Door

“ I was so crippled, bruised and sore, men took me home upon a door. It shows how useful doors can be; I always carry two or three.
We’re always viewing doors, you know; they face us everywhere we go; on doors we knock, at doors we wait, and if they’re handsome, smooth and straight, they strike us as a work of art, they’re soothing to the mind and heart. ”

“ Sometimes a door opened upon a mysterious and wonderful place, an enchanted forest, a solemn avenue, a sleeping glade; often, too, it opened into some dusty work-a-day place, full of busy forms bent over intolerable tasks, whizzing wheels, dark gleaming machinery, the din of the factory and the workshop. Sometimes, too, a door would open into a bare and melancholy place, a hillside strewn with stones, an interminable plain of sand; worst of all, a place would sometimes be revealed which was full of suffering, anguish, and hopeless woe, shadowed with fears and sins. ”

“ And there he saw a door within the wall,
Well-hinged, close shut; nor was there in that place
Another on its hinges, therefore he
Stood there and pondered for a little space,
And thought, "Perchance some marvel I shall see,
For surely here some dweller there must be,
Because this door seems whole, and new, and sound.
While nought but ruin I can see around." ”

“ He saw a door which stood ajar, and through which he distinctly heard sighs, mingled with sobs. He pushed open the door with his bill, but remained on the threshold, astonished at the sight which met his eyes. ”

“ This is the hidden closet to which we have no key, for the very good reason that the door opens from within. In the silence of the night, in the peace of lovely gardens, when men are far and nature is near, listen to the melody singing from within that secret recess, and open the door. ”

“ And found that from dull Duty's room, a door of Toil led out.
It led out to another door, whereon a crimson stain
Made sullenly against the dark these words: "The Room of Pain."
But oh the light, the light, the light, that spilled down from above
And upward wound, the stairs of Faith, right to the Tower of Love!
And when I came forth from that place, I tried the little key -
And lo! the door of Happiness swung open, wide and free. ”

“ A foot is heard without, and is lost again! A face is suddenly placed against a pane in the window! the latch of the door is slowly raised in their sight, or the click of one is heard where it is not seen. ”

“ The opening and closing of doors are the most significant actions of man's life. What a mystery lies in doors!
No man knows what awaits him when he opens a door. Even the most familiar room, where the clock ticks and the hearth glows red at dusk, may harbor surprises. ”

“ When, perchance, a door stands ajar a feeble ray of light steals into a bare-walled, smoke-blackened den that has no more furnishing than a heap of dates on a mat and a skin of water hanging from the low ceiling. ”

“ Set the hinge in motion and unfold the stubborn door.
That which I pray for is small: let the door be half-opened
And admit me through a small gap sideways.
Long love has diminished my body for such practice
And by reducing me size has given me limbs apt for it;
Love shows men how to pass swiftly through the watches of sentries
And guides their unhindered steps. ”

“ I take the stone steps in three jumps and knock at the door. Children's voices die abruptly to silence, a step sounds over the floor, the latch clicks, and the door opening wraps us in a gust of warm air. ”

“ The picture was, however, so placed that when the door was opened you looked straight on it, and it was so admirably painted that it seemed to breathe and live, and there was nothing more charming or more beautiful in the whole world. ”

“ You have a good many of them in your house, and you are moving them all day long. We are going to talk about a door.
How impossible it is to open a door and walk in, if it is locked and bolted against us! Open doors take us into delightful places, but they can also take us into prison. What important parts of a house they are! How safe you feel in bed at night knowing that all the house doors are shut and fastened inside! ”

“ For the outer world and the street, there is the blank wall, the grated window, the bolted door; inside, for the household, the sunny courtyard gay with fountains and flowers, the large open arches throwing grateful shadows over vast, cool rooms, the cordial family life with its treasures hidden from the prying eyes of the multitude. ”

“ One passes the door, closes it behind one, steps into the outer world, looks back, and there is only before one's view a thick cold wall—the windows are dead, there is no sound, only bland, dull, expressionless space. ”

“ The door-chain was softly unfastened; the door opened; and a tall, ill-favoured man, with black hair, and a face, as the surgeon often declared afterwards, as pale and haggard, as the countenance of any dead man he ever saw, presented himself. ”

“ To fasten the door on the inside, is to denounce myself as plainly as if I had written above, ‘No admittance,—the king is within!’ Even now, sire, at this very moment, there is nothing to prevent the door opening, and your majesty being seen here. ”

“ As he opened the kitchen door he saw through the scullery that the back door was just opening, and the faint light of early dawn displayed the dark masses of the garden beyond. He is certain that nothing went out of the door. ”

“ It is somewhat disconcerting to the nervous incomer to be met, the door still in his hand, by a sound as of people springing suddenly into the air, followed by a weird scuttling of feet, and then to discover the occupants sitting stiffly in opposite corners, deeply engaged in book or needlework. ”

“ Well, kiss the crucifix, my son, and pass beneath the rod.
[Pg 121]
THE DOOR
This is the room that thou wast ushered in.
Wouldst thou, perchance, a larger freedom win?
Wouldst thou escape for deeper or no breath?
There is no door but death.
Do shadows crouch within the mocking light?
Stand thou! but if thy terrored heart takes flight
Facing maimed Hope and wide-eyed Nevermore,
There is no less one door.
Dost thou bewail love's end and friendship's doom,
The dying fire, drained cup, and gathering gloom?
Explore the walls, if thy soul ventureth—
There is no door but death. ”

“ It leapt upon me for the third time--as I was driving to Paddington on my way to Oxford and a scholarship. I had just one momentary glimpse. I was leaning over the apron of my hansom smoking a cigarette, and no doubt thinking myself no end of a man of the world, and suddenly there was the door, the wall, the dear sense of unforgettable and still attainable things. ”

“ The door at the farthest end of the room has been opened, and two people who are as yet invisible stand upon the threshold, too surprised to advance, too enthralled, indeed, by the sight before them to do so. ”

“ The door always opens directly into the kitchen, without any vestibule; and, glimpsing in, you see that a cottager's life must be the very plainest and homeliest that ever was lived by men and women. Yet the flowers about the door often indicate a native capacity for the beautiful; but often there is only a pavement of round stones or of flagstones, like those within. ”

“ I go through at a low door, find myself under benches filled with an eager, stamping, shouting multitude, make my way through a passage, and come out on the shady side, for it is a late afternoon sun, and take my place at a good point of view. ”

“ A second door which opens into the interior of the house is also ajar, and a man’s head, with smiling face, which I should never have recognised to be that of my father, is looking in; the beautiful, blooming, fair-haired creature being, however, too much occupied with the lovely vision she was contemplating in the mirror to be aware of the presence of the intruder. ”

“ The first detail that struck the observer was, that the door could never have been anything but the door of a hovel, while the window, if it had been carved out of dressed stone instead of being in rough masonry, might have been the lattice of a lordly mansion.
The door was nothing but a collection of worm-eaten planks roughly bound together by cross-beams which resembled roughly hewn logs. ”

“ As you stand a moment in the middle of the drawing-room looking at each other you hear the walls and floors saying those soft nothings to one another that they so often say when left to themselves. While you are looking straight at one of the large doors that lead into the hall its lock gives a whispered click and the door slowly swings open. ”

“ The street door falls not a knell in his heart, the foot on the staircase, though he lives on the third pair, sends no spasm through his anatomy; at the rap of his door he can crow 'come in,' and his pulse still beats healthfully. ”

“ You notice that a door is much the same shape as auntie's mother-of-pearl card-case, and your architectural instinct, already beginning to develop, assures you that a pearly door would be a beautiful thing for a temple, if only auntie sees things in the same light as you do. You perceive that a cribbage board is straight and narrow, as a path leading to such a door might be, and that if you stick tiny tufts of southernwood or veronica into the holes along the ivory sides of your path, your path will run between two little green hedges. ”

“ There are trapdoors, sliding doors, double doors, stage doors, prison doors, glass doors. But the symbol and mystery of a door resides in its quality of concealment. A glass door is not a door at all, but a window. The meaning of a door is to hide what lies inside ”

“ Occasionally a door opened, emitting a path of yellow light to the dripping walk, framing for a second a man or a woman; sometimes a man and a woman. When they vanished the dark always seemed to settle down upon him more stubbornly. ”

“ Nothing like that, sir; a softer light, more like a glow-worm; but much brighter. I went around and tried the door, and it was locked. Then I remembered the door at the other end, and I cut round by the path between the houses and the wall, so that I had no chance to see the light again, until I got to the other door. ”

“ And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
"'T is some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door
Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
This it is, and nothing more." ”

“ Oak, subs. (University) .—An outer door. To sport one’s oak = to be “not at home,” indicated by closing the outer door.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1840. The Collegian’s Guide, 119. In college each set of rooms is provided with an OAK or outer door, with a spring lock, of which the master has one key, and the servant another.
1853. Bradley (“Cuthbert Bede”) , Verdant Green, iv. This is the HOAK, this ’ere outer door is, sir, which the gentlemen sports, that is to say, shuts, sir, when they’re a-readin’. ”

“ A door! And why should a door be there except to lead to another room? There was a door, and that presupposed something on the other side. And what a door it was! More of a barricade than a partition. The iron hinges were built to support weight and give complete defense and support. There was a keyhole, and if the key corresponded with the size of the hole, it was the largest that I had ever heard of.
Naturally, I wanted to open the door. As master of the villa, I had a right to. Upstairs the old woman seemed unable to understand me and ended by telling me to see her husband. ”

“ There faces you besides a double door; when it is opened another door is seen. When that is opened you discover a writing table, and beyond can discern a book-case filled with heavy volumes—law reports perhaps. The little room beyond is, so to speak, an under-study. ”

“ There,—do you see that door beside the staircase?"
"Oh, yes, good, kind gentleman; I see it."
"Well, one of the farm labourers sleeps in that room. You will only just have to run to him. He never locks his door; and he will come to your father in an instant." ”

“ Any door can become the Doorway, if it is transposed into the proper spatial dimension. That door, for instance." Professor Falabella waved his hand toward the doorway of what Gloria liked to call "Bill's study." ”

“ Knock in the door—break open the door! the front door—that is the best, because it leads to all parts of the house, and we can secure any one who attempts to move from one to the other, as they come down. ”

“ DOOR (corresponding to the Gr. θύρα, Lat. fores or valvae; the English word, with other forms common in allied languages, comes from the same Indo-European stem as the Gr. θύρα and Lat. fores) , in architecture, the slab, flap or leaf forming the enclosure of a doorway (q.v.) , either in wood, metal or stone. ”

“ A door is made of wood. What beautiful wood is in these church doors! The doors of life are made of our will. By the exercise of our will we open and close whatsoever doors of life we choose.
The doors of our houses swing on hinges. Heavy doors seem as light as a feather because they are so delicately hung upon hinges. The [95] hinges of the doors of life are made not of brass or iron, but of love.
When, in a little while, you leave this church you will take hold of a knob and pull open the door. The doors of life have knobs. ”

“ The window is the desire of heavenly glory, through which the light of the Gospel finds an entrance. The door is obedience to the Commandments. The doorkeeper is holy fear. The watchmen are holy angels. ”

“ Where there is a door there is no window, and where a gap in the wall serves for a window, a door is dispensed with; none of the chambers, however, of this long row of low one-storied buildings communicate with each other. ”

“ The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet,
And passion rends my vitals as I pass,
A chafing savage down the decent street,
[Pg 137] Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass. ”

“ A door of utterance - Θυραν του λογου· The word θυρα, which commonly signifies a door, or such like entrance into a house or passage through a wall, is often used metaphorically for an entrance to any business, occasion or opportunity to commence or perform any particular work. ”