"Curtain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my school district. At one of the houses at which I had to take my turn, I remember that there had been, as an afterthought of the house architect, a door cut between the room I slept in and the farmyard, but, whether from indifference or inability, the door had never been put in, and a curtain which supplied its place and was intended to keep the snow out, did it so incompletely that I found in the morning—after a snowy night—that a heavy drift had formed between the opening and the bed. ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... while, Eve's daughter must have a peep. She stole with infinite caution to one side of the curtain, and made an aperture just big enough for one bright eye. Yes, there he was, motionless. "I'll tell mamma," said she to him, malignantly, as if the sound could ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... some time. Nobody seemed inclined to 'open.' The old aunty sat bolt upright, looking crab-apples and persimmons at the hoosier and the preacher; the young lady dropped the green curtain of her bonnet over her pretty face, and leaned back in her seat to nod and dream over japonicas and jumbles, pantalets and poetry; the old gentleman, proprietor of the Bardolph nose, looked out at the corduroy and swashes; the gambler fell off into a doze, and the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... briliancy between Aldebaran and the Pleiades; and on the 18th of March it attained an altitude of 39¼degrees5'minutes. Narrow elongated clouds are scattered over the beautiful deep azure of the distant horizon, flitting past the zodiacal light as before a golden curtain. Above these, other clouds are from time to time reflecting the most brightly variegated colors. It seems a second sunset. On this side of the vault of heaven the lightness of the night appears to increase almost as much as at the first quarter of the moon. ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... mother; in fact he was afraid that in a minute he would have to laugh at her snortings, so he went into the parlour and sat there in the dark, eating his sweets, and knitting his brow over the complexities of life. He could see five stars, and there was a light behind the red curtain of the front bedroom at Arber's farm. It was about twelve times as large as a star, and a much prettier colour. By nearly closing his eyes he could see everything double, so that there were ten stars and two red lights; he was ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... continue from month to month to hold sessions, and supply, each time, new cart-loads of victims to the hangman. But a sudden collapse took place in the machinery, and they met no more. The executive authority intervened, and their functions ceased. The curtain fell unexpectedly, and the tragedy ended. It is not known precisely what caused this sudden change. It is probable, that a revolution had been going on some time in the public mind, which was kept for a while from notice, but at last became too apparent and too serious to be disregarded. ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... we had been led to expect. The window of the low front room, which was large and rather bowed, still retained the remains of its former shop-like appearance, was modestly screened in the inside by a green curtain; and the step of the door was nicely scoured ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... went on, as he drew the curtain aside, "that you are engaged with a friend; but Miss Faulkner is waiting to say good-night, and ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... heavy wheels in the road, and the two horses of the ambulance appeared. The sentries presented arms; the colonel took off his hat; the officers uncovered; the wagon wheeled into the parade; the surgeon stepped out. He exchanged a single word with the colonel, and lifted the curtain ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... overhead behind the curtain, a faint but perfectly distinct radiance was visible. It was no more than a diffused glimmer, but it was unmistakable, and it shone out faintly and clearly upon the medium's face. By its light Laurie could make out every line and every feature, the drooping clipped moustache, the strong jutting ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... Laura Hawkins, fair, fascinating and fatal, and with the dissolute Colonel of a lost cause, who has reaped the harvest he sowed, we have nothing to do. But as the curtain rises on this awful tragedy, we catch a glimpse of the society at the capital under this Administration, which we cannot contemplate without alarm for ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... watch, but his vigil did not last an hour. At ten minutes of three, peering through the curtain, he saw an automobile stop in front of the house and Eugene Morgan jump lightly down from it. The car was of a new pattern, low and long, with an ample seat in the tonneau, facing forward; and a professional driver sat at the wheel, a strange figure in leather, goggled out of ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... believe that his fears and my own terrors were over-exaggerated, when one night I had a strange dream. I had hardly fallen asleep when I heard my bed-curtains drawn apart, as their rings slided back upon the curtain rod with a sharp sound. I rose up quickly upon my elbow, and beheld the shadow of a woman standing erect before me. I recognised Clarimonde immediately. She bore in her hand a little lamp, shaped like those which ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... that the other was in earnest, he raised his brows in acknowledgment. Tavannes nodded carelessly in return, looked an instant at the cards on the table, and passed on, pushed his way through the circle, and reached the door. He was lifting the curtain to go out, when Nancay, the Captain of the Guard, plucked ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... time to bid farewell to the subject of this tremendous note; and most sincerely do I wish I could 'draw the curtain' upon it, and say 'good night,' with as much cheerfulness and satisfaction at [Transcriber's Note: as] Atterbury did upon the close of his professional labours. But the latter moments of STEEVENS were moments of mental anguish. He grew not only irritable, but outrageous; and, in ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... conceived by the faith and feeling of the first Greek, and known only through their legends,—without presuming to measure how much or how little of historical matter these legends may contain. If the reader blame me for not assisting him to determine this,—if he ask me why I do not undraw the curtain and disclose the picture,—I reply in the words of the painter Zeuxis, when the same question was addressed to him, on exhibiting his master-piece of imitative art—'The curtain is the picture.' ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... comes to talking one's common thoughts,—those that come and go as the breath does; those that tread the mental areas and corridors with steady, even foot-fall, an interminable procession of every hue and garb,—there are few, indeed, that can dare to lift the curtain which hangs before the window in the breast and throw open the window, and let us look and listen. We are all loyal enough to our sovereign when he shows himself, but sovereigns are scarce. I never saw ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... intimidated her. Had Gerald left her trunk in the hall? Of course he had. What a question! But what would happen to her? London ... London had merely dazed her. She could do nothing for herself. She was as helpless as a rabbit in London. She drew aside the window-curtain and had a glimpse of the river. It was inevitable that she should think of suicide; for she could not suppose that any girl had ever got herself into a plight more desperate than hers. "I could slip out at night and drown myself," ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... curtain falls. Judging by my first act, Mr. Westwick, tell me truly, and don't be afraid of turning my head:— Am I not capable ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... (he was accustomed to making-up in another sense, as his wig and whiskers could testify) to charming young lady. Such was the scene. He asked her to accept him. Her reply was to show him the heading of this advertisement in the Times:—"YOUTH WANTED." Tableau! Exit Beau. Curtain. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... alone, utterly alone, in the midst of the great city, and was soon forced to seek companionship with his fellow beings. It was strange, meanwhile, how black the heavens grew, as if the whole sky were sheeted with a curtain of lead. I saw him now constantly in the streets, the rooms, and in the midst of the people: he fascinated my gaze as if I saw only him. Under the calm of a tranquil face, he concealed bitter torment, intense suffering. Evil thoughts are winding through ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... some dreadful dream?" wailed Rosemary; and Evelyn found no answer. But Hugh had pounced upon a card pinned on the window curtain; and as he held it out, in eloquent silence, she read aloud over his shoulder; "Compliments of Mademoiselle ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... as the pupils continued to stare at the sky where the fleecy clouds floated; he doubled back his neck so that he might still see the light of day, but all too soon he had to go down into the water, and that foul curtain shut out the sight of the world from ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... that he has changed his mind again. He is now going in for amateur theatricals and is using you for a theatre. First thoughtfully draping a little rubber drop curtain across your proscenium arch to keep you from seeing what is going on behind your own scenes, he is setting the stage for the thrilling sawmill scene in Blue Jeans. You can distinctly feel the circular saw at ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... only understand a word here and there, he obtained an accurate idea of the conversation between her father and the governor, and of her father's calm manner, and the gestures and intonations of apparent friendship but veiled menace. By putting her ears to a keyhole and hiding behind a curtain, she expressed the possibility of there being a spy in the very household, who would listen to the unguarded talk of her father and report it to the governor. Jack determined that he would watch every movement of the domestics, and especially observe if he could detect ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... know that it boots to dally longer in a dying chamber. It is an axiom of old that the stage curtain should be drawn before the inexorable one enters in upon his final work. Dr. Finucane did come, but his coming was all in vain. Sir Thomas had known that it was in vain, and so also had his patient wife. There ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... a curtain move at that window on the left a while ago," commented Astro, "and all three ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... in at this old window, to be sure—boarded up, when first we came; a window I can't keep clean, do what I may—and half burns, and nearly blinds me at my sewing, besides setting the flies and wasps astir—such flies and wasps as only lone mountain houses know. See, here is the curtain—this apron—I try to shut it out with then. It fades it, you see. Sun gild this house? ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... his hand and stepping on tiptoe towards a door at one end of the room, partly hidden by a thick curtain. ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... The curtain rings up on his work for the Steelyard,—work which covered many years and more fine paintings than could even be enumerated here—with a superlative exhibition of all his powers. The oil portrait of Georg Gyze, ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... upstairs," she suggested. As she spoke she saw on the floor at her feet a ring of some dull metal, such as is used on light curtain-rods, but under the circumstances there was something a little startling in ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... distinguished by two other odd habits. Having two sets of eyelids, an inner and an outer, we can close one or both at will. The inner one is a thin skin that we blink with, and draw across our eyes in the day-time when the light annoys us, just as House People pull down a curtain to shut out the sun. The outer lids we close only in sleep, when we put up the shutters after a night's work, and at last in death—for birds alone among all animals are able to close their own eyes when they die. The other ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... warbled. "But I shan't open them till the curtain comes down. There, we've finished." He jumped up. "Beautiful, allow me to present to you the Byrds' Christmas tree." With a dramatic gesture he unhooked a cord. The curtain fell. There in the full morning light stood a tree, different from any Mary had ever seen. ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... sympathy, forbids to snore, His anguish doubled by his own 'encore!' Squeezed in 'Fop's Alley,' jostled by the beaux, Teased with his hat, and trembling for his toes, Scarce wrestles through the night, nor tastes of ease Till the dropp'd curtain gives a glad release: Why this and more he suffers, can ye guess?— Because it costs him dear, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... have lived who do not possess elevation of sentiment. His headquarters were not at Athens, but at Ephesus,—a city which also produced Parrhasins, to whom Zeuxis himself gave the palm, since he deceived the painter by his curtain, while Zeuxis only deceived birds by his grapes. Parrhasius established the rule of proportions, which was followed by succeeding artists. He was a very luxurious and arrogant man, and fancied he had reached ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... had pressed aside the heavy curtain framing the window until she could command the stoop. Two men were waiting there. "Oh!" she breathed, almost reeling back upon Tottie. "Oh, don't let 'em in! Don't! I can't see anybody! Say I'm gone! Oh, please, Tottie! I'm gone for good." She was beside Barbara again, ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... The curtain rises on a darkened stage, through whose blackness you presently discover, twinkling far below, as if you were looking down from an aeroplane, the lights of Paris, the silver thread of the Seine and its bridges. ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... and raised the thong used to urge on his animal; but Marcia, hearing the clamour, thrust the curtain aside again and, motioning the slave to restrain himself, threw several denarii to her would-be host. At the same moment, the horses suddenly quickened their gait, and the pursuer, keeping his hold, was jerked ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... suddenly appeared in front of the curtain and walked swiftly over the little bridge from the stage to the stalls. He was a small, sturdy, thin-lipped, choleric man, who looked as if he were made up of energy; energy distilled and bottled. Some one had said of him that his hat ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... seem to live back into those days. I feel the helmet on my head; I wave the standard over it: brave men smile upon me; beautiful maidens pull them gently back by the scarf, and will not let them break my slumber, nor undraw the curtain. Corneliolina!... ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... Kings own its potent sway, and humbly bows The gilded diadem upon their brows— Its saving voice with Mercy speeds to all, But ah! how few who quicken at the call— Gentiles the favour'd 'little Flock' detest, And Abraham's children spit upon their rest. Once only since Creation's work, has night Curtain'd with dark'ning Clouds its saving light, What time the Ark majestically rode, Unscath'd upon the desolating flood— The Silver weigh'd for it, in all its strength For scarce three pounds were counted, while ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... we will drop the curtain here. One of our puppets shall appear to-night no more. When a heroine is once on the stage, the public has a right to be indulged with the spectacle of her faults and follies, as well as of her virtues and excellences; yet I love the phantasm of my queenly Cecil too well ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... against the bulwarks at eight o'clock the next morning. White mist was all around us, a sea with no horizon. Suddenly, like the curtain of a theatre, the mist rose. Gradually the horizon-line appeared, then a line of low coast, which, muddy-looking as it was, made one's heart beat thick and fast. Then lines of dark wood; then the shore was dotted with grey huts; then the sun came out, the breeze was soft and ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... fact. The smell of the place, the heat—for the gas made the air vibrant—the very tawdriness of the hangings and gilding, all thrilled him, because they were, as Killigrew would have said, so "in the picture." When the curtain went up he settled himself ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... cloud of smoke, hiding the face of the intrenchments. Then the boys of Louisburg saw bursting through this suffocating curtain a few faces, many faces, long rows of faces, some pale, some red, some laughing, some horrified, some shouting, some swearing—a long row of faces that swept through the smoke, following a line of steel—a line of steel ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... coat here and a pair of striped trousers there, with a sort of timorous pride, a deprecating bravado, as if they expected to be hooted by the spectators and were very glad when they were not. The man who went round with a dog to keep boys from hooking in under the curtain had grown gentler, and his dog did not look as if he would bite the worst boy in town. The man came up and asked the young mother about her sleeping child, and I inferred that the child had been sick, and was therefore unusually interesting to all ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and Frances knew very well it was in vain to make any objection, as her mamma always made a point of obedience. The medicine was administered, although for some time Frances refused to look at it. When she laid down, her mamma placed the pillow high under her head, and, drawing the curtain to shade the light, left the room that she might be perfectly quiet. And when she returned to the drawing-room, she inquired of the other children what they had been doing, and received a full account of the feast, and the bird's nest, and all the little circumstances ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... and fiery-pointed sun, Rushing from forth a cloud, bereaves our sight; Even so, the curtain drawn, his eyes begun To wink, being blinded with a greater light: Whether it is that she reflects so bright, That dazzleth them, or else some shame supposed; But blind they are, and ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... were crowned with chaplets of the fresh blossom of the nono or flower-tree (Morinda citrifolia), which the women had gathered in the freshness of the morning dew. On looking round the apartment, though it contained several beds, we found no partition, curtain, or screens; they had not yet been considered necessary. So far, indeed, from concealment being thought of, when we were about to get up, the women, anxious to show their attention, assembled to wish us good morning, and to inquire in what way they could best contribute ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... door would open. He waited. In vain. It seemed to him there was nothing alive in that house except his heart. He was stifled with the horror that he glimpsed, that he almost touched, although that door remained closed. He felt along the wall in order to reach the window, and pulled aside the curtain. Window and blinds of the little room giving on the Neva were closed. The bar of iron inside was in its place. Then he went to the passage, mounted and descended the narrow servants' stairway, looked all about, in all the rooms, feeling everywhere with silent hands, assuring himself ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... coming down the alley. Beside her sat Tufik's sister, sobbing at the top of her voice and wearing Aggie's foulard, a pair of cotton gloves, and a lace curtain over her head. Behind in the tonneau were her maid of honor, a young Syrian woman with a baby in her arms and four other black-eyed children about her. But that was not all. In front of the machine, marching slowly and with dignity, were three bearded gentlemen, two ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... [The curtain draws up and shows the same scene as the last, with the mist clearing, and PHARAMOND lying ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... two in Madrid, four in Buenos Aires, and even on the Pacific coast of America before she appeared in New York. She had sung Lucia more than 200 times before her first appearance at Covent Garden, and the twenty curtain calls she received on that occasion came as the greatest surprise of her career. She had begun to believe that she could never be appreciated by English-speaking audiences and the ovation ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... beginning. No one seems to have been afraid of science and its possibilities. Yet now where there had been but a score or so of seekers, there were many thousands, and for one needle of speculation that had been probing the curtain of appearances in 1800, there were now hundreds. And already Chemistry, which had been content with her atoms and molecules for the better part of a century, was preparing herself for that vast next stride that was to revolutionise the whole life of ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... up; but there was not a faint gleam of light yet at the window, and I resolutely refused to rise, sending my companion back to bed, and going off again, to wake at last with the sun shining brilliantly in by the curtain. This time I jumped up, with the full impression upon me that I had overslept myself; while there lay Mercer on his back, with his mouth wide-open, and giving vent every now and then to a ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... The curtain drops here on the history of the great Victorian Exploring Expedition, and little more remains to be told of its results or shortcomings. The continent was crossed, the Gulf reached, and the road indicated by the ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... Leston again. However, when Felix crept in, about four o'clock in the morning, anxious at the sounds he heard, he found him asleep, and this lasted for two or three hours; he woke refreshed, and presently said, 'Epiphany! put back the curtain, that I may see the ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 'She won't come, Palmy! It is far too late; she is gone to bed. Come down; you'll wake the village with your caterwauling!' But Leporello waves his broad archdeacon's hat, and resumes a flood of flexible Bregaglian. He has a shrewd suspicion that the girl is peeping from behind the window curtain; and tells us, bending down from the ladder, in a hoarse stage-whisper, that we must have patience; 'these girls are kittle cattle, who take long to draw: but if your lungs last out, they're sure to show.' And Leporello is right. Faint ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... year—every month—almost every week during the stormy seasons of the year. Known only to Him who is Omniscient are the multitudes of heartrending scenes of protracted agony and dreary death that are enacted year by year, all unknown to man, upon the lonely sea. Now and then the curtain of this dread theatre is slightly raised to us by the emaciated hand of a "survivor," and the sight, if we be thoughtful, may enable us to form a faint conception of those events that we never see. We might meditate on those things with advantage. Surely Christians ought not to require strong appeals ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... Coalition a petty duchy, the possession of which had been promised her by a treaty signed after the fall of the great Empire. There were again festivities in Vienna, but not for her, the dethroned sovereign. Once she was curious to see one, and she watched it hiding behind a curtain. On the evening of a court ball given by her father in honor of the members of the Congress of Vienna, she concealed herself near an opening made in the attic of the great hall of the palace,—where the festivities of her wedding had been celebrated,—and from there the ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... heard in a room, from behind a curtain, a soft and harmonious instrument, should we believe that chance, without the help of any human hand, could have formed such an instrument? Should we say that the strings of a violin, for instance, had of their own accord ranged and extended themselves on a wooden frame, whose several parts had glued ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... drawing-room that overlooked the outskirts of the town. The moonlight was flooding the vast bluish Tasajara levels with a faint lustre, as if the waters of the creek had once more returned to them. In the shadow of the curtain beside her Grant was facing ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... was in Jellico. It was midnight when the train came in, and he went immediately to his berth. Striking the curtain accidentally, he loosed it from its fastenings, and, doubling the pillows, he lay looking out on the swiftly passing landscape. The moon was full and brilliant, and there was a strange, keen pleasure in being whirled in such comfort through the night. The ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... was unpropitious. Foiled in his attempts upon the chastity of a lady of great beauty and high honor, he was rash enough to marry her; rash, we say, for from that fatal hour all became as darkness; the curtain fell upon the comedy of his life, to rise to tragic horrors. When, passion subsided, repentance awoke, and he became anxious for deliverance from the fetters he had so heedlessly imposed on himself, and ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... one of those sudden changes of weather so common in hilly countries had passed over the landscape. The mist was gone, rain fell no more, a sharp, clean breeze blew, the stars began to shine, and the moon rose bright. It was as though a curtain had been lifted. Dieppe's topographical observations stood him in good stead now and saved him some moments' consideration. The fugitive had choice of two routes. But he would not return to the village: ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... beautiful morning of August 11th that the Prince made his first landfall in the West, and saw in the distance the great curtain of high rock that makes the grim ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... and I will pause before this landscape. As to the fourth, a curtain covers it, which I may hereafter withdraw, or may not, as suits my convenience and capacity. At any rate, for the present it must hang undisturbed. Belgium! name unromantic and unpoetic, yet name that whenever uttered has in my ear a sound, in my heart an echo, such as ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... in the west, where snow-capt mountain's rise, Like marble shafts beneath heaven's stooping dome, And sunset's charming curtain drapes the skies As if Enchantment there ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... embroiling the country in a war with Spain. On the contrary, he held that the true remedy of existing grievances in the first instance was an immediate declaration of war against both belligerents, which, now that the curtain is lifted, we see was the true remedy of the hour; but that, if from prudence a declaration of war was withheld, it was unwise, by a total cessation of our most gainful commerce, to inflict upon our own ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... called their seats sett and stol, a name which we still preserve in the modern stool. The hall was ornamented with rich hangings, and there was generally a traves, which could be used as a curtain or screen to form a temporary partition. The floor was strewn with rushes, which were not removed quite so frequently as would have been desirable, considering that they were made the repository of the refuse of ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... party awakened by the trusty watch-dog's angry bark; and once, when Rodolph hastened to the entrance, and drew aside the curtain, he thought he could descry more than one retreating figure in the uncertain darkness. The continued uneasiness of Fingal prevented his master from again giving way to sleep until after day had dawned, when his faithful guard became ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... A thousand lamps On pit, stalls, boxes, brightly blaze, Impatiently the gallery stamps, The curtain now they slowly raise. Obedient to the magic strings, Brilliant, ethereal, there springs Forth from the crowd of nymphs surrounding Istomina(*) the nimbly-bounding; With one foot resting on its tip Slow circling round its fellow ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... strange silence in the tent. He lay still for a long time, tired and lame from the day's journey, but sleepless. The fire burned lower; the wind in the tree-tops died away; and the thick gray clouds rolled like a massive curtain from under the skies. The stars began to glow white and metallic, and from far in the North there came faintly a crisping moaning sound, like steel sleigh-runners running over frosty snow—the ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... their readers—"Young men of power and genius are apt to start with wild notions. He was no exception. Parson Lot's sayings and doings may well be pardoned for what Charles Kingsley said and did in after years; so let us drop a decent curtain ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... but guess. I have tauld ye your mother's purpose, and I ken Teresa was a fiend. She was never mair seen in Scotland, and I have heard that she returned to her ain land. A dark curtain has fa'en ower the past, and the few that witnessed ony part of it could only surmise something of ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... to the street I directed my steps in the direction of the Place d'Eylau. Two National Guards passed me, bearing a litter between them.—"Oh, you can look if you like," said one. So I drew back the checked curtain. On the mattress was stretched a woman, decently dressed, with a child of two or three years lying on her breast. They both looked very pale; one of the woman's arms was hanging down; her sleeve was stained with blood; the hand had been carried ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... their being before the earth, or any visible creature. "In the beginning God created the heavens" (Gen 1:1), &c. Neither do I think that the heavens were made of that confused chaos that afterwards we read of. It is said, he stretched out the heavens as a curtain, and with his hand he hath spanned the heavens (Psa 104:2; Isa 40:22; 48:13).; intimating, that they were not taken out of that formless heap, but were immediately formed by his power. Besides, the Holy Ghost, treating of the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... this minute; but a little while ago there was a kind of drawing aside of the thick curtain of falling snow, and I had a view of some terribly grand rocks, and one glimpse ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... happily put aside the curtain which concealed a mystery that no longer gave me uneasiness;" interrupted Ludlow, addressing the free-trader. "Can you do more, and say whence ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... to basses, and sung by him with a face that would have done credit to Othello, received an ovation that confirmed Captain Carteret in his contempt for country audiences. The performance raged to its close in a "Cake Walk," to the inspiring strains of "Razors a-flying through the air," and the curtain fell on what the Enniscar Independent described cryptically as "a tout ensemble a la ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... cataracts, and islets. He saw the beautiful fall to which ever since has been given the name of Rideau—a name also extended to the river, whose waters make the descent at this point—on account of its striking resemblance to a white curtain. Next he looked into the deep chasm of mist, foam, and raging waters, which the Indians called Asticou or Cauldron (Chaudiere), on whose sides and adjacent islets, then thickly wooded, now stand ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... has brought us to the fourth act of the play, and when the curtain rises on this act we see the Court of Justice in Venice. The Duke and all his courtiers are present, the prisoner Antonio, with Bassanio, and many others of his friends. Shylock is called in. The Duke tries to soften the Jew's heart ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... the window and, kneeling on the floor, watched the singers through the curtain—knowing well it wasn't for her, but drinking deep of ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... would respectfully inform you that your dear friend Alice Fletcher is no more—there ain't no such person. She made a noble end in white satin covered with sticky out things, and her stylish aunt's lace curtain. She looked very lovely, what I could see of her through the curtain. My dear Miss Morton, I beseech you when you get married, don't wear a window curtain. Because if you do the groom and the sympathizing friends can't see how hard ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... little front parlor, framed in by the series of doorways, was Harrie, all in a cloud of white. It floated about her with an idle, wavelike motion. She had a veil like fretted pearls through which her tinted arm shone faintly, and the shadow of a single scarlet leaf trembled through a curtain upon ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... table, gay with lights and flowers, that should have commanded the Falls but for the curtain of fog. Niagara, however, might flout them if it pleased; they could do without Niagara. They were delighted that the hotel, apparently, contained no one they knew. All they wanted was to be together, and alone. ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of Polly's!—Mrs. Allen took me upstairs 'n' I saw 'em all. The weddin' veil is looped along the lamberquin with a glove pinned to each curtain, the dress hangs on a frame between against the window shade, 'n' the under things is folded on a table at one side with the stockin's tied together in a true lovers'-knot. I must say they 've done it all real tasty, with the deacon's picture in the ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... manager of the Performance sits before the curtain on the boards and looks into the Fair, a feeling of profound melancholy comes over him in his survey of the bustling place. There is a great quantity of eating and drinking, making love and jilting, laughing and the contrary, smoking, cheating, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Custom-House, our battery, as before related, was only 180 yards from the city, and the crushing fire from this, when in full play, smashed to pieces the Water bastion, overturned the guns, and made a breach in the curtain so wide and practicable that it could be ascended ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... awakened by the clatter of pursuing cavalry. Lee, like a hunted fox, turned hither and thither; but at last Sheridan planted himself squarely across the front. Lee ordered a charge. His half-starved troops, with a rallying of their old courage, obeyed. But the cavalry moving aside, as a curtain is drawn, revealed dense bodies of infantry in battle line. The Civil War was about to end in one of its bloodiest tragedies, when the Confederate advance was stopped. General Grant had already sent in a note demanding the surrender ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... to drop the curtain over a newly married pair, they recede from the altar; but we cannot but hope our readers may by this time have enough of interest in our little history to wish for a few words on the lot of the personages whose acquaintance they have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... impatience mixed with uneasiness; so that, when he heard the sound of his steps, his pale face took a yet more deathlike tinge, while at the same time he raised himself on his elbow and ordered his three friends to go away. They obeyed at once, and scarcely had they left by one door than the curtain of the other was raised, and the monk, pale, immovable, solemn, appeared on the threshold. When he perceived him, Lorenzo dei Medici, reading in his marble brow the inflexibility of a statue, fell back on his ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... my first at Rydal Mount, I slept in the corner room, over the small sitting-room. I had drawn up the blind about half-way up the window before going to bed, and had drawn the curtain aside, over the back of a wooden arm-chair that stood against the window. The window, a casement, was wide open. I slept soundly, but woke quite suddenly, at what hour I do not know, and found myself sitting bolt upright in ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... curtain rises on the BARTHWICK'S dining-room, large, modern, and well furnished; the window curtains drawn. Electric light is burning. On the large round dining-table is set out a tray with whisky, a syphon, and a silver cigarette-box. It is ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... divisions, and marched three-quarters of a mile beyond the plank-road, through a woody country, following the road, but crossing the ubiquitous Gravelly Run, till he struck the enemy in strong force a mile and a half below White Oak road. They lay in the edge of a wood, with a thick curtain of timber in their front, a battery of field-pieces to the right, mounted in a bastioned earthwork, and on the left the woods drew near, encircling a little farm-land and negro-buildings. General Ayres's ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... The great general is only terrible to the enemy; the great poet is frequently scolded by his wife; the children of the great statesman clamber about his knees with perfect trust and impunity; the great actor who is called before the curtain by admiring audiences is often waylaid at the stage ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... barely finished breakfast when the sun showed over the ridge of Mount Sampson; and almost immediately the thick curtain of fog, which had thus far so effectually hidden the movements of the Japanese troops from the enemy, began to lift and thin. This was the signal for the final movement prior to the storming of the ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... piece of fine furniture. I have no carpets on my floors. I have two small rooms in Topeka in the building I desire to give to the W. C. T. U. for prohibition work. The little cupboard I use is made of a dry-goods box, with shelves in it, a curtain in front. My dishes, all told, kitchen and dining-room, are not worth five dollars. This is what the poor have, and better than some have. It is good enough. It is better than my blessed Lord had. I desire nothing better. I would feel like a reprobate to fill ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... staring now at the elephant then at Saba, they whispered to each other: "If they bewitched even the 'wobo' who in the world can oppose them?" But the most solemn moment did not come until Stas, turning to Nell, first bowed profoundly and afterwards drew aside the curtain-like walls of the palanquin and exhibited to the eyes of the crowd the "Good Mzimu." M'Rua and all the warriors fell on their faces so that their bodies formed a long, living deck. Not one of them dared to move, and fear ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... laughingly replied the young fellow. "One of the most amusing 'stunts' I ever saw was that of a man in Washington, who made a banjo play behind a curtain ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... Behind them, in a curtain of dust, pounded the field. It charged in a flying wedge, like a troop of cavalry. Dolly, searching for a green jacket, saw, instead, a rainbow wave of color that, as it rose and fell, sprang toward her in ...
— The Man Who Could Not Lose • Richard Harding Davis
... told me by the taxidermist in a mood of elation. He told me them in the time between the first glass of whisky and the fourth, when a man is no longer cautious and yet not drunk. We sat in his den together; his library it was, his sitting and his eating-room—separated by a bead curtain, so far as the sense of sight went, from the noisome den where he plied ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... heavy curtain, Liban entered her sister's room. They saw Fand seated at a little table. A scroll lay on it open before her, but her eyes were not fixed on it. With hands clasped under her chin she gazed into the vacancies with eyes of far-away reflection and longing. There was something ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... sat in turns on the others' knees. Two amongst them at once attracted Patty's notice. One, a fair-haired girl of about the same age as herself, cried persistently and unrestrainedly, burying her face in the window curtain, and refusing all comfort, though her companions pressed chocolates, caramels, mint rock, jujubes, and walnut toffee upon ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... consult on all manner of questions those holy maids to whom God vouchsafed illumination. Such an one the Maid appeared, and her fame as a prophetess had been spread abroad in a very short time. She revealed hidden things, she drew the curtain from the future. We are reminded of that capitoul[1695] of Toulouse, who about three weeks after the deliverance of Orleans, advised her being consulted as to a remedy for the corruption of the coinage. Bona of Milan, married to a poor gentleman in the train of her cousin, ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... generation—the acts of contemporary patriots—now claim our attention; but we are reluctant as yet to turn over the page, and drop the curtain on the scenes with which we have hitherto been dealing, and which we feel we have inadequately described. We have spoken of the men whose speeches from the dock are on record, but we still linger over the history of the events in which they shared, and of the men who were associated ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... of Scripture that "the windows of heaven were opened" seemed to indicate, and those who held that they were kept there to moderate the heat of the heavenly bodies. As to the firmament, he is in doubt whether it envelops the earth "like an eggshell," or is merely spread over it "like a curtain"; for he holds that the passage in the one hundred and fourth Psalm may be ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... meal, I arose and walked to one of the deep-set windows which lighted the apartment. Lifting the curtain, I ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... up in bed. The curtain was drawn up and she saw the moon, and it looked as if it ...
— Dew Drops - Volume 37, No. 18, May 3, 1914 • Various
... did not know was in the room, shuffled across the floor to keep my father from entering. Around the base of his head he had a thin curtain of hair scarcely reaching his shoulders. His nose pointed upward. Its tip was the shape of a candle extinguisher. He wore horn spectacles; and knee breeches, waistcoat and coat of black like the ink which ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... When he enters the palace, if a European, he is obliged to take off his shoes, and having made a second obeisance is seated upon a carpet on the floor, where betel is brought to him. The throne was some years ago of ivory and tortoiseshell; and when the place was governed by queens a curtain of gauze was hung before it, which did not obstruct the audience, but prevented any perfect view. The stranger, after some general discourse, is then conducted to a separate building, where he is entertained ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... the full circuit of the place, noble and peaceful while the summer sea, stirring here and there a curtain or an outer blind, breathed into its veiled spaces. She had a vision of clinging to it; that perhaps Eugenio could manage. She was in it, as in the ark of her deluge, and filled with such a tenderness for it that ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... of St. Peter and St. Paul, kept in the last chamber of the Zampieri palace, and covered with a silk curtain, is valued beyond any specimen of the painting art which can be moved from Italy to England. We are taught to hope it will soon come among us; and many say the sale cannot be now long delayed. Why Guido should never draw another picture like that, or at all in ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... The curtain was drawn aside, the window cautiously raised, and the outline of Edith's beautiful head appeared dark and distinct against the light ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... A streak of sunshine pierced shutter and curtain. Her mother was supporting herself on one elbow in the bed, and looking at her as if she had just ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells |
