Front door

“ As we enter by the side door, the rusty front-door bell is smartly pulled by a business-looking man in black, at whom we all peep privily from convenient lattices, and make up our minds that Providence sent him straight from heaven to be our deliverer. ”

“ The same taste which made the staircase the centre of decoration within, made the front door the sole point of ornamentation without; and equal beauty is there focused. Worthy of study and reproduction, [29] many of the old-time front doors are with their fine panels, graceful, leaded side windows, elaborate and pretty fan-lights, and slight but appropriate carving. ”

“ Whereby the unsuspecting stranger, entering what, in his innocence, he supposes to be the front doorway of a house, walks along the hall and is presently astonished to find himself walking out of another front door into another thoroughfare. ”

“ A door in front of her, a sliding door it seemed to be, opened noiselessly, and she could see a faintly lighted, narrow, and very short passage ahead of her. It appeared to make a right-angled turn just a few yards in, and what light there was seemed to filter in from around the corner. And on each side of the passage, before it made the turn, there was a door, and from the one on the right, through a cracked panel, a tiny thread of light seeped out. ”

“ In these days of the cold early spring, the way from the lawn into the house, through the drawing-room window, was not as yet open, and it was necessary to go round by the kitchen-garden on to the road, and thence in by the front door; or else to pass through the back door, and into the house by the kitchen. ”

“ I should say that there will be one sentry outside the door, and perhaps two inside. If there is a door or a window at the back of the house, we need not bother about the man in front. I must do for the two men inside. You bring the two horses round within a hundred yards of the back of the house, and we will drop out of the window, if there is one, or walk out of the door. ”

“ said I in the gentlest voice, "the key is down by the front steps, under a plantain leaf!"
That silenced him for a few moments.
Then he said—very quietly indeed, "Open the door, my darling!"
"I can't," said I. "The key is down by the front door, under a plantain leaf!"
And then I said it again, several times, very gently and slowly, and said it so often that he had to go and see, and he got it, of course, and came in. ”

“ Their front doors are the protection which insures their cherished privacy, and the feeling that they are as settled as the everlasting hills gives a calmness to their attitude toward life which is often missing from ours. ”

“ The building to be erected on a foundation of white oak timber squared, the same to be sound and of sufficient thickness, the building to be shingled and to have two sufficient floors, an entry eight feet wide to be made from the front door across one end of the lower story, from which winding stairs are to be erected to ascend to the second story ”

“ "I had to arrange things as well as I could. That's obviously a very bad place for the bed, in front of the door. For instance when the judge I'm painting at present comes he always comes through the door by the bed, and I've even given him a key to this door so that he can wait for me here in the studio when I'm not home. Although nowadays he usually comes early in the morning when I'm still asleep. And of course, it always wakes me up when I hear the door opened beside the bed, however fast asleep I am. ”

“ A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments, and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 yonder door, made of solid oak, thick as a hand's palm, and covered with sheets of iron and enormous nails—that door is the door of the chamber in which the treasures of the noble seigneur are kept. Only he keeps the key. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ The house was of white stone, wider and more imposing even than its neighbors, but like them with a low, broad entrance door sunk three steps below the level of the street, a smaller tradesmen's entrance some distance away and between them a row of wide, ornate windows. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ We now pass up and down a street, and, apart from the aid of the numbered doors and larger windows, and a more peculiar frontage, above the door we may see the name of the proprietor and the character of his occupation in letters so large that it is literally a fact that he who runs may read them. ”

“ We habitually feel the naturalness of this association. Amid the fields, a formal house, with a central door flanked by equal numbers of windows to right and left, strikes us as unrural—looks as though transplanted from a street ”

“ Whether we have stone facings or no,—whether our parlor has cornices or marble mantels or no,—whether our doors are machine-made or hand-made. All our fixtures shall be of the plainest and simplest, but we will have fresh air. We will open our door with a latch and string, if we cannot afford lock and knob and fresh air too,—but in our house we will live cleanly and Christianly. ”

“ He said that the door of any and every room in which he was always appeared to be ajar, and round the edge of the door—I declare it frightens me even to think of it—round the corner, as it were, just coming into the room, he always saw the hand and half the face of a man—never more, and never less. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If you hear anyone come, bolt it on the inside, and we can get away as we came. If they come the other way, we can get through the door if our job is done, or hide behind these window curtains if it is not. ”

“ But she examined the window shutters at the back, and the fastenings of the street door, with a good deal of care, and then went back to the kitchen, put on her shoes again, and looked over the locks and bolts of the back door. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Some omit blocks in the building for doors and windows, and put steps before the door, lay walks leading from the house and may even put a block before the opening supposed to be the door in such a way as to show the door ajar. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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, crouched against the side of the wall which attracts and retains the most heat, they may be seen sometimes talking to one another, but more frequently alone, watching the door, which sometimes opens to call forth one from the gloomy assemblage, or to throw in another outcast from society. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If you can put your five fingers throught it, it is a gate, if not a door. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This door opened out instead of in,—this I also knew when planning this surreptitious intrusion, but, after pulling it open and reaching for the curtain, which hung completely across it, I found it not so easy to proceed as I had imagined. The stealthiness of my action held back my hand; then the faint sounds I heard within advised me that she was not alone, and that she might very readily regard with displeasure my unexpected entrance by a door of which she was possibly ignorant. ”

“ A woollen thread shall be stretched from one doorpost to the other and each end fastened with a wax seal. Every day at sunrise the door of the room shall be opened and it shall remain open until sunset. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Leading out from this room is a door that you might suppose would conduct you into a closet—but no; it opens on a flight of steps, down which you descend a little, and then find yourself at the edge of an opening that looks like a well. ”

“ 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." ”