterling, a third story was added, and the building, resting on the buttresses which still remain under the balustrade of Durham (Dufferin) Terrace, had an imposing effect when seen from the river. It was destroyed by ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... building, continues, in sculptured wood, the little columns of the lateral galleries which are supported by the pillars of the great nave. Thus it is impossible for the boldest curiosity, if any such should dare to mount the narrow balustrade of these galleries, to see farther into the choir than the octagonal stained windows which pierce the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... foundations were dug; and he referred me to Mrs. Wordsworth as the best possible authority about the placing of windows and beds. He climbed to the upper rooms before there was a staircase; and we had to set Mrs. Wordsworth as a watch over him, when there was a staircase, but no balustrade. When the garden was laid out, he planted a stone-pine (which is flourishing) under the terrace-wall, washed his hands in the watering-pot, and gave the place and me at once his blessing and some thrifty counsel. When I began farming, he told me an immense deal about his cow; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... five-pointed stars which heralds recognize as the arms of St. John. On either side this tower extended long wings, the dark brickwork of which was relieved with noble stone casements and carved pediments; the high roof was partially concealed by a balustrade perforated not inelegantly into arabesque designs; and what architects call "the sky line" was broken with imposing effect by tall chimney-shafts of various form and fashion. These wings terminated in angular towers similar to the centre, though kept duly subordinate to it both in size and ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... shadow of wall which about the Compound encircles. This wall, of a ten-foot height, from grey stone is made. At top of stones, not too often, posts stand of a color like lawn, and upon posts looking at sky, sits the balustrade made of stone of a redness to be seen afar. When the wistaria is full of bloom many times have I wish to sit upon balustrade that I might make rain of wistaria blossoms upon Honorable Strangers making entrance ...
— Seven Maids of Far Cathay • Bing Ding, Ed.
... of the temple of Nannar at Uru still measures 20 feet in height, and its four angles are orientated exactly to the four cardinal points. Its facade was approached by an inclined plane, or by a flight of low steps, and the summit, which was surrounded by a low balustrade, was paved with enormous burnt bricks. On this terrace, processions at solemn festivals would have ample space to perform their evolutions. The lower story of the temple occupies a parallelogram of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... porch. This was a porch, or balcony, built upon piles driven into the river upon one side, and the other resting upon the banks. It was raised some eight or ten feet above the water and protected by a strong railing or balustrade and shaded by the overhanging branches of a large and beautiful hackberry tree. It made an ideal lounging-place, upon a soft spring afternoon, when all the river banks were a mass of tender green, ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... embroidering the top part of a sheet—the part that is turned down and lies over the pillow when the bed is made—no doubt for her trousseau. The design had been traced and traced again from the tracing so often that it was difficult to say what it represented. There was a balustrade of columns like those that were taken from old Kew Bridge and sold to support sun-dials; there were cauliflowery arabesques, and among the spiky foliage there were meaningless ponds of open-work made by gathering the threads of the linen together into wonderful patterns. In the middle ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones |
