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Alcove   Listen
noun
Alcove  n.  
1.
(Arch.) A recessed portion of a room, or a small room opening into a larger one; especially, a recess to contain a bed; a lateral recess in a library.
2.
A small ornamental building with seats, or an arched seat, in a pleasure ground; a garden bower.
3.
Any natural recess analogous to an alcove or recess in an apartment. "The youthful wanderers found a wild alcove."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Alcove" Quotes from Famous Books



... obliged to stand still in a corner, ignorant of everything save the name of our hostess, waiting for something to turn up. The ordeal was not so disagreeable as it might seem. The band played in the alcove, the women were well dressed and, to our eyes, radiantly beautiful, while the men appealed to our critical curiosity. Plenty of our college dons were there, and many of the leading men of the day, but more interesting to us were ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... Kolschitzky opened the first coffee house in Vienna. The hero-proprietor stands in the foreground pouring a cup of the beverage from an oriental coffee pot, and another is suspended from the coffee-house sign that hangs over the fireplace. In the fire alcove a woman is pounding coffee in a mortar. Men and women in the costumes of the period are being served coffee ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... The church has felt, realized, and entered into her obligation. By the cross she has stood, her heart beating with kindly sympathy, her cheeks bathed in tears, and her lips vocal with prayer. The Macedonian cry has been heard, and from every nave, and alcove, and aisle, and altar of the great temple of Christianity has come ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy

... which overlooked the quadrangle, there was a small alcove which had been converted into a storeroom for the array of trunks and dress boxes that Lady O'Moy had brought from England. A door opening directly from her dressing room communicated with this alcove, and of that door Bridget, her maid, was in ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... on Westchester Square. Take a seat at table in left alcove. Ask waiter for card of Cornelius Woodbridge, Junior. Before ordering ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... face as he saw us, and he half rose from the crouching position he still held over his mother's form. He subsided back, however, as I drew to one side and let Guy pass unheeded to the bed, and it was in quite a natural tone he bade me seat myself in the alcove towards which he pointed, till his mother's ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green

... time that the child remembered seeing her mother in a chair. How this miracle was accomplished only Octavia and Mademoiselle D'Ormy could have told, but on a certain day in a chair she was and the heavy rose silk curtains were drawn before the bed alcove and the room was gay with flowers and a ruddy fire glowed in the iron grate under the carved white mantlepiece. Felice sat adoringly on a footstool at her feet and they talked a great deal about a time when Maman should not only sit in a chair but should walk. It seemed that Octavia ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke

... Innstetten. Sitting up she looked around with curiosity. During the evening before she had been too tired to examine very carefully all the half-foreign, half-old-fashioned things that surrounded her. Two pillars supported the ceiling beam, and green curtains shut off from the rest of the room the alcove-like sleeping apartment in which the beds stood. But in the middle a curtain was either lacking or pulled back, and this afforded her a comfortable orientation from her bed. There between the two windows stood ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... observed he, as they passed from one dark alcove to another, "the library is of little worth, except to show how much of living truth each generation contributes to the botheration of life, and what a public benefactor a bookworm is, after all. There, now! did you ever happen to see one? ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... alcoves, curtained off from a pleasant little central sitting-room, composed the apartment Margaret shared with her four years' chum Alice Raynor. Alice was not there, yet Margaret did not seat herself in the room common to both, but entered her own alcove, drew the portiere, and sat down on the edge of the iron bed, not larger than a soldier's camp cot. It was an austere little cell, simple as a nun's, with the light falling from one narrow window on the pale face and brown hair of the young ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... everything except the agony of duty through which he is passing, and his words, though spoken low, have a sweet and penetrating note, which arrest the attention of one who has come down the gallery, and is now standing at the opening of the alcove where Pollock is hidden. It is his hostess, the widow of Lord Cochrane, the eldest son of the Earl of Dundonald, who was still living, though old and feeble, and who left the management of affairs very much to Lady Cochrane. Like many other families in the ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... for a cabinet, so a curtain was hung across a tiny alcove, just the ordinary "arch" found in most rooms of ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates

... cosy little alcove lined to the ceiling with books. There seemed nothing out of the ordinary about them at first sight, but my host soon undeceived me. "These," he said, "are the books that might have been written in the last hundred years, if ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky

... alcove two men had just seated themselves, one an elderly person who seemed somewhat feeble, and the other a tall, sharp-faced individual who eyed his companion ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer

... youthful princesses made their first appearance at an evening reception, to which their mother had invited a great many guests. All lavished praises on the charming young girls. In the drawing-room there was an alcove concealed by a large curtain. Curious to hear what would be said of them when they disappeared, the two agreed to slip out and hide behind the curtain. Scarcely had the attractive objects of the general admiration ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... Out yonder, in the alcove, a lady sits and darns, And interjects remarks that always serve to spice our yarns; She's Mrs. Stoddard; there's a dame that's truly to my heart: A tiny little woman, but so quaint, and good, and smart That, if you asked me to suggest which one I ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... But if I attain my object, so that I can live respectably here, you must instantly leave Salzburg. You will say, that may never come to pass; at all events, industry and exertion shall not be wanting on my part. Do try to come over soon to see me. We can all live together. I have a roomy alcove on my first room in which two beds stand. These would do capitally for you and me. As for my sister, all we can do is to put a stove into the next room, which will only be an affair of four or five florins; for in mine we might heat the stove till it is red-hot, ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

... of greedy curiosity, satanic work of some hoary sinner! Hallowed goad of concupiscence, blessed antechamber which leads to the alcove, mysterious retreat where the priest sits between husband and wife, listens to their private talk and stands by, panting at all their excesses. Refuge more secret than the best padded boudoir. Formidable entrenchment sacred to all! What jealous lover would dare to lift that curtain of serge behind ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... cask restored to light, By ten long years refined, and rosy bright). To Pallas high the foaming bowl he crown'd, And sprinkled large libations on the ground. Each drinks a full oblivion of his cares, And to the gifts of balmy sleep repairs. Deep in a rich alcove the prince was laid, And slept beneath the pompous colonnade; Fast by his side Pisistratus was spread (In age his equal) on a splendid bed: But in an inner court, securely closed, The reverend Nestor and ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... on the Place Vendome! A felt carpet on the floor, the bed hidden away in an alcove, Algerian curtains with red stripes, an ornamental clock in green marble on the chimneypiece, the whole lighted by lamps of which the flames can be regulated at will. Our oldest member, M. Chalmette, is not better lodged at Dijon. I arrived about nine ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... was up! The disconcerted gipsies rose from their alcove, and came back from the psychic to the material world. It was a hard, exacting, unsympathetic world as mirrored in Miss Gibbs's keen grey eyes. She told them briefly to go and wash their faces and change their attire, then to report themselves ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... in a white-panelled, indifferently lighted room, to which there was an alcove with ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... his English Garden with an invocation to his memory, and records, in lofty language, his eye glistening and his accents glowing, when viewing the charms of all-majestic Nature—the heights of Skiddaw and the purple crags of Borrowdale. And on a rustic alcove, in the garden at Aston, which he dedicated to Mr. Gray, he inscribed this ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... Tode, with a long, happy breath, leaned back in the big chair and looked about him at the many books, at the dark head bent over the desk in the alcove, finally at the noble face of the bishop ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston

... out of a book as dexterously as a rodent will get the meat of a nut out of its shell.... He handled his rapidly acquired knowledge so like an adept in book-lore that one might have thought he was born in an alcove and cradled on a book-shelf." Dr. Bigelow was so frequently in Dr. Holmes's thought in the latter days that one can hardly give a picture of his later life without rehearsing something of his expression with regard to him. He says further: "Dr. Bigelow ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields

... and mules at rest, and everything very quiet and peaceful in the alcove. The rill murmured a little in its stony bed, and, far overhead, he heard the wind sighing among the trees on the mountain. He chose a place close to the wall, spread two blankets there, on which he expected to lie, and prepared to cover himself with two more. He ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler

... things: to keep them in beautiful order was an obligation of which the neglect might bring misfortune in the time of combat; and on certain days offerings were set before the bows and spears, arrows and swords, and other war-implements, in the alcove of the family guest-room. Gardens, too, were holy; and there were rules to be observed in their management, lest offence should be given to the gods of trees and flowers. Carefulness, cleanliness, dustlessness, were everywhere enforced as ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... the light! in diamond mines Their gems invite the hand that delves; So learning's treasured jewels shine Ranged on the alcove's ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... no time or inclination to look at them, and I wanted something to read; for although I found reading very irksome at this period, there was really little else I could do. I found the books—three volumes—in the lower part of an alcove in the wall; above them, within a niche in the alcove, on a level with my face as I stood there, I observed a bulb-shaped bottle, with a long thin neck, very beautifully colored. I had seen it before, but without paying particular attention ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson

... so near beamin' before. She seems right at home, fieldin' that line of chat. And Vee, too, is more or less under the spell. As for me, I'm on the outside lookin' in. I did manage though, after doin' the dummy act for half an hour, to lead Vee off to the window alcove and ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... how long, we might have been able to purchase of the natives who, a few miles below this camp, had tilled a small piece of arable land in an alcove. Small huts for storage were found there in the cliffs, and on a promontory, about thirty feet above the water, were the ruins of stone buildings, one of which, twelve by twenty feet in dimensions, had walls still standing about six feet high. The canyon here was some six hundred feet wide; ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... exclamation of sympathy and alarm, no word was spoken until the house was reached. Mary ran up the stairs with Mrs. Blythe, stood a moment in the upper hall when the other left her, and then went on to the alcove at the end, which had been fitted up as a little office. There she sat down to wait. Three physicians, personal friends of Dudley Blythe, were in the room with him. The housemaid was running back and forth getting what was necessary, and the next ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... running about the room. From a little alcove under a stairway she took clothes, throwing them upon the floor about the room. She pulled on a stocking and, unconscious of Sam's presence, raised her skirts and fastened it. Then, putting one shoe on the stockinged foot and the other on the bare one, she turned to him. ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson

... his own way to dinner, indulged in parallel imaginings. He saw a larger room than his present, with more furniture and better; a bookcase instead of a shelf; a closet, and hot and cold water in some convenient alcove; a second table, with a percolator on it, at which Arthur, who was a light sleeper and willingly an early riser, might indulge his knack for coffee-making to the advantage of them both. And Arthur had the same ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... other two must lead to it. The first, however, was all beyond me, and I very soon gave it up. There was also a very small grating which let in a very little fresh air: the massive foundations had been tunnelled in one place; a rude alcove was the result, with this grating at the end and top of it, some seven feet above the earth floor. Even had I been able to wrench away the bars, it would have availed me nothing, since the aperture formed the segment of a circle whose chord was but a very few inches long. I had nevertheless a ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung

... toward "Cliefden's proud alcove, the bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love," we find ourselves in a luxuriant rolling country, rural and slumberous. Cookham parish, which we should traverse, claims quite loudly American kinship on the strength of its including ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... we found he had been gradually driven from his magnificent suite of rooms au premier, to a little chamber in the fifth story:—we mounted, and found him. It was a little shabby room, with a few articles of rickety furniture, and a bed in an alcove; the light from the one window was falling full upon the bed and the body. Jack was dressed in a fine lawn shirt; he had kept it, poor fellow, TO DIE IN; for in all his drawers and cupboards there was not a single article of clothing; ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... sit out the dance," he suggested. "There is an alcove in that window; oh, pshaw!" as a man and a girl took possession ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... hear aright? Was it of her, Eleanor Woodruff, that they were talking? Swiftly she sped out of the dark, heavily-curtained back parlor of the stylish boarding-house, and into her room, a gorgeous alcove apartment on the first floor. She could not mount the stairs on account of her weak spine. Weak spine? She forgot all about it as she paced the floor, angry tears gushing from her large brown eyes. It was shameful—it was wicked—to be so abused. She had never in her whole petted ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... some fighting, some fleeing, some actually plundering and murdering by themselves in order that they might be taken for the invaders and so preserve their lives. Vitellius in dread put on a ragged, dirty, little tunic and concealed himself in an obscure alcove where dogs were kept, intending to run off during the night to Tarracina and join his brother. But the soldiers found him after a short search, for he could not long be sure of remaining hid, seeing that he had been emperor. They ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio

... petulant of manner, but bore herself with an air of almost regal pride. It was she whom I came to know as Madame du Maine, a daughter of the proud and princely Condes. Following her, weeping bitterly, came the sweet maid who had spilled the tray of flowers on me at the door. I stepped back into an alcove, lest, perchance, she look behind, and aimlessly I straggled out into the gardens as best I might. The Villa being a strange ground, it fretted me to be alone therein, with nothing to think of but this trouble of my friends. And Madame de Chartrain, did I blame her? Blame Jerome? Yes—no. ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... around her and sighed, "comfort" seemed such a strangely inadequate word. She was reminded of the illustrations she had seen of English country houses. The bed alone would almost have filled her little room at home. On the farther side, in an alcove, was a huge dressing-table; a fire was laid in the grate of the marble mantel, the curtains in the bay window were tightly drawn, and near by was a lounge with a reading-light. A huge mahogany wardrobe occupied one corner; in another stood ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... had I been a Polish count, with two sets of moustaches, I could not have been more flattered and "entertained." My fame soon spread through the rooms, as two little apartments, with a door between them that made each an alcove of the other, were called; and even the men, the young ones in particular, began to take an interest in me. This latter interest, it is true, did not descend to the minutiae of trimmings and work, or even of fineness, but ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper

... crawls at evening in the public path; But he that has humanity, forewarned, Will tread aside and let the reptile live. The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight, And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes, A visitor unwelcome, into scenes Sacred to neatness and repose—th' alcove, The chamber, or refectory,—may die: A necessary act incurs no blame. Not so when, held within their proper bounds And guiltless of offence, they range the air, Or take their pastime in the spacious field: There they are privileged; and he that hunts Or harms them there is guilty of a wrong, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw, The George and Garter dangling from that bed Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies—alas! how changed from him, That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!— Gallant and gay, in Cliveden's proud alcove, The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love; Or just as gay, at council, in a ring Of mimic'd statesmen and their merry king. No wit to flatter left of all his store! No fool to laugh at, which he valued more. There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... his stockinged feet on the soft mats, looked about him. The room was devoid of furniture, its only decoration being a vase of carefully arranged flowers in an alcove, and a queer kakemono that hung on an ivory stick. As he was inspecting the latter, the nesan ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice

... making a decision; and now it evidently devolved upon her to find the stranger a place of rest for the night; so instead of an elf-maid's kiss and a silver palace, he soon found himself huddled into a dark little alcove in the wall, where he was told to go to sleep, while Aasa wandered over to the empty cow-stables, and threw herself down in the hay by the side ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... them for three yen, which was very cheap, he said. Did he take me for a third rate painter making a round of the country? I told him I did not want them. Next time he brought in a panel picture of flowers and birds, drawn by one Kazan or somebody. He hung it against the wall of the alcove and asked me if it was not well done, and I echoed it looked well done. Then he started lecturing about Kazan, that there are two Kazans, one is Kazan something and the other is Kazan anything, and that this picture was the work of that ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri

... bag with fair aim; but the strap caught in its flight on the outstanding point of an antler fixed in the wall, and the bag, with its terrible burden, remained suspended just above the alcove where tea would presently be laid. At that moment Mrs. Hoopington and the Major ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)

... startled at the rustle along its own path. As a matter of course, the lovers took their way to the Spring in the Vernon woods, the spot which had witnessed more of their confidence than any other. In the alcove above it they had taken shelter from the summer storm and the autumn shower; they had sat on its brink for many an hour, when the pure depths of its rocky basin seemed like coolness itself in the midst of heat, and when falling leaves fluttered down the wind, and dimpled the ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... garden full of sweet-scented plants, the verbena, the jessamine, and rose, and shaded by luxuriant vines, trailed on bamboo trellice-work over head, the fruit hanging down in tempting bunches within our reach. In front of an alcove, or summer-house, on a rich carpet, sat a stout old man, in flowing robes, and long white beard, which hung down over his breast. We bowed low, and then stood still before him, for he did not offer us cushions to sit ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... on these errands, Pancho fed the donkey, and Dona Teresa made the fire in her queer little stove; only she didn't call it a stove—she called it a brasero.[8] It was a sort of box built up of clay and stones. The brasero stood in an alcove, and beside it was a large red olla, which Dona Teresa kept filled with water for her cooking. Beyond the brasero was a cupboard ...
— The Mexican Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... ten," thought I to myself, as I walked, one rainy morning, as a sailor walks the quarter-deck, up and down a short alcove, extending before the windows of a modern house. It was one of those days in June, in which our summer-hopes take umbrage at what we call unseasonable weather, though no season was ever known to pass without them. Unlike the rapid and delightful showers of ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady

... the low, round hat he assumed in a sort of curtained alcove containing a washstand, a row of wooden pegs and a shelf, brought out wonderfully the length of his grave, brown face. He stepped back into the full light of the room, looking like the vision of a cool, reflective ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... planetarum motus, figuras, cometarum semitas, Oceanique aestus, sua Mathesi lucem praeferente, primus demonstravit. Radiorum lucis dissimilitudines, colorumque inde nascentium proprietates, quas nemo suspicatus est, pervestigavit. So stands the record in Westminster Abbey; and in many a dusty alcove stands the "Principia," a prouder monument perhaps, more enduring than brass or crumbling stone. And yet, with rare modesty, such as might be considered again and again with singular advantage by many another, this great man hesitated to publish to the world his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... the elegant seat of Hagley, brought over his guests to see what miracles the hare-brained, sensitive poet had wrought upon his farm. And I can fancy the proud, shy creature watching from his lattice the company of distinguished guests,—maddened, if they look at his alcove from the wrong direction,—wondering if that shout that comes booming to his sensitive ear means admiration, or only an unappreciative surprise,—dwelling on the memory of the visit, as a poet dwells on the first public mention of his poem. In his "Egotisms," (well ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... a hearth on the floor in the middle of a deep alcove to the Right. There are benches in the alcove and a table; and a crucifix on the wall. The alcove is full of a glow of light from the fire. There is an open door facing the audience to the Left, and to the left ...
— The Land Of Heart's Desire • William Butler Yeats

... the grace to murmur some excuse to his wife. On their heels hastened the Apukhtin, who played the few seconds of farce with angry hauteur. Then, injury to insult, Alderberg himself approached, having been in the rooms a bare five minutes. And, as he disappeared into the royal alcove, the throng in the rooms began to fly the house ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... date, the elegant composition by Ghirlandajo. As Joachim and Anna were "exceedingly rich," he has surrounded them with all the luxuries of life. The scene is a chamber richly decorated; a frieze of angelic boys ornaments the alcove; St. Anna lies on a couch. Vasari says "certain women are ministering to her." but in Lasinio's engraving they are not to be found. In front a female attendant pours water into a vase; two others seated hold the infant. A noble lady, habited ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson

... arose, and armed with a couple of loaded pistols and a hanger, went to the back part of the squire's garden, climbed over the wall, and, according to Mrs. Sagely's direction, concealed myself in a thicket, hard by an alcove that terminated a walk at a good distance from the house, which (I was told) my mistress mostly frequented. Here I absconded from five o'clock in the morning to six in the evening, without seeing a human creature; at last I perceived two women approaching, whom, by ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... cabin's alcove low she lies, Still candles gleaming at her head and feet; All snow-drop white, ash-cold, with closed eyes, Lips smiling, hands at rest — O God, how sweet! How all unutterably sweet she seems. . . . Not dead, not dead indeed — she dreams, ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service

... along boar-spears and forks, caparisons and saddles. The smoke blackened the weapons, and it was necessary to clean them very often. But Macko, who was careful, ordered the servants to put the costly clothes in the alcove in ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... stoves, fire-places, or fire-grates in the rooms; no sofas, bureaux, chandeliers, nor looking-glasses; no book-cases, prints, nor paintings. They have neither curtains nor sheets to their beds; a bench of wood, or a platform of brick-work, is raised in an alcove, on which are mats or stuffed mattresses, hard pillows, or cushions, according to the season of the year; instead of doors they have usually skreens, made of the fibres of bamboo. In short, the wretched lodgings of the state-officers at the court of Versailles, in the time of the French monarchy, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... almost imperceptible nod Einstein drew near to his patron, taking the vacant place in the little alcove, a deux, with his back prudently screening him from any chance visitor who might know the Western Trading Company's personnel. Braun was eager ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... lilac letters. The carpet was of crimson satin, with a deep border of pale blue quilted; this is laid over Indian mats and other carpets. In the best part of the room the sofa is placed, which occupies three sides in an alcove, the floor of which is raised. The sofa and the cushions that lay around were of crimson velvet, the centre cushions were embroidered with a sun in gold of highly embossed work, the rest were of gold and silver tissue. The curtains ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... drawing-room together, and half an hour had passed when Mrs. Acton beckoned to Nasmyth, and he followed her into an adjoining alcove. She sat down ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss

... that you see is yours. We whose voices you hear are your servants and shall obey all your commands with our utmost care and diligence. Retire, therefore, to your chamber and repose on your bed of down, and when you see fit repair to the bath. Supper awaits you in the adjoining alcove when it pleases you to ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... we make a short run to the mouth of another little creek, coming down from the left into an alcove filled with luxuriant vegetation. Here camp is made, with a group of cedars on one side and a dense mass of box-elders and dead willows on ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell

... and the place was full of ladies who were downtown for their shopping and marketing, and who had come in either to change their books or to keep appointments with each other. On a sudden Vandover saw Turner just passing into the Biography alcove. He got up and followed her. She was standing at the end of the dim book-lined tunnel, searching the upper shelves, her head and throat bent back, and her gloved finger on her lip. The faint odour of the perfume ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... Iltutmish, who died A.D. 1235, is buried close behind one end of the arched alcove, in a beautiful tomb without its cupola. He built the tomb himself, and left orders that there should be no 'parda' (screen) between him and heaven; and no dome was thrown over the building in consequence. ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... Lucy, when I am with you," he said, gently. "What is it?" He looked out of the alcove as he spoke, and saw a little dog among the trees. "Is ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... no choice between the peasant-woman toiling in the ploughed fields, and growing black with the scorch of the sun, and bowed and aged with the burdens she bears, and the ladies who live between the alcove and the confessional, only going forth from their chambers by night as fireflies glisten, and living on secret love and daily gossip. What can these do in their gaunt, dull villas—they who detest the sough of the wind and the sight of a tree, who ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... veranda, patio, lanai, terrace, deck; lobby, court, courtyard, hall, vestibule, corridor, passage, breezeway; ante room, ante chamber; lounge; piazza [veranda, U.S.]. conservatory, greenhouse, bower, arbor, summerhouse, alcove, grotto, hermitage. lodging &c. (abode) 189; bed &c. (support) 215; carriage &c. (vehicle) 272. Adj. capsular; saccular, sacculated; recipient; ventricular, cystic, vascular, vesicular, cellular, camerated, locular, multilocular, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... octagonal room, the walls, the ceiling, and the floor of which were entirely covered with splendid Venetian glass, arranged in such a manner as to reflect on all sides every position of the amorous couple enjoying the pleasures of love. Close by was a beautiful alcove with two secret outlets; on the right, an elegant dressing-room, on the left, a boudoir which seemed to have been arranged by the mother of Love, with a bath in Carrara marble. Everywhere the wainscots were embossed in ormolu or painted with ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... For three miles the trail winds in and out of the recesses, on the easily rolling ground of the plateau. There are no sharp descents. For about half a mile the trail is in Dripping Spring Amphitheatre, an alcove on the edge of Hermit Basin, so named by Louis P. Brown, a miner and prospector, who, in the early eighties, made this basin his home while engaged in ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... door which led to the private staircase, and going to that which communicated with the apartments of the two sisters, he double-locked it. Having done this, he hastened to the alcove in which stood the bed and taking down a pair of loaded pistols, he carefully removed the percussion caps, and, unable to repress a deep sigh, restored the weapons to the place in which he had found them. Then, as if on second thoughts, he took down an Indian ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... in the town. They had here prepared a place for the admiral to sit in, adorned with large slips of the thin inner bark of palm trees, as large as a great calfs skin, and much of that shape and appearance; forming a clean cool alcove, large enough to cover a man, and to defend him from the rain. These broad slips of palm bark serve the Indians for many purposes, and are called Yaguas in their language. They here seated the admiral in a chair, having a low back ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... the College of Engineering were arranged in an alcove, partly inclosed by cases of books and for folding frames, on which were placed photographs and diagrams mounted on large cards. A larger case contained the more bulky specimens of the work of students in the engineering shops. Above these cases were placed on the walls enlarged views and some ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... time, hoping for an alcove among the rocks or perhaps a thick cluster of trees, but they found nothing. Several hours passed. The rain grew lighter, and ceased, although the clouds remained, hiding the moon. But the whole forest was soaked. Water dripped ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... accommodated with a berth, owing to the crowded state of the harbour, she was moored in the middle of the stream, and being anxious to go on shore, I availed myself of the captain's offer to take me to the landing-place in his gig. We went on shore in an alcove, at the foot of Wall-street, and I experienced the most delightful sensation on once more setting foot on terra firma, after our dreary voyage. The day, notwithstanding it was now October, was intensely hot (although a severe frost for ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... now uncovered by the loss of both kerchief and cap, he crept back into the alcove that had originally protected them from the stones cast in by the Indians. Along with the splinters something else came past Walt's face, making a soft, rustling sound; it had a smell also that told what it was—the ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... as a shepherdess, emerged from behind a curtain which hung in a little alcove at ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester

... again conscious of having admitted her into a sort of confidence; but he had scarcely time to regret it before there was a flash of red between the tall potted shrubs that screened an alcove. Dorothea sauntered into view, with Carli Wappinger, bending slightly over her, walking by her side. They were too deep in conversation to know themselves observed; but the earnestness with which ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King

... eyes to the light. On one side stands the 'dresser,' or wardrobe, built half way into the wall, where the housewife stored the family belongings. Beside this is the iron arm which held the lamp, used during midnight watches. Beyond this general room is the alcove that served Jeanne as a sleeping-room. In this narrow chamber, more like a cell than a sleeping-room, Jeanne heard 'voices,' and dreamed ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

... might pass that way. When she had made choice of her sanctum, at a point of the island where the stream met, after having been separated, she improved it by pulling away the branches of the shrubs from the centre, and weaving them together for a wall on the outside, forming a circular arched alcove, made entirely of the graceful willow. To this place she resorted daily, and in pressing times ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth

... cottage and garden in Kew-foot-Lane at or near Richmond. In the alcove in the garden is a small table made of the wood of the walnut tree. There is a drawer to the table which in all probability often received charge of the poet's effusions hot from the brain. On a brass tablet inserted in the top of the table is this inscription—"This table was the property ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... there breathless, staring at the pitiful sight, fascinated, bewitched. So this was the secret. With fiendish ingenuity, the rigid ecclesiastics had blocked up the window, then forced the beautiful creature to stand in the alcove, while with remorseless hands and iron hearts they had shut her into a living tomb. I had read of such things in romance; but to find the ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram

... drawn over it as lately as that afternoon; indeed I could have sworn that this was so. I called to Savage to bring the lamp that stood upon my table, and by its light made an examination. The curtain was drawn back, very tidily, being fastened in its place clear of the little alcove by means of a thin brass chain. Also along one edge of it, that which I had nailed to the panelling, the tin-tacks were still in their places; that is, three of them were, the fourth I found afterwards upon ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard

... closed with a crash—then, hark! Across the stage comes the sweet-voiced Lark. She daintily sways, with an airy grace, And flutters a bit of gossamer lace, While the leafy alcove echoes and thrills With her liquid runs and lingering trills. Miss Goldfinch came next, in her satin gown, And shaking her feathery flounces down, With much expression and feeling sung Some "Oh's" and "Ah's" in a foreign tongue; While to give the affair a ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... elsewhere, and a circus had come to Madison Square Garden. Clavering had heard the roar of lions in the night. A far different crowd would stand under the arcade in a few hours, but the peanut venders would ply their trade, and a little booth for candies and innocuous juices had been erected in an alcove in the front wall, presided over by a plump pretty blonde. She alternated "jollying" and selling with quiet intervals of beading a bag, undisturbed either by ogling or the hideous noises of ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... were sparkling as he followed her out of the alcove. To be allowed to dance opposite Roberta and be "kept straight" by her through the figures of an unfamiliar, old-fashioned affair like the "Lancers" was a privilege indeed. He laughed to himself to think what certain people he knew would say to his ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond

... was an English materialism about Milnes from which the American poet was free. Henry James told me long afterwards a comical tale of how, being left to browse in Mimes's library one afternoon, he strayed into an alcove of pretty and inviting volumes, in sweet bindings, mellowed by age, and was presently terrified by the discovery that he was enmeshed in the toils of what bibliophiles term, I think, "Facetiae"—of which ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... sub-species, thin lips, suggestive of delicacy, but having nothing like primness, still less of the rigidity which is often noticeable in the generation succeeding next to that of the men in their shirt-sleeves, he would have been noticed anywhere as one evidently a scholarly thinker astray from the alcove or the study, which were his natural habitats. His voice was very sweet, and penetrating without any loudness or mark of effort. His enunciation was beautifully clear, but he often hesitated as if waiting for the right word to present itself. His manner was very quiet, ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... fade them. I noticed also a battered portmanteau from beneath the lid of which protruded three or four corners of scribbling paper, and lastly my eyes fell upon the offending beer-barrel in a dark alcove. The basin set below the tap, in order to catch the drip, was nearly full. In four months' time the room would be flooded with sour and horrible beer. Full of the thought, I deposited the letters in the drawer with the rest of the correspondence, and, leaving the flat, summoned ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... no help From the great City; never, upon leaves [2] Of red Morocco folio saw displayed, In long succession, pre-existing ghosts [3] Of Beauties yet unborn—the rustic Lodge 10 Antique, and Cottage with verandah graced, Nor lacking, for fit company, alcove, Green-house, shell-grot, and moss-lined hermitage. [4] Thou see'st a homely Pile, [5] yet to these walls The heifer comes in the snow-storm, and here 15 The new-dropped lamb finds shelter from the wind. And hither does one Poet ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... Here rang out the joyous conversation, interspersed with the Latin epithalamium of some impromptu poet, or the fescennine verses of a German minnesinger. At one side, the married women had their pleasure; young mothers whose children became restless withdrew here to quiet them; another table in an alcove at the side was opened for the young girls who feasted here in the presence of their holy director, and through the noise and tumult of the men, their joyous girlish voices rang out in Vivas to the noble lord and lady who sat at the head of the main table. In the shadow of ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai

... those rare men who carry their dignity with them past the doors of their homes. Robert Macklin's home, during the short intervals when he was off the trains, was in a tiny apartment. It was really one not overly large room, with a little alcove adjoining; but Robert Macklin had seized the opportunity to hang a curtain across the alcove, and, since it was large enough to contain a chair and a bookshelf, he referred to ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand

... Majesty step here into this alcove?" said the chamberlain, after a quick glance around to see that ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn

... was watching him, her manner indicating the same frank friendliness she had shown him on the preceding day, and in response to a signal from her, as they rose from the table, he followed her into one of the drawing-rooms, joining her in a large alcove window, where she motioned him to a seat on a low ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... on anything you find; it opens into the alcove, let yourself slip now, you will fall on the bed—that is it. You have ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... is a nook in Mr. Gledware's library, a sort of alcove where you have a window all to yourself but are shut off from the rest of the room, and that is where I was when two men came in softly and closed and locked the door behind them. I couldn't see them but just as I was starting up to find ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis

... in the morning the gendarmes advised the last revelers to retire, and the Tiare became quiet. But Atupu slept in a little alcove by the bar, and any one in her favor had but to enter her chamber and pull her shapely leg to be served ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... admiringly. It was just such a bedroom as she would have chosen for herself. The colouring was green and white, with softly shaded electric lights, an alcove bedstead, which was a miracle of daintiness, white furniture, and a long low dressing-table littered all over with a multitude of daintily fashioned toilet appliances. Through an open door was a glimpse of the bathroom—a ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Royal Exchange, with a Burmese cross-legged idol perched thereon—the urn to the memory of "POOR BANQUO;" the green-house, with its billiard-table, and even an alcove, the most charming spot in "the wide world" to talk sentiment in, must not detain us from returning to another angle of the river front, after [Picture: Alcove: and Angle of the River Front] glancing at which, ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... In an alcove there was a deep bed with its counterpane, pillows, and sheets heavily edged with lace, in all that splendid luxury which the humblest of these strange people lavish upon this single item of their household. I stepped beside it and saw George lying, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... is tempered by a later perception of certain other features. Indeed, the more one knows of the details of their artistic taste, the more does he appreciate it. The "toko-no-ma," for example, is a variety of alcove usually occupying half of one side of a room. It indicates the place of honor, and guests are always urged to sit in front of it. The floor of the "toko-no-ma" is raised four or five inches above the level of the room and should never be stepped upon. In this "toko-no-ma" is usually ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... carpets and velvet cushions for the women to sit on, which they do, after the Moorish fashion, cross-legged. The chairs for the men are covered with printed leather. At the end of the estrado, there is an alcove, where the bed stands; and there is always a vast deal of the sheets hanging out, with a profusion of lace to them, and the same on the pillows. They have a false door to the alcove, which sometimes is very ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... BUCKTHORN, in Washington. Interior. Fireplace slanting upward. Small alcove. Opening to hall, with staircase beyond, and also entrance from out left. Door up stage. A wide opening, with portieres to apartment. Upright piano down stage. Armchair and low stool before fireplace. Small table for tea, etc. Ottoman. Other chairs, ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard

... Where beauty lavishes her powers On beds of never-fading flowers, And pleasure propagates around Each charm of modulated sound; Ah! think not, in the dangerous hour, The nymph fictitious as the flower, But shun, rash youth! the gay alcove, Nor tempt the snares ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... more she was kneeling with hands locked together before a much-gilded little waxem figure of St. Eustacie with his cross-bearing stag by his side, which stood in a curtained recess in the alcove where her stately ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... her release. They were gilded oubliettes, savouring both of the cloister and the harem. Their staircases twisted, turned, ascended, and descended. A zigzag of rooms, one running into another, led back to the starting-point. A gallery terminated in an oratory. A confessional was grafted on to an alcove. Perhaps the architects of "the little rooms," building for royalty and aristocracy, took as models the ramifications of coral beds, and the openings in a sponge. The branches became a labyrinth. Pictures turning on false panels were exits and entrances. They were ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... bliss descended upon the companions as they sat at table in their favourite place, a sort of alcove or niche in the general hall of the eating-house, whence they could see and hear all that went on, without being too much disturbed in their enjoyment of the good things set before them. The place was brightly lighted by ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... forlorn heap with Louis's, all jumbled together just as the Customs Officers had left it. Taking off her shoes she put on her bedroom slippers and began to move about quietly, unpacking things, hanging her frocks on a row of pegs in the alcove, for there was no cupboard of any description—putting some books on the mantelpiece, her toilet things on the table. She was doing things in a dream, but it was a dream into which outside things penetrated, ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... and a plain Normandy oak armoire, fitted with shelves upon which were specimens and materials for work. A fibre mat and a couple of kitchen chairs completed the furnishings of the main part, but in a sort of alcove which formed the base of the L, and which was curtained off by thick red hangings, was a camp bed with a table beside it and a chest of drawers. Here, so she was told by Jacques the servant, the doctor not infrequently ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... window: this suite completes the east side. The south is occupied by the end of the drawing-room and a vast library—all en suite. The library is lighted by four bay windows, three flat ones and a fine alcove, and the rest of the main building to the west is made up of billiard- and smoking-rooms, waiting-hall, groom-of-chambers' sitting- and bed-rooms, and a carpet-room, besides the necessary staircases. This completes the main building, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... little cafe of the neighborhood where I was to wait for him, and give me notice that she was alone, and that I might throw myself at her feet. It was only after I had learned all these particulars that I thought of drying my clothes and taking some refreshment. I then took possession of the dark alcove of his ante-room, which was lighted by one round window, and heated by a stove. I dressed myself neatly and simply, so that she I loved might not blush ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine

... Hogan-Yale. The Second-in-Command led the Colonel away to the little curtained alcove wherein the subalterns of the white Hussars were accustomed to play poker of nights; and there, after many oaths on the Colonel's part, they talked together in low tones. I fancy that the Second-in- Command must have represented the scare as the work ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... accompanied me as far as the park on the river bank, where in a quiet alcove I somewhat Germanised my appearance. I shaved my short beard and trimmed my moustache with the ends erect, the now universal fashion of the German menfolk; and with an old felt cap and unmistakable German clothes, I ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor

... had been sitting in the alcove before a writing-table hidden by a curtain, looked out and ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

... pretty drawing room. Before going upstairs to dress, she ran into the reception hall for the fourth time to feast her eyes upon a huge bunch of tall chrysanthemums in the beautiful Japanese vase that stood in the alcove under the stairs. They had come about an hour before with a note from Tom Gray saying that he had arrived in Oakdale that morning, had seen the boys and would be around to help David and Reddy at the "girl convention," as he ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower

... the strong odor of Turkish pastilles, not such as are sold here on the streets, but those of Constantinople, which are more powerful and more dangerous. She rang, and a maid appeared. She entered an alcove without a word, and a few minutes later I saw her leaning on her elbow in her habitual ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset

... Church was decided in a very different manner— by little knots of influential persons meeting quietly of a morning in the back room of some inconspicuous lodging-house, by a sunset rendezvous in the Borghese Gardens between a Cardinal and a Diplomatist by a whispered conference in an alcove at a Princess's evening party, with the gay world chattering all about. And, of course, on such momentous occasions as these, Manning was in his element. None knew those difficult ropes better than he; none used them with a more serviceable and yet discreet alacrity. ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... I thought we would, and we did; and then out of the confusion on the quay we found our way to a nice little hotel. Few things I suppose are nice in Jaffa; but this really seemed clean, and I am sure it was pleasant. The Oriental style of the house - the courtyard, and alcove rooms, stone floors and cushioned divans, - were delightful to me. And so was our first dinner there; papa and I alone, tired and hungry, and eating with the Mediterranean full in sight, and the sun going down "ayont the sea." I established ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... announced. The apartments were decorated in a heavy, gloomy style, and those of the citoyenne in particular (they had been occupied by a lady who had once been designated as feue Madame la Marquise, but who was referred to now as la mere du ci-devant) were much in need of renovation. The alcove, for instance, was all that was least gay and most far from simple. The citoyenne would have all that changed. On the morning of the day of the expected arrival, Berthe said to ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... remotely resembling such an adventure as the present in all her life. But the readiness of her acquiescence misled him, and in the little hard-trodden wjne-garden in which they sipped a sugary champagne together, in a trellised alcove like a relic of old Vauxhall, he grew amorous, and told her that her eyes were like beryls, and that their whites were like porcelain. The lonely man in the brown smoke-fog, with the roar of the river in his ears, as unregarded as the roar of traffic ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... official mystery of the aide-de-camp. He made his advance to the minister, deposited the despatch in his hands, and then drew up his stately figure, impervious to all questioning. Carnot retired to an alcove to read the missive, and in the mean time the general anxiety was an absolute fever. The dance ceased, the tables of loto and faro were deserted, the whole business of life was broken up, and five hundred of the handsomest, the most brilliant, and the best dressed of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... those issued by the Grolier Club. If he was financially depressed, he would hunt in the out-of-door shelves of well-known Philadelphia bookshops. It was marvelous to see what things, new and old, he was able to extract from a ten-cent alcove. Part of the secret lay in this idea: to be a good book-hunter one must not be too dainty; one must not be afraid of soiling one's hands. He who observes the clouds shall not reap, and he who thinks of his cuffs is likely to lose many a bookish treasure. Our Bibliotaph generally ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent

... water, and when he lifted the pitcher to his mouth, he dropped in it his betrothal ring, which Aldonza saw and recognized. She told the damsel to bring the stranger to her apartment. Scarce had he arrived there when the Moorish king entered, and Ramiro hid himself in an alcove. "What would you do to Ramiro," asked Aldonza, "if you had him in your power?" "I would hew him limb from limb," said the Moor. "Then lo! Alboazar, he is now skulking in that alcove." With this, Ramiro was dragged forth, and the Moor said, "And how would you act if our lots were reversed?" ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... of femininity, the little touches which a woman can impart to the smallest corner in a few brief moments of occupancy. It was a tiny alcove shut off from the rest of the living room by heavy silk hangings, drawn now and pinned together so as to assure her the privacy she wished. The one window was high and fitted with leaded glass, but it was raised and afforded the maximum of light. Stella's traveling bag sprawled ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... named one of his plantations Il Penseroso and in it built a small temple which he bespattered with dismal texts. A clock struck every minute, to remind the visitor of the constant approach of death, and in an alcove were two life-size paintings of a Christian and an Unbeliever in their last moments. At the end of a walk stood a pair of pedestals, one of which carried a "Gentleman's Scull" and the other a "Lady's Scull" with appropriate verses; upon all of which melancholy ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... Edward had filed into the garden in long and stately order. From another entrance Elizabeth, the Princess Margaret, and the Duchess of Bedford, with their trains, had already issued, and were now ranged upon a flight of marble steps, backed by a columned alcove, hung with velvet striped into the royal baudekin, while the stairs themselves were covered with leathern carpets, powdered with the white rose and the fleur de lis; either side lined by the bearers of ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... thousand voices sound through Heaven's alcove, Coming across the skies so blue, Making the angels smile above— The earth embalms the songsters true; The nightingales, from tree to flower, Sing louder, fuller, stronger. 'Tis all so sweet, though no one beats the measure, To hear it all while concerts last—such pleasure! Indeed ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles

... from Monsieur de Magny's bedroom into his antechamber two doors, the great one which formed the entrance into his room, and a smaller one which led, as the fashion is with our houses abroad, into the closet which communicates with the alcove where the bed is. The door of this was found by M. de Weissenborn to be open, and the young man was thus enabled to hear and see everything ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and Richard on the step above, leaning his back against the blighted flowers of the wall-paper. From an oval window at the head of the stairs the summer sunshine streamed upon them, and illuminated the high-shouldered clock which, ensconced in an alcove, seemed top be listening to ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... and then followed her trunk to the blue room, which she found to be a lovely apartment with an alcove, adjoining Bertha's sitting-room, and furnished with all the comfort and elegance to which she had been accustomed to all her life in ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... map there were— Here hung the pictured world, an infant there: That framed his genius, this enshrined his love. And as at eve he glanced round th' alcove, Where jailers watched his very thoughts to spy, What mused he then—what dream of years gone by Stirred 'neath that discrowned brow, and ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... Indeed, I never saw him appear to so much advantage. We walked from his "den" to the dining- room, where the guests were waiting for breakfast, through his bedroom. A fine Louis XVI. bed from the garde-meuble was in the alcove. I pointed, and asked: "Le lit de Talleyrand?" "Le lit de Dagobert!" At our meeting on the 20th we discussed fully the Danube question, and also that of Newfoundland, in which I always took a deep interest, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... signifying "spirit-sticks." ... If the family worships its ancestors according to the Buddhist rite, the mortuary tablets are placed in the Buddhist household-shrine, or Butsudan, which usually occupies the upper shelf of an alcove in one of the inner apartments. Buddhist mortuary-tablets (with some exceptions) are called ihai,—a term signifying "soul-commemoration." They are lacquered and gilded, usually having a carved lotos-flower as pedestal; and ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... Captain along a somewhat gloomy hall, up a narrow and winding staircase, and here, halfway up, was a small landing with an alcove where stood a tall, wizen-faced clock with skeleton hands and a loud, insistent, very deliberate tick; so, up more stairs to another hall, also somewhat gloomy, and a door which the pale-eyed, smiling person obligingly opened, and, having ushered them into ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... saw the Girl, elusively sweet, almost unreal, a thing to enshrine in that ideal alcove of our hearts we keep for our saints. (And God help us always to keep shining there ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... of a classic ideal, realized in the trained vines and clipped trees which formed the coulisses. There was a grassy space for the chorus and the commoner audience, and then a few semicircular gradines cut in the turf, one alcove another, where the more honored spectators sat. Behind the seats were plinths bearing the busts of Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, and Herder. It was all very pretty, and if ever the weather in Weimar was dry enough to permit a performance, it must have been charming to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... the room she had wriggled herself clear of the last cot, and was over the sill and in the corridor, the twilight aiding her escape. Regaining her feet, she darted noiselessly down the long hall. At the head of the stairs she paused. On the floor below was a small alcove where she might hide. Making sure that no one was in sight, she sped down, but as she reached the lower step one of the ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd

... and passed through a door at the end of the hall into a large and barren looking dining-room, stiffly and skimpily furnished, but well-lighted, owing to the fact that one end of it had been transformed into a narrow "conservatory," a glass alcove now tenanted by two dried palms and a number of vacant jars ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington

... soon 's he came in. To-night he departed with feigned and apologetic liveliness. He was as afraid of his still-faced clerks—of the eyes focused on him, Miss McGoun staring with head lifted from her typing, Miss Bannigan looking over her ledger, Mat Penniman craning around at his desk in the dark alcove, Stanley Graff sullenly expressionless—as a parvenu before the bleak propriety of his butler. He hated to expose his back to their laughter, and in his effort to be casually merry he stammered and was raucously friendly and oozed wretchedly out of ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... French world had satisfied me, what was not my wonder and joy at discovering in it a reflective side; and for half an hour I remained in a leafy alcove listening to her refined converse,—dealing with books like "Corinne," and "La Chaumiere Indienne,"—La Fontaine, Moliere, Montesquieu,—and especially interesting me in the society which moved around us, which as she touched it with her wand of history and eloquence, ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... these things with Alice. The conservatory is now a shattered dream, and the butler's pantry is inevitable. The graceful alcove, which was to have been the conservatory (with aviary features), is to be provided with a permanent, stationary seat which Adah is to upholster in a pattern which Maria has promised to send from St. Joe. Whenever I think of it there rise ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field

... his master's orders and joyously welcomes his mistress's suitor. A delicate love-scene follows, during which Antonia shows her lover, that her voice is as fine as ever. When they hear Krespel returning Antonia retires to her own room, but Hoffmann hides himself in an alcove, determined to learn why Antonia is so closely ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... little pillow-slips which an elderly maiden aunt had embroidered with their monogram; the latter consisted of two huge letters, formed of flowers, joined together in one single embrace, and kissing here and there, wherever they touched, at the corners. The bride had her own little alcove, which was screened off by a Japanese screen. The drawing-room, which was also dining-room, study and morning-room, contained her piano, (which had cost twelve hundred crowns) his writing-table with twelve pigeon-holes, (every single piece of it real walnut) ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... appearance was that of a scholar, the descendant of scholars. He was tall and slender, with the complexion which is bred in the alcove and not in the open air. He used to tell his son Edward that he measured six feet in his shoes, but his son thinks he could hardly have straightened himself to that height in his later years. He was very light for a man of his stature. He got ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... luxurious. Mr. Gaythorne is evidently a rich man, though he keeps no carriage. Mrs. Crampton told me so. He is very fond of flowers; there is a sort of conservatory on the first floor full of beautiful plants, and an alcove where he can sit and enjoy them. I could not help stopping a moment to admire them, but Mrs. Crampton did not invite me to go in. You may depend upon it the old gentleman is a strict martinet, and rules his household with a rod of iron. Mrs. Crampton seems a good ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... butter in various forms, slightly charged with jam, and languidly frizzling over tepid water. Two ancient turtle-shells, on which was inscribed the legend, 'SOUPS,' decorated a glass partition within, enclosing a stuffy alcove, from which a ghastly mockery of a marriage-breakfast spread on a rickety table, warned the terrified traveller. An oblong box of stale and broken pastry at reduced prices, mounted on a stool, ornamented the doorway; and two high chairs that looked as if ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... Kit heard of the Klondike was when he dropped into the club that afternoon, and, in an alcove off the ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... description. He resolved to visit this enchanting object; and descending the staircase, explored his way through a long arcade, which led him at length into the garden, in which he diverted himself with the scenery it afforded for some time. He then retired to an alcove on the margin of the basin, and sat down; but had not rested many moments, when to his astonishment he beheld descending from the sky a company of beautiful damsels, whose robes of light green silk floating in the air seemed ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... movements for ten minutes or so I descended to the big salle-a-manger and there ate my luncheon, chatting to the French waiter the while. I sat purposely in an alcove, so as to be away from the other people lunching there, and in order that I might be able to talk with the waiter without ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux

... that she related, and she experienced a feeling of satisfaction in the sympathy and pity of the grown people. Her mother had taken her to the attic, so she reported, but fearing the cold, she had stealthily crept downstairs and hidden herself in the bed in the alcove. Through a hole in the curtain she could see and hear everything. When the old man was about to be stabbed, the lady with the green feather ran terrified into the room and attempted to escape through the window. Bastide Grammont ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... rear stage may have differed considerably in the various theaters, but the typical form may best be described as an alcove in front of which curtains could be drawn. This alcove was by no means so small as the word may seem to imply, but must have been about half as wide as the front stage and perhaps a quarter as deep. In its rear wall was a door through which the actors could enter without being seen ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken

... did Mr. Smithson peruse her countenance in the hope of seeing that she was impressed by the splendour of his surroundings, and by the power of the man who commanded such splendour. Lesbia was as cold as the Italian sculptor's Reading Girl in an alcove of Mr. Smithson's picture gallery; and the stockbroker felt very much as Aladdin might have done if the fair Badroulbadour had shown herself indifferent to the hall of the jewelled windows, in that magical palace which sprang into being ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... on the first and hold back the bough of the rose-tree. And through this wilderness there tumbles a loud rushing stream, which is halted at last in the lowest corner of the garden, and there tossed up in a fountain by the side of the simple alcove. This is all. ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... sixth dance was over, Patty asked her partner to bring Mr. Everson to her, and then she awaited his coming on a little sofa in an alcove. ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... we advanced, for it encircles Munich at some distance from the town. We arrived here on Sunday, the 4th, in the afternoon. . .My address is opposite the Sendlinger Thor Number 37. I have a very pretty chamber on the lower floor with an alcove for my bed. The house is situated outside the town, on a promenade, which makes it very pleasant. Moreover, by walking less than a hundred yards, I reach the Hospital and the Anatomical School, a great convenience for me when the winter weather begins. One thing gives me great pleasure: ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... recognized by one of the butlers whom he had befriended on his arrival from the Old World. The grateful fellow had gone out of the way to make him at home, and in his enthusiasm had put an alcove which opened off the ball room at his and Harriet's disposal. The doctor was elated at this evidence of Bivens's good feeling and again congratulated himself on his common ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... somewhere in particular. After a short stroll they entered the Empire, which, Sansome explained, was the most stylish and frequented gambling place in town, a sort of evening club for the well-to-do and powerful. Keith looked over a very large room or hall, at the lower end of which an alcove made a sort of raised stage with footlights. Here sat a dozen "nigger minstrels" with banjos strumming, and bawling away at top pressure. An elaborate rosewood bar ran down the whole length at one side—an impressive polished bar, perhaps ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... the woman beckoned Mowgli to her hut, where there was a red lacquered bedstead, a great earthen grain chest with funny raised patterns on it, half a dozen copper cooking pots, an image of a Hindu god in a little alcove, and on the wall a real looking glass, such as they sell ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... was no little confusion at the Hotel Tyrol when it came to establishing the Medcrofts. For a while it looked as though Brock would have to share a room with Tootles, relegating Burton to an alcove and a couch; but Constance, in a strictly family conclave, was seized by an inspiration which saved the day—or the night, ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon

... beauty lavishes her pow'rs On beds of never-fading flow'rs, And pleasure propagates around Each charm of modulated sound; Ah! think not, in the dang'rous hour, The nymph fictitious as the flow'r; But shun, rash youth, the gay alcove, Nor tempt the snares of wily love. When charms thus press on ev'ry sense, What thought of flight, or of defence? Deceitful hope, and vain desire, For ever flutter o'er her lyre, Delighting, as the youth draws nigh, To point the glances of her eye, And forming, with unerring art, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... meditation; all its furniture consisted of a large chair with a praying-desk and a back, from six to eight feet high, let into and fixed in the wall. The room to the right of this was the friar's bed-room; at the farther end of it was situated the alcove, very low, and paved above with flags like a tomb. The room to the left was the workshop, the refectory, the store-room of the recluse. A press at the far end of the room had a wooden compartment with a window opening on the cloister, through which his provisions ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks



Words linked to "Alcove" :   bay, carrel, stall, niche, recess, cubicle



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