"Ceiling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... into a church tower one night to steal the bell-ropes. The two ropes passed through holes in the wooden ceiling high above them, and they lost no time in climbing to the top. Then one man drew his knife and cut the rope above his head, in consequence of which he fell to the floor and was badly injured. His fellow-thief called out that it served ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... when we have historical record of a Pope's presence as an amused spectator of the proceedings, Michelangelo had lately painted the ceiling of the Sixtine chapel, and had not yet begun his Last Judgment; and 'Diva' Vittoria Colonna, not yet the friend of his later years, was perhaps even then composing those strangely passionate spiritual sonnets which appeal to the soul through the heart, by the womanly pride that strove ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... corpulent iron pots or shining copper kettles depending from numerous gallows-like cranes; with its glittering copper, brass and pewter utensils arrayed on snowy-shelves; with its spotless tables, Its freshly-sanded floor and its heavily-beamed, whitewashed ceiling, from which hung many a bunch of savory herbs or string of red pepper-pods or bunch of seed-corn, or perhaps even a round-backed ham, to get a little browner in the smoke that would sometimes pour out from the half-ignited mass of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... front, stood at defiance. Her wings, as though animated by a gentle voltage of electricity, kept lifting with a low purring whirr. Half-way they struck the ceiling and dropped dead. The tiny silvery-white feathers near her shoulders rose like fur on a cat's back. One hand was clenched; the other grasped a chair. Her face was not terrified; neither was it white. It glowed with rage, as if a fire had been built ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... meanwhile Sir Piercie Shafton sate still as a stone, in the chair in which he had deposited himself, his hands folded on his breast, his legs stretched straight out before him and resting upon the heels, his eyes cast up to the ceiling as if he had meant to count every mesh of every cobweb with which the arched roof was canopied, wearing at the same time a face of as solemn and imperturbable gravity, as if his existence had depended on the ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... Lhassa and many other sacred places fanatical pilgrims make circumambulations, sometimes for miles and miles, and for days together, covering the entire distance lying flat upon their bodies.... From the ceiling of the temple hang hundreds of long strips, katas, offered by pilgrims to the temple, and becoming so many flying prayers when hung up—for mechanical praying in every way is prominent in Thibet.... Thus instead of having to learn by heart long and varied prayers, all ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... china cup. Armor of this kind would have been no good for our iron-clad ancestors. When a knight in iron clothes tried to whip a leather-clad peasant, the peasant could have cracked him with a stone and his clothes would have fallen off like plaster from the ceiling. So those early iron workers learned to puddle forge iron and make it into wrought iron which is tough and leathery and can not be broken by a blow. This process was handed down from father to son, and in the course of time came to my father ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... adapted for clinging to and running over smooth surfaces. The under side of their toes is expanded into cushions, beneath which folds of skin form a series of flexible plates. By means of this apparatus they can run or crawl across a smooth ceiling with their backs downwards—the soft soles, by quick, muscular action, exhausting and admitting air alternately. They are also provided with sharp claws, which enable them to climb up the trunks of ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... call him Mercury, the messenger of the gods?—went, and I remained. It was no matter to me what news he brought back. I stood there, in the lions' den, and counted the cracks in the ceiling. I counted, also, the number of corners that the room possessed, and remembered how these same prefects had often (as when gods disport themselves) tried to make Doe and me stand in them for what they termed ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... the beggar of Barbary. Genet lay back, his hands behind his head, staring into shadows under the ceiling. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... animated nature had been attained. Then we came to a gallery of simply colossal proportions, but singularly ill-lit, the floor of it running downward at a slight angle from the end at which I entered. At intervals white globes hung from the ceiling—many of them cracked and smashed—which suggested that originally the place had been artificially lit. Here I was more in my element, for rising on either side of me were the huge bulks of big machines, all greatly corroded and many broken down, but some still fairly complete. You know ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... slates and books, and Mr. Wotton, the master, is instructing a class by the black- board. The school-room is nicely fitted up with modern desks and other appliances; on the walls are large maps and pictures, which give it a cheerful look; the ceiling is panelled in woods of two shades. Opening into the school-room is a smaller room, a class-room separated from it by three folding-doors. Ascending the staircase, we visit the dormitories. The east dormitory for the senior boys ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... book-case. A chest of drawers, a shelf, a mirror, a framed photograph, a bottle-rack, and a shaving-strop adorn the starboard bulkhead. A door, placed midway in the opposite side, is hung with many clothes. A curtain screens my slumbers, and a ventilator in the ceiling chills my toes when turned to the wind. Ceiling and walls are painted dead white, with red wainscotting round the settee. Two engravings grace the only vacant spots on my walls—one a wild piece of wood and moorland, the road shining white after a late-autumn rain, ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... comrade, and you'll be crying a different tale," said Stefan, "although, for that matter, the food will doubtless last our time. Had we, in our small circle here, half a dozen taverns filled from cellar floor to garret ceiling, those fellows yonder would give us little chance of visiting them. Keep watch here, Anton; ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... and wagon, the pilot very eccentric behind us. It was a small, dingy shop, dimly lighted by a single inch of candle, faintly disclosing various boxes, barrels standing on end, articles hanging from the ceiling; the proprietor at the counter, whereon appear gin and brandy, respectively contained in a tin pint-measure and an earthenware jug, with two or three tumblers beside them, out of which nearly all the party drank; some coming up to the counter ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... obliged to bear his tobacco, or to give up his company; and at Hatton (1786-1825) now and then he was the tyrant of the fireside." Parr was capable of smoking twenty pipes in an evening, and described himself as "rolling volcanic fumes of tobacco to the ceiling" while he worked at his desk. At a dinner which was given at Trinity College, Cambridge, to the Duke of Gloucester, as Chancellor of the University, when the cloth was removed, Parr at once started ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... long stick has fastened to it a loop of wire standing out at right angles, thus. To this is attached by a long string a worsted, or a very light rubber ball. The game is to see how many times you can throw the ball up to the ceiling and catch it in the loop ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... uninviting aspect, the only furniture in it consisting of a table and two chairs. It was imperfectly lighted by a small window looking out upon the cloisters which surrounded the courtyard that the prisoners had crossed a quarter of an hour earlier, and a bell suspended near the ceiling and attached to a chain leading out through a slit in the wall seemed to indicate that it was the room in which the warder of the outer gates was accustomed to sit. But the man was certainly not then in the room, nor was there anything to indicate that he had ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... gave her was about the same size as her haven in Andrew's home, but one flight higher up, and with a sloping ceiling. Mrs. Morrison whitened her dark hair upon it, and rubbed her head confusedly. Then she shook it with ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... his hand with a polite gesture. "You know more of him and his lessons than I, Jose. I am always ready to grant that." He took another sip of cognac, blew a succession of smoke wreaths toward the ceiling, and again resumed his midnight philosophizings. "What puzzles me, Jose, is what is going to become of us in Heaven. We shall never be content. Content is a lesson that no one has ever learned. Look at Saint Harry. He has Heaven right here. His time ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... felt fairly ashamed to be seen in such a state. Our coats worn and stained, our breeches patched, our huge boots covered with mud, all formed a strange contrast to the room we were in. It was provided throughout with large cupboards in the walls, the doors of which reached to the ceiling. These doors were of polished wood, and shone like a mirror. The floor was like another mirror. That indefatigable chatterer ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... the ancient house, forgetting in the many thoughts that arose within me that I had a companion, I came at length into the tower, the basement of which was open, forming part of the body of the church. There hung many ropes through holes in a ceiling above, for bell-ringing was encouraged and indeed practised by my friend Shepherd. And as I regarded them, I thought within myself how delightful it would be if in these days as in those of Samuel, the word of God was precious; so that when it came ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... room, with a low whitewashed ceiling, across which ran two beams. A pot-pourri stood on the little table in the centre, and there were two beds, one single and ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... bed of dim repose, she was drifting, haggard and battered, untidy and weak and sleepy, up and up into the dazzling halls of the sun. Did she know that his light would clothe her as with a garment, and hide her in the highest recesses of his light-filled ceiling? or was it only that she was dreaming, dreaming—sweet, cool, tender dreams of her own, and neither knew nor cared about anything around her? What a strange look all the night wore while the tired old moon was thus dreaming of the time when she would come again, back through the vanishing and the ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... into Sedan, for fear of an arrest; and, in the meantime, entrusted me with the care of Vanbrock, the greatest confidant he had in the world. I took care, as I was ordered, that he should never stir out but at night, for in the daytime I concealed him in a private place, between the ceiling and the penthouse, where I thought it impossible for anything but a cat or the devil to find him. But he was not careful enough of himself, for one morning my door was burst open, and armed men rushed into my chamber, with the provost at their head, who cried, with ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... also. There is no possibility of a secret door, and the windows are quite thirty feet from the ground. Both of them were fastened on the inside. The carpet prevents any possibility of a trap-door, and the ceiling is of the ordinary whitewashed kind. I will pledge my life that whoever stole my papers could only have come through ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... can see it now—the low Dutch kitchen with its plank ceiling, the old lady in her chair, with an illustrative forefinger uplifted to punctuate the periods of her tale, the embers, white and red, glowing on the hearth, and the intent shadow-pitted faces of the hearers, ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... those things were all disposed of," says Herndon, "he crossed to the opposite side of the room and threw himself down on the old office sofa. . . . He lay there for some moments his face to the ceiling without either of us speaking. Presently, he inquired: 'Billy'—he always called me by that name—'how long have we been together?' 'Over sixteen years,' I answered. 'We've never had a cross word during all that time, have we?' . . . He gathered a bundle of papers and books ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... fearful noise,—there seemed to be a general commotion of the elements, when my Mariam, unveiling herself, extinguished the lamp. She had scarcely laid herself down, when we heard an unusual violent noise at the aperture in the ceiling: sounds of men's voices were mingled with the crash of the thunder; trampling of horses was also distinctly heard; and presently we were alarmed by a heavy noise of something having fallen in our room and near our bed, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... footwear—a rude but fairly efficient expedient, and one not unpleasing to the eye. For the rest, there was one window opening on to the veranda, which, in that bright climate, admitted a shaded but sufficient light, especially as it always stood open; the ceiling was of unplastered reeds; a large bookcase stood in the corner containing many French works, most of them the property of Monsieur Leblanc, and in the centre of the room was the strong, rough table made ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... vehicles. A Bhuddist priest, clothed in grey and his head shaved, ushered us through a long gallery into the court-yard of the temple. To describe this building accurately would be impossible. It was gilt and carved from floor to ceiling. The porch was supported by pillars of stone beautifully carved with figures of griffins and snakes. In the court-yard were two lions carved out of a purple marble, and in the middle of the yard was an immense brazen ram highly ornamented with ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... the lazy, absent-minded one resumes pumping, while yearning all the while for the plashing stone-rollers and the purling eaves of his home in Baalbek. And once in a pinch,—they are labouring under a peltering rain,—he stops as is his wont to remind Shakib of the Arabic saying, "From the dripping ceiling to the running gargoyle." He is labouring again under a hurricane of ideas. And again he asks, "Are you sure we ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... doorway one enters a hall of baronial character, thirty-three feet long, eighteen feet wide, and twenty-one feet high, finished in oak with open beam ceiling and above the high wainscot a rough wall ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... were broad and deep windows, one to the south with a wide view of the bay and the nearer coast, the other to the west where the open sea displayed her changeable moods. On three sides of this room, the high walls, from the white stone floor to the time-blackened beams that bore the ceiling, almost disappeared under the irregular rows of many thousand of volumes. Two wooden arm-chairs, bespeaking little aversion to an ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... wheedling would not move Brownwell. He was of the mulish temperament. So Barclay stretched out in his chair, locked his hands back of his head, and looked at the ceiling through his eyelashes. After a silence he addressed the cobwebs above him: "Supposing the case. Would a letter from me to you, setting forth the desperate need of this accommodation paper, not ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... sleeve and pulled him to a corner. There she pushed aside the dingy hanging and Orme saw that the wall was covered with a wainscoting that ran from floor to ceiling. ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... your grasp, and then, while he held you—for you were still weak and he always was a giant—he struck you with it, bringing it down again and again upon your unprotected head, until your brains were battered out, and were spattered upon the floor, the walls, and even the ceiling of the room. And then, when you were quite dead, killed by the hand of the czar himself, when he for once in his life was spattered with real blood, with blood that he had shed in person and not by deputy, His Imperial Majesty staggered to the door, ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... It happened as a hundred times he had imagined its happening, so exactly that he could hardly believe for a moment he was not dreaming. There was the flash of a lanthorn on the ceiling, a thunderous, knocking on the Vicarage door. Mark leapt out of bed; flinging open his window through which the wind rushed in like a flight of angry birds, he heard voices below in the garden shouting "Parson! Parson! Parson Trehawke! There's a brig driving in fast toward ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... anything he had ever dreamt of. His servant, too, was the most obedient one possible, a nod or a sign was enough for him, for he was as wise as a bee, as all these little people are by nature John's bedchamber was all covered with emeralds and other precious stones, and in the ceiling was a diamond as big as a nine-pin bowl, that gave light to the whole chamber. In this place they have neither sun nor moon nor stars to give them light, neither do they use lamps or candlesticks of any kind, but they ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... his little writing-case and sat down to write a letter. He spent some time over it, erasing and interlining, balancing himself on two legs of his chair, while he looked for stray words on the ceiling or murmured occasional sentences to judge of the effect. At last it was finished, and, being copied in a dashing hand, looked very spontaneous indeed. "I think that ought to do it," he said to himself as he smoked his pipe, glancing over the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... 66 feet in height to the top of the pediment. It consisted of a cella, surrounded by a peristyle. The cella was divided into two chambers of unequal size, the eastern one of which was about 98 feet long, and the western one about 43 feet. The ceiling of both these chambers was supported by rows of columns. The whole building was adorned with the most exquisite sculptures, executed by various artists under the direction of Phidias. These consisted of, 1. The sculptures in the tympana ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... of his general contention that the basis of all effective decoration is geometry and number, the author, in closing, desires to direct the reader's attention to Figure 17 a slightly modified rendering of the famous zodiacal ceiling of the Temple of Denderah, in Egypt. A sun and its corona have been substituted for the zodiacal signs and symbols which fill the centre of the original, for except to an Egyptologist these are meaningless. In all essentials the drawing faithfully follows ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... up. He gave a long, sideways look at the corporal. Then he lifted his eyes and stared at a crack in the ceiling. ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... the table, and, in doing so, hit his head a smart whack against the ceiling. Before leaving the house he turned to make a last appeal to his wife, who, he could not help seeing, was anxious ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the guests had arrived, and Stefan had been wheeled in from the studio, the mysterious door was at last thrown open, revealing the tree in all its glory, rooted in a floor of glittering snow, with its topmost star scraping the ceiling. ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... affected Dirkovitch, for he lay back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. There was nothing special in the ceiling beyond a shadow as of a huge black coffin. Owing to some peculiarity in the construction of the mess room this shadow was always thrown when the candles were lighted. It never disturbed the digestion of the White ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... faint noise, and right before him he saw the fluttering blue flame of a brimstone match, which blue began to turn yellow and illumine the face of the boy who had been a prisoner, and two great stacks of kegs and bales, reaching nearly from floor to ceiling of ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... so that the sick may be separately supplied with whatever they want without disturbing their neighbours. In this convent there is also a singular curiosity of another kind; a small chapel, the whole lining of which, both sides and ceiling, is composed of human sculls and thigh-bones; the thigh-bones are laid across each other, and a scull is placed in each of the four angles. Among the sculls one is very remarkable; the upper and the lower jaw, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... divided into many compartments, with writing on each; but what most astonished our hero was the alteration in the apartment. The book-cases and books had all been removed, and in the centre, suspended from the ceiling, was an apparatus which would have puzzled anyone, composed of rods in every direction, with screws at the end of them, and also tubes in equal number, one of which communicated with a large air-pump, which stood on a table. Jack took a short survey, and then ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... eye fell upon a letter lying on her bureau. Back she sank with a sigh, and lay staring at the ceiling—a gaunt, flat, sad-eyed creature, with wisps of gray hair half-covering her baldness, and a face furrowed ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... and a half wide and about ten metres high. The walls were straight, white, smooth, with no openings, except one through which food was brought to Max. An electric lamp was burning brightly on the ceiling. It was burning all the time, so that Max did not know now what darkness was. There was no furniture in the room, and Max had to lie on the stone floor. He lay curled together, as the narrowness of the room did not permit him to ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... for a long time, looking straight up at the ceiling, utterly tired, wondering vaguely what had become of her father, Duncan, Allen, and the others. She would have given much to have been able to lie there for a time—a long time—and rest. But that was not to be thought of. She struggled to a sitting position, ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... where Rick waited. Rick took it and shone it upward to where the slide had come from. He whistled. There was solid ceiling, but it was a yard higher than the ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... was doomed even before the firemen reached the scene, for it was constructed, as so many summer boarding-houses are at seashore and mountain resorts, of thin novelty-siding outside and oil-stained ceiling boards inside; these act like kindling wood once they ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... basin, which stood on the end of the bin near the door, got up into the air, turning over and over as it went. It went up not very quickly, not as quickly as if it had been thrown. When it reached the ceiling it fell plump and smashed. I called Dr. Lloyd's attention to it, and we all saw it. No one was near it, and I don't know how it happened. I stayed about ten minutes more, but saw nothing else. I don't know what to make of it all. I don't ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... other churches were not seriously damaged, the General Post Office was completely wrecked. The furniture in the Sobranje, the house of the national assembly, was destroyed and broken, and the Royal Palace was stripped from floor to ceiling, the contents being carted off to Hungary in furniture vans, brought especially from Semlin for ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... nobody knows about them diamonds, and so's he can't TELL anybody afterward that any were pinched. An' that's why it's got to look like he just got tired of living and did it himself. I guess that'll hold the police when they find the poor old duck hanging from the ceiling, with a bit of cord around his neck, and a chair kicked out from under his feet on the floor. Ain't you got the brains of ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... on the toe of the King's displeasure, Italy would have claimed him, and the Vatican would have opened wide its doors. There, relieved of financial badgering, in the company of his equals, encouraged and uplifted, he might have performed such miracles in form and color that even the wonderful ceiling of the Sistine Chapel would have ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... in after us in millions; like Bishop Haddo's rats, they came "in at the windows and in at the doors," until in a very short space of time the interior of the boat became perfectly black with insects. Attracted by the light they flocked into the saloon, covering walls and ceiling in one dark mass. We attempted supper, but had to give it up. They got into the coffee, they stuck fast in the soft, melting butter, until at length, feverish, bitten, bleeding, and hungry, I sought refuge ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... sea-horses. The whole effect of the hall is most curious and beautiful. Near this building is the Town Hall, in which is the room in which the old Senate, now the Corporation, sit. Its beauty is difficult to describe, the ceiling is richly carved in wood, in each compartment is a fine and brilliant ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... and barred doors, and find yourself in a vast hall panelled up to the ceiling with old oak. The immense fireplace with its brass dogs and andirons tells of the yule log that still at Christmas burns upon the hearth, and trophies of arms of all ages—from the Toledo blade that can ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... painted ceiling, with foreshortened Allegory staring down at his intrusion as if it meant to swoop upon him, and he cutting it dead, Mr. Tulkinghorn has at once his house and office. He keeps no staff, only one middle-aged man, usually ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... round the dining-room as if looking for someone, but there was no one she had ever seen before among the breakfasters at the little round tables in the pretty room with its low ceiling and black oak beams. To Jean, unused to hotel life and greatly interested in her kind, it was like a peep into some thrilling book. She could hardly eat her breakfast for studying the faces of her neighbours and trying ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... at the doorway of the big room where the officers of the different staffs were scattered about, smoking, while the negro servants were removing the dishes from the table. The sunlight, reflected from the rippling water outside, danced on the ceiling. At the end of the room sat General Sherman, his uniform, as always, a trifle awry. His soft felt hat with the gold braid was tilted forward, and his feet, booted and spurred, were crossed. Small wonder that the Englishman who sought the typical ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... gallery were masterly paintings of great folk, globes showing all the stars fast in the sky, and drawings of the world and all its parts, so real that one could see the savages in the New World hanging to the under side by their feet, like flies upon the ceiling. How they stuck was more than Nick could make out; and where they landed if they chanced to slip and fall troubled him a deal, until in the sheer multiplication of wonders he could ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... and as soon as he was surrounded by his followers, he rushed furiously upon the lunatic, whom he clove in two by a sabre stroke. During this time the sentinels placed in the street to guard the royal granary, fired musket-shots at the windows, and the bullets, rebounding from the ceiling of the building, wounded and killed several amongst us." The horrors of their situation, and the pangs of hunger and thirst were so great, that some of the sane amongst the prisoners nearly went mad. It was not till the third ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... street adjoining to the great gate of Whitehall on the south. This edifice is built of hewn stone, and consists of one stately room, of an oblong form, upwards of forty feet in height, the length and breadth proportionable, having galleries round it on the inside, the ceiling beautifully painted by that celebrated history-painter, Sir Peter Paul Rubens: it is adorned on the outside with a lower and upper range of columns of the Ionic and Composite orders, their capitals enriched ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... usual place— on his hands and knees, with Little Mystery astride his back. He paused in a mad race across the cabin floor and looked up with inquiring eyes. The little girl held up her arms, and MacVeigh tossed her half-way to the ceiling and then hugged her golden head close up to his chilled face. Pelliter jumped to his feet; his face grew serious as Billy looked at him over the child's ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... one leg, and leads the way into his house under a rock. It is a mere hovel, but it has a wooden floor, and there are signs of personal dignity—what is known in England as 'respectability'—struggling with poverty. Perhaps the ancient clock, whose worm-eaten case reaches from the floor to the ceiling, and whose muffled but cheery tick-tack is like the voice of an old friend, impressed me in favour of this poor home as ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... local, or is it a conversation between a brother and sister?" Midas demanded, throwing back his head, and mutely appealing to an unseen arbiter in the corner of the ceiling. "If you can't understand a simple thing like that, it doesn't say much for your education. It is easily seen you were never a plumber! I thought we were going to come to a friendly agreement, but you are so close and grasping, there ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... sing as well as any man," answered Buzzard, indignantly, "an I know when to go up and when to come down." He pointed stupidly, contrary to the phrase, first to the floor and then to the ceiling. ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... oratorios, are little behind the dramatic achievement. The aspect of Exeter Hall on an oratorio night is one of the grandest things in London. The vastness of the assemblage, the great mountain of performers, crested by the organ, and rising almost to the ceiling, are thoroughly impressive, while the first burst of the opening chorus is grand in the extreme. The oratorio is, in fact, the Opera of the 'serious' world. It is at once a place in which to listen ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... stairs coming down from the room where the paralysed man lies, hearing but little, seeing only the walls and the ceiling. "It's on the corner of the chimney-piece," she says. "He's asleep." Daverill passes her, and just as he reaches the door remembers the pipe. It would be fatal to call out with that single knock at the house-door below. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... willing creature lifted off the cover by erecting the upper half of his head till the snout of him smote the ceiling. ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... portraits, both of which seemed to smile at him pleasantly; and then on and over natural history specimens, curious stuffed birds, a cabinet of osteological preparations, and over and around the heavy looking carvings and mouldings about the four doorways, and continued from the fireplace up to the low ceiling. But, look where he would, he could see nothing but a beautiful face with large, pensive eyes, gazing with loving trust in his as he had seen them only a few hours before when he had ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... his kindlings and the heavier pieces of wood he had gathered up, and went like a shot back to the stove again. Great tongues of flame were shooting up toward the dingy ceiling. ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... led us back into the hall, and in the space between the two doors that I mentioned, she unlocked a bar, and pulling it down, touched a spring, and immediately a little square door slid back into the ceiling. Across this door, or window or whatever they called it, were strong bars of iron about one inch apart. Through this aperture we were allowed to look, and a sad sight met my eyes. As many as fifty disconsolate looking ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... own person, so dominating in Fanny. Lee finally lighted a lamp: the hours, until the precipitant onrush of night, seemed stationary; gigantic moths fluttered audibly about the illumination and along the dim ceiling. When, later, he was on the bed, it was wet under his sweating body. In a passing sleep Savina gave one of the cries of her waking emotion. In a state of unconsciousness her fingers reached toward him. From the balcony beyond them drifted a woman's challenging ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... straight hair and his well-shaped head, never, the latter, neatly smooth, and apt, into the bargain, at the time of quite other calls upon it, to throw itself suddenly back and, supported behind by his uplifted arms and interlocked hands, place him for unconscionable periods in communion with the ceiling, the tree-tops, the sky. He was in short visibly absent-minded, irregularly clever, liable to drop what was near and to take up what was far; he was more a respecter, in general, than a follower of custom. He suggested above all, however, that wondrous state of youth ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... one, keeping the left one aimed, and moved some knobs on a dial and threw over a big switch. A muffled rumbling and whirring began somewhere; and then, slowly, a block of tables and apparatus ten feet square rose upward toward the ceiling. A section of the floor on which they stood came up, supported by columns, and now formed the roof of a room that had risen out of the floor. ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... jagged in the main thoroughfares, gas-lamps in the side streets glimmered a canary gold or green. The sky was a crimson battlefield of spring, but London was not afraid. Her smoke mitigated the splendour, and the clouds down Oxford Street were a delicately painted ceiling, which adorned while it did not distract. She has never known the clear-cut armies of the purer air. Leonard hurried through her tinted wonders, very much part of the picture. His was a grey life, and to brighten it he had ruled off a few corners for romance. The Miss Schlegels—or, ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... a cry and a shout, and a terrible rout, And nobody seems to know what they're about, But the monks have their pockets all turned inside out; The friars are kneeling, and hunting and feeling The carpet, the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling. The Cardinal drew off each plum-colored shoe, And left his red stockings exposed to the view; He peeps, and he feels in the toes and the heels; They turn up the dishes, they turn up the plates, They take up the poker and poke out the grates, They turn up the rugs, they examine the mugs; ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... lamp was not yet lit; but the flames of a wood fire gave light enough for conversational purposes, and imparted to the flitches and hams suspended from the ceiling a lively reality which neither daylight nor petroleum could ever produce. As the shadows danced among them, the kitchen became peopled with friendly presences; a new fragrance pervaded the place, bearing a hint of good ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... facing us,"—Blanco paused,—"is the Duke Louis Delgado. He is the nephew of the late King of Galavia, and if—" the Spaniard gave an expressive shrug, and watched the smoke ring he had blown widen as it floated up toward the ceiling—"if by any chance, or mischance, Prince Karyl, who is to be crowned at Puntal three days hence, should be called to his reward in heaven, the gentleman who sits there would be crowned King of Galavia ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... many sins she had never thought of—never dreamed of! She set herself with zeal to commit them to memory. But a hand on the door—Madame Joubert! You never could have told that those little girls had not been sitting during the whole time, with their hands clasped and eyes cast up to the ceiling, or moving their lips as the prayer-beads glided through their fingers. Their versatility ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... Martin, sitting with outstretched legs, called now for a fresh tankard, which he emptied at a gulp; now for his pistols, which, as fast as my lord's servants brought them to him new primed, he discharged at the ceiling. The loud wind rattled doors and windows, and made the flame of the torches stream sideways. The music grew madder and madder, the shots more frequent, the drunken ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... unlighted. You felt for them with the feet of faith, and when you arrived in the kitchen, the kitchen, by contrast, seemed luminous and gay; the architect may have considered and intended this effect of the staircase. The kitchen saw day through a wide, shallow window whose top touched the ceiling and whose bottom had been out of the girls' reach until long after they had begun to go to school. Its panes were small, and about half of them were of the "knot" kind, through which no object could be distinguished; the other half were of a later date, and stood for ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... order, and the prayer was begun. But all those on the inner line, who had to turn their backs on the bowls for the prayer, twisted their heads round so that they could keep an eye on them, lest some one might meddle; and then they said their prayer thus, with hands clasped and their eyes on the ceiling, but with their hearts on their food. Then they set to eating. Ah, what a charming sight it was! One ate with two spoons, another with his hands; many picked up the beans one by one, and thrust them into their pockets; others ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... in the cathedral at York, and the monument remained unfinished. In 1646, the statues and figures of gilt copper, of exquisite workmanship, were sold. James the Second converted this building into a Popish chapel, and mass was publicly performed here. The ceiling was painted by Verrio, and the walls were finely ornamented and painted; but the whole having been neglected since the reign of James the Second, it fell into a complete state of decay, from which, however, it was some years ago retrieved by George the Third, who had it magnificently ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various
... note; a gnat seems to answer it. Now it has ceased, but still the gnat keeps up its sharp whirr; across the pleasant, persistent, fretful buzz of the flies sounds the hum of a big bee, constantly knocking its head against the ceiling; a cock crows in the street, hoarsely prolonging the last note; there is the rattle of a cart; in the village a gate is creaking. Then the jarring voice of a peasant woman, "What?" "Hey, you are my little sweetheart," cries ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... low enough for sheep, and built of stones laid in cement. There were no stalls or partitions of any kind. Dust and chaff yellowed the floor, filled all the crevices and hollows, and thickened the spider-webs, which dropped from the ceiling like bits of dirty linen; otherwise the place was cleanly, and, to appearance, as comfortable as any of the arched lewens of the khan proper. In fact, a cave was the model and first ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... despair of attaining the perfect insight and sympathy imagined and longed for which is always a part of intense appreciation of natural beauty, Miss Dwyer threw herself back in her seat and fixed her eyes on the car-ceiling with an expression as if she were looking at something at least as far ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... settled himself in his seat and looked about him—at the smoke-stained ceiling, the old portraits and quaint fittings and furniture—more particularly at the men. He would have liked to talk to Ruth's father a little longer, but he felt dazed and ill at ease—out of his element, somehow—although he remembered the same kind of people at his father's house, ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Come on; O do read something; they're so wise. I tell you all the wisdom of the world Is waiting for you on those shelves; and yet You sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out, And listen to the silence: on the ceiling There's one big, dizzy moth that bumps and flutters; And in the breathless air outside the house The garden waits for something that delays. There must be crowds of ghosts among the trees,— Not people killed in battle,—they're in France,— But horrible shapes in shrouds—old ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... the waterproof, which I took to be bits of plaster from overhead, but, as it persisted, I struck a light and discovered that it was caused by bugs which, not finding a direct way to me from their nests in the wall, had climbed up and dropped from the ceiling down on me. What with the insects and the chance of being aroused at dawn by an attack of the raiding Albanians, I did not sleep again, and was up at dawn preparing to continue the journey to Shawnik, where alone we could count on being safe from the swarms of bashi-bazouks, whose movements we ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... Ramsdell's keyhole—for, despite all orders, the faithful fellow had flatly refused to put himself into bed until Opdyke himself should be snoring. They started, each one of them, in the narrow thread of light; they marched slowly across the blackness of the ceiling above his head, and then they ranged themselves along the opposite wall, and lurked there in the shadow, leering at him. In each one of them, moreover, he held the very centre of ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... were working their own way up, as I found from experience they might be able to do. It was while thus waiting for them that I was able to admire the beauty of the scene. The floor was dark blue, the sides were white, and the ceiling was of every variety of green and red and yellow, and in some places so transparent that it seemed surprising that any person, much less a horse or sleigh, could have passed over it without breaking through; then there ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... cathedral with some feelings of reverence, for a part of it at least was built by Don Henry of Portugal, who founded and endowed the college adjoining. The interior of the church is in some parts gaudy, and there is a silver rail of some value. The ceiling is of cedar, richly carved, and reminds me of some of the old churches at Venice, which present a style half Gothic half Saracenic. Near the church a public garden has lately been formed, and some curious exotic trees placed ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... dark, (a peculiarity prevailing in many Saharan cities,) with here and there open spaces or little squares, of which there are several to let in the light of heaven. They are small and narrow, and winding, not more than a couple of camels can pass abreast, the ceiling however being high enough to admit the entrance of the tall Maharee camel. A camel of this species entered to-day: it amazed me by its stupendous height; a person of average size might have walked under its belly. The principal streets and squares are ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... of the state of the stuccoer's art in the middle of James I.'s reign, and adds, "Few houses in England can show so fine a series of the same date ... The great hall has medallions in the square portions of the ceiling formed by its dividing timber beams. The large saloon on the principal floor-a room about 66 feet long by 30 feet wide-has a very remarkable ceiling of the pendentive type, which presents many peculiarities, the most notable of which, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... through the mass of the ice and reappeared at lower points with astonishing rapidity. A gallery was cut at a depth of ten metres below the surface, through a wall of ice intervening between two crevasses. The colored liquid poured into a hole above soon appeared on the ceiling of the gallery. The experimenters were surprised to find that at night the same result was obtained, and that the liquid penetrated from the surface to the roof of the gallery even more quickly than during ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... riot of little cupids. It led, shortly after his marriage in 1887 to Miss Maud Howe, a daughter of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, to his establishing himself in Chicago, where he did many decorations and portraits. In 1894, he went back to Rome to execute a commission for a huge ceiling piece for the Boston Public Library. The piece was for a room later converted into a children's room, and after the canvas was placed, in 1901, the incongruity of the adult painting and the purposes of the room caused unfavorable comment. But the room has been ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... beautifully neat and spacious, with wide-open windows looking on to the garden. A gentle breeze stirred the white curtains, blowing them out high like sails and letting them fall again. Golden reflections glided lightly over the ceiling; the whole room was filled with the moist freshness of spring. Nejdanov dismissed the servant, unpacked his trunk, washed, and changed. The journey had thoroughly exhausted him. The constant presence of a stranger ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... some of his incidents. Not the least curious part of the book is the Preface, in which he gives a description of himself, in order to contradict, as he affirms, the extravagant reports circulated about him, to the effect that he was set upon a table, in a cage, or that his hat was fastened to the ceiling by a pulley, that he might 'pluck it up or let it down, to do compliment to a friend, who honoured him with a visit.' This description is a tolerable specimen of his style, and we give it in the quaint language of an old translation, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton |
