Staircase

“ To right and left were doors leading to the ground-floor rooms. Along the wall by my shoulder ran a line of pegs, on which hung half a dozen hats and great coats, every one of clerical shape; and full in front of me a broad staircase ran up, with a staring Brussels carpet, the colors and pattern of which I can recall as well as to-day's breakfast. Under this staircase was set a stand full of walking-sticks, and a table littered with gloves, brushes, a hand-bell, a riding-crop, one or two dog-whistles, and a bed-room candle, with tinder-box beside it. ”

“ The crazy staircase, usually not slow to give notice when any one was coming up or down, here creaked under a quick tread, and a further sound was heard upon it, as if a little steam-engine with more steam than it knew what to do with, were working towards the room. ”

“ An imposing staircase rose, circling round and round a deep central well, to the giddy height of five tall stories; it still remains to me a triumph of architectural splendor. There was a polished mahogany handrail; to the daring, no sport was comparable to “sliding down the banisters.” ”

“ I venture up the stone staircase, although most of the finely carved balusters are gone, and the arch-stones have so slipped out of place that they seem to cling together by the will of Providence rather than by any physical law. The stairs themselves, although of fine stone that has almost the polish of marble, are cracked as if an earthquake had tormented them, and worn by the tread of innumerable feet into deep hollows. ”

“ The mounting of a staircase is often the index to a man's state of mind. As Loder ascended the stairs of Chilcote's house his shoulders lacked their stiffness, his head was no longer erect; he moved as though his feet were weighted. ”

“ Of undiminished loveliness are the fluted Corinthian columns, lofty ceilings and elaborate moldings embellished with classical motifs. An outstanding feature of the building is the winding staircase which rises at the rear of the marble-floored entrance hall. This stairway of unsurpassed beauty has been frequently honored as a masterpiece of design and craftsmanship.
A curious fact about the building is that neither a marriage, a birth, nor a death has ever taken place within its walls. ”

“ But in every respect, in the high roof, the huge and richly ornamented chimneys, the free treatment of the fenestration, the still more free and easy handling of the staircase, with its ramps and openings treated with an obvious eye to spirited effect, and with but little care for classical gravity of proportion, all is still mediæval. ”

“ Such a staircase, with its accessories, in the older and more crowded parts of Paris, would be bad enough now; but, at that time, it was vile indeed to unaccustomed and unhardened senses. Every little habitation within the great foul nest of one high building—that is to say, the room or rooms within every door that opened on the general staircase—left its own heap of refuse on its own landing, besides flinging other refuse from its own windows. ”

“ If I wished to go out or to come in without taking the lift or being seen from the main staircase, a smaller private staircase, no longer in use, offered me its steps so skilfully arranged, one close above another, that there seemed to exist in their gradation a perfect proportion of the same kind as those which, in colours, scents, savours, often arouse in us a peculiar, sensuous pleasure. ”

“ The hall, no longer a tunnel of darkness, gave me a glimpse as we went by, of various secluded corners, and it seemed as if everywhere I looked I saw—a clock. I counted four before I reached the staircase, all standing on the floor and all of ancient make, though differing much in appearance and value. A fifth one rose grim and tall at the stair foot, and under an impulse I have never understood I stopped, when I reached it, to note the time. ”

“ The staircase was in total darkness, but filled with the desire of flight, of getting away without seeing or hearing any more, she never stayed to think that she might fall and break her limbs on the stone stairs. ”

“ The great staircase, however, may be termed, without much hyperbole, a feature of grandeur and magnificence. It winds through the midst of the house by flights of broad steps, each flight terminating in a square landing-place, whence the ascent is continued towards the cupola. A carved balustrade, freshly painted in the lower stories, but growing dingier as we ascend, borders the staircase with its quaintly twisted and intertwined pillars, from top to bottom. ”

“ Beckford, “and to do away with the cold and uncomfortable appearance you generally have in staircases.” The effect of the whole is so novel that you lose all idea of stairs, and seem merely going from one room to another. As you stand on the landing the vaulted and belted ceiling behind you has the appearance of a row of arches in perspective. The same solemn and mysterious gloom pervades the staircase. The architect has frequently entreated to be allowed to introduce a little more light, but in vain. ”

“ They went on and on, and round and round the little corkscrew staircase - then through the bell-ringers' loft, where the bell-ropes hung with soft furry ends like giant caterpillars - then up another stair into the belfry, where the big quiet bells are - and then on, up a ladder with broad steps - and then up a little stone stair. And at the top of that there was a little door. And the door was bolted on the stair side. ”

“ The masterpiece of its constructive elements is its wonderful doubly spiralled central staircase, which permits one to ascend or descend without passing another proceeding in the opposite direction at the same time. ”

“ The wide oak staircase, with its carved balusters, ornamented newel-post, and heavy hand-rails, the old wainscoted parlor, with its magnificent chimney piece reaching to the ceiling, are all essentially English features, and full of vigor and life, as the work of every transition period is likely to prove. ”

“ This gives them the appearance of grotesque little men, with bent legs, resting one arm on the spire, and might have caused a serious loss of beauty if the whole work had been less perfect in its conception. A curious outside staircase, reached from within, goes over the south window of the transept, giving it a deeply recessed appearance; and the bold buttresses, terminated with crocketed pinnacles, throw broad shadows during the afternoon, which add immensely to the charm of the building. ”

“ On such staircases as these furniture can be conveyed up and down without damage to the walls, or injury to the furniture. Architects who build modern narrow and steep staircases, forget that often a coffin has to be conveyed with its tenant down them; and this can be done neither with convenience nor dignity upon them.
But let us think of the staircase on a brighter occasion than a funeral. The grand old flight of steps with its landings, and with sometimes its bay-window with seats in it on one of the landings, how it lends itself to the exigencies of a sitting-out place at a ball. ”

“ It was furnished in a manner quite un-English, but very luxuriously. A magnificent oaken staircase communicated with a gallery on the left, and at the foot of this staircase, in a mechanical chair which she managed with astonishing dexterity, sat Madame de Stämer. ”

“ The room you enter is by no means gloomy. A carved oak staircase with balustrade of peculiar form leads to other rooms panelled to the ceiling, with fine overmantels. The leads of the small window-panes are of fanciful design; one bears the date 1627 and the initials I. W. H., and these occur again with the date 1639 in some oak carving in one of the bedrooms. A "well" stone staircase between rough-hewn stone walls leads up to the attics, which have open timber roofs with semicircular span to the main beams. ”

“ I have frequently wondered how it would feel to be going down a staircase, dressed in one’s best frock, low neck and no sleaves, to some loved one lurking below, preferably in evening clothes, although not necesarily so. ”

“ To our right is a massive oaken staircase. We ascend in gloom, for the staircase being built in the middle of the house, only a few straggling rays of light can reach it, and whence they proceed is a mystery. Every few steps we mount we are upon the point of stumbling into the door of some cupboard or apartment ”

“ The thickness of the walls immediately above the solid is twelve feet; at the top of the stone staircase they are eight feet, and where the walls are thinnest, immediately under the cornice, they measure two feet. A drop hole formed in the courses of the staircase and solid, provides for the range of the weight of a revolving light. The ascent to this building, as at the Bell Rock, is intended to be by an exterior stair or ladder of brass, and the interior communication between the several apartments by means of flights of circular oaken steps. ”

“ The stairs of a staircase have naught to do with the top of it and the abode to which it leads, yet are means to the reaching of both; and if the climber left not behind the stairs below him until there were no more to climb, but desired to remain upon any one of them, he would never reach the top of them nor would he mount to the pleasant [3] and peaceful room which is the goal. ”

“ Whether it is fact or fancy I cannot say, but that the Pavilion has a hidden staircase and an underground passage to the Dome I happen to know. A hidden staircase has hardly fewer adventurous potentialities than a secret passage. ”

“ The exiled prince to whom it gives its title has not the means to keep up four hundred rooms; he contents himself with preserving the huge outside. The repairs of the prodigious roof alone must absorb a large part of his revenue. The great feature of the interior is the celebrated double staircase, rising straight through the building, with two courses of steps, so that people may ascend and descend without meeting. This staircase is a truly majestic piece of humor; it gives you the note, as it were, of Chambord. ”

“ The grand double staircase, one part leading to the private apartments of the royal household, is described voluminously in the authorities; and, truly, for one who has been accustomed to convenient dimensions 41 only, its breadth, its lofty ceilings, its pillars and statuary, its mosaic pavements and splendid windows, are enough to unsettle for ever the standards of size and grandeur. The strongest feeling one has, as he stops half way up to look about him, is the ludicrous disproportion between it and the size of the inhabiting animals. ”

“ The staircase on one side is open to a well all the way and so the lights and shadows that cross it are very fascinating. Still more fascinating is it to recall for a moment the people who have passed up and down the stair and upon whom these lights and shadows have fallen during the last three hundred years. ”

“ A staircase, consisting of one hundred and eighty-three steps, and sufficiently wide to admit a man to ascend, is cut out of the solid marble, leaving a small pillar in the middle, round which the stair winds from the bottom to the top. ”

“ If the house be of several storeys, the ventilation of the staircase has an importance which bears a direct proportion to the height of the house. As a rule, in second-class, and, indeed, in many first-class houses, the ventilation and illumination of the staircase never trouble the mind of the builder or his architect. Starting from the front passage, the only light of which is from a closed fan-light over the door, the staircase oscillates between water-closet doors [3] and bedroom doors, getting darker and darker as it ascends. ”

“ They form an approach light, elegant, and so lofty that you cannot touch with the hand the stairs above your head. Numerous small windows make the staircase perfectly light, and the inside is so clean that it is difficult to believe it is not continually scoured and whitened, but this I was assured was not the case. ”

“ In the ruined wing you can look through windows defended by iron bars, into the dismantled rooms of a brick building; the English Guards were ambuscaded in these rooms, and the spiral staircase, hollowed out from ground-floor to roof, appears like the interior of a broken shell. The staircase has two landings; the English, besieged on this landing and massed on the upper stairs, broke away the lowest. They are large slabs of blue stone which form a pile among the nettles. ”

“ It is not very necessary to describe the lands or the people; and really the most remarkable thing in the place was a staircase, of a very wonderful character. Let the reader imagine, if he can, a splendid stairway, sixty-five feet from balustrade to balustrade, consisting of two vast flights, each of one hundred and twenty-five steps, of eight inches in height, by three feet broad, connected by a flat resting-place sixty feet in length, and running from the palace wall, on the edge of the precipice down to meet a waterway or canal cut to its foot from the river. ”

“ The noble staircase of the east front of the building leaps over three arches; under one of which carriages pass to the basement door; and, as you approach from the gate, the eye cuts the ascent at right angles, and the sky, broken by a small spire at a short distance, is visible beneath. Broad stairs occur at equal distances, with corresponding projections, and from the upper platform rise the outer columns of the portico, with ranges of columns three deep extending back to the pilasters. ”

“ In this sketch I have chosen the point of view from the entrance loggia of the house, because looking from it I could well see, and therefore illustrate, the way in which a grand staircase, covered at the top, but open to the air upon one side, usually connects, in large houses, the upper and lower arcades of the Patios, and consequently the upper and lower floors of the mansion which open on to the two main arcades. The staircase is very rarely closed by iron-work or otherwise ”