Couch

“ Flinging his tired body on this grateful couch, burying his head in the crushed sweet fern of his pillow with one deep-drawn sigh of pleasure,—there, haunted by no past and harassed by no future, slept God's fool as sweetly as a child. ”

“ O head, beautiful ornament, drooping against the edge of the couch like a lovely motive in architecture at the edge of a console, you express the prolonged weakness of a lovely languor! The shoulder extends its beautiful curve before the face, resting on its side; the line rises, passes near the nose, descends, and shows the red line of the mouth, just as the bees continually enter and go out of the opening of the hive. ”

“ On the softest couch the limbs feel that there is something solid, a hard framework beneath, and so the Sybarites put cushions on the floor under the feet of their couches. On the surface of the buoyant sea there is nothing under the soft couch. ”

“ They lodged me like a prince in a tributary country that first night. I was tired. 'Twas a stiff stage I had come the day before, and they gave me a couch whose ethereal softness seemed to close like the wings of a bird as I plunged at its touch into fathomless slumbers. But the next day had hardly broken when I was awake, and, stretching my limbs upon the piled silk of a legless bed upon the floor, found myself in a great chamber with a purple tapestry across the entrance, and a square arch leading to a flat terrace outside. ”

“ Such was the only couch which the unhappy sufferer had to lay him down upon at night, or when weary of sitting in the high-backed, creaking armchair. Uncleanness met the eye on every side—in the one greasy plate, on which lay a lump of repulsive-looking food ”

“ The only other piece of furniture or semblance of furniture was an old couch, the horse-hair covering tattered, straggling pieces of the stuffing hanging down. Lying upon it was the figure of a man, with some roughly-applied bandages about his head and face. ”

“ He began to think that there must be some plumage of game birds mingled with the stuffing of his couch, and that, soft and deep as it was, this was one of those beds upon which a man could neither sleep nor die comfortably. ”

“ I saw a woman dressed with the utmost elegance, reclining voluptuously upon a couch. As soon as she saw me she arose, gave me a most gracious reception, and going back to her couch invited me to sit beside her. ”

“ When her husband used to carry her, for the sake of a little temporary relief, from chair to couch, and from her couch back again to her bed, twenty times in a day, he hardly could help weeping, with all his consideration, to feel her frame as light as a bundle of leaves. ”

“ Nothing is more cheering than to arise from a hard-earned couch of ease for the purpose of trailing an Algernon or so through the gathering dusk to the spot where he has managed to find something—a very real despair of ever getting back to food and warmth. ”

“ The pattens are put upon our feet, and the brown arm steadies us gently through the sweating-room and ante-chamber into the outer hall, where we mount to our couch. We sink gently upon the cool linen, and the boy covers us with a perfumed sheet. ”

“ No sooner had I fallen on my leafy couch, than sleep, like a sudden death, came over me; and I lay, for hours, in the deep, and motionless rest, which not even a shadow of life disturbs.
On awaking I saw, beside me, the same venerable personage, who had welcomed me to this subterranean world on the preceding night. At the foot of my couch stood a statue, of Grecian workmanship, representing a boy, with wings, seated gracefully [pg 89] on a lotus-flower, and having the forefinger of his right hand pressed to his lips. ”

“ Keeping very still the young woman watched until they disappeared around the mountain. Then, lifting her arms above her head, she stretched her lithe form out upon the warm rocky couch with the freedom and grace of a wild thing of the woods. ”

“ Very frequently, as he rolled about, trying to find a plank soft enough to sleep upon, he would raise himself upon his elbow, look around at the ragged, slumbering men by whom he was surrounded, and think of the neat little bedroom and soft, warm couch to which he had been accustomed at home. ”

“ The reluctance to go to one's couch is not at all a reluctance to slumber, for almost all of us will doze happily in an armchair or on a sofa, or even festooned on the floor with a couple of cushions. ”

“ From couch to couch,—how stood the doubtful strife
'Twixt life and death. They might not lay their hand
Upon each other's throbbing brow,—or breathe
The words of comfort, for Disease had set
A gulf between them. ”

“ Dressing-case and writing-desk of white curled maple were each laden with articles for the toilet and for writing, in solid silver, engraved with the monogram H. C. A couch, upholstered in blue and white Japanese silk, stood at the right of the fireplace, and all about the room were dainty wicker chairs enamelled in white, and cushioned to match the hangings. ”

“ The next day, after getting a stock of cedar, I started to fashion the couch for Mr. Millward. This with the making of another armchair occupied two days. The couch I made like a great chair, with a back pivoted to fold down or prop up, and wove an upholstery of rushes. It occurred to me that I could easily saw some wheels out of a round limb and mount them as rollers on which to move the couch more easily over the smooth floor ”

“ The couch of the invalid friend, beautifully, appealingly resigned, has been wheeled, say, for the case, into the warm still garden, and your visit but consists of your sitting beside it with kind, discreet, testifying silences. ”

“ When we came back, we found that the women—who, by-the-by, do not eat till the men have finished—had done their meal, and gone to bed, having first made us up a luxurious couch on the floor, consisting of a filthy feather-bed, and an equally filthy blanket. ”

“ Fragment of relief, with banquet. The upper half is wanting. A man reclines on a couch, and holds a bowl and a rhyton (?) , which were perhaps of bronze attached, in the left and right hands respectively. A woman sits on the end of the couch. On the right is a diminutive male figure with the hands clasped. On the left is a girl, who stands leaning against the foot of the couch, and holds an ivy-leaf fan in her left hand.—Halicarnassos. ”

“ This couch or litter is called serrion in their language, and is carried on the shoulders of 16 or 18 men. On these occasions, there is much triumphing and shouting made before the king, by great numbers of men and women. ”

“ These symbols were laid upon a couch (lectus) , the left arm resting on a cushion (pulvinus, whence the couch itself was often called pulvinar) in the attitude of reclining. In front of the couch, which was placed in the open street, a meal was set out on a table. ”

“ One of those who now approached the couch of the invalid was a tall, slender, middle-aged man, elegantly attired, and yet with a sort of graceful negligence which drew the attention of the observer rather to the manners and bearing of the gentleman himself, than to the garb in which he was arrayed. ”

“ On the horse-hair couch with its stuffing sagging beneath, prone and awkward, in a position which suggested that he was an old, worn-out doll, constructed for some sinister reason by a grinning god, and now thrown aside as insufficient even for the purpose of creating more ironic mirth in a cynical world, lay her father. ”

“ You now recline on a couch in the form of the letter W elongated, and, as you rest on it, the weight is everywhere directly supported. Every tendon, every muscle is relaxed—the mattress fitting, as it were, into the skeleton. There is total inaction, and the body appears to be suspended. ”

“ But as soon as the nursling awakes to the world, and wants to be introduced to everything, his couch must be enlarged and enlivened, and must look more and more like a school and play-room. Otherwise it becomes a prison, whence, Tantalus-like, baby looks at his surroundings. ”

“ I have a couch which forms a sofa-chair, and on which I consider that I lie sleeping, reading or thinking on an average sixteen hours a day, and I walk about the room or sit in a chair as a relief, excepting the few hours I spend at the writing desk. ”

“ If it is a box couch, further economy will be gained by its use as a place to store the bedclothes. But the simplest of all arrangements is a divan bed, formed of springs and mattress alone, and supported on legs nailed to the corners of the spring-frame. Over it a cover should be thrown during the day, and the pillows in use, if there is not room for them elsewhere, should be slipped into covers harmonious in color with the couch drapery. ”

“ The healing of the blind, raising of the dead, and the command to the man by the pool to take up his bed and walk, are accurately represented; the bed in this instance is a form of couch with a wooden frame and mattress, the carrying of which would necessitate an unusual amount of strength on the part of even a strong, well man. ”

“ ABOUT the middle of the last century, at eight o'clock in the evening, in a large but poor apartment, a man was slumbering on a rough couch. His rusty and worn suit of black was of a piece with his uncarpeted room, the deal table of home manufacture, and its slim unsnuffed candle. ”

“ Each couch was usually occupied by three persons, whose left arm rested on a cushion, the right hand being thus disengaged for purposes of eating. The nine places were allotted in accordance with strict etiquette. ”

“ at the couch where infant beauty sleeps,
Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps;
She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies,
Smiles on her slumbering child with pensive eyes,
And weaves a song of melancholy joy—
“Sleep, image of thy father, sleep, my boy:
No lingering hour of sorrow shall be thine; ”

“ Of course a great deal can be done to modify existing evils, by a judicious arrangement of screens and curtains, by taking out useless furniture, by substituting a comfortable low bed, easy to get at, for a cumbrous couch where the unhappy patient's nose seems as if it was intended to rub against the ceiling, and various other improvements. ”

“ But let not the couch be elaborate, and let it have smooth feet; for elaborate turnings form occasionally paths for creeping things which twine themselves about the incisions of the work, and do not slip off.
Especially is a moderate softness in the bed suitable for manhood; for sleep ought not to be for the total enervation of the body, but for its relaxation. Wherefore I say that it ought not to be allowed to come on us for the sake of indulgence, but in order to rest from action. We must therefore sleep so as to be easily awaked. ”

“ Slowly and sadly he walked away, going back to his home, where, in a luxuriously furnished chamber, on a couch whose silken hangings swept the floor, lay his wife, and near her his infant daughter, that day four weeks of age. ”

“ Even the center table is being banished in some homes, and the easy settee and high-backed lounge have been superseded by a luxurious-looking couch, piled high with pillows, some of them pretty to look at, but often too dainty for use. ”

“ As each guest while reclining on the couch at the entertainment, mostly leaned on his left elbow during the meal, and as two or more persons lay on the same couch, the head of one person reached to the breast of him who lay above him, and the lower person was said to lie on the bosom of the other. ”

“ And at the head of the couch on the one side and the other were two seats of ivory, and upon them were two cushions stuffed with straw, right rich, and at the foot of the couch, above the bed, two candlesticks of gold wherein were two tall waxen tapers. ”

“ We’re practical, but there is a sofa, you see—for she does humour my poor bones so far. Like all really great administrators and disciplinarians she knows when wisely to relax.” Paul sank into the corner of a deep leathern couch, but his friend remained standing and explanatory. ”

“ The lady is lying on a couch, supported by a young woman, and looking extremely exhausted; her dishevelled hair is floating about her shoulder, and she is half-covered with drapery that falls on the couch. ”