Blind (window)

“ Only two things have occurred to disturb my equanimity. The first is trivial in itself, and no doubt to be easily explained. The upper window where I saw the light on the night of November 4, with the shadow of a large head and shoulder upon the blind, is one of the windows in the square room under the roof. In reality it has no blind at all!
Here is the other thing. I was coming home last night in a fresh fall of snow about eleven o'clock, my umbrella low down over my head. Half-way up the alley, where the snow was wholly untrodden, I saw a man's legs in front of me. ”

“ And looking around that large sombre room, with its shadowy window bays, its recesses and alcoves, one could well understand the legends that had sprouted in its black corners, its germinating darkness. My candle was a little tongue of light in its vastness, that failed to pierce the opposite end of the room, and left an ocean of mystery and suggestion beyond its island of light. ”

“ Mind you there were five windows to provide for—two single windows and a large bay of three lights.
“These blinds are ruinous,” remarked Maudie, as the young man drew down one rich linen and lace specimen after another.
“I am afraid,” said Julia, “we must have something more simple than that.”
“A good blind, madam, is worth its money. Blinds don’t wear out like carpets,” said the young gentleman. “I should personally recommend this one. Yes, it is rather dear to begin with, but it gives the window an air, and it will clean again and again and again. ”

“ A bright red blind, drawn down over the broad window, prevents the passers-by from gazing in there, but, round the open door, there are gathered a set of wild, dirty faces looking in upon us. Such a semicircle they make, as the strong gas-light falls upon them! They are mostly children with disheveled hair, and ragged, uncared-for clothes ”

“ But in some of his plays he would seem to have apprehended this mystery as a thing merely or mainly terrifying; the actual physical darkness sur-rounding blind men, the actual physical approach of death as the intruder; he has shown us people huddled at a window, out of which they are almost afraid to look, or beating at a door, the opening of which they dread. ”

“ I will open the window, my dear, and let you feel the breeze, and know that the light is around you, but your eyes are weak yet—so weak that it would hurt them very much—perhaps blind them entirely, if the light fell on them, so you must let me tie a handkerchief lightly over them before I open the window, and promise me you will not take it off while it is open. ”

“ It was the window--or rather the compartment of it--nearest to the lane, and the doctor was fond of keeping it a little raised. Summer and winter would the passers-by see that window raised behind the green staves of the blind.
"Were I to double your income, Mark, and make it four hundred a-year--a thing which you have no right to expect me to do at present, or to ask me to do--it would still be an inadequate income for Caroline Davenal," resumed the doctor, closing the blind again, and setting his back against it. ”

“ We have less sunshine than almost any other nation under heaven, yet we of all people cling to the useless and truly ugly window blind with a devotion worthy of a nobler cause. Still I have hopes that constant preaching may do something, and that in time we may realise the fact that nothing but outside blinds are of the smallest use in really hot weather, and that curtains are meant to draw, and that should they fail to be anything save melancholy wisps at the end of an expanse of glass, they are not only useless but absolutely ridiculous in the eyes of any artistic person. ”

“ My husband would say to me: ‘Bessy, the red window at New House did look nice to-night as I came home from market. I’m sure they’re reading and studying something learned, astrology or such, behind that red blind.’ ‘Don’t you believe it, James’ says I, ‘learned it may be, but not according. If they want to burn a light all night they could have a black blind. Who else has got a red blind? ”

“ The single slats of which they are composed do not revolve, and consequently it is not easy to 'peep through the blind just to hear the band play.'
"Venetian shades, with their multiplicity of bright-colored straps, cords, hooks and trimmings, are picturesque and graceful. They are somewhat subject to dust and repairs, and when the window is open are not proof against tornadoes and thunder showers.
"Inside blinds are sometimes contrived to slide sideways, like barn doors, into cavities formed to receive them. ”

“ With the ordinary short blind, which vulgarises any house, and to which English house-mothers cling with a devotion worthy of a better cause, one must keep the windows closed during the process of dressing, as the blind goes up with the window, and leaves the room exposed to the glances of anyone who may be passing by. The thicker curtains hang from a separate brass rod, which is rather larger than those used for the muslin. ”

“ Venetian blinds have become increasingly important as a treatment for windows in all parts of the house. Venetian blinds permit the user to control the light and add a decorative note to a room regardless of its period. Tapes of the blind should match the floor covering, the walls, or harmonize with the color scheme of the room. Although the off-white, cream, and buff blinds are most popular, colored blinds in keeping with the color scheme of the room also are in good taste. Other window treatments are roller window shades, glass curtains, and draperies. ”

“ That, as everyone knows, is the classical way of beginning the game of Blind Man’s Buff; and supposing that the blinded man pro tem, is properly bandaged, and cannot get a squint of light up by the side of his nose, and also supposing that he confuses himself by turning round the proper number of times honestly, he will be in profound darkness, and in utter ignorance of the direction of door, window, or the salient objects in the room. ”

“ There, in the high bright window he dreams, and sees What we are blind to,—we who mass and crowd From wall to wall in the darkening of a cloud. ”

“ Woe's me for a music sweeter than theirs—
The quick, light bound of a step on the stairs,
The greeting of lovers too sweet to last:
And ever the wind like a soul in pain
Knocks and knocks at the window-pane. ”

“ The blinds are are drawn in all the windows; a dead silence is everywhere. Only above, in a dormer window, are seen a white head and two folded, sere hands, those of an old woman who, praying, looks up to the ruddy clouds. A beautiful contrast:below,—the wild, whirling, untrammelled life;here,—its end. ”

“ Remember the darkness, the nightingale’s song,
That night in the blackness, the thick-flowing dark?
I opened the window to the silvery darkness,
As winding about me the weir’s murmur fell.
Remember the lilac’s heavy smell,
In the yielding depths of that silvery night?
I opened the window to the darkness that echoed
The weir, the nightingale, rings on the moon,
And steps on the road that were fading away.
I opened the window: steps died into silence.
The steps of our sweet, shy, distant sins,
In the flowing darkness, the silvery silence. ”

“ On the other hand, inside blinds are accessible; they can be opened and closed without leaning half one's length out of the window; they do not hide the glory of plate glass; they graciously permit windows to stand where they please and to be as large as they please; and they never quarrel with piazza roofs, awnings, hoods or other outside accessories. ”

“ If one can command a window with outside blinds, looking upon a spot attractive to the feathered world, he will be sure, sooner or later, to see every bird of the vicinity. If he will keep the blinds closed and look only through the opened slats, he will witness more of their unconstrained free ways than can possibly be seen by a person within their sight, though he assume the attitude and the stolidity of a wooden figure. ”

“ All the Evil Ones that crowd about someone who is dying, she had summoned to that spot—-it was their fetid breath, she explained, that clouded the glass panes. But there was only one trick of dark magic in her power: to make a mirror of that opaque window, in which could be seen the dim reflection of the room where her master lay dying. ”

“ Sometimes in the late evening one walks busily up and down the ward doing this and that, forgetting that there is anything beyond [Pg 46] the drawn blinds, engrossed in the patients, one's tasks—bed-making, washing, one errand and another—and then suddenly a blind will blow out and almost up to the ceiling, and through it you will catch a glimpse that makes you gasp, of a black night crossed with bladed searchlights, of a moon behind a crooked tree.
The lifting of the blind is a miracle; I do not believe in the wind. ”

“ When I awoke, blinding white sunlight was bursting into the room from between half closed slats in the Venetian blinds, sending searing pain through my dehydrated eyes into my aching brain. A window was half open behind the blinds. A bird was singing just outside the window, its song a shrill, jarring discordance to my tortured eardrums.
I looked blankly around the room, feeling that something was missing. The sight of the pitcher with its red liquid, and the glass beside it, brought back memory. What was missing was Dr. Leopold Moriss standing over me asking his eternal question. ”

“ She thought of taking the lamp that burned in the corner of the room to light her way and going to the pavilion, but at this moment she felt a breath of cold damp air blowing softly on her face.
She turned her eyes in the direction from which the breeze had come, and observed that the window was wide open and that outside all was profound darkness.
And filled with indescribable amazement, unwilling to believe the evidence of her eyes, she saw what appeared to be a human figure standing motionless in front of the window, its hands clasped and its forehead resting against the window-frame. ”

“ So little light lives inside the churches of my churchyards, when the two are co-existent, that it is often only by an accident and after long acquaintance that I discover their having stained glass in some odd window. The westering sun slants into the churchyard by some unwonted entry, a few prismatic tears drop on an old tombstone, and a window that I thought was only dirty, is for the moment all bejewelled. Then the light passes and the colours die. ”

“ It was her custom to keep both her windows uncurtained at night, so that, waking, she might exchange a look with his stars, and sleeping, let them look at her. One window was always wide open. Like a flower, she craved for all the light and air that heaven and earth could give. ”

“ The rose window over the portal as the symbol of silence teaches that nothing worldly has a voice there. The gigantic peaked windows send through their beautifully painted glass a richly coloured light full on the vast area. ”

“ As the window falls to pieces a flood of light invades my cell, and I feel the warm air, and smell a perfume as of new-mown hay. For a moment I am blinded, suffocated, then with both hands I seize the iron bars and draw myself up to the narrow window ledge. A confused noise of breaking glass gradually passing away in the distance, and the cracking of wood fills the pure air of the glorious summer morning; while on all sides are heard the voices of anxious men and women, all asking the same questions, “What has happened? Why are we revolting?” ”

“ No word is spoken, and now she fancies she can trace the darker form of that figure against the window, and she can see the long arms moving to and fro, feeling for some mode of entrance. What strange light is that which now gradually creeps up into the air? red and terrible—brighter and brighter it grows. ”

“ He turned to hurry down into the gorge, feeling his way hastily, and was arrested by the sight of the thing that was happening in a room in a back street near the school. Both of the people in the room he knew by sight. The windows were open, the blinds up, and the setting sun shone clearly into it, so that it came out quite brightly at first, a vivid oblong of room, lying like a magic-lantern picture upon the black landscape and the livid green dawn. In addition to the sunlight, a candle had just been lit in the room. ”

“ You don't know what silence is till you find it in the light like that, not morning but night, no sunrising, no shadow, but everything as clear as the day.
It did not make any difference as the slow minutes went on: one o'clock, two o'clock. How strange it was to hear the clocks striking in that dead light when there was nobody to hear them! But it made no difference. The window was quite blank; even the marking of the panes seemed to have melted away. I stole up again after a long time, through the silent house, in the clear light, cold and trembling, with despair in my heart. ”

“ There was one window at the gable end: a broken window, with fragments of glass lying about it. The light of the moon penetrated the window, making the fragments of glass glisten, and forming a pale avenue across the dusty floor.
There were old chests here and there, all mysteriously closed—perhaps locked. There were old garments hanging in obscure places. They made you think of persons lurking there in the dark. Outside the broken window an owl in a dark tree hooted mournfully.
Everychild crossed the attic cautiously. ”

“ Sundown had brought no gleam to lift the pall of the dying day, but the monotonous grey of the sky was still sufficiently light to enable a practised eye to make out that the head of the window was filled with a broken medley of ancient glass, where translucent blues and yellows and reds mingled like the harmony of an old patchwork quilt. Of the lower divisions of the window, those at the sides had no colour to clothe their nakedness, and remained in ghostly whiteness ”