"Mantelpiece" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... charge to any who may desire it. It has been very neatly executed on a letter sheet, by a very deserving printer, who attends upon my ministry, and is a creditable specimen of the typographic art. I have one hung over my mantelpiece in a neat frame, where it makes a beautiful and appropriate ornament, and balances the profile of Mrs. W., cut with her toes by the young lady ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... old one, scarred, chipped, and dinted. It stood on the mantelpiece among the pipe-stems which Imam Din, ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... other his eyes wandered to a picture that rested on a mantelpiece in the room. He took it down, looking furtively over his shoulder as he did so, and taking it close under the lamp that was on the table sat and gazed steadfastly ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... agitated by an ever-increasing impatience. At every instant she looked at the clock on the mantelpiece of her room; an Empire clock of gilded bronze, representing Love leaning against a ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... light, coming out pinkly and vividly—the brocaded walls pliant to touch with every so often a gilt-framed engraving; a gilt table with an onyx top cheerfully cluttered with the sauciest short-story magazines of the month; a white mantelpiece with an artificial hearth and a pink-and-gilt chaise-longue piled high with small, lacy pillows, and a very green magazine open and face downward ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... Count was smiling oddly at something he espied upon the mantelpiece, and stepping ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... upon three o'clock a.m., my uncle forgetting all about bed in his anxiety to hear full particulars of my doings since I had last parted from him. At length, however, he glanced at the clock upon the mantelpiece, and at ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... the pride of Jack and his mother. It had a bright rag carpet, a table with a marble top, six chairs, and a stool called an ottoman. On the wall between the windows hung a framed picture of Jack's dear father, who was in heaven, and over the mantelpiece there was a framed bouquet of flowers, embroidered by Jack's mother on white satin, when she had been ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... we must not forget to say, had entered with hearty abandon into the spirit of the day. She had dressed the tall china vases on the mantelpiece, and, departing from the usual rule of an equal mixture of roses and asparagus bushes, had constructed two quaint and graceful bouquets where garden flowers were mingled with drooping grasses and trailing wild vines, forming a graceful combination which ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... was standing in a charming little boudoir which too often figured in my daydreams. My own photograph was upon the mantelpiece, and in Isobel's dark eyes when she greeted me there was a light which I lacked the courage to try to understand. I had not at that time learned what I learned later, and have already indicated, that my own foolish silence had wounded Isobel as deeply as her subsequent engagement ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... them. It's his treasure case that's so altered. The snuff-box is gone, and the cigarette case and the piece of Bow china, and instead there's a rat-tail spoon which he used to have on his dinner-table, and made a great fuss with, and a bit of Worcester china that used to stand on the mantelpiece, and a different cigarette case, and a bead-bag. I don't know where that same from, but if he inherited it, he didn't inherit much that time, I priced it at five shillings. But there's no settle in the treasure-case or out of it, ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... furnished. I looked into the bookcases: the shelves were filled with works on War, from Csar's Commentaries down to Louis Napoleon on Rifled Cannon. In one corner stood a suit of armor; in another a stand of firearms; between them a star of bayonets. On the mantelpiece I perceived a model of a small field-piece in brass and oak, and, what interested me more, a cigarbox. I raised the lid; the box was half full of highly creditable-looking cigars. My soul expanded with the thought of a probable offer of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... but sombre moors climbing and stretching away. I have heard the winds moaning and wuthering night and morning, among the gravestones, and around the angles of the house; and crossing the threshold, I know by instinct that this mirror will stand over the mantelpiece in the bare room to the left. I know also to whom those four suppressed voices will belong that greet me while yet my hand is on the latch. Four children are within—three girls and a boy—and they are disputing over a box of wooden soldiers. The eldest girl, a plain ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... with the man's clear, deliberate handwriting lay thickly on the desk. A table in the centre of the room was strewn with volumes, some of a secret character, opened for reference. On the tops of two bookcases and on the mantelpiece were prints representing scenes from the oldest known art of the East. These and other prints hanging about the walls, however remote from each other in the times and places where they had been gathered, brought together in this room of a quiet Kentucky ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... heavy carpet covering the stone floor of what twenty years before had been the kitchen of the farmhouse was a survival from a south-country home, which had sheltered their lives for eight happy years. Over the mantelpiece hung the portrait of the girls' father, a long serious face, not unlike Wordsworth's face in outline, and bearing a strong resemblance to Catherine; a line of silhouettes adorned the mantelpiece; on the walls were prints of Winchester and Worcester Cathedrals, photographs of Greece, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... wrote to Owen explaining the whole matter. It was too late in the evening for the postman's visit, and she placed the letter on the mantelpiece to send it the ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... forbade all mention of him. Then they ceased altogether, and after a year or two of unbroken silence Mrs. Kingdom asserted herself, and a photograph in her possession, the only one extant, exposing the missing Jack in petticoats and sash, suddenly appeared on the drawing-room mantelpiece. ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... always be sent to Garden Green. There came a time when he broke in upon the last five pound note of his savings. He realized the position without any actual misgivings. He denied himself regretfully a tiny mezzotint of the Raphael "Madonna," which he coveted for his mantelpiece. He also denied himself dinner for several evenings. When fortune knocked at his door he was, in fact, extraordinarily hungry. He still had faith, notwithstanding his difficulties, and no symptoms of dejection. He was perfectly well aware that this need for food was, after all, one of the most ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... turned too high, hissed up into a long tongue of flame. The fire smoked feebly under a newly administered shovelful of 'slack', and a heap of ashes and cinders littered the grate. A pair of walking boots, caked in dry mud, lay on the hearth-rug just where they had been thrown off. On the mantelpiece, amidst a dozen other articles which had no business there, was a bedroom-candlestick; and every single article of furniture stood crookedly ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... of banks, I'm bound to say That a bank of tin is far the best, And I know of one that has stood for years In a pleasant home away out west. It has stood for years on the mantelpiece Between the clock and the Wedgwood plate— A wonderful bank, as you'll concede When you've heard the things ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... corner my little sister was patiently beating a doll. There was a fire in the grate, but it was one of those sombre, smoky fires in which it is impossible to take any interest. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked very slowly, and I realised that an eternity of these long seconds separated me from dinner-time. I thought I would like to ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... up the room. He looked thoroughly ill-at-ease. Coming back, he halted by the mantelpiece and began to drum a difficult tattoo ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... them coming,' she said, 'till they are up the hill and close to us. But I do wonder why they are so late—half an hour late,' and she glanced at the little clock on the mantelpiece. 'I hope there is ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... memory of the grandmother who wore the black net cap trimmed with purple ribbons. Apparently she had remained to the last almost contumaciously British. She had kept photographs of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort on her bedroom mantelpiece, and had made caustic, international comparisons. But she had seen places like this, and her stories became realities to him now. But she had never thought of the possibility of any chance of his being ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... full of a choking vapour, moving in slow clouds, that at first I could distinguish nothing at all but a set of what seemed to be huge shadows passing in and out of the mist. Then, gradually, I perceived that a red lamp on the mantelpiece gave all the light there was, and that the room which I now entered for the first time was ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... characteristics, the German tendency to make love by crying (so he put it) as contrasted with the laughing philosophy of his own country. At the end he apologized for talking so much, and pointed out to me a photograph of Coralie that stood on the mantelpiece more than half-hidden by letters and papers, saying, "I suppose she set me off; somehow she seems to me a sort of embodiment of ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... nothing new in them, I think," said Camors, rising. He took up a newspaper himself, and placing his back against the mantelpiece, warmed his feet, one after the other. The General threw himself on the divan, ran his eye over the 'Moniteur de l'Armee', approving of some military promotions, and criticising others; and, little by little, he fell into a doze, his head resting ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... oak gate-table, one tapestried easy chair, several rush-bottomed chairs, a very small brass fender, a self-coloured wall-paper of warm green, two or three old engravings in maple-wood or tarnished gilt frames, several small portraits in maple-wood frames, brass candlesticks on the mantelpiece and no clock, self-coloured brown curtains across the windows (two windows opposite each other at either end of the long room), sundry rugs on the dark-stained floor, and so on! Not too much furniture, and not too much symmetry either. An agreeable and original ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... public room. 'It would be quieter and more comfortable,' said either the mother or the daughter who manage the concern. I thanked them, and settled myself in an arm-chair with my book, when, looking up—there on the mantelpiece stood the fellow cup—the identical shape, pattern, and colour! It all flashed into my mind then. I had made this journey just before going into your neighbourhood last year, and had waited in this little parlour ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... in good taste and thoroughly well chosen. The dark oak bureau and writing-table, the book-shelves filled with well-bound volumes, the proof engravings on the walls, and a handsome bronze group on the mantelpiece; while the deep easy-chairs and couch gave it ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... and well-massed lights and shadows, charmed the view. The subjects were all pastoral, the scenes were all sunny. There was a guitar and some music on a sofa; there were cameos, beautiful miniatures; a set of Grecian-looking vases on the mantelpiece; there were books well ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... left the rooms one member or other was staring at his neck. Andrew looked anxiously in the glass over the mantelpiece but could ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... class, and one or two others who had either arrived late, or taken advantage of the little additional license given the first few days to stay beyond their usual bedtime. It was too dark to distinguish faces, but the figure of Frank Digby, who had managed with great pains to climb the mantelpiece, and was delivering an oration, would have been unmistakable if even he had been silent;—who but Frank Digby could have had spirit to do it the third night after the opening ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... too, and, trying to throw infinite politeness into our attitudes, we faced each other mutely, like two china dogs on a mantelpiece. Hang the fellow! he had pricked the bubble. The blight of futility that lies in wait for men's speeches had fallen upon our conversation, and made it a thing of empty sounds. "Very well," I said, with a disconcerted smile; "but couldn't it reduce itself to not being found out?" ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... On the mantelpiece of the little lodging-house drawing-room in Half Moon Street, supported against the gilt group that decorated the timepiece, was a note containing an invitation. "Why, here is the whirl beginning already," Mrs. Warrender said. "Don't you feel that you are in ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... into that funny little door?" Laurie exclaimed, as he caught sight of a tiny closet over the mantelpiece. "Where does it go to, does it go into the chimney?" Aunt Laura laughed, "No, it does not go into the chimney, though everybody who sees it thinks so at first." And indeed that seemed the only place that it could open into, for it was exactly ...
— The Pigeon Tale • Virginia Bennett
... between the polished sheets of Flemish tiles on either side of the hearth. A great globe stood in the corner furthest from the door, with a map of England hanging above it. A piece of tapestry hung over the mantelpiece, representing Diana bending over Endymion, and two tall candles in brass stands burned beneath. The floor was covered ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... Major Graf von Farlsberg, was finishing the reading of his mail, comfortably seated in a large tapestry armchair, with his booted feet resting on the elegant marble of the mantelpiece on which, for the last three months that he had been occupying the Chateau d'Uville, his spurs had traced two deep grooves, growing ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... read it, half past ten struck on the little clock on his mantelpiece. It was probably this fact that decided Ashe. If he had been compelled to postpone his visit to the offices of Messrs. Mainprice, Mainprice & Boole until the afternoon, it is possible that barriers of laziness might have reared themselves in the path of adventure; for Ashe, ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... and with unlooked-for sympathy,' returned the young man. 'I know not how to tell the change that has befallen me. You have, I must suppose, a charm, to which even your enemies are subject.' He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and visibly blanched. 'So late!' he cried. 'Your highness—God knows I am now speaking from the heart—before it be too late, ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... saw you. He was nearly mad, though, when he went. The night mother gave them their last party, when you wore your black lace dress, and had pink roses in your hair, somehow I hardly knew you that night. I was in the little parlor, looking at the flowers on the mantelpiece, when Redmond came into the room, and, rushing up to me, bent down and whispered, 'Did you see her go? I shall see her no more; she is walking on the beach with Maurice.' He sighed so loud that I felt embarrassed; for I was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... replied the specter. "I am the ghost of that fair maiden whose picture hangs over the mantelpiece in the drawing-room. I should have been your great-great-great-great-great-aunt if I had lived, Henry Hartwick Oglethorpe, for I was the own sister of ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... said, "take away those knick-knacks on the mantelpiece; leave only the clock and the two Dresden vases. I'll fill those vases myself with the flowers Corentin brought me. Take out the chairs, I want only this sofa and a fauteuil. Then sweep the carpet, so as to bring ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... waiting to receive me. We found him in his library—which, by the way, is simply the most delightful apartment that I ever smoked a cigar in—a room arranged for a lifetime. At one end stands a great fireplace, with a florid, fantastic mantelpiece in carved white marble—an importation, of course, and, as one may say, an interpolation; the groundwork of the house, the "fixtures," being throughout plain, solid and domestic. Over the mantel-shelf is a large landscape, a fine Gainsborough, full of the complicated harmonies of an English ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... the servant with grave ceremony whether Mr. Herbert Fitzgerald were at home. He would not go in, he said, but if Mr. Herbert were there he would wait for him at the porch. Herbert at the time was standing in the dining-room, all alone, gloomily leaning against the mantelpiece. There was nothing for him to do during the whole of that day but wait for the evening, when the promised revelation would be made to him. He knew that Mollett and Mrs. Jones were with Mr. Prendergast in the ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... you know, my dear,' he announced to his wife, as he kissed her and arranged his tie in the gilt mirror over the plush mantelpiece in the 'parlour'; 'he's got the divine thing in him right enough; got it, too, as strong as hunger or any other natural instinct. It's almost functional with him, if I may say so'—which meant 'if you can understand me'—'only, he's deliberately smothered it all these years. ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... there," B. Gurin said, making a sweeping gesture in the general direction of the mantelpiece, and as he did so a bass ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... echo! Flick! Now then! Now then! How it gleams! He's stopped! He's looking at his letters! He's coming in! He is—ah, he's passed; he's gone; it's over; nothing... nothing for here.... Rat-tat! That's next door. The party wall shakes. The lustres on the mantelpiece shake. Mr. Simcox's hands shake. He sits down, pushes ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... believe me, what's the good of my saying anything?" she retorted. "Oh, how horrid you are to-day, Mark. I don't believe you love me a bit, any more." And leaning her head against the mantelpiece, ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... extinct, they have left their mark behind them still surviving in the town. Near the junction of East Street with South Street there still exists at the back of the second shop, in the former street (a repository for fancy needlework), a room lined with good oak wainscoting, with finely carved mantelpiece, over which is an inscription, richly carved in relief, with the letters "Ao Di" to the left, and to the right the date "1573;" while above, in the centre, are the initials "J H" and "M H;" separated by a floriated cross and encircled ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... to the mantelpiece, he took down the two candlesticks and brought them to Jean Valjean. The two women watched, speechless, but made no sign of dissent. Jean Valjean was trembling; he took the candlesticks mechanically, as if in ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... tables, some stools, a counter decorated with rows of bottles of syrup and alcohol. Three windows looked out on to the road. A coloured advertisement lauded the many merits of a new vermouth. On the mantelpiece was arrayed the innkeeper's collection of figured earthenware pots and ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... and lighting another cigarette he lounged over to the fireplace, and leaned against the mantelpiece with his hands in ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... o'clock in the morning of the 23rd October, Dr. Bentley, the librarian, and his family, who lived at Ashburnham House, were roused from sleep by a suffocating smoke which soon afterwards burst into flames. The outbreak was caused by a wooden mantelpiece taking fire, in the room immediately under the two libraries. It was at first hoped that the flames might be extinguished by throwing water upon the woodwork of the room actually on fire, so that they did not begin to remove the books as soon as they should have done. But ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... parlor, there she stood, her elbow on the mantelpiece, her eyes hidden by her hand. Thus she remained for some minutes, and Lucy thought how sad ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Johnson paced up and down the confines of his suite at the International Hotel. In a chair sprawled Mayor Van Ness, his fingers opening and shutting spasmodically upon the leather upholstery. Volney Howard leaned in a swaggering posture against the mantelpiece, smoking a big cigar and turning at intervals to expectorate out of one corner ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... of it!" he added, his face brightening. "There's a shell in Mr. Scraper's parlour, on the mantelpiece, and sometimes when he goes to sleep I can get it for a minute, and hold it to my ear, and then I hear the sound, the sound ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... of the powerlessness of wealth to give me one crumb of comfort, and remembered Winnie's sermon about wealth, I would look at myself in the mirror above my mantelpiece and smile bitterly at the sight of the hollow cheeks, furrowed brow, and melancholy eyes, and recall her words about her hovering near me after she ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... real, not part of a dream. It was at her door, and jumping out of bed she could hardly believe a clock on the mantelpiece which said ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... and contained the usual allowance of red figured velvet-cushioned chairs, with brass nails; the window curtains were red-and-white on rings and gilded rods; a secretaire stood against one of the walls, and there was a large mirror above the marble mantelpiece, which supported a clock surmounted by a flying Cupid, and two vases of artificial flowers covered with glass, on one of which was placed an elegant bonnet of the newest and most approved fashion. The floor, of highly polished oak, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... brute!" he said, stopping beneath an unusually large skull of a lion, which was fixed just over the mantelpiece, beneath a long row of guns, its jaws distended to their utmost width. "Ah, you brute! you have given me a lot of trouble for the last dozen years, and will, I suppose, to my ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard
... where she stood by the corner of the mantelpiece. "What the devil did you send me on that fool's errand to Francis ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... dreams." He stood up suddenly and leaned against the mantelpiece. The atmosphere had become electric. "A good thing, too, as far as some of us are concerned. The last thing for a columnist to indulge in is dreams. Fine hash he'd have for his readers ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... physically as well as morally. She turned from the shadowy abyss of the dark water as if the mystery and the gloom of it had been answerable for the emotions which had taken her by surprise. Abruptly closing the window, she threw aside her shawl, and lit the candles on the mantelpiece, impelled by a sudden craving for light in the solitude of ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... tone a clock upon the mantelpiece chimed the half-hour, and the laugh snapped off short. The next moment the man had Lyveden's arm in a grip ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... on the first floor, was one of those apartments with very tall mantelpieces and enormous windows, which seem to have been designed for a race of giants. Certainly Sir Joseph himself, unless he had climbed on a chair, could never have rested his elbow against the mantelpiece, nor could he have deposited his cigar thereon without an unusually strenuous effort. The remaining appointments of the room, except for two or three exquisite Stuart cabinets and some priceless old masters on the walls, were designed on the same ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... served as a parlour, and where some embroidered bands were spread out for show before the great square window. Then she went into the kitchen, the old servants' hall, preserved almost intact, with its heavy beams, its flagstone floor mended in a dozen places, and its great fireplace with its stone mantelpiece. On shelves were the utensils, the pots, kettles, and saucepans, that dated back one or two centuries; and the dishes were of old stone, or earthenware, and of pewter. But on the middle of the hearth was a modern cooking-stove, a large cast-iron one, whose copper trimmings were wondrously ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... added the figure with a sound that was like the falling of an executioner's axe. And, as if to emphasise the arrival of the remorseless moment, the clock just then struck loudly on the mantelpiece—seven times. ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... it on the mantelpiece, while Mr Deering moved a book or two and the cloth from the round low table, and then opening a padlock at the end of the long round tin case, he drew out a great roll of plans and spread them on the table, placing books at each corner, to keep ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... the bag, locked it, and set it aside on the mantelpiece. Then he went over to the suit-case lying on the bench at the foot of the bed, closed and locked it, and dropped the bunch of keys in his pocket. And just then Dr. Lydenberg came back, dressed, and on his heels came the manager of the hotel, startled ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... and beard he wore, and went up the stairs two at a time. "My dear Cleek, what an abnormal animal you are! Had you"—entering the room where his now famous ally (divested of the disguise which served for the role of "Captain Burbage") stood leaning against the mantelpiece and calmly smoking a cigarette—"had you by any chance a fox ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Mrs. Graham gravely, "be silent!" There was a moment of absolute stillness, broken only by the ticking of the little crystal clock on the mantelpiece, and then Mrs. Graham continued: "I must ask you not to speak again, my daughter, until I have finished what I have to say; and even then, I trust you will keep silence until you are able to command yourself. You are to stay with ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... life of the horse throbbing underneath her passioned and fevered her flesh until her mental exaltation reached the rushing of delirium. Then his evening manners fascinated her, and, as he leaned back smoking in the dining-room arm-chair, his patent-leather shoes propped up against the mantelpiece, he showed her glimpses of a wider world than she knew of—and the girl's eyes softened as she listened to his accounts of the great life he had led, the county-houses he had visited, and the legendary runs he had held his own in. She sympathized ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... lack of order that I must surely find in the house and conducted me to the sitting-room, a large apartment, with a home-woven carpet on the floor. A turkey wing, used for a fan, hung beside the enormous fire-place, and on the broad mantelpiece, trimmed with paper cut in scollops, an old Yankee clock was ticking. The woman shook a cat out of a hickory rocking chair and urged me to sit down. She knew that I must be tired after my long ride, ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... further end of the delightful, gladsome-looking room. It was hung with a delicate, faded Chinese paper; and against the walls stood a few pieces of fine white lacquer furniture. The chairs were painted—some French, some Heppelwhite. Over the low mantelpiece was framed a long, narrow piece of ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... This is to tell you that the medallion has been at last triumphantly transported up the hill and placed over my smoking-room mantelpiece. It is considered by everybody a first-rate but flattering portrait. We have it in a very good light, which brings out the artistic merits of the god-like sculptor to great advantage. As for my own opinion, I believe it to be a speaking likeness, ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... large safe, leant his shoulder against the iron mantelpiece and looked down at those seated at the table—especially at Mr. Wade. His hands were in his pockets; his face wore a careless smile. He had not resumed his coat, and the cleanliness of the books testified to the fact that he always worked in shirt-sleeves. It was a trick ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... common and vulgar description, save in the one chamber at the window of which I had seen the strange face. That was comfortable and elegant, and all my suspicions rose into a fierce bitter flame when I saw that on the mantelpiece stood a copy of a full-length photograph of my wife, which had been taken at my request only ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... be here," said Tussie, going over to the mantelpiece and throwing a look of eager ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... was in one thing only—books. They indeed furnished the room, clothing the walls and covering the table; but ornaments there were none, not even sacred or symbolical, save, indeed, one large and beautifully-carved crucifix over a mantelpiece covered with letters and manuscripts. I have thought of this early home of Austyn's many a time as dignities have been literally thrust upon him by a world which since then has discovered his intellectual ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... about in the corners I saw fragments of vases that had been priceless. Even the remnants were valuable. In the ruined music room I found a piece of fresh, clean music, (an Alsatian waltz,) lying on the mantelpiece. I went out to the front of the building, where the great park sweeps down to the edge of the river. An old gardener in one of the side paths saw me. We immediately established cordial relations ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... buzzing about, there was a step on the stairs and up came the doctor. He was an old friend, very good-natured, and he made fun with Lucy about having turned into a spotted leopard, just like the cowry shell on Mrs. Bunker's mantelpiece. Indeed, he said he thought she was such a curiosity that Mrs. Bunker would come for her and set her up in the museum, and then he went away. Suppose, oh, ...
— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of London days and nights, When every night we dreamed Of Love and Art and Happiness, And every day it seemed Ah! little room, you held my life, In you I found my all; A white hand on the mantelpiece, A ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... was made. A marble tablet had been placed on the house at the suggestion of the late Mr. George Dawson, marking the spot where 'Edmund Hector was the host, Samuel Johnson the guest.' This tablet, together with the wainscoting, the door, and the mantelpiece of one of the rooms, was set up in Aston Hall, at the Johnson Centenary, in a room that is to be known ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... letter to its envelope and resealed it, now set it against the diving-girl on the mantelpiece. "What you doin'?" she inquired; "blowin' ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... there, leaned forward and looked into the glass. Her face became stern with intentness when she did that. She put up a hand to her hair, turned her head a little to one side, smiled faintly, then a little more, and looked grave, then earnest. Finally she put both her hands on the mantelpiece, grasped it and stared into ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... from his chair, and, after walking across the floor once or twice, stood leaning his arm on the mantelpiece. He cleared his ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... detestation of the surroundings under which he had grown to manhood favoured the uncovered, the naked wood or stone or slate, the bare floor, the wooden settee or cane-bottomed chair, the massive side-board, the bare mantelpiece and distempered wall. On the whole, their house in Portland Place satisfied tolerably well the advanced taste in domestic scenery of 1901. But your eye was caught at once by the additions made by Mrs. Rossiter. Linda conceived ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... distinguished artist too, highly distinguished by his ill-success—which had never been made the subject of an article in the illustrated magazines. No wood-engraver had ever reproduced "a corner in the back drawing-room" or "the studio mantelpiece" of No. 7; no young lady author had ever commented on "the unaffected simplicity" with which Mr. Pitman received her in the midst of his "treasures." It is an omission I would gladly supply, but our business ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... went across to the mantelpiece, and lighted all the wax candles that were on it. After that, I cast another glance around me without discovering anything. I advanced with short steps, carefully examining the apartment. Nothing. I inspected every article one after the other. Still nothing. I ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... them sooner or later to me. The next time that I spent the evening with her after this conversation, as I stood by the chimney talking to her, I suddenly perceived a most detestable-looking black creature on the mantelpiece. I started back in horror to my hostess's great delight, as she had been at the pains of cutting out in black paper an imitation scorpion, for my edification, and was highly satisfied with the impression it produced ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... rooms. We passed through a pine door, and there was the general's room—a bare and shabby room, with a large desk in front of the two windows that overlooked the street, a shaded lamp, more papers and a telephone. The room had a fireplace, and in front of it was a fine old chair. And on the mantelpiece, as out of place as the chair, was a marvellous Louis-Quinze clock, under glass. There were great maps on the walls, with the opposing battle lines shown to the smallest detail. General Foch drew my attention ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... front of the fire in a high-backed chair. She never cared to loll, and the shaded light from the electric sconces upon the mantelpiece illumined her. ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... curtain, intended to keep out the tail end of whirlwinds and draughts in general. When we looked into this vestry, the idea flashed upon us that its occupant must be a specially studious and virtuous gentleman, for upon the mantelpiece there were 14 large Bibles, surmounted by three sacramental guides. But earth is very nigh to heaven, and when we saw a series of begging boxes flanking the books, and a looking-glass, which must at some time have ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... the mantelpiece," replied the man angrily; "I saw it when I came in. Go and feel for it—hunt about! Do not keep me lying here in the dark—the least you can do is to make me as comfortable ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... the divan as she spoke and went to the mirror over the mantelpiece. There was something in the action that suddenly recalled Rosina to her senses, and she sprang to her feet and disappeared into the sleeping-room beyond, returning in two or three minutes bearing evidence of Ottillie's deft touch. She found Molly ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... candle in one hand and a birch in the other, appeared at the entrance, followed by good kind Mrs Jones, the housekeeper. Every one scuttled away to their beds as fast as they could go, except Alick Murray and Terence. Murray was the first Rowley laid hands on, and, putting down his candle on the mantelpiece, he was about to make use of his birch. Murray disdained to utter a word which might inculpate others, and I knew he would have received a flogging without complaint, but Terence cried out, "No, no, it wasn't him—I was one of ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... old Marquis de la Tour-Samuel, eighty-two years of age, rose and came forward to lean on the mantelpiece. He told the following story ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... to be a hundred he could never forget that first impression. The room was but partly furnished, yet it gave at once the idea that it was inhabited; it was even, in some strange way, rich and splendid. Candles on the mantelpiece and a silver travelling-lamp on the dressing-table threw a soft light on little articles of luxury, and photographs in jewelled frames, and a couple of well-bound books, and a gilt clock marking the half-hour after midnight. A wood fire burned in the wide chimney-place, and ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... in an English grate; Razumov had never before seen such a fire; and the silence of the room was like the silence of the grave; perfect, measureless, for even the clock on the mantelpiece made no sound. Filling a corner, on a black pedestal, stood a quarter-life-size smooth-limbed bronze of an adolescent figure, running. The Prince observed in ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... fades has been the dream of poets from Milton's day; but seeing one, who loves it? Our amaranth has the aspect of an artificial flower—stiff, dry, soulless, quite in keeping with the decorations on the average farmhouse mantelpiece. Here it forms the most uncheering of winter bouquets, or a wreath about flowers made from the lifeless hair of ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... o'clock. The noisy little clock on the mantelpiece announced the fact, and, by its frantic ticking, seemed as anxious as I to get the consultation hours over. I glanced wistfully at my mud-splashed boots and wondered if I might yet venture to assume the slippers that peeped coyly from ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... he followed her into a large book-lined study—masculine in its sober colouring and simple furnishings. Above the mantelpiece was arranged a trophy of swords and fencing-sticks; opposite hung a superb painting by Henner. Vanderlyn remembered having seen this picture exhibited in the Salon some five years before. It had been shown under the title "The Crystal-Gazer," and it ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... around the room revealed a door partly hidden by a curtain next the mantelpiece. Where it led to I did not know, but concluding that any place would be better than to remain in the library, I tried the door, found it open, and ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... feet from the floor and about seven feet high. It was a theory of Howard's that you ought to be able to see all your books without either stooping or climbing. There was a big knee-hole table and half a dozen chairs. There was an old portrait in oils over the mantelpiece, several arm-chairs, one with a book-rest. Half a dozen photographs stood on the mantelpiece, and there was practically nothing else in the room but carpets and curtains. Jack lit a cigarette, sank into a chair, and presently said, ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... delinquent ultimately 'treed' his prey in one of the waiting- rooms, where poor pussy sought refuge on the mantelpiece, knocking down a glass water-bottle and tumbler in jumping thither out of the reach of the frantic Rover, who scared half to death the occupants of the room as he dashed in, all in ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... while after. The room is empty when the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces about, but stops short when he catches sight of a pot dog on the mantelpiece.] ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... money he would cut a deep notch with his knife in the oaken doorpost. Ten years went by, still more years, and still no notch was cut. Odd things happen in odd places. There is a story of an old mansion where a powerful modern stove was put in an ancient hearth under a mantelpiece supported by carved oak figures of knights. The unwonted heat roasted the toes of these martyrs till their feet fell off. Another story relates how in our grandfathers' days a great man invited his friends to dinner, promising them a new dish that had never before been set upon the table. The fillet ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... They were letters that made his heart tremble, as he gazed with admiring fondness on her performances. Before a sofa, covered with a chintz of a corresponding pattern with the paper of the walls, was placed a small French table, on which were writing materials; and his toilet-table and his mantelpiece were profusely ornamented with rare flowers; on all sides were symptoms of female taste ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... characteristics that go well with old family silver, precious china, and our simple habits. The provinces are provinces; they are only ridiculous when they mimic Paris. I prefer this old salon of my husband's forefathers, with its heavy curtains of green and white damask, the Louis XV. mantelpiece, the twisted pier-glasses, the old mirrors with their beaded mouldings, and the venerable card tables. Yes, I prefer my old Sevres vases in royal blue, mounted on copper, my clock with those impossible flowers, that rococco chandelier, ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... towards the couch, intending to sit down. As he turned, his gaze encountered an oil-painting hanging above the mantelpiece. ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... drawing-room, three transparencies, made in a rage for transparencies, for the three lower panes of one window, where Tintern Abbey held its station between a cave in Italy and a moonlight lake in Cumberland, a collection of family profiles, thought unworthy of being anywhere else, over the mantelpiece, and by their side, and pinned against the wall, a small sketch of a ship sent four years ago from the Mediterranean by William, with H.M.S. Antwerp at the bottom, in letters ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Gabriel, the lonely and reserved man returned to his house to breakfast—feeling twinges of shame and regret at having so far exposed his mood by those fevered questions to a stranger. He again placed the letter on the mantelpiece, and sat down to think of the circumstances attending it by the light of ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... Pa. Emmy sometimes felt that. She at times, when he had been provoking or obtuse, so shook with hysterical anger, born of the inevitable days in his society and in the kitchen, that she could have thrown at him the battered pot which she carried, or could have pushed him passionately against the mantelpiece in her fierce hatred of his helplessness and his occasional perverse stupidity. He was rarely stupid with Jenny, but giggled at ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... and embroidery," said Miss Emily, glancing, with a satisfied air, at a framed piece of her own work which hung over the mantelpiece, revealing the state of the fine arts in this country, as exhibited in the performances of well-instructed young ladies of that period. Miss Emily had performed it under the tuition of a celebrated teacher of female accomplishments. It represented a white marble obelisk, ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... looked out upon a wintry Boston street. It was a room rather empty and undecorated, but the idea of austerity was banished by a temperature so nearly tropical. There were rows of books on white shelves, a pale Donatello cast on the wall, and two fine bronze vases filled with roses on the mantelpiece. Over the roses hung a portrait in oils, very sleek and very accurate, of a commanding old gentleman in uniform, painted by a well-known German painter, and all about the room were photographs of young women, most of them young mothers, with smooth heads and earnest faces, holding ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... days a letter arrived with the Leeds post-mark. He trembled as he took it in his hand, and then as he read a flush mantled up his face, and he burst into a laugh as he saluted himself in the cheap mirror that adorned the mantelpiece— ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... and then locking the door behind her lighted a candle and commenced her search. On the fifth night she was rewarded by finding that the center of what looked like a solidly carved flower in the ornamentation of the mantelpiece gave way under the pressure of her finger, and at the same moment she heard a slight click. Beyond this nothing was apparent; and after trying everything within reach she came to the conclusion that it needed a second spring to be touched to ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... before him, and where he is expected to dine in the same old room, with the pictures of famous rams, that have fetched fabulous prices, framed against the walls, and ram's horns of exceptional size and peculiar curve fixed up above the mantelpiece. Men come in in groups of two or three, as dinner time approaches, and chat about sheep and wool, and wool and sheep; but no one finally settles himself at the table till the chairman arrives. He is a stout, substantial farmer, who has dined ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... black mantelpiece and stood on the threadbare rug, and urged me not to be misled by the stories of prejudiced and interested enemies of ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... children comfortable—such a creature as this? Involuntarily it occurred to Edward that, under such ministrations, sundry changes might come over the aspect of that prim apartment in which he had seen her first; the room with the bookcase and the red curtains, and the prints over the mantelpiece—a very tidy, comfortable room before any bewitching imp came to haunt it, and whisper suspicions of its imperfection—the doctor's own retirement, where he had chewed the cud of sweet and bitter fancies often enough, without much ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... himself. I will myself tell him that, if he lets himself be brought to justice, he has no mercy whatever to expect from me." He saw Biron at Fontainebleau, received him after dinner, spoke to him with his usual familiarity, and pointing to his own equestrian statue in marble which was on the mantelpiece, said, "What would the King cf Spain say if he saw me like that, eh?" "He would not be much afraid of you," answered Biron. Henry gave him a stern look. The marshal tried to take back his words: "I mean, sir, if he were to see you in that statue yonder, and not in your own person." The retreat ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... suppose, I'll have to take the punishment," she answered, as lightly as before; and then turning to the mantelpiece again, she raised her glance to the portrait. "I never liked it," she commented frankly, "he's got me in an unnatural position—I never stood like that in my life—and there's an open smirk about ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow |
