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Shelf   /ʃɛlf/   Listen
Shelf

noun
(pl. shelves)
1.
A support that consists of a horizontal surface for holding objects.
2.
A projecting ridge on a mountain or submerged under water.  Synonym: ledge.



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"Shelf" Quotes from Famous Books



... was next to him, then came the chief, and Harry sat in the stern. A paddle is a much easier implement to manage for a beginner than is an oar, and it was not long before they found that they could propel the boats at a fair rate. In a short time they had passed the end of the shelf at the mouth of the canon, and the cliffs on that side rose as abruptly as they did on the other. The river ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... winter, and the current in his veins More briskly moved by his severer toil; Yet he, too, finds his own distress in theirs. The taper soon extinguished, which I saw Dangled along at the cold finger's end Just when the day declined, and the brown loaf Lodged on the shelf, half-eaten, without sauce Of sav'ry cheese, or butter costlier still, Sleep seems their only refuge. For alas, Where penury is felt the thought is chained, And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few. With all this ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... and had a long passage to Ancona of twelve days. We landed on the 29th, and soon found ourselves occupying an empty room in the Lazaretto, without even the accommodation of a shelf or closet. The term of quarantine is fourteen days, but four days are remitted by the Pope. The heat is oppressive, and the mosquitoes annoy us much, but we are preserved in a tolerable degree of health; and in taking a review of our visit to Greece and the Ionian Islands, ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley

... dim for him to make out the objects hanging from the mantel above the fireplace. All he could see were four long black things, so Johnny Cricket climbed up the bricks at the side of the fireplace until he came to the mantel shelf, then he ran along the shelf and looked over. The black ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle

... This was his counter, and held a clumsy pair of scales. On the other side was a rude table containing boxes of cotton cloth, cambrics or checked goods, sewing cotton, buttons, thimbles, scissors, jack-knives, needles, and pins. On the mantel-shelf stood a pile of white, blue-edged plates, and mugs, and pitchers, from which projected sticks of red and white candy, like miniature barber's poles, and heaps of "gibraltars," hard and solid, sweet and brittle, and honest. Every child knew that they were a cent ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various

... those days would have been quite invaluable to me. It has pleased me to find that I have always followed your plan of making notes on separate pieces of paper; I keep several scores of large portfolios, arranged on very thin shelves about two inches apart, fastened to the walls of my study, and each shelf has its proper name or title; and I can thus put at once every memorandum into its proper place. Your book will, I am sure, be very useful to many young students, and I shall beg my son Francis (who ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... provocation of a green emigrant sprawling into one, and trying to lay himself out there, when the cradling would be such as almost to toss him back whence he came. In consequence, one less inexperienced, essaying repose on the uppermost shelf, was liable to serious disturbance, should a raw beginner select a shelf beneath. Sometimes a throng of poor emigrants, coming at night in a sudden rain to occupy these oriole nests, would—through ignorance of their peculiarity—bring about ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... seldom they wrote him, "having the honour to state," It would be better for all men if he were laid on the shelf. Much would accrue to his bank-book, an he consented to wait Until the Little Tin Gods built him a berth ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling

... saw her put the check in an unused pitcher in the closet on the top shelf. It seemed as though some one was beside me all the time telling me to take it and have a good time. It belonged to me and no one else had a right to it, Satan seemed to say. And what a good time I could have with ...
— Dave Ranney • Dave Ranney

... bottom shelf facing you, like a great eye-tooth knocked out—(you are now with me in my little back study in Bloomsbury, reader!)—with the huge Switzer-like tomes on each side (like the Guildhall giants, in their reformed posture, guardant of nothing) once held the tallest of my folios, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... her, on an upper shelf. Did Miss Carmina's nurse take snuff? She examined the canister: there was a white powder inside. The mutilated label spoke in an unknown tongue. She wetted her finger and tasted the powder. The result was so disagreeable that she was obliged to use her ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... have any interest in outside pictures. This path was narrow. Here, at least, she must pause; and she must listen. Every turn which showed another empty stretch ahead sent his spirits soaring. Then he saw a pony with an empty side-saddle on the shelf. A few steps more ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... twisted crease in the land's level face. It was a little dell in which the beauty they were leaving had taken a last stand, decked the ground with a pied growth of flowers, spread a checkered roof of boughs against the sun. From a shelf on one side the spring bubbled, clear as glass, its waters caught and held quivering in ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... Knowledge is indeed within them, but it has ripened into wisdom; culture has matured into wine with the summer in its glow—yet, notwithstanding its many excellences, the book is so quiet, true, and natural, we know not what favor it may find among us. We were pleased to see that in 'A Shelf in My Book-case' our own Hawthorne had a conspicuous place. 'Twice-Told Tales' is an especial favorite with Mr. Smith, as it indeed is with most imaginative people. His analysis of Hawthorne is very fine, and it is like meeting with an old friend in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... building bunks, I went off to sawmill with the oxen for boards and shingles. Then, shortly, we had a roof over us, and floors to walk on, and that luxury D'ri called a "pyaz," although it was not more than a mere shelf with a roof over it. We chinked the logs with moss and clay at first, putting up greased paper in the window spaces. For months we knew not the luxury ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller

... was there, kneeling in a corner, a candle burning dimly on a stone shelf above her head. She was in the attitude of prayer, her head bent, her face hidden, when the door opened, and she looked up and saw her ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... and inclination directed him through them. He used to mention one curious instance of his casual reading, when but a boy. Having imagined that his brother had hid some apples behind a large folio upon an upper shelf in his father's shop, he climbed up to search for them. There were no apples; but the large folio proved to be Petrarch, whom he had seen mentioned in some preface, as one of the restorers of learning. His curiosity ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... for a moment, surveying the topmost shelf, and was about to turn away disappointed, when his eye fell on the tattered psalm-book, lying unnoticed in a corner of ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt

... fixed between the iron railings in front of the hospital. "That is the cause of it all!" he exclaimed, "I must do something in time. A Russian bath would be a very good thing to begin with. I wish I were lying on one of the highest shelves." Sure enough, there he lay on an upper shelf of a vapor bath, still in his evening costume, with his boots and goloshes on, and the hot drops from the ceiling falling on his face. "Ho!" he cried, jumping down and rushing towards the plunging bath. The attendant ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... charwoman's black tray with the cabbage rose, the mug from Greenwich, the flesh-colored vase, the china cow, the toy trombone, and other souvenirs of her girlhood to which Rosamund "held." On the brass-railed shelf of the writing-table stood a fine photogravure of the Hermes of Olympia with little Dionysos on his arm. Very often, many times every day, Rosamund looked up at Hermes and the Child from account books, letters ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... room, fitted round with glass presses, furnished, among other things, with a cheval-glass and a business-table, and looking out upon the court by three dusty windows barred with iron. The fire burned in the grate; a lamp was set lighted on the chimney shelf, for even in the houses the fog began to lie thickly; and there, close up to the warmth, sat Dr. Jekyll, looking deadly sick; he did not rise to meet his visitor, but held out a cold hand and bade him welcome ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... which held my medicines from the shelf on which it was placed, Susan let it drop on the floor. The two full bottles still left were so completely shattered that not even a teaspoonful ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... the garden, then, and fetch A pumpkin, large and nice; Go to the pantry shelf, and from The mouse-traps get the mice; Rats you will find in the rat-trap; And, from the watering-pot, Or from under the big, flat garden stone, Six lizards must ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates

... before a little adobe fireplace. There were half a dozen camp chairs in the room, a couch in a corner, covered with a blue Indian rug, a homemade table in the middle, several pelts and shelves of books in the walls and more books and an alarm clock on the mantel shelf. It was a crude room, but one felt its harmony of tone and ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... absurd linen bag, which contains my valuables, I lift my head from the pillow gazing round for any glimpse of that much-desired brother. Now they've popped me onto the upper-shelf of a waiting ambulance; I can see nothing except what lies out at the back. I at once start explaining to the nurse who accompanies us that I've lost a very valuable brother—that he's probably looking for me somewhere on the ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson

... more difficult. They had been following a ledge that narrowed till it ran out. Jutting knobs of feldspar and stunted shrubs growing from crevices offered toe-grips instead of the even foothold of the rock shelf. As Gordon looked down at the dizzy fall beneath them his judgment told him they had better go back. He said ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine

... a thought flashed through his mind which put him in a cold sweat. He happened to glance along the shelf from which he had taken the bottle containing the last ingredient of the mixture, and it struck him, with all the force of a horrible doubt, that he had made a mistake. In the irate confusion of his thoughts, he had done the dispensing ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... time, Eusebius, to conclude for the night, and, indeed, to put our Catullus upon his shelf again. Before separating, we reminded Gratian that he was the arbiter, and must make his award. "I remember well," said he; "and you, Aquilius, made, I think, this my baculus the staff of office. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various

... they reached and climbed the outer wall in safety. There was a coping upon it which they grappled with the hook, and they climbed, hand over hand, to the top. When all had ascended, the hook was grappled upon the inner shelf of the coping, and they let themselves down. When they were all on the ground, they strove to shake the hook loose, but it held fast and they were forced to leave the rope hanging. That circumstance caused the detection of ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... clusters of decoration, or of relics of olden times; either of ten thousand characters of happiness or of ten thousand characters of longevity. The various kinds of designs had been all carved by renowned hands, in variegated colours, inlaid with gold, and studded with precious gems; while on shelf upon shelf were either arranged collections of books, or tripods were laid out; either pens and inkslabs were distributed about, or vases with flowers set out, or figured pots were placed about; the designs of the shelves being either round or square; or similar ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... my writing-case, and on these I took a preliminary copy of A Plea for Woman. This occupied about three hours. Then not feeling sleepy, I took down one of four calico-covered books, which I had previously noticed on a corner shelf. It was my own old Shakespear, with the added interest of marginal marks, in ink of three colours, neatly ordered, and as the sand by the sea-shore innumerable. I put it back with the impression that no book had ever been better placed. The next volume was a Bible, presented ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... who first beneath their yoke Led oxen in the plough, who first the vine Did nourish tenderly, and chose good grapes, That rare old wine may pass from sire to son! Peace! who doth keep the plow and harrow bright, While rust on some forgotten shelf devours The cruel soldier's useless sword and shield. From peaceful holiday with mirth and wine The rustic, not half sober, driveth home With wife and weans upon the ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus

... for the Witch! And if this lady were the same as she who had once made her "run the gauntlet," how meet the vengeance, how dread the requital now! But it is not enough to have stripped her thus naked. About her loins is fastened a little shelf, on which a small oven is set for the cooking of the cake. "Oh, my dear, I cannot bear it longer! Make ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... out Gordon turned to James. He pointed to his great medicine-case on the table. "You might see to it that the bottles are all filled," he said. "You will find the medicines yonder." He pointed to the shelf. "I have to speak to ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

... converse with lords and dukes, I have their betters here, my books; Fixed in an elbow chair at ease I choose companions as I please. I'd rather have one single shelf Than all my friends, except yourself. For, after all that can be said, Our best companions are ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... out. If they can get the best end of the bargain out of me they can do what there ain't a man in our place can do; and I should just like to know what sort of stuff these ere Portland chaps are made of. So in I goes into the best-looking store among 'em. And I see some biscuit lying on the shelf, and says I: ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... bowl on the floor, the chair where it belonged being occupied. There was a very inhospitable looking bed, two shake-downs, and four Windsor chairs in more or less state of dilapidation—all occupied likewise. A country glass lamp was balanced on a rough shelf, and under it a young man sat absorbed in making notes, and apparently oblivious to the noise around him. Every gentleman in the room was collarless, coatless, tieless, and vestless. Some were engaged in fighting gnats and June bugs, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... it in a large book bound in red, entitled 'Pandects of Justinian, Vol. II.' between the last two leaves; the book is on the shelf of folios above the glass buffet. You have a whole row of them. Your money is in the last volume next to the salon—See! Vol. III. is before Vol. II.—but you have no money, it is ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac

... on the pantry shelf?" whispered Jake, cautiously, putting his head in at the door, and avoiding Mrs. Winters' eye. ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... the most of the day in my room, getting ready for my coming work. Against the chimney I built a shelf and put my books upon it; I turned a large box into a writing table, and of a barrel I fashioned an easy-chair. My surroundings were rude, but I was pleased with them; indeed, I had never found myself so pleasantly placed. And when Alf came up at night he ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read

... most painstaking ingenuity to their preparation. It was he who found a small hole in the lath-and-plaster wall which separates the ward from the ward's kitchen. Through this hole a length of cotton was passed and tied to the handle of a mug on the kitchen shelf. At this period, owing to the Zeppelin raids, only the barest minimum of light was allowed, and the night nurse, when she entered the kitchen, went into almost complete darkness. No sooner was she in the kitchen and fumbling for what she required ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir

... pole on which could be hung plenty of hangers. Also a shelf about 6 inches from the floor for ...
— Better Homes in America • Mrs W.B. Meloney

... many bulletins, Uncle Joe, that I am indexing and filing them on a shelf, so we can get them just when we want them," said Edith. "You see, information, unless it's used, is of no value, and if we don't arrange our information so it's easily available when we need it, it will be of ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson

... some ugly old pictures still hanging against the walls, which I could not find in my heart to take down. The model of a ship I had carved with my penknife, the sails of which had been made by Julia, occupied the top shelf over my books. The first pistol I had ever possessed lay on the same shelf. It was my own den, my nest, my sanctuary, my home within the home. I could not think of myself being quite at home ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... yards long by three wide. There was just room to pass between the camp bedstead and the small deal table standing against the opposite wall. Besides this furniture, there was one chair, an empty wooden box turned up on end, with a tin basin on it—that was his washstand—a little shelf fixed on the wall, and on the little shelf a tin mug, a tin plate, a pot of salt, a small loaf of black bread, and a Bible. The walls were painted brown, and the window, fitted with ground glass, was high up near the ceiling; it was barred on the outside, and could only be opened a few inches ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... expedition; namely, to help a lucrative client take the poor debtor's oath, and so avoid a partially unjust debt. On his return home he stopped at a country store to make a small purchase, and there at the end of the shelf he saw a cheap dingy copy of Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus." He purchased it, and read it in his wagon by the evening light. He had tried to read it before, but failed to make his way in it. It was the first clear message and sure token of a spiritual ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns

... mild way of putting it; and he was considerate in not mentioning the precipice which fell abruptly down under the uneven shelf ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... you that you must put your shoulder to the wheel, and make the most of your powers, or you will soon be obliged to leave it for a less honorable post; but let me see what you can do—and now put these books away on that shelf." As he spoke, the doctor pointed to a vacant place on one of the shelves that lined two sides of the study, and left the room. Louis put the books away, and then returned to the school-room, where he sought his brother, and communicated his news just ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... and noiselessly to the bedside and made a brief examination. From a shelf near the head of the bed he took a hypodermic syringe and filled it from a small bottle. Baring the patient's side he slowly injected the drug. He stood for a moment looking down at the unconscious man, then came back to the big hall where ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... Holt said, "you may push away the buffet, so that no one may fancy that an exit has been made that way; lock the door; place the key—where shall we put the key?—under 'Chrysostom' on the book-shelf; and if any ask for it, say I keep it there, and told you where to find it, if you had need to go to my room. The descent is easy down the wall into the ditch; and so, once more farewell, until I see thee again, my dear son." And with this the intrepid Father ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... blankets, and a honeycomb spread. One feather pillow of average size will be sufficient. When two servants occupy a room two single beds should be provided. If there is no closet, make a temporary one by means of a shelf and curtain. An attractive room carries with it a subtle ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... elevator up again with the same woman in it who had brought them up. Instead of opening the door, however, she pressed something and a little slide opened at about the height of her head. Through this she passed a supper tray, which she set on a shelf on the wall at the side of the elevator. Gladys and Nyoda hastened ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey

... was nearly square. Beside the wide door there were two windows, both looking into the garden, and beneath these was Mr. Pernell's work-bench, and a box containing his treasured tools; and on a long shelf over the bench were carefully arranged strips and squares of polished wood. For in the days of peace Mr. Pernell had used his leisure hours in making frames for pictures, a work-box, desk or light-stand; ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis

... Mitford, while he was writing his most celebrated book, lived in the fields, making his bed of grass and nettles, while two-pennyworth of bread and cheese with an onion was his daily food. I know of no more refreshing reading than the books of William Hazlitt. I take down from my shelf one of his many volumes, and I know not when to stop reading. So fresh and yet so old! But through all the volumes there comes a melancholy, accounted for by the fact that he had an awful struggle for bread. On his dying couch he had a friend write for him the ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... Romance," a highly elaborate and elaborated piece of work, full of the strangest and rarest things. I have forgotten how it was that this design broke down; but I found by experiment that the great romance was to go on that brave shelf of the unwritten books, the shelf where all the splendid books are to be found in their golden bindings. "The White People" is a small piece of salvage from the wreck. Oddly enough, as is insinuated in the Prologue, the mainspring of the story is to be sought in a ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen

... to come here and I'd find all the maps in the Century Dictionary. The man at the desk out there told me to come in this room and look in the shelves on the left and take it right out. Gee, the place is so big, I get all rattled. I found the Century Dictionary on that shelf——" ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon

... is built, a wooden image of Bali Flaki with wings extended is put up before it, and an offering of mixed food is put on a little shelf before the image, and at times, especially after getting good omens from the hawks, it is offered bits of flesh and is smeared with pig's blood. If the people have good luck in their new house, they renew the image; ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... pulled, and soon we neared the point; One prayer to God for his assisting grace, And straining every muscle, I brought round The vessel's stern close to the rocky wall; Then snatching up my weapons, with a bound I swung myself upon the flattened shelf, And with my feet thrust off, with all my might, The puny bark into the hell of waters. There let it drift about, as heaven ordains! Thus am I here, delivered from the might Of the dread storm, and man, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... a real one, unless it could be shown that the theory of gravitation was insufficient to account for it. This had not then been done; so the half-made discovery was shelved, and properly shelved, as a brilliant but unverified speculation. It remained on the shelf for half a century, and ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... shelves were all properly arranged," he said, "all standing up in order—those of a like size together. Jump down, Ann, and go to your shelves, and arrange the books on the middle shelf in that way, to show him ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... party as they unpacked beside a pool of water deep under an overhanging shelf of lava. It had been a hard day. The horses drank their fill, and then stood patiently with drooping heads. Hunger and thirst appeased, and a warm fire cheered the weary and foot-sore fugitives. Yaqui said, "Sleep." And so ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... I loved each shelf And room for what it was itself. And once I thought each picture fine Because I proudly called it mine. But now I know they mean no more Than art ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest

... farmhouse he found the kitchen window wide open. And after making sure that there was no one inside the room, he stole in and jumped up on a shelf where there was a row of dishes with all sorts of tempting things ...
— The Tale of Frisky Squirrel • Arthur Scott Bailey

... eleven cows myself Where once I milked but four; I set the dishes on the shelf And close the dairy door; And when the glaring sunlight fails And the fire shines through the cracks, I climb the broken stockyard rails ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson

... desired amount is secured. Before inserting the stopper, touch it to the neck of the bottle to catch the few drops on the edge, thus preventing their streaking down the sides of the bottle on to the shelf. Replace the bottle in its proper place. Every precaution should be taken to prevent ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder

... lug. The Gregara were then busy upon breakfast, for the cookery was their usual part; but, one of them stepping to the battlements, our flight was observed before we were twenty fathoms from the rock; and the three of them ran about the ruins and the landing-shelf, for all the world like ants about a broken nest, hailing and crying on us to return. We were still in both the lee and the shadow of the rock, which last lay broad upon the waters, but presently came forth in almost the same ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... He's coming home! Jack! Jack! (She dances and claps her hands.) Oh, I'm so happy! So happy! (The light begins to rise on the Real-play-enough to reveal Bill getting up from the cot. He looks about guiltily, climbs up to a shelf after a bowl. There is a ...
— The Pot Boiler • Upton Sinclair

... low, they quit the stream-bed and made through the forest towards the shoulder of an untimbered ridge that ran down into the valley. And there, high up on the edge of the spruce, they selected a mossy shelf and pitched their camp. ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... his love of wide dominion sometimes led the otherwise sagacious Bello into the most extravagant actions. If the chance accumulation of soil and drift-wood about any detached shelf of coral in the lagoon held forth the remotest possibility of the eventual existence of an islet there, with all haste he dispatched canoes to the spot, to take prospective possession of the as yet nearly submarine territory; and if ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... my plans and though I shall not intrude upon you I have a Chinese on guard who will kill you if any attempt is made to free you. Enter." Adams stepped toward the cabin at the stern, where the usual shelf-like arrangements of a junk had been transformed into a cabin suited to European taste, with comfort and luxury. Adams entered and the door was closed. By it stood a guard with drawn sword; in the farther corner sat a woman at a table with ...
— In Macao • Charles A. Gunnison

... it in vain. Steediwink, as one of the older boys was familiarly called, in groping around the foot of the boulder above referred to, found a hole in the rock into which he thrust his hand. At the far end of the hole was a sort of shelf and thereon was piled a hoard of small change. If everyone knew whose treasury we had opened, no one named any names, and the find was forthwith confiscated for the benefit of the ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears

... seldom lifting her head from her long knitting-needles, except to cast a look on her grandson or at the sleeping child. The little wooden shutter of the house was closed. Some winter roses bloomed in a pot beneath the little crucifix. Bernadou's flute lay on a shelf; he had not had heart enough to play it since the news of the war ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various

... years old, a child of toward parts for her age, very dexterous at her needle, and skilful in dressing her baby. Her mother and she contrived to fit up the baby's cradle for me against night. The cradle was put into a small drawer cabinet, and the drawer placed upon a hanging shelf for fear of the rats. This was my bed all the time I stayed with these people, though made more convenient by degrees, as I began to learn their language and ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift

... away myself," he said, "after we had finished. They are on the third shelf in that cupboard. ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... made camp at dawn Rhoda tumbled into her blanket and was asleep before Alchise finished covering their trail. When she woke she found that they were camped in a strange eerie. They were high up on a mountain on a shelf that gave back into a shallow cave. In front, facing the desert, was a heap of rock that formed a natural rampart. A tiny spring bubbled from the cave floor. Here the little party would seem as secure in their dizzy seclusion ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow

... the wonderful Chief out before, and doesn't history have a habit of repeating itself? Oh; if only I was ten years younger, how I'd love to be along, when all these glorious things are happening. I hate to think I'm put by on the shelf and never can be ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy

... it is time to retire, dear Victor. We keep early hours here," said Mr. Lyle, as he reached down the Bible from its shelf, preparatory to ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... yesterday, and is reached by the ascent of what is called Montanvert, or Green Mountain. The path is much worse than the other, and in some places makes one's nerves twinge, especially that from which C. projected his avalanche. Just think of his wanting to stop me on the edge of a little shelf over that frightful chasm, and take away the guide from the head of my mule to ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... words: "I told the subject to remain perfectly still for five minutes and to relate to me at the end of this time any sensation he might experience. I passed into another room and closed the door and locked it; went into a closet in the room and closed the door after me; took down from the shelf, first a linen sheet, then a pasteboard box, then a toy engine, owned by a child in the house. I went back to my subject and asked him what ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus

... thy meditative air, I hold thy stock of wit but paltry pelf— Thou show'st that same grave aspect everywhere, And wouldst look thoughtful, stuffed, upon a shelf. ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod

... was lifted from the narrow shelf at four o'clock and put under a surgeon's care in time to save his life. To rig a tackle for a three-hundred-foot lift was another matter; but even while the derrick-car stood idle on the spur waiting for the cable equipment from the mine, a laughing boy of a surgeon ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman

... so hot down on the sands that we agreed to move half way up the cliff, where a cool breeze from the sea blew morning and evening. The brook fell over a shelf of rock, about ten feet in depth, and then lay calm and quiet in a fair round pool. Two or three palms were on one side and a large Spanish chestnut on the other, giving us ample shade. We had a lovely view of the whole bay, and were, as we thought, ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton

... quivered. Minute by minute the giddiness grew more marked, the numb, sickly feeling at his heart more distressing. And then suddenly, with a groan, his head pitching forward, and his brow cracking sharply upon the narrow wooden shelf in front of him, he ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle

... six months! Those were his books. He had sold the store without taking an inventory. When an inventory was finally made it was found that some of the stock had not turned over for a year. On one top shelf two hundred pepper shakers full of pepper stretched half the length of the room. Full value had been paid for this dead stock and several hundred dollars to boot for "good will." From the cooperative standpoint the most dangerous thing ...
— Consumers' Cooperative Societies in New York State • The Consumers' League of New York

... Hetty rose and took down her writing-case from a shelf. She could at least communicate with Larry, for the maid, who had more than one admirer among the cow-boys, had found a means by which letters could be conveyed; but the girl could not command her thoughts, and written sympathy seemed so poor and cold a thing. Two letters were ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss

... chair a stove; on the stove a stewpot; near the stewpot a flowerpot turned upside down with a tallow candle stuck in the hole; near the flowerpot a basketful of coal which evokes thoughts of suicide and asphyxiation; above the basket a shelf encumbered with nameless objects, distinguishable among which are a worn broom and an old toy representing a green rider on a crimson horse. The mantelpiece, mean and narrow, is of blackish marble with a thousand little white blotches. It is covered with broken glasses and unwashed cups. Into one ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... New Year's morning, and perhaps, if he sent that letter ... He stood quite still for a moment, staring at it; then suddenly he threw his cigarette into the fire and snatched the letter down from the shelf. ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres

... after supper, Galusha was idly turning the pages of Camp, Battlefield and Hospital, a worn book of Civil War sketches, printed immediately after that war, which he had found upon the shelf of the closet in his room, along with another volume labeled Friendship's Garland, a Nosegay of Verse. Of the two, although a peace-loving individual, he preferred the camp and battlefield to the Nosegay; the latter's fragrance was ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... and I did so enjoy them. They were so much more amusing than all the jog-trot Harley Street ways. The wardrobe shelf with handles, that served as a supper-tray on grand occasions! And the old tea-chests stuffed and covered for ottomans! I think what you call the makeshift contrivances at dear Helstone were a charming part ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... was a little boy, I lived by myself, And all the bread and cheese I got I put upon the shelf; The rats and the mice did lead me such a life, I was forced to go to London to buy me ...
— Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading - Selected from English and American Literature • Horace Elisha Scudder, editor

... books. Every proper preparation had been made for rendering the little house pleasant. In the evening she took from her shelf a delicate little volume of poetry, something exquisitely bound, pretty to look at, and sweet to handle, and settled herself down to be happy in her own drawing-room. But she soon looked up from the troubles ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... ecclesiastic" beating up for recruits in worldly warfare in our country. It has since been called into frequent use. A cunning politician often lurks under the clerical robe; things spiritual and things temporal are strangely jumbled together, like drugs on an apothecary's shelf; and instead of a peaceful sermon, the simple seeker after righteousness has often a political pamphlet thrust down his throat, labeled with a pious text ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... cut somewhat diagonally across the river, the vortex being at the right bank, and close in-shore, concentred by a limestone shelf extending to the bank, flanked on the left, and at an acute angle, by a deeply-indented reef of rock. Looking up the river, the view to the west seems inclosed by a long line of trees, which, in the distance, appear to stand in the water. Thence the vast stream sweeps boldly into ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair

... certainly a promising beginning made for the future minister's comfort. One shelf was already completely stocked with pies, and another shewed a quantity of cake, and biscuits enough to last a ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... no frame to decay, No bones to be laid on the shelf; And soon I intend you shall go and play, While I manage the world myself. But harness me down with your iron bands, Be sure of your curb and rein, For I scorn the strength of your puny hands, As the ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey

... by knocking them together, as Mr. Leighton says housemaids do. Scott was very careful; he had a number of wooden dummies made, and, when a volume was borrowed, he put the dummy in its place on the shelf, inscribing it with the name of the borrower. He also defended his shelves with locked brazen wires. "Tutus clausus ero" ("I shall be safe if shut up"), his anagram, was his motto, under a portcullis. Borrowers, ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys

... popular with men as he was with women and he had every accomplishment except that of making money. His father had bequeathed him his cavalry sword and a History of the Peninsular War in fifteen volumes. Hughie hung the first over his looking-glass, put the second on a shelf between Ruff's Guide and Bailey's Magazine, and lived on two hundred a year that an old aunt allowed him. He had tried everything. He had gone on the Stock Exchange for six months; but what was a butterfly to do among bulls and bears? He had ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde

... friends of simple tastes could sit about as they pleased and eat and smoke and talk in comfort and contentment. The ruddy brick floor smiled up at the smoky ceiling; the oaken settles, shiny with long wear, exchanged cheerful glances with each other; plates on the dresser grinned at pots on the shelf, and the merry firelight flickered and played over ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame

... opposite wall was a shelf of books, and among them Prominent three, distinguished alike for bulk and for binding; Barriffe's Artillery Guide, and the Commentaries of Caesar, 70 Out of the Latin translated by Arthur Goldinge of London,[16] And, as if guarded by these, ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson

... boy, amusing himself with gazing upon a shelf full of baby toys he could take no pleasure in using, but yet which he had not the heart to give away; and then he jingled a money-box, which was heavy enough to tell there were many, many coins inside, and yet he drew from his pocket a shilling, which he slipped through the narrow chink, thus ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin

... She snatched a book from the shelf—anything to distract her mind. Happily, the book was Shakespeare, and she was soon lost in Lear's woes, wilder, deeper than any sorrow she ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... door of communication between the ante-room and this room was cut down so as to leave it breast high, fastened with nails and screws, and grated from top to bottom with bars of iron. Half way up was placed a shelf on which the bars opened, forming a sort of wicket, closed by other moveable bars, and fastened by an enormous padlock. By this wicket his coarse food was passed in to little Capet, and it was on this ledge that he had to put ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... made it seem proper to trust the old blue china and the delicate glass to the servants. So Lois wiped her cups and saucers, and then, standing on a chair in the china-closet, put the dessert plates with the fine gilt pattern borders, which had been used yesterday, on the very back of the top shelf, in such a quick, decided way Jean trembled ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland

... and he said, 'Little mill, grind hot coffee with cream and sugar,' and immediately a stream of coffee came pouring out, till the pitcher was full. Then he ground some delicious rolls and butter, and then he set the mill on his shelf, and danced about the shop ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge

... has his own little cupboard or shelf. In the middle of the room there are very simple washstands, consisting of tables, on each of which stand a small basin, soap and nail-brush. Against the wall stand little sinks with water-taps. Here the children may draw and pour ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori

... Plutei were not attached so closely to the walls as pegmata, for in the Digest they are classed with nets to keep out birds, mats, awnings, and the like, and are not to be regarded as part and parcel of a house[82]. Juvenal uses the word for a shelf in his second Satire, where he ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark

... head of his company, in the rebel ranks. You say a few over 3,000 have passed through your hands here and on the Dry Tortugas. We read in the paper, the day we left New Orleans, an order from President Lincoln to draft men, and here are three whole regiments laid upon the shelf. Are all ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... never-ending interest. They had been troubled by no ghostly visitations. Miss Sophonisba had indeed once heard a mysterious noise in the cellar, but on going down stairs she found that the cat had jumped on the hanging shelf and was helping herself out of ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... then, say, in the waning day, When the vessel is crack'd and old, To cherish the battered potters' clay, As though it were virgin gold? Take care of yourself, dull, boorish elf, Though prudent and safe you seem, Your pitcher will break on the musty shelf, And mine by the ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... got a couple of glasses from the shelf under the machine as he picked up the jug. "A ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper

... thick nor too thin; it must be large enough to make a substantial support; it must be strongly bound so as not to yield or give; it must not be too troublesome to carry backwards and forwards; and it must live on shelf C, D, or E, so that there need be no stooping or reaching too high. These are the conditions which a really good book must fulfil; simple, however, as they are, it is surprising how few volumes comply with them ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler

... "You know, Rossiter, that I am always ready to lend my books to any one who will make good use of them and bring them back, but I always forget to whom I lend them. It happened, in this case, that I wanted that volume of Ruskin about a week ago; but when I went to the shelf for it, it was gone. I knew I must have lent it, but to whom I could not remember. During the past week, I began to demand the book of every friend I met to whom I might have lent it. Of course, every one of them protested innocence; but at last I've struck the guilty man. I shall ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... was ready, a fine filling for pies and pans or little boys or kings, for that matter, and she scraped it into the pans until the white crust was covered up, all but the fluted edges. Then into the oven went the pies, on the top shelf, and the door was closed to ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson

... did visualize his mother, the reason why the Ericson kitchen became so clear to him that he saw his tired-faced mother reaching up to wind the alarm-clock that stood beside the ball of odd string on the shelf above the water-pail, the reason why he felt caved-in at the stomach, was that he knew he was going to leave Plato, and did not know where in the ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... a dozen candles, not to mention the big lamps of forbidden kerosene upon shelf and sideboard, each backed by its reflector of glistening tin. "We were vain, you see," continued Mrs. Archer, "of our two old-fashioned heirlooms. Those quaint three-socket sticks were brought by the general's grandfather from ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... in this gentle mood that John reached to the shelf above his head and took down the paper. He opened it, and Denas in her pretty dancing dress, with her bare arms lifted above her head, looked her father full in the face. She was laughing; she was the incarnation ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... women they come runnin' to me an' called me, while they was takin' of the chiny down, an' showed me there was one o' the cups broke an' the pieces wropped in paper and pushed way back here, corner o' the shelf. They didn't want me to go an' think they done it. Poor dear! I had to put right out o' the house when I see that. I knowed in one minute how 'twas. We'd got so used to sayin' 'twas all there just's I fetched it home, an' so when she ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett

... Ford came to me to walk into the City, where he had business, and then to buy books at Bateman's; and I laid out one pound five shillings for a Strabo and Aristophanes, and I have now got books enough to make me another shelf, and I will have more, or it shall cost me a fall; and so as we came back, we drank a flask of right French wine at Ben Tooke's chamber; and when I got home, Mrs. Vanhomrigh sent me word her eldest daughter(4) was taken suddenly very ill, and desired I would come and see ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift



Words linked to "Shelf" :   chest of drawers, mantel, grocery, chest, dresser, chimneypiece, buffet, mantlepiece, grocery store, etagere, hob, closet, market, ridge, mantelpiece, support, food market, counter, berm, mantle, bookcase, overmantel, sideboard, bureau, cabinet



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