Lid

“ He has just taken his seat upon a chair opposite to another chair, across the arms of which he has laid the lid of his big box of bricks, and is feeling in his pocket for an imaginary key, for he is about to give an organ recital in the Albert Hall (which he has never seen) in a style modelled upon that of the village organist, whom he studies through a chink in a curtain every Sunday. ”

“ Everting the upper lid is a means of locating the body and in making possible its removal by a small camel's hair brush or corner of a handkerchief. To evert the upper lid it is necessary to employ a guide. ”

“ A chair, a chest of drawers which served also as a wash-stand, and a cheap easel, were all the furniture. The place would have been squalid enough in any case, but the litter, the untidiness, made the impression revolting. ”

“ At the crescent-shaped end of the hall, facing the entrance door, was a daïs—a raised platform of solid logs closely placed together and covered with skins—upon which a massive and ample chair stood, also of oak, and wonderfully fashioned and carved by the patient labor of many hands. ”

“ Can't yer tike a pride in yer 'ome? Why don't yer put hall these chairs straight—I 'ates ter see chairs hall of a muddle. Why don't yer 'range 'em along the wall?'
"‘Wot's the meaning of this?' ses the good lidy at last, finding her voice and risin' to her feet. ”

“ If there was no fascination in the child’s face for Bill Jarker, there was most certainly fascination in the ruffian’s face for the child; and unconsciously imitating his attitude, it would rest its dimply plump cheeks upon its tiny fists, and gaze again wonderingly, without a thought of moving, till the lids slowly sank over the violet eyes, and the little golden-haired, soft, lovable head sank sideways, with all those prettiest of pretty motions seen in one of the most beautiful sights in nature—a child dropping off into its simple trusting sleep of innocence ”

“ From generation to generation, a chair sits familiarly in the midst of human interests, and is witness to the most secret and confidential intercourse, that mortal man can [pg 076] hold with his fellow. The human heart may best be read in the fireside chair. And as to external events, Grief and Joy keep a continual vicissitude around it and within it. Now we see the glad face and glowing form of Joy, sitting merrily in the old chair, and throwing a warm fire-light radiance over all the household. ”

“ The sight of a man at twenty yards distance made her draw back her head. She always sat upon the farther corner of the chair, although there were six chairs between her and her lover, and with the door wide open, and her little sister in the room. She was never saluted but at the tip of the ear; and her father had much ado to make her dine without her gloves, when there was a man at table. She entered the den with some fear, which we took to proceed from the height of her modesty, offended at the sight of so many men in the gallery. ”

“ With regard to organs of sense, all save eyes, fishes possess none of them, neither the organs nor their passages, neither ears nor nostrils; but all fishes are furnished with eyes, and the eyes devoid of lids, though the eyes are not hard ”

“ Said the Chair to the Table,
"Now you know we are not able!
"How foolishly you talk,
"When you know we cannot walk!"
Said the Table with a sigh,
"It can do no harm to try;
"I've as many legs as you,
"Why can't we walk on two?" ”

“ When one says chair, one thinks vaguely of an average chair. But collect individual instances, think of armchairs and reading-chairs, and dining-room chairs and kitchen chairs, chairs that pass into benches, chairs that cross the boundary and become settees, dentists' chairs, thrones, opera stalls, seats of all sorts, those miraculous fungoid growths that cumber the floor of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition, and you will perceive what a lax bundle in fact is this simple straightforward term. ”

“ Behind her was confusion in the room,
Of chairs turned upside down to sit like people
In other chairs, and something, come to look,
For every room a house has—parlor, bed-room,
And dining-room—thrown pell-mell in the kitchen. ”

“ The favourite chair, never to be filled again by its late occupier—the vacant place at table—a picture, perhaps now with more of life than its original—the thousand trifles that recall some taste or habit—and all these things so much more deeply felt when no long illness has already thrown events out of their usual circle, already broken in upon all old accustomed ways. ”

“ Whatever might be the reason, the young lady closed the casement with a sigh. She returned to her chair,—a slight shivering passed over her delicate frame: she leaned her elbow on the arm of the chair, rested her pale cheek in the palm of her hand, and looked mournfully into the fire. ”

“ In the garden someone who appeared to be a gentleman of colour was washing himself at a basin stood upon a wicker-bottomed chair, and he looked up, his grimy face covered with soapsuds, as the two came into view. ”

“ She found that lady lying in her favorite chair in the library—the chair that had been her refuge in the days of her early widowhood, that had comfortably housed her when books carried her away from her own world of sorrows and problems into the world of illusions, the chair in which she had dreamed of the great things that were to come into a younger life, not her own, and yet deeply her own,—her son’s. ”

“ And presently, as the day wore on and the shades of evening blurred one object in the room after another, the straight-backed chair, still left in its place, assumed a fantastic human shape—the shape of a meagre figure with narrow shoulders and thin, carefully be-stockinged legs. ”

“ Deference is so far paid to European prejudice that we sit in chairs, but I confess that when I am to eat with my fingers I prefer to sit on the ground—the position in a chair is too formal for what is to follow. When we are seated, a servant brings water in a basin and ewer, and a towel, and we wash our right hands—the left hand is not to be used. ”

“ You stiffen in your chair, your eyes, which have seemed so carelessly indifferent, suddenly glow, and snap, and sparkle, and flash. The tiny red spots have deepened, enhancing the velvet of your cheeks. ”

“ We sit for hours in the same chair, in the same house, with the same animal body. The dimensions of the room ate defined by its spatial relations, There are colours, sounds, scents, partly abiding and partly changing. ”

“ A book or a chair has a different appearance to the eye, in every different distance and position; yet we conceive it to be still the same; and, overlooking the appearance, we immediately conceive the real figure, distance, and position of the body, of which its visible or perspective appearance is a sign and indication. ”

“ As the day draws near its close, he watches the shadow like a hireling, and when it touches the foot of the long arm chair, he springs to his feet, rolls up his rags and threads into a bundle, and trips gaily out. ”

“ The boy in the chair has a face full of strength and weakness. The photograph makes him appear the more striking of the two, though the less handsome. The sunny sweetness of the first face, though it never alters, never becomes wearisome ”

“ Behind the tall-backed and elaborately wrought chairs, stand the servants, men and maidens—fifteen in number—discriminately selected, not only with a view to their industry and faithfulness, but with special regard to their personal appearance, their graceful agility and captivating address. ”

“ My cell is neatly furnished with a table on which provisions are spread, a bunk with bedding, a basket chair, a wash-hand-stand with toilet set, and a closet containing linen and various suits of clothes. ”

“ Your position should always be as dignified as possible; if sitting, the body should be held upright and the arms gracefully placed, and not twisted or hung over the back of the chair. Always face the person whom you are addressing. When standing, your position must be straight, shoulders back, and head well up. ”

“ Sofas, tables, and chairs in our sitting-room are made of buffalo horns, very cleverly pieced together, but torturing the senses with suggestions of impalement. Sitting or standing, one felt insecure. ”

“ I knew a little girl that got upon the back of a chair, when her brother was sitting in it eating his breakfast, and he rose up as soon as he had done, and the [5] chair fell back to the floor, and his little sister’s head was so hurt that she died. You must never get upon the back of a chair, nor pull one away when any body is going to sit down, for the fall may break the person’s back. ”

“ The chairs and sofas, the beds, the linen, the hundred and one small but important devices for facilitating the material side of life, and so putting mind and spirit in the mood for their best— But I despair of making you realize. ”

“ A lady who sits cross-legged or sidewise on her chair, who stretches out her feet, who has a habit of holding her chin, or twirling her ribbons or fingering her buttons; a man who lounges in his chair, nurses his leg, bites his nails, or caresses his foot crossed over on his knee, shows clearly a want of good home training. Each should be quiet and graceful, either in their sitting or standing position, the gentleman being allowed more freedom than the lady. ”

“ At every forward step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign. ”

“ I sit all day in my chair, moving 8 feet to my bed at night, and 8 feet from it to my chair in the morning—and wait. The assignation is certain. "Life is a coquetry with Death that wearies me, Too sure of the amour." ”

“ Daughtry murmured, staring about helplessly as he realised that it was a leper-house, that the very chair in which the old man sat was a leper-chair, that the very floor on which his exhausted feet rested was a leper-floor. ”

“ I remember how the nearest girl used to lift me up and put me in my high-chair and how I would hurry over the sums set in compound long division and proportion, for as soon as I had finished, I would drop my pencil on the floor, and then turn round and climb down out of my chair, ostensibly to get it, but really to look at the girls' legs. ”

“ By turning handles attached to the chair, you move up or down, along the concave of a circle, and to the right or left, at pleasure. All that you have to do is to observe at ease, and give an occasional pressure or tap with your finger. ”

“ A stool, a chair, or a table, is the first weapon taken up in a general romping or skirmish; and after a peace, the chairs are apt to suffer in the conduct of an amour, the cook being usually fat and heavy, and the butler a little in drink. ”

“ A bed, a table on and under which lay a multitude of wax-tablets, papyrus-rolls, metal-points, and writing-reeds, with a small bench, on which stood a water-jar and basin, composed the furniture of this room ”

“ Looking into a furnished room I perceive at once tables, chairs, and other pieces of furniture, although the legs of a chair, for{118} example, are spatially and by their coloring better connected with the carpet than with the back of the chair. When I am looking at a portrait standing upside down, the dark hair and the dark background become a mental unit, a percept of a dark area. ”

“ The favourite attitude of the poetical young gentleman is lounging on a sofa with his eyes fixed upon the ceiling, or sitting bolt upright in a high-backed chair, staring with very round eyes at the opposite wall. ”

“ And then we had a fiddler who could play under a chair, and over a chair, and through a chair, and on his head, and with his head between his legs, and under all circumstances of contortion under which a man could reasonably be expected to play a fiddle. ”

“ To most of us even the bodily warmth of another, for example the chair warm from another's sitting, is felt unpleasantly, whereas there is nothing disagreeable in the warmth of the chair in which we have been sitting ourselves. ”

“ When she came down to breakfast in the morning, a high chair, which had in turn been used by all the children, was drawn up to the table, and in it was seated a beautiful wax doll. It had long, flaxen ringlets, and blue eyes, which could be made to open and shut, beautiful red cheeks, a white neck and arms, and taper fingers. ”

“ For example, a table might surely be contrived for ten or a dozen taylors to sit round, with liberty for their legs either to hang down, or rest upon a foot-board, as they should chuse. A place might likewise be cut out for each person, in such a manner that he might sit as conveniently for working as in the present mode of sitting cross-legged. ”

“ My dear friend having the same tastes as myself, would certainly wish always for my chair, and, like his little daughter, would beat me to make me give it up to him. To keep peace between our hearts, I send a chair for him also. ”

“ Ask your mother, father or big brother to stand for a second by a chair and check these proportions for yourself. The height of a dining-room table is higher, but only a little higher than the height of a seated man's elbow. ”

“ And if it be said that howbeit sitting at our common tables be a sign natural to signify familiarity amongst us, yet nature hath not given such a signification to sitting at the Lord's table,—I answer, that sitting is a natural sign of familiarity, at what table soever it be used. ”

“ If the intention is to speak of a person entering the gesturer's own lodge, the right hand is passed under the left and toward the body, near which the left hand is held; if of a person entering the lodge of another, the left hand is held further from the body and the right is passed under it and outward. ”