"Curtain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she starts, and her face brightens up, as the gate swings on its hinges, and a tall man comes with rapid eager step up the walk. John moves uneasily in his sleep, but unnoticed by her, for she stands back in the shadow of the curtain, and eagerly watches the new comer in his approach. Her father sits up in his chair, and after looking sadly at her for a moment, then sinks back with a sigh, as though he would wish to go to sleep again ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... administration of justice, through the interposition of the chamberlain as rumour affirmed, the persons who had been imprisoned as accomplices were released from their confinement: Dorus disappeared, and Verissimus kept silence for the future, as if the curtain had dropped and the ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... those monstrous superadditions with which the convention was afterwards clothed. However this may be, there must have been at hand for working up the materials into a plausible form, some drill sergeant of evidence behind the curtain, who had his own interest to serve or revenge to gratify. The two particulars in the narrative that one feels least disposed to question, are, that James Device stole a wether from John Robinson of Barley, to provide a family dinner on Good Friday, and that when the ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... a circus net!" Teddy went on. "You can hold one end, and I'll hold the other. But we won't make the tower any higher for a while. I'll get a curtain for a net." ...
— The Curlytops and Their Pets - or Uncle Toby's Strange Collection • Howard R. Garis
... Night! When our first parent knew Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue? Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus, with the host of heaven, came, And lo! Creation widen'd ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853 • Various
... round him, shaking their heads, his Mother falls fainting at his feet, as Curtain falls upon a strong and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... mass stretched from the South to the North-West and then there was a wide opening into another flat sandy plain. Far, far beyond this a distant range of high mountains could hardly be distinguished, for a sand-storm was raging in that direction and veiled the view with a curtain of dirty yellowish grey. ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... in one of these empty benches and see, as a shadow out of the past, a lively scene presented on the now deserted stage—the voice of eloquence rings clear out of the dead centuries, the play-house resounds with the applause of the shades that fill the seats about me—and, then, the curtain of mystery is dispelled by the bright sunlight that floods all the landscape, and I see nothing but ruins everywhere. The play is over. The shades have gone ...
— My Three Days in Gilead • Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal
... was not carried as far, and the exact date is not ascertainable, but the incident is well remembered by the family and occurred between 1853 and 1856. One day the Resident was crossing his study when, for some reason or another, he looked behind a curtain screening a recess. He then saw a man standing there with a large knife in his hand. General Sleeman, who was unarmed, challenged the man as being a Thug. He at once admitted that he was such, and under the spell of a master-spirit allowed himself to be disarmed without ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... as she looked. She had never seen anything so somber, so sinister, as that precipitous curtain of rock and its riband of ice. It looked like a white band ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... other hand, the ox-eyed Juno, who had gained a pair of black eyes overnight in one of her curtain lectures with old Jupiter, displayed her haughty beauties on a baggage wagon; while Vulcan halted as a club-footed blacksmith lately promoted to be a captain of militia. All was silent awe or bustling preparation: ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... but without rain: it was rather dark, too, though not so as to prevent us from seeing the clouds careering swiftly through the air. The dense curtain which had overhung and obscured the horizon was now broken, and large sections of the sky were clear, and thinly studded with stars that looked dim and watery, as did indeed the whole firmament; for in some places black clouds ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... the fair widow's welfare,' Miss M'Gann commented, as she watched him from behind the hall-door curtain. 'I hope he won't get the d. t.'s like number one, and live off her. Think she'd have had warning to wait a ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... not move. "Twenty-five and thirty-five makes sixty," she muttered. "Tell them I'll come if they hold the curtain till I am in the dressing-room. Say I'll have to wear her costumes, and the dresser must have everything ready. ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... of immigration; the occupation of the continent with Christian institutions by a strange diversity of sects; the great providential preparations as for some "divine event" still hidden behind the curtain that is about to rise on the new century,—and here the story breaks ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... to make no public announcement of what had happened before the hour came for drawing up the curtain. A scrappy rehearsal for the benefit of Grace Danver and the two or three other ladies who were affected by the necessary rearrangement went on until the last possible moment, then Mr. Peel presented himself before the drop and made ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... steadily, a cold, finely-spun, straight-hung curtain, veiling all the muffled sleeping valley. There was an inconceivable silence about her as she drew her snow-shoes over the velvet-like masses of the snow. But within her were ringing echoes of the ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... and deep recesses; Where the lion and the tiger, Where the panther and the leopard, And the jaguar and hyaena, And the tan wolf and the ocelot, In the daytime hold their parley, And resort for wakeful slumbers, Till the dusky hand of black night Draweth down her curtain on them; Then they leave the sylvan passes To traverse the open valley, Prowling after luckless surfeit, Lurking by the lakes and rivers For the panting prey which cometh To allay its thirsty feelings ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... sounds again those merry Celtic strains Which oft have called light feet to lilting dance, But now they mean the order to advance. Along the river's bank, beyond the hill Two thousand foemen lodge, unconquered still. Ere falls night's curtain on this bloody play, The army must proceed, with feint ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Paris in the vale of Ida. And, while I was lost in admiration of myself, just as the peacock is of his plumage, imagining that the delight which I took in my own appearance would surely be shared by all who saw me, a flower from my wreath fell on the ground near the curtain of my bed, I know not wherefore—perhaps plucked from my head by a celestial hand by me unseen. But I, careless of the occult signs by which the gods forewarn mortals, picked it up, replaced it on my head, and, as if nothing portentous had happened, I passed out from my abode. Alas! what clearer ...
— La Fiammetta • Giovanni Boccaccio
... "You never see it again. I've thrown a stick in up above, and it simply whisks over and gets sucked underneath the curtain of water at once, and disappears altogether until it reaches the smooth water, ever so ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... nobody Breakfasts here on the naked Table; but on the cloth set a large Tea Board with the Cups...." "London, Feb. 14, 1765. Mrs. Stevenson has sent you ... Blankets, Bedticks.... The blue Mohair Stuff is for the Curtains of the Blue Chamber. The Fashion is to make one Curtain only for each Window. Hooks are sent to fix the Rails by at the Top so that they might ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... belief, and in another moment I distinguished something like the outline of a path stretching away before me. Following it rapidly—as rapidly as I dared—I came to a corner, as it seemed to me, turned it blindly, and stopped short, peeping into a curtain of solid blackness which barred my path, and overhead mingled confusedly with the dark shapes of trees. But this, too, after a brief hesitation, I made out to be a wall. Advancing to it with outstretched hands, I felt the ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... been considerably enlarged. The slight partition terminating the interior extremity of the mess-room, and dividing it from that of one of the officers, had been removed; and midway through this, extending entirely across, was drawn a curtain of scarlet cloth, against which the imposing figure of the governor, elevated as his seat was above those of the other officers, was thrown into strong relief. There was another change, that escaped not the ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... experiment to carry out. I made as you saw a determination of the angle at which this weight of 250 grams just slipped on the ice. The lower surface of the weight, the part which presses on the ice, consists of a light, brass curtain ring. This can be detached. Its mass is only 61/2 grams, the curtain ring being, in fact, hollow and made of very thin metal. We have, therefore, in it a very small weight which presents exactly the same surface ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... had been listening behind the curtain, immediately hastened to communicate the news to the rest of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... during the opera season. He would go there early in the evening, and beg people to pay his way in. If he didn't find a philanthropist he would buy a ticket himself, but he never gave up hope until he knew that the curtain had risen. ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... rose from the crowded seats. It seemed as if the spectators wanted to give vent to their feelings. A curtain at the back of the hall was drawn aside, and Judge Bolitho, with bowed head and staggering footsteps, found his ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... uttered these words, she straightway escorted Pao-y as far as outside the door, from whence having seen him mount into the sedan chair, she dropped the curtain; whereupon Ming Yen and her brother, the two of them, led the horses and followed behind in his wake. Upon reaching the street where the Ning mansion was situated, Ming Yen told the chair to halt, and said to Hua Tzu-fang, "It's advisable ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... that its power was undiminished. Back to town from mountain and sea shore filtered the warm-weather idlers, but no more letters came from St. Petersburg to the hill by the Hudson. So far as our girls were concerned, a curtain of silence had fallen ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... proscenium or front, stretching out upon the orchestra by means of a wooden platform, which has disappeared, and the postscenium or side scenes. There was, also, a hyposcenium or subterranean part of the theatre, for the scene-shifters and machinists. The curtain or siparium (a Roman invention) did not rise to the ceiling as with us, but, on the contrary, descended so as to disclose the stage, and rolled together underground, by means of ingenious processes which Mazois has explained to us. Thus, the curtain fell at ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... the astonishing memory of this country lad: and the applause that greeted the reciter might well be calculated to awaken his latent vanity. It was like being called before the curtain after the first act by a young actor on his first appearance. And I believe every one understood the meaning of the verses, which seemed to imply that the hungry prodigal, famishing for food, was fed with husks instead of grain. Contentment with wretchedness is not good preaching, ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... everyone to know are, that any sore throat—with only a single white spot on the tonsil—may be diphtheria, but that when the white spot or deposit not only covers the tonsil or tonsils (see Tonsilitis) but creeps up on to the surrounding parts, as the palate (the soft curtain which shuts off the back of the roof of mouth from the throat), the uvula (the little body hanging from the middle of the palate in the back of the mouth), and the bands on either side of the back of the mouth at its junction with the throat, then ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... appeared from behind the white curtain of fog, and the boys and girls saw. that Mr. Carson ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... in answer to my rap. I obeyed the signal, and found myself in a room of tolerable dimensions and multiplied utilities. A decayed silk curtain of a dingy blue, drawn across a recess, separated the chambre a coucher from the salon. It was at present only half drawn, and did not, therefore, conceal the mysteries of the den within; the bed was still unmade, and apparently of no very inviting cleanliness; a red handkerchief, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... syringed, late in the evening. On the next morning (30th) the bush looked as fresh as ever, and at night the leaves went to sleep. It may be added that a small branch while growing on the bush was enclosed, by means of a curtain of bladder, during 13 days in a large bottle half full of quicklime, so that the air within must have been intensely dry; yet the leaves on this branch did not suffer in the [page 338] least, and did not close at all during the hottest ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... the curtain, And shows us the people's plight; And everything seems uncertain, And nothing at all looks right. Yet out of the blackness groping, My heart finds a world in bloom; For it somehow is fashioned for hoping, And it cannot live in ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... house to the back door. As he passed the lighted sitting-room windows he saw a monstrous shadow with steadily moving hands on the curtain. He fumbled his way through the lighted room, in which sat Adoniram Judd closing shoes and his son Henry knitting. When the door opened Henry, whose shadow Jerome had seen on the window-pane, looked up with the vacant ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Portieres (curtain doors) have superseded folding doors. These should be in shades to contrast with the general blending of the colors in the room. The fabrics mostly used are India goods, but they may be of any material, ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... pointing upwards. Nearer were several more narrow windows along the side of the room, and that beside her bed had the lattice open, so that she saw a sloping green bank, with a river at the foot; and there was a trim garden between. Opposite to her there seemed to be another window with a curtain drawn across it, through which came what perhaps had wakened her, a low, clear murmuring tone, pausing and broken by the full, sweet, if rather shrill response in women's voices. Beneath that window was a little altar, with a ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... These, with the curtain, block-forts, and a deep ditch over which was a log bridge, composed the military works at Tioga; and this was the place into which we now walked, a sentry directing us to Block-House No. 2, ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... in haste, Her heart a bit uncertain, And neither time nor love to waste, She watches through the curtain. ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall
... a tongue impressed with honey from every wind? Why an ear, a whirlpool fierce to draw creations in? Why a nostril wide inhaling terror, trembling, and affright? Why a tender curb upon the youthful, burning boy? Why a little curtain of flesh on the bed ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... morning it was found by the soundings, etc., that we were near our port, but a thick fog hid the land from our sight. About nine o'clock the fog began to rise, and seem'd to be lifted up from the water like the curtain at a play-house, discovering underneath, the town of Falmouth, the vessels in its harbor, and the fields that surrounded it. This was a most pleasing spectacle to those who had been so long without any other ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... and separation between the civil and military powers of the continent? And what a compliment does he pay to our understandings, when he recommends measures, in either alternative, impracticable in their nature? But here, gentlemen, I will drop the curtain, because it would be as imprudent in me to assign my reasons for this opinion, as it would be insulting to your conception to suppose you stood in need of them. A moment's reflection will convince every dispassionate mind of the physical impossibility of carrying ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... fire, top left centre. The door is top right centre. On the left side is a window. Four large grandfather clocks are standing here and there round the room. In front of the fire is seated a little wee bit of a pigeen. The Stranger is seated by the window, apart from the rest. As the curtain rises one of the clocks strikes two, another strikes eleven, while the others remain silent. It is thus impossible to tell what time it is. The Stranger gazes out of the window. No one speaks. The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... the white pellets into that vapoury greyness. As they touched the curtain, they hissed as if they had been thrown into a fire; they melted; and upon the transparency of the drapings, as upon a sheet of gauze, showed faint streaks, where, melting, they ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... subtle influence has pervaded many a brilliant home and circle where other influences might easily have prevailed. In a time when calumny would attack an Archangel, and when its bitter barbs have been known to reach even the humanly perfect life of Queen Victoria, no shadow has ever crossed the curtain of her character. Of her tact—a quality which she possesses in common with the Prince of Wales—stories are innumerable, and of her quiet, unostentatious, continuous charity and natural kindliness of heart ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... drew her to the window, from whence she cast a covert glance from behind the curtain. But she saw neither hen nor cock. Had they been able to run away? Where were ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... original regarded it as an ambitious piece of work. If so, they were right in the sense that they have attempted something very much beyond their powers. In the view of the gentleman who addressed us at the fall of the curtain (I understand that he was one of the authors) it offered magnificent opportunities (I think "magnificent" was the word) for the brilliant gifts of two of the actors. Certainly it covered a good bit of ground, what with this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... the base, and, to prevent scaling, rose to a height of some thirty or forty feet: there were towers at intervals of a bowshot, from which the archers could seriously disconcert parties making attacks against any intervening points in the curtain wall; the massive gates were covered with raw hides, or were plated with metal to resist assaults by fire and axe, while, as soon as hostilities commenced, the defence was further completed by wooden scaffolding. Places thus fortified, however, at times fell almost without an attempt at resistance; ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... silence; no voice, no cry from within reaches the ear; the chal must be tenanted only by the shadows. Not so! At the far end of a passage, into which the sullage water drips, forming ill-smelling pools, a greasy curtain is suddenly lifted for a minute, disclosing several flickering lights girt about with what in the distance appear to be amorphous blocks of wood or washerman's bundles. Grope your way down the passage, push aside the curtain with your ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... are beneath the canopy of heaven, Also beneath the canopy of beds Four-posted and silk curtain'd, which are given For rich men and their brides to lay their heads Upon, in sheets white as what bards call 'driven Snow.' Well! 'tis all hap-hazard when one weds. Gulbeyaz was an empress, but had been Perhaps as ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... likewise to the fateful bedroom. Here, after protesting fearfully that they would ruin him by this conspirative meeting, he added that he was not out of sympathy with the times, and volunteered to stand sentinel. Accordingly, he was posted at the ragged window-curtain, where, with excess of caution, he signalled whenever he saw a Christian, in uniform or no. At every signal David's oratory ceased as suddenly as if it had been turned off at the main, and the gaberdined figures, distributed over the ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... and talk with her a little, and she readily shows you all her little possessions,—her chest on the earthen floor, her one chair and stool, her tallow-candle stuck against the wall, her husk mattress rolled together, with the precious blue cloak inside of it. Behind a curtain of coarse straw-work is a sort of small boudoir, holding things more private, an old barrel with the winter's fuel in it, a few ears of corn hanging against the wall, a pair of shoes, and a shelf with a large pasteboard box. The box she opens ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... said the other, looping back the curtain she had until now held in her hand. "Whereas our systems are braced by a more uniform temperature to endure the severity of our frosts, ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... suds, and, if the water still looks dark after another washing, take still another. Boil and rinse as in directions given for other clothes. Starch with very thick hot starch, and dry, not by hanging out, and then ironing, but by putting a light common mattress in the sun, and pinning the curtain upon it, stretching carefully as you pin. One mattress holds two, which will dry in an hour or two. If there is no sun, lay a sheet on the floor of an unused room, and pin the ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... broad hills that curtain around This sanctuary of nature, 'mid a wilderness found, Whose echoes low whisper, "Bid the world farewell, And with ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... and there arose from among the heavy folds of the curtain that had almost entirely concealed him, a student who advanced with the dignity of a Jupiter and the grace of an Apollo. Duty was his theme. The words flowed in a resistless torrent from his lips. Every thought breathed beauty and sublimity, every gesture was the "poetry of motion." More ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... memory and the wonder in his dreaming thought, and he woke early to other voices under his window. But now the voices, though young, were many and were German, and the march of feet and the stamp of hooves kept time with their singing. He drew his curtain and saw the street filled with broken squads of men, some afoot and some on horseback, some in uniform and some in civil dress with students' caps, loosely straggling on and roaring forth that song whose words he ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... awake to the fact that he had eaten nothing, for more than twenty-four hours. After he had taken the meal, he sat in Percy's room, until it was time to go to General Trochu's; keeping himself, however, in a position so as to be hidden by the curtain—for the sight of him evidently excited the patient. Percy was, as far as his brother could see, in just the same state as before: sometimes talking to himself, in disconnected sentences; sometimes raving wildly, and imagining himself repeating ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... the precious water of the lake, Omega now extended the folds of the cloud curtain down to its shores thus completely enclosing it. And as this further reduced the evaporation to a remarkable extent the hopes of Omega and Thalma took on new life. Here they visioned Alpha and his children living and dying in peace, now that the monster was no more. With ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... surprising mechanical faculty, and great patience and skill in passing the figures he contrives through the programme arranged for them. Having read one of his novels, you feel as if you had been amused with a puppet-show of rare merit, and you would like to have the ingenious mechanician before the curtain. So much cleverness, however, seems to be thrown away on the entertainment of a single evening, and you sigh for its application to some work of more lasting usefulness; and the perpetual motion occurs to you as the thing worthiest such powers. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... not desire the problem play. It demands a play that will end with a curtain definite, convincing. But in the problem plays of the past it finds the material it fain would see applied to a bolder, unequivocal purpose. In the eight years that have elapsed since the production of Pinero's "Tanqueray," the public's stomach has ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... had pressed aside the heavy curtain framing the window until she could command the stoop. Two men were waiting there. "Oh!" she breathed, almost reeling back upon Tottie. "Oh, don't let 'em in! Don't! I can't see anybody! Say I'm gone! Oh, please, Tottie! I'm gone for good." She was beside Barbara again, and was almost lifting the ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... really to work off some portion of his uneasiness, which was growing with every moment. He was terrified at first upon general principles, as any other boy of eleven years old would have been. Then he was afraid that the Indians would by some accident, lean something against the curtain of small roots between two other big trees, and that the curtain might not be strong enough to support it, in which event their hiding-place would be discovered at once. He was afraid, too, that some slight noise inside the fortress ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... kind of curtain seems dropped over the brain, covering it, smothering it, while yet the body and its nerves are tingling with sensation. It is like the fire-curtain of a theatre let down between the stage and the audience, a merciful intervention ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and been married, and he guessed he was not going to show the white feather chasing jackrabbits. They could sound the bugle charge as soon as they got ready, and they would find him in the game till the curtain was ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... house, and forming a medium of general communication, more or less directly, with all the other apartments. At one extremity, this spacious room was lighted by the windows of the two towers, which formed a small recess on either side of the portal. At the other end, though partly muffled by a curtain, it was more powerfully illuminated by one of those embowed hall-windows which we read of in old books, and which was provided with a deep and cushioned seat. Here, on the cushion, lay a folio tome, probably of the Chronicles of ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... water-colours, or the portraits of the dead, or works of art more than usually skittish in the subject. It was perhaps in the hope of finding something of this last description that M'Naughten's comrade pulled aside the curtain of the first. He was startlingly disappointed. There was no picture. The frame surrounded, and the curtain was designed to hide, an oblong aperture in the partition, through which they looked forth into the dark corridor. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rays of the candle fell upon the window. Willie drew back the curtain. Snow was tightly banked up against ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... bucket to hold the head after it has been cut off, an incense-burner, a pail of water, and a basin. The above rules apply equally to the ceremonies observed when the hara-kiri takes place in a garden. In the latter case the place is hung round with a white curtain, which need not be new for the occasion. Two mats, a white cloth, and a rug are spread. If the execution is at night, lanterns of white paper are placed on bamboo poles at the four corners. The sentence ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... on a great adventure, full of thrill and excitement; the curtain which surrounded our private life was being lifted; we stood on the threshold of momentous events. The cottagers who laboured by their humble homes stood for a moment and watched our train go by; now ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... up. The curtain which covered the wall in the background was drawn aside, and on a platform sat a little insignificant-looking man, with a table before him and a sofa beside him. On the table stood a wooden goblet. ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... [Draw the curtain: the king sits sleeping, his sword by his side. Enter Austria, before whom cometh Ambition, and bringing him before the chair, King John in sleep maketh signs to avoid, and holdeth his own crown fast ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... covenant. I saw that my brother's death had thwarted the conspiracy. Smith was so obviously frightened—despite his pretense of defiance—that I believed he had learned his needed lesson. And I accepted the incident as a private tragedy on which the final curtain had now fallen. ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... the other arms; but, as I was saying, she died before she got her mind made up, and now they kept this picture over the head of the bed in her room, and every time her birthday come they hung flowers on it. Other times it was hid with a little curtain. The young woman in the picture had a kind of a nice sweet face, but there was so many arms it made her look too spidery, seemed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... there were present also notaries on each side of him, who kept the Caesar rapidly and continually informed of all the questions which were put and all the answers which were given; and by his pitiless orders, urged as he was by the persuasions of the queen, who kept her ear at the curtain, many were put to death without being permitted to soften the accusations brought against them, or to say a word ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... sudden pull, she jerked open the window and stood before the blank green-tinged oblong of darkness that seemed to press into the room like a menacing, heavy, wind-urged curtain. ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... interest the reader, we will raise the curtain and show our young hero in the capacity of editor. The time is ten days after Mr. Anderson's absence. Harry was accustomed to do his work as compositor in the forenoon and the early part of the afternoon. From three to five he occupied the editorial ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... hole, and after Willie was asleep, she stole down to the reception-room to see the damage for herself. She found the hole, or what was intended for it, smiling as she examined the few loose threads; and then she hunted for the stool, finding it under the curtain where Eudora had placed it, and finding, too, that letter dropped by Jim. The others were gone, appropriated by Mrs. Richards, who always watched for the western mail and looked ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... netting, was a little bed, the woodwork gayly painted with knots of bright flowers. Near it, against the wall, was a black walnut bureau. A work-table with spiral legs stood by the window, which was hung with a green and gold window curtain. Opposite the window the closet door stood ajar, while in the corner across from the bed was a tiny ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... air in an empty room, just swelling the curtain; the flowers in the jar shift. One fibre in the wicker arm-chair creaks, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... the big windows, was the rolling prairie, with the touch of early fall on it, sometimes revealed in a light curtain of haze, at which a fellow could gaze and imagine he saw the squaws of the savage tribes gathering the maize for the coming winter's store, while the braves rode ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... mind, and gradually lulling me to slumber, I was suddenly aroused by a sound like that of the rustling of a silken gown, and the tapping of a pair of high-heeled shoes, as if a woman were walking in the apartment. Ere I could draw the curtain to see what the matter was, the figure of a little woman passed between the bed and the fire. The back of this form was turned to me, and I could observe, from the shoulders and neck, it was that of an old woman, whose dress was an old-fashioned gown, which, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... son ever entered the room without some special reason, and it was too far away from the rest of the house for casual visitors to intrude themselves. The short passage, within the more modern house, which led to the bridge was reached by a door hung with a leather curtain securely arranged to prevent draughts, and no one ever lifted this curtain except those who had a ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... grass, and the wet flowers flashed out diamonds. And then as I sat there watching, and intensely happy as I imagined, suddenly the certainty of grief, and suffering, and death dropped like a black curtain between me and the beauty of the morning, and then that other thought, to face which needs all our courage—the realisation of the awful solitariness in which each of us lives and dies. Often I could cry for pity of our forlornness, ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... curtain descended on the final tableau, Redding waited in the lobby while the stream of people passed. The Wiggses had obeyed instructions, and were the very last to come out. They seemed dazed by their recent glimpse into fairy-land. Something in their thin bodies and pinched ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan
... rear was impressive—a wide up-and-down plain studded with out-cropping of rocks, and patches of snow. We were then on top of the Chinese Wall, and the view to the west was grand. At the moment hail was falling thick and white, and to stand above the streaked curtain, as it fell into the abyss was a strange new experience. Below, two thousand feet, lay the spruce forest, and it sloped and dropped into the White River Valley, which in turn rose, a long ragged dark-green slope, up to a bare jagged peak. ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... with rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes, greeted the audience with an enchanting smile; the king, whose brow seemed unusually gloomy and clouded, cast only a hesitating and anxious glance over the house, and then withdrew behind the crimson curtain ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... the music of "Mind the Paint" continues for a while. Then it ceases and, after a short silence, the curtain rises again. The supper-tables have disappeared and the saloon is empty of people. The musicians and their music-stands and stools have also gone, and faintly from the distance comes the sound of a waltz. Two settees, matching the rest of the furniture, ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... the curtain falls; and the strong Walter Scott is with us no more. A possession from him does remain; widely scattered; yet attainable; not inconsiderable. It can be said of him, "When he departed he took a Man's life along with him." No sounder piece of British manhood was ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... the West, Athanasius was frequently admitted to the Imperial presence; at Capua, Lodi, Milan, Verona, Padua, Aquileia, and Treves. The bishop of the diocese usually assisted at these interviews; the master of the offices stood before the veil or curtain of the sacred apartment; and the uniform moderation of the primate might be attested by these respectable witnesses, to whose evidence he solemnly appeals. [116] Prudence would undoubtedly suggest the mild and respectful tone that became ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... chorus rang out, and amidst a burst of applause the curtain fell. The applause continued so strongly that the curtain was immediately raised again, and the delighted audience viewed once more ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... imaginary dame, a conception of Douglas Jerrold, famous for her "Curtain Lectures" all through the night for 30 years to her ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... obliged to add before the curtain is dropped upon this nocturnal drama, that my friend was guilty of an astonishing piece of Vandalism. When my landlady had deposited the sleeping child in his large, exquisitely carved and canopied bed (which, as he ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... dinna ken onything anent it. As for yon braw boxie, I ne'er set een on it, na, nor the fine ring, till the policeman pu'ed it doon frae the tap o' the window curtain. And the fine watch, they fund on me, and said belongit to Sir Lemuel Levison; that watch waur gied to me by a gude freend," said Rose, wiping the great ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... some time hated it. Why it was continuing on that lifted note he could not guess. With a little twitch of the lips, the sign of a grim amusement, he thought this might even be an orator, some wardroom Demosthenes, practising against the lonely curtain of the night. ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... erecting the one which we were engaged to build. We did our best to solve the problem, by hanging up at the end of the doomed hovel—which had been a salt-store in its day, and was in damp weather ever sweating salt-water—a hanging partition of mats, that somewhat resembled the curtain of a barn-theatre; and, making our beds within, we began pulling down piecemeal, as the materials were required, that part of the erection which lay outside. We had very nearly unhoused ourselves ere our work was finished; and the chill blasts of October, especially when they blew ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... prepared to listen to the revelations that awaited her. She had long had a curiosity to know what "Bohemia" meant, and now she expected to find out. They were nowhere near their own crowd. In fact, she couldn't see Elise or Mona, though Philip was visible between some rickety armour and a tattered curtain. Very handsome he looked, too, his dark, and just now gloomy, face thrown into ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... originally performed. At its first representation, however, the audience was reported to have been saddened by its "unhappy ending." Pressure was forthwith put upon me to reconcile Philip and Ottoline at the finish, and at the third performance of the play the curtain fell upon the picture, violently and crudely brought about, of Ottoline in ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... of the theatre is a phantasy world. With the rising of the curtain we forget our outside life; we live the part of the hero or the heroine. To this day I always leave a theatre with a vague depression of spirits; everyday humdrum life chills me when I come out to the street. Reality is always difficult to face. The great popularity of the cinema is due ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... into three shelves, and did her best to make the room look pleasant and inviting to the little stranger. In fact, before she was through with the work she became really very much interested in it. She had put a clean white quilt upon the bed, and looped up the curtain with a handsome crimson ribbon, taken from the stock in the wardrobe. She had swept and dusted every corner and crevice; she had displayed all her ornaments to the best advantage, and put fresh cologne in the bottles. She had even brought from some sanctum, ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... much about that," said Denham as we neared the fortified gateway, with its curtain of empty wagons. "I'm beginning to think that we're being a great deal of ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... lodger for her use, as it was rather larger than the one Mrs Vivian occupied, and more convenient for the reception of a visitor. On the farther side of this apartment was a door leading out to the back part of the house. It was seldom used now, and a curtain hung before it, as the weather was cold and a strong current of air came through it. In an upper panel of this door was a small glass window, now disused, for some alterations had been made in the back premises which blocked out the light. The panes of this window ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... that strange isolated incident in their married life. For an instant the curtain of the past had swung aside, and some strange glimpse of a forgotten life had come to them. But it closed down, never to open again. They live their narrow round—he in his shop, she in her household—and yet new and wider horizons ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sire,—yea, all things loved below, Fair pictures damasked on a vapor's fold, Fade like the roseate flush, the golden glow, When the bright curtain of the day ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... supposition that the inhabitants facilitated domestic operations by emptying casual vessels out of the windows. The dirty little casements on the ground floor exhibited without exception a rag of red or white curtain on the one side, prevailing fashion evidently requiring no corresponding drapery on the other. The Court was a cul de sac, and at the far end stood a receptacle for ashes, the odour from which was ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... sign from Mustapha, the curtain which concealed part of the tent was withdrawn, and four lovely girls, clothed in light, fluttering apparel, appeared and commenced a graceful, beautiful dance, to the music of the mandoline. When they had finished, they retired to the curtain, and looked with great, wondering eyes ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... to the hill, and Morse left Molly at her gate. As she walked slowly up the road, she could see the light in Theodore's window, and his shadow thrown on the curtain. ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... defensive system platoons may not be able to advance to the Attack without a barrage, and it is essential that all movements should conform exactly to the timing of the barrage and that the troops should keep under the back edge of the shrapnel curtain, so as to deliver their assault before the enemy has time to bring rifles and machine guns into play. Under such circumstances, Ground scouts must be dispensed with. Such a position will not be attacked without careful ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... Wits, resembled that of two statesmen in a late reign, whose characters are very well expressed in their two mottoes, viz., Prodesse quam conspici [LORD SOMERS], and Otium cum dignitate [CHARLES MONTAGU, Earl of HALIFAX]. Accordingly the first [ADDISON] was continually at work behind the curtain, drew up and prepared all those schemes, which the latter still drove on, and stood out exposed to the World, to receive its praises ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... chain of strong fortresses, which the French possessed on the Belgian frontier, formed a curtain, behind which Napoleon was able to concentrate his army, and to conceal, till the very last moment, the precise line of attack which he intended to take. On the other hand, Blucher and Wellington were obliged to canton their ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... during which Duchemin saw the long lashes of the Comtesse de Lorgnes curtain momentarily her disastrous violet eyes: it was a sign of assent. Immediately it was followed by the least of negative movements of her head. She was looking directly at Phinuit, who, so far as Duchemin could see, made no ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... postpone your correspondence with the Spanish generals, and let your influence come in hereafter, as auxiliary to something more formal and official. I do not hesitate to give it clearly as my opinion to you, (but this opinion and this business should be concealed behind a curtain,) that the favourable moment of the Spanish operations in the Floridas ought to be improved to the utmost extent of our means, provided the Spaniards, by a junction of their maritime force with that of his most Christian Majesty, under the command of the Chevalier de Ternay, will ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... prayer, when the sight and sound of the world is shut out. An inexpressible sweetness and joy and satisfaction come into the heart. How near God seems! How calm and precious is the hour! How our spirits drink in of the water of life! How we seem to talk face to face with our Lord, and how the curtain seems drawn back till our eyes behold the secrets of the Eternal! We give ourselves over to the supreme enjoyment of the hour. But alas! in a short time we find ourselves no longer on the mountain, but out in the broad plain of life, and how tame and ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... compares this with the North America of 1853, its twenty-two millions of European origin, and its thirty-one States, will venture to assign limits to our growth; will dare to compute the time-table of our railway progress, or lift so much as a corner of the curtain that hides the crowded events of the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... thousand strong—into the Confederacy; she lifted the lid of her treasury to Lincoln, and in answer to his every call, sent him a soldier, practically without a bounty and without a draft. And when the curtain fell on the last act of the great tragedy, half of her manhood was behind it—helpless from disease, wounded, ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... I,—and when Sleep Came o'er my sense, the dream went on; Nor, through her curtain dim and deep, Hath ever lovelier vision shone. I thought that, all enrapt, I strayed Through that serene, luxurious shade, Where Epicurus taught the Loves To polish virtue's native brightness,— As pearls, we're told, that fondling doves Have played with, wear a smoother ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... conspicuous upon the British than upon the American side of the history of this campaign. Not only the general, who had his reputation to defend, but high officials, whose guiding hand was seen behind the curtain, were called to the bar of public opinion. The ministers endeavored to make a scapegoat of the general; the general, to fix the responsibility for defeat upon the ministers. His demand for a court-martial ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... laid him in the cradle, which stood beside the table. She remained leaning over him for an instant to assure herself that he was asleep; then she let down the curtain in the already darkened room. Then she busied herself with supple and noiseless movements, walking with so light a step that she scarcely touched the floor, in putting away some linen which was on ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... author knew that the fire of a genius unequalled in its way had gone out. Two or three, who were acquainted with the man even better than with his books, sighed, and thanked God! They thanked God that the old man's prayer had at last been answered, and that the curtain had been drawn on a life which in reality terminated ten years before, when old age became more than ripe. But Landor's walk into the dark valley was slow and majestic. Death fought long and desperately ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... was making up (he was accustomed to making-up in another sense, as his wig and whiskers could testify) to charming young lady. Such was the scene. He asked her to accept him. Her reply was to show him the heading of this advertisement in the Times:—"YOUTH WANTED." Tableau! Exit Beau. Curtain. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... when the sun in bed Curtain'd with cloudy red Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, The flocking shadows pale Troop to the infernal jail, Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave; And the yellow-skirted fays Fly after the ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... When the curtain rises, HECTOR ALLEN, a youngish man of forty, with an attractive intellectual face, is seen standing by the dining-table in the inner room, draining his liqueur-glass, with WALTER COZENS to the right of him, lighting a cigarette. WALTER is a few years younger ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro
... view, enclose a figure, the same in shape but of greater dimensions. There is a historical event foretold, the fall of Jerusalem. It is close up to the eyes of the disciples, and is comparatively small. Carry out the lines that touch its corners and define its shape, and upon the far distant curtain of the dim future there is thrown a like figure immensely larger, the coming of Jesus Christ to judge the world. All these little premonitions and foretastes and anticipatory specimens point onwards to the assured termination ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the style with which the Catholic sovereigns opened another year's campaign of this eventful war. It was like commencing another act of a stately and heroic drama, where the curtain rises to the inspiring sound of martial melody and the whole stage glitters with the array of warriors and the pomp of arms. The ancient city of Cordova was the place appointed by the sovereigns for the assemblage of the troops; and early in the spring of 1486 the fair ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... Sarah's girls at a play like Sudermann's "John the Baptist," as the curtain rises and falls upon the great scenes I sit and think of him and what it would have meant to him if in all those poverty-stricken years of his ministry he could have had such a vision of his dear Bible people at home in Judaea. It's foolish, of course, but I still long to do something for him, ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... the two seats are converted into a bed, with the second bed pulled down from the roof, on which mattresses, blankets, and sheets are all arranged with a projecting board at the head and foot, and a curtain in front, so that one is quite private, and we slept like tops. We had also a dining-car on, where every luxury of the season, to strawberries and cream, were served by the blackest of niggers in the whitest of garments, for the sum of a dollar ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... freezing-point. But the dog knew; all its ancestry knew, and it had inherited the knowledge. And it knew that it was not good to walk abroad in such fearful cold. It was the time to lie snug in a hole in the snow and wait for a curtain of cloud to be drawn across the face of outer space whence this cold came. On the other hand, there was keen intimacy between the dog and the man. The one was the toil-slave of the other, and the only caresses ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... beautiful of the church's treasures which, strange to say, is a piece of modern sculpture given by the present "Monseigneur of Avignon." It is small, and badly placed on a marble altar of discordant toning, with a draped curtain of red gilt-fringed velvet for its background. Yet in spite of these inartistic surroundings it has lost none of its tender charm. Seated, with a scroll on her knees, the aged mother is earnestly teaching the young Virgin who stands close ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... the public wants. If it is not true, so much the worse for truth. If it falsifies the story, well, a lying story with a "punch" is better than a true one that lacks a fire-spitting climax. The audience which judge a play by the effect of its "curtain," will not complain of a trifling illogicality in narrative, or a little juggling with what might happen if the story were life. Of what the editor wants I find a typical example in a recent number of a popular magazine. The story is well written; it is interesting ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating "'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door, —Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;— ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... all the din the bell that precedes the rise of the curtain became audible. "They've rung; they've rung!" The rumor reached the boulevard, and thereupon followed a stampede, everyone wanting to pass in, while the servants of the theater increased their forces. Mignon, with an anxious ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... The bedroom curtain was flung aside, and Jessie, arrayed carefully in her best shirtwaist and skirt, suddenly appeared in the doorway. Her eyes were glowing with excitement and fear. But her rich coloring was alight with warmth, and the man stared in admiration. ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... door now. It was late afternoon. The house was very still, with the stillness of a dwelling that has long been uninhabited. The two stood there a moment, peering into the darkened rooms. Then Hosea Brewster strode forward, jerked up this curtain, that curtain with a sharp snap, flap! He stamped his feet to rid them of slush. He took off his hat and threw it high in the air and opened his arms wide and emitted a whoop of sheer ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... decided to put the box in a safer place. Going to the window, and drawing aside the curtain, he opened it. Listening intently for a moment, and hearing nothing, he returned to the table, lighted a small dark lantern, extinguished the candle, and taking up the box after closing and locking it, he left the room, and walked softly through the ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... impossible. Although the weather was warm the window was tightly shut and a thick curtain ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... stooped and peered into the dark shadow between the dashboard and the back curtain. All she could make out at first were a pair of thin ankles and "Congress" shoes in agitated motion. These bobbed up and down behind the overturned seat ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Peak, soaring to an almost immediate summit twenty thousand feet above the sea; on the left, in the distance, was just visible the receding snow dome of the South Peak, with its two horns some five hundred feet higher. The mists were passing from the distant summits, curtain after curtain of gauze draping their heads for ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... the devil—anything that would make you lift the curtain a little. For instance, what do you think of this society ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn |
