Shutter

“ I glanced up suddenly, and found there, at that small casement window which opens on the street, and which is usually guarded by the shutter you now see placed in position, the face of a man. ‘What do you want?’ I cried angrily, and darted across the room to fling the shutter back into position with all the force I could exert. But he was much too swift for me. With incredible rapidity he flung an envelope through the opening and darted off, and the shutter and window slammed together, as I intended, but with an empty bang. ”

“ People have felt this when that iron shutter that is called Death has fallen between them and that one who was their share of the world. A part of them, some plausible imitation of them, can speak and act, and be extolled, perhaps, for facing the music stoutly; while the stricken thing that is themselves, is lying prone before the iron shutter ”

“ The object of the shutter is to shut off the light during the time that the film is in motion so that the impressions made upon the eye by the succession of stationary pictures may not be blurred by the motion of the film when it is changed. The ideal shutter is one that shuts the light off instantly and, at the expiration of the necessary time, allows it as quickly to come to view again. ”

“ A choked part of a loud sound in an old piece of glass is happening, it is solid and all that and not by any means noisy. The best way is just to stay any way and to think. The best way is always lively by a kind of a hoarse whisper. A shutter is only light when there is a joke. ”

“ But this uproar would be speedily silenced, and the mellow voice ring out again, clear and commanding. What could the subject be to rouse such enthusiasm in the Associated Brotherhood of the Awl, the Plane and the Trowel? There was a moment when our listening friends expected to be enlightened. A shutter was thrown back in one of those upper windows, and the window hurriedly raised, during which words took the place of sounds and they heard enough to whet their appetite for more. But only that. The shutter was speedily restored to place, and the window again closed. ”

“ I don’t know whether the reader has been as much struck with the above mysterious scene as the writer has; but the fancy of it strikes me as very fine; and the natural SUPERNATURALNESS is kept up in the best style. The shutter swaying to and fro, the fitful LIGHT APPEARING over the furniture of the room, and giving it an air of strange motion—the awful shadow which passed through the body of the timid young novice—are surely very finely painted. “I rushed to the shutter, and flung it back: there was no one in the sacristy. ”

“ Speed of working is obtained by dividing the shutter into two or three parts, each revolving on its own spindle, but all connected so as to act in perfect unison. The thinnest sheet brass or iron obtainable should be used, so that the tension of the spring used to close the shutter need not be great. Our illustration shows a two-part shutter, each half an inch wider than the hole in the front, and jointly a similar amount deeper. ”

“ The screen, or shutter, of the heliograph was mounted on a separate tripod, so as to prevent shaking the mirror when it was operated. It was made something like a window shutter. We cut out two slats, each 2-1/2 inches wide and 6 inches long. They were made of hardwood 3/8 inch thick.
Fig. 157. Section through Shutter. The upper and lower edges were tapered down to a thickness of 3/16 inch. ”

“ When they were numerous, the two inside shutters of the window were closed, and I could only see a faint streak of light glimmering between the two leaves; when there were one or two familiar friends, on the point of leaving, one shutter was opened; and at last, when all were gone, the two shutters were thrown open, the curtains withdrawn, and I could see from the opposite quay the light of the lamp which stood on the little table, where she read or worked while expecting me. ”

“ Darrin then poured some of the boiling water upon the sill, where the shutter stuck. At his next effort the shutter moved. Dave closed it and pegged it so securely that no trick from the outside could loosen that shutter. ”

“ WHEN death visits a house in England the shutters are at once closed. If there are no shutters, the blinds are drawn down, and the house looks out sightless to the world. In many novels this fact has formed a climax, and if I remember aright, in William Black's last book, the hero of the story knows that the girl he loved is dead by coming suddenly upon her house and seeing the blinds down. ”

“ When you have laid a little back log, and placed your billets on small dogs, as in common chimneys, and put some fire to them, then slide down your shutter as low as the dogs, and the opening being by that means contracted, the air rushes in briskly, and presently blows up the flames. ”

“ If we define the efficiency of a shutter as the ratio of the amount of light it transmits during the exposure to the 71amount of light it would transmit were it wide open during the whole period, then the efficiency of the ordinary between-the-lens shutter is of the order of 60 per cent. ”

“ A shutter should be adapted to the speed of the film movement. There is no need of keeping the film covered any longer than it is in motion. A quick film movement and a narrow shutter will add considerably to the light obtained from a given lamp and a given current consumption. ”

“ As you are working in the dark you are apt to overlook some lines. If you have done so you can close the shutter again and make them. If it proves to be all right go over it with the crayon point No. 2. ”

“ Doubtless the green shutters were closed, not because of the triple death within, but because the tragedy occurred in the night, and no one was left alive in that ill-fated house to open the blinds when morning came.
As I write these words, the shutters are closed in a house on Highgate Hill, to the north of London, because George Douglas Brown, the author of one famous book, lies dead in a darkened room. Even yet his strident voice is ringing in my ears, while it seems but yesterday that he sat in the chair beside my table. If ever a man was built for a long life it was Brown. ”

“ If the shutters are not down and shop swept by seven o'clock, he turns all sorts of colors like the bottles in his window, and addresses me in such dreadful bad language, that I really feel sometimes inclined to knock him down with one of his own pestles, preparatory to pounding him in one of his own mortars. ”

“ That there is some very different weather to be battled with is apparent by the extraordinary shutters one sees to all the houses. Imagine doors built as if to stand a siege, strengthened by heavy cross-pieces of wood close together, and, instead of bolt or lock, kept in their places by solid iron bars as thick as my wrist. Every door and window in the length and breadth of the island is furnished with these contre-vents, or hurricane-shutters, and they tell their own tale. ”

“ In the morning we are awakened suddenly, almost at the same instant, by a red flame glowing between the slats as fire glows between the bars of a grate. Springing from our curtains we fling open the shutters, expecting to see a great conflagration, and behold, it is the sunrise! ”

“ I could see she shuddered. “Does any light ever get into the room?”
Where the window ought to have been were the usual massive and immovable shutters.
“The person who put up those shutters wasn’t fond of either light or air. But you wait, I’ll have them down, I like plenty of both. You heard Mr. ”

“ A grayish twilight filtered through the bright cracks of the shutters and between the closed folding doors at the rear. At first, the contrast with the glare of the street made it seem almost absolutely dark; and as my eyes gradually became adapted to the dimness, I remembered being shut in the closet when I was a child, and how the pale streaks from door-casing and keyhole had gradually diluted the gloom in just the same way. The recollection was so vivid that I half imagined here the same rustle and stuffiness of hanging clothes, and the sense of outrage at the shutting out of daylight. ”

“ She barred these apertures as well as she could (some of the bars were gone) , and then tried to draw the curtains; but these muslin protections, when they reached the strong current of air which came through the central crack of the shutters, were blown out towards the middle of the room like so many long white ghosts. ”

“ The top or roof shutters also run into a groove along the ridge of the roof, and at the lower end fix close down to the top of the side shutters, fastening with a [Pg 67] button. Each of the shutters should have a projecting fillet fixed on one side, so as to shut close over the adjoining one. The shutters themselves should of course be made of light frame-work, strengthened where necessary, with small iron rods. ”

“ Well, Miss, it is our duty to warn you; and as I was saying, a house like this, in its own grounds, has special attractions for them blackguards. So as you happen to have shutters on the ground windows, I advise you to use them after dark, and keep a bright lookout generally. ”

“ Such shutters should not be used where there is room for the drop shutters. Where it is necessary to have them, they should always be arranged on the outside of the booth; if on the inside there is too much chance of obstacles being in the way to prevent their closing. ”

“ The noise, and the glare of the coloured lights, and the cracking of fireworks which were let off every now and then, aroused men, women, and children from their beds, and scarcely a house but had a window or door open, whence peered forth, to witness the spectacle, persons, many of whom, as was apparent from their night-dresses, had been awakened from their sleep. ”

“ And moreover this phenomenon, if we consider only our senses, is rather painful than agreeable, for the nerves of our sight and those of our hearing are each in their turn painfully strained, then not less violently relaxed, by the alternations of light and darkness, of the explosion of the thunder, and silence. And in spite of all these causes of displeasure, a storm is an attractive phenomenon for whomsoever is not afraid of it. ”

“ Then, with a kind of desperate energy, she caught up the candle and apple, and turned to the glass that hung against the wall. As she did so, the brief lull in the tempest expired, and the wind, as if it had gained new power, rushed past with a wilder sound, and shook the house to its very foundation.
“One glance into the mirror, as the hammer of the clock began to fall sufficed. A wild scream, thrilling through the house, accompanied by a noise as of some one falling heavily, aroused the sleeping parents. ”

“ Now shutting out things is all very well, but it has one simple corollary--that from everything that we shut out we are ourselves shut out. When we shut our door on the wind, it would be equally true to say that the wind shuts its door on us. ”

“ The splintering of glass mingled its small sound with an ominous thud in the thick darkness. It was the end of all things; the falling of an impenetrable curtain over a horror half sensed, yet all the greater for its mystery.
The silence—the terror—the unspeakable sense [Pg 71] of doom which gripped them all was not broken by a heart-beat. All listened for a stir, a movement where they could see nothing. ”

“ Only yesterday the incessant noise in our ears, by describing to us in a continuous narrative all that was happening in the street and in the house, succeeded at length in making us sleep, like a boring book; to-night, through the sheet of silence that is spread over our sleep a shock, louder than the rest, manages to make itself heard, gentle as a sigh, unrelated to any other sound, mysterious ”

“ Night shuts down darker. You can not tell, when you try to look about you, what is sky and what is earth; for all is storm. You feel more and more tired. All at once, you find that the wind which was at your side a while ago, as you kept beating into it on your course toward help and shelter, is now at your back. ”

“ Quickly even as lightning darts, zigzagging a path of light from one remote point to another in its eccentric course—her dim eyes actually resting upon the night skies where the lightnings play—she traveled again in her musings the arbitrary paths of fate from one crisis to another in the eventful latter years of her life. ”

“ No other living thing disturbed the quiet.
He had heard the clock strike eleven a long time since, and was lying with eyes half shut, gazing at the red fire-grate, and feeling at last a little drowsy, when all at once a strange rush and thrill seemed to come to him in the air, like a cool clear wind blowing through the church, and in one minute he was wide awake and sitting upright, with ears strained to catch some sound afar off. ”

“ With the approach of morning the air grows cooler, and slumber comes,—a slumber of exhaustion, dreamless and sickly; and perhaps when you would rise with the sun you feel such a dizziness, such a numbness, such a torpor, that only by the most intense effort can you keep your feet for the first five minutes. You experience a sensation that recalls the poet's fancy of death-in-life, or old stories of sudden rising from the grave: it is as though all the electricity of will had ebbed away,—all the vital force evaporated, in the heat of the night.... ”

“ When silence is at its deathliest, one can hear almost the way the earth is moving on its axis. I waited until I felt that he had turned the corner to the stairs, then, with infinite care, manipulated, a fraction at a time, the handle of my own door, and, slipping off my pumps, emerged and followed, hardly breathing, in pursuit. ”

“ I feel your silence touch my words as I talk, And take them in thrall. My words fly off a forge The length of a spark; I see the night-sky easily sip them Up in the dark. The lark sings loud and glad, Yet I am not loth That silence should take the song and the bird And lose them both. A train goes roaring south, The steam-flag flying; I see the stealthy shadow of silence Alongside going. And off the forge of the world, Whirling in the draught of life, Go sparks of myriad people, filling The night with strife. Yet they never change the darkness Or blench it with noise ”