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Wainscot   Listen
noun
Wainscot  n.  
1.
Oaken timber or boarding. (Obs.) "A wedge wainscot is fittest and most proper for cleaving of an oaken tree." "Inclosed in a chest of wainscot."
2.
(Arch.) A wooden lining or boarding of the walls of apartments, usually made in panels.
3.
(Zool.) Any one of numerous species of European moths of the family Leucanidae. Note: They are reddish or yellowish, streaked or lined with black and white. Their larvae feed on grasses and sedges.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wainscot" Quotes from Famous Books



... better. A servant on that morning was sent to Henry-street for some Madeira that Miss Burns fancied. On her return, not seeing the lady on the sofa, where an hour previous she had left her, she looked round the room and discovered her doubled up in a corner of the room with her face towards the wainscot, while Mr. Angus was asleep sitting in a chair covered by a counterpane. The evidence was most conflicting. Several witnesses declared Miss Burns was not pregnant, others that they believed she was. The medical evidence was also of a most bewildering and diverse nature. Some ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian

... the chancel is apsidal, externally, as well as the nave, covered with modern house tiles. Internally the nave has a flat ceiling of deal boards. The pulpit and seats are painted wainscot; there is a small modern oak reading desk, and a lectern to match it. The chancel arch is a plain semicircle, but on its eastern side has a pointed Early English arch. The chancel rails are of modern oak, ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter

... thousand years hence, and taken perhaps for a Runic history in rhyme. I have part of another valuable MS. to dispose of, which I shall beg leave to commit to your care, and desire it may be concealed behind the wainscot in Mr. Bentley's Gothic house, whenever you build it. As the great person is living to whom it belonged, it would be highly dangerous to make it public; as soon as she is in disgrace, I don't know whether it Will not be a good way ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... dreamy house, The doors upon their hinges creaked; The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse Behind the moldering wainscot shrieked, Or from the crevice peered about. Old faces glimmered through the doors, Old footsteps trod the upper floors, Old voices called her from without. She only said, "My life is dreary, He cometh ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... this last particular, I learned by the sequel of the story, when the spark, proud of his acquisition, came to me, that he had been peeping about in the cabin whilst his mother was packing the chests, and seeing a small brass knob in the wainscot, took it for a plaything, and pulling to get it out, opened a little door of a cupboard, where he had found some very pretty toys that he positively claimed for himself, among which were a small plain gold ring, and a very fine one set with ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock

... out, closed the door, and crossed to the stairs. There he stopped. From his pouch he had drawn a fine length of whipcord, attached at one end to a tiny bodkin of needle sharpness. That bodkin he drove into the edge of one of the panels of the wainscot, in line with the topmost step; drawing the cord taut at a height of a foot or so above this step, he made fast its other end to the newel-post at the stair-head. He had so rehearsed the thing in his mind that the performance of it occupied but ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... more than twenty figures, or, I should rather say, parts of figures, because you have not shown one leg or foot, which makes it very defective. If you do not know how to draw feet and legs, I will show you.' And with a crayon he made drawings on the wainscot ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... "the common rendezvous of infamous sharpers and noble cullies." The rake has lost all his recently acquired wealth, pulls off his wig and flings himself upon the floor in a paroxysm of fury and execration. In allusion to the burning of White's in 1733, flames are seen bursting from the wainscot, but the pre-occupied gamblers take no heed, even of the watchman crying "Fire!" To the left is seated a highwayman, with horse pistol and black mask in a skirt pocket of his coat. He is so engrossed in his thoughts that he does not notice the boy at his side offering a glass of liquor ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... body of a stubbed oak, is the fittest timber for the case of a cyder-mill, and such like engines, as best enduring the unquietness of a ponderous rolling-stone. For shingles, pales, lathes, coopers ware, clap-board for wainscot, (the ancient{54:1} intestina opera and works within doors) and some pannells are curiously vein'd, of much esteem in former times, till the finer grain'd Spanish and Norway timber came amongst us, which is likewise ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... in talk with his Emily; she before him; he standing in an easy genteel attitude, leaning against the wainscot, listening, smiling, to her prattle, with looks of indulgent love, as a father might do to a child he was fond of; while she looked back every now and then towards me, so proud, poor dear! of being singled out by ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... things—except bogies! Rats and mice, and beetles; and creaky doors, and loose slates, and broken panes, and stiff drawer handles, that stay out when you pull them and then fall down in the middle of the night. Look at the wainscot of the room! It is old—hundreds of years old! Do you think there's no rats and beetles there! And do you imagine, sir, that you won't see none of them? Rats is bogies, I tell you, and bogies is rats; and don't you get to ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker

... is one of the most interesting. It ought to be read in conjunction with an earlier item in the same will, in which special directions are left to the executors not to pull down or to deface any manner of wainscot or glass in or about the house of Slyfield. For the end of the Slyfield family as a power in Surrey came with bitter suddenness. Henry, the Sheriff's eldest son, succeeded his father in 1590, and died in 1598. He was succeeded by his ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... however deficient in other requisites of their art, seem to have an unfortunate knack at preserving likenesses. Heads powdered even whiter than the originals, laced waistcoats, enormous lappets, and countenances all ingeniously disposed so as to smile at each other, encumber the wainscot, and distress the unlucky visitor, who is obliged to bear testimony to the resemblance. When one sees whole rooms filled with these figures, one cannot help reflecting on the goodness of Providence, which thus distributes self-love, in proportion as it denies those ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... day, within the dreary house, The doors upon their hinges creak'd; The blue-fly sang i' the pane; the mouse Behind the mould'ring wainscot shriek'd, Or from the crevice peer'd about. Old faces glimmer'd through the doors; Old footsteps trod the upper floors; Old voices called her from without: She only said, "My life is dreary— He cometh not," ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... dispositions of mind, the most insignificant circumstances often assume terrific proportions. This immovable candlestick, this furniture fastened to the wainscot, this glass replaced by a tin sheet, this profound silence, and the prolonged absence of M. Baleinier, had such an effect upon Adrienne, that she was struck with a vague terror. Yet such was her implicit confidence in the doctor, that she reproached herself with her own fears, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... Lesbia smiled her languid smile over Endymion, 'how I wished something would happen—anything to stir us out of this statuesque, sleeping-beauty state of being. I verily believe the spiders are all asleep in the ivy, and the mice behind the wainscot, and ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... partly modernized by the late Mme. Sechard; the walls were adorned with a wainscot, fearful to behold, painted the color of powder blue. The panels were decorated with wall-paper —Oriental scenes in sepia tint—and for all furniture, half-a-dozen chairs with lyre-shaped backs and blue leather cushions were ranged round the room. The two clumsy arched windows that gave ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... fancies. He did not dare to put out the light, and yet its faint glimmer only made the darkness more horrible. He did not dare to look behind him, though he knew that there was nothing there. He trembled at the scratching sound in the wainscot, though he knew that it was only mice. A sudden light on the window, and a distant chorus, did not make his heart beat less wildly from being nothing more alarming than two or three noisy students going home with torches. Then his light took the matter into its own ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... friend, who therefore having spoken to him in vain, drew nearer to him, and began to pull him by the sleeve. Frederick, angry, and out of patience with these interruptions, suddenly turned round, and gave Marcus such a push, that he sent him reeling across the room, and he at last fell against the wainscot. ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin

... different, not like the fragmentary inadvertent murmur of the hut; a small, purposeful, stealthy, sound, aware of itself. She listened, as she had listened before, without moving. It was not louder than the whittling of a mouse behind the wainscot, hardly louder than the scraping of a mole's thin hand in the soil. It continued. Then it stopped. It was only her foolish fancy after all. There it was again. ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley

... stink. The clever deevil had his entrails in his breest and his hert in his belly, and regairdet neither God nor his ain mither. His lauchter's no like the cracklin' o' thorns unner a pot, but like the nicherin' o' a deil ahin' the wainscot. Lat him sit ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... resolution,' says Prince, 'that, for the honor and liberty of a royal lady in a castle besieged by infidels, he fought a combat with a Sarazen; for bulk and bigness an unequal match (as the representation of him cut in the wainscot at Fulford-hall doth plainly show); whom yet he vanquished and rescued the lady.' Sir Baldwin's name must have been woven in many a romance and ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... referred to is that caused by a mouse nibbling at the wainscot; and I venture to say so much in a ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... be no easy matter to teach them to Kate," said Lady Humbert with a smile. "She has all the spirit of Wyvern and Trevlyn combined. She will be a stanch protector for thee, Dowsabel, if thou art troubled by strange noises in the wainscot, or by the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... lether with lether lynings L8 15s & 9 gros of lether buttons 10s In the wholl with the makynge; glas beades of severall sorts; drugs & phisicks bought of Mr Barton Apothecary by doctor Gulsons direccon for the flipp & scurvy &c; wainscot boxe and hay to pack the same in &c; drifatt to send downe the 30 sutes of apparell and cariage of the same from the Taylors to the wayne ...
— The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624 • Charles E. Hatch

... discreet man. He resides in the main fort close by the sea. There is a sentinel stands at his door; and he has a few servants to wait on him. I was treated in a large dark lower room, which has but one small window. There were about 200 muskets hung up against the walls, and some pikes; no wainscot, hangings, nor much furniture. There was only a small old table, a few old chairs, and 2 or 3 pretty long forms to sit on. Having supped with him I invited him on board, and went off in my boat. The next morning he came aboard with another gentleman in his company, attended by 2 servants: ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier

... there was nothing more to add, and so, sanding the sheets, I laid them back behind the swinging panel which I myself had fashioned so cunningly that none might suspect a cupboard in the simple wainscot. Then to wash hands and face in fresh water, and put on my coat without the waistcoat, prepared to take the air on the cupola, where it should soon ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... forced the door and burst it inward with a crash. During the moment's silence that followed they heard the key spring into the room and strike the wainscot. The place was flooded with sunshine, and seemed to welcome them with genial light and attractive art. The furniture revealed its rich grain and beautiful modelling; the cherubs carved on the great chairs seemed to dance where the light flashed ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts

... sixteen inches square, and a quarter of an inch thick: wainscot is the best, as it does not warp. These will go into the groove of the lesson post: there should be about twenty articles on each board, or twenty-five, just as it suits the conductors of the school; there should be the same quantity ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... glazed, and looked very well, perfectly white, and painted with blue figures, as the large China ware in England is painted, and hard as if it had been burnt. As to the inside, all the walls, instead of wainscot, were lined with hardened and painted tiles, like the little square tiles we call galley- tiles in England, all made of the finest china, and the figures exceeding fine indeed, with extraordinary variety of ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... start for Gravesend. Since he had wakened out of that wonderful dream on purpose to go to Gravesend, he might as well start at once. But his jump ended in a sickening sideways fall, and his head knocked against the wainscot. ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit

... well-dried, may be hung against a wainscot, a small plummet affixed to it, and a line drawn at the precise spot it falls to. The plummet will be found to rise before rain, and fall when ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... A mouse in the wainscot scratches, and scratches, and then There is no sound at the top of the house of men Or mice; and the cloud is blown, and the moon again Dapples ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various

... to lay it down. Poor Helen, who was not more than three years old, did not immediately obey him. He suddenly started up; and with eyes and face flaming with rage, he caught hold of her and dashed her poor little head, with all the strength he possessed, against the wainscot. His father, who was writing, had scarcely observed what was going on, till Helen's screams drew his attention. What a sight met his eyes, when he looked towards where his children stood! Helen lying on the carpet, her head streaming ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford

... dreamy house The doors upon their hinges creak'd, The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked, Or from the crevice peer'd about, Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors, Old footsteps trod the upper floors, Old voices ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... wainscot and timbered roof, The long tables, and the faces merry and keen; The College Eight and their trainer dining aloof, The Dons on ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt

... said Lady Gerard; and immediately the dumb prophetess was at her side. She threw off a disguise, ingeniously contrived, and Ellen beheld her cousin William! The magic mirror was but an aperture through the wainscot into another apartment, and the plot had been arranged in the first place by Mrs Bridget, who had been confederate with the handsome but somewhat haughty wooer, having for his torment a maiden as haughty and intractable as himself. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... oaken mantel glowing, Faintest light the lamp is throwing On the mirror's antique mould, High-backed chair, and wainscot old, And, through faded curtains stealing, His ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... remember little enough of it, but there had been one scene near the beginning of the story when the heroine, Emily, looking for something in the dusk, had noticed some lines pencilled on the wainscot; these mysterious pencilled lines had been the beginning of all her troubles, and Maggie, as a small girl, had approached sometimes in the evening dusk the walls of her attic to see whether there too verses had been scribbled. Now, obscure in the corner of her carriage, she felt as ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... coming in pursuit of me, and I was obliged to retire through yards and gardens to a house more remote, where I remained until 4 o'clock, by which time one of the best finished houses in the Province had nothing remaining but the bare walls and floors. Not contented with tearing off all the wainscot and hangings, and splitting the doors to pieces, they beat down the partition walls; and although that alone cost them near two hours, they cut down the cupola or lanthorn, and they began to take the slate and boards from the ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... lighted by two windows on the street and finished with a wainscot painted gray, was so damp that the lower panels showed the geometrical cracks of rotten wood when the paint no longer binds it. The red-tiled floor, polished by the old lady's one servant, required, for comfort's sake, before each seat small round mats of brown straw, on one of ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac

... transition, and here Jane, the housemaid, shone pre-eminent. She would sit there and discourse by the hour of lonely and deserted houses, long silent galleries, down which misty shapes had been seen to glide in the pallid moonlight, gaunt and ruinous chambers, the wainscot of which rattled, and the tattered tapestry of which swayed and rustled mysteriously; gloomy passages through which unearthly sighs were audibly wafted; dismal cellars, with never-opened doors, from whose profoundest recesses came at dead of night the muffled sound of shrieks ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... the nave. It was on one of these cross-beams, after it had fallen down from the burning roof, that Kari got on to the side wall and leapt out, while Skarphedinn, when the burnt beam snapped asunder under his weight, was unable to follow him. There were fittings of wainscot along the walls of the side aisles, and all round between the pillars of the inner row, supporting the roof of the nave, ran a wainscot panel. In places the wainscot was pierced by doors opening into ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... the ceiling, with some twenty pieces of gold laid there, by a person a little before.—This encourages the souldiers in their work, and makes them the more eager in breaking down all the rest of the wainscot. The book was called 'Swapham,' and was afterwards redeemed by a person belonging to the ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips

... elderly nor young: the little Irish beggar that comes barefoot to my door; the mouse that steals out of the cranny in the wainscot; the bird that in frost and snow pecks at my window for a crumb; the dog that licks my hand ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... woman, elderly nor young; the little Irish beggar that comes barefoot to my door; the mouse that steals out of the cranny in the wainscot; the bird that, in frost and snow, pecks at the window for a crumb. I know somebody to whose knee the black cat loves to climb, against whose shoulder and cheek it loves to purr. The old dog always comes out of his kennel and wags his tail ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... used with reference to the top of a room—the ceiling. It is an old English word, and means overlaid or lined with wood, wainscot, or plank, either roof, sides, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... room and passed behind the bronze Pompeian Antinous. Under the shadow of the curtains, in the angle of the bay, against the wainscot, Queen Mary's magic ball showed softly luminous. Helen could have believed that it watched her. She hesitated before stooping to pick it up and looked over her shoulder at Richard Calmady. His back was towards her, his chair close against the table again. He leaned forward on his ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... committed[1], and I usually having my servants here allowed me, to read nightly an hour to me after supper, it fortuned that Fulcis, my then servant, reading in the Christian Resolution, in the treatise of Proof that there is a God, &c., there was upon a wainscot table at that instant three loud knocks {513} (as if it had been with an iron hammer) given; to the great amazing of me and my two ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various

... dark—rustlings of garments along unfrequented passages, and stealthy footfalls in unoccupied chambers overhead. I never knew of an old house without these mysterious noises. Next to my bedroom was a musty, dismantled apartment, in one corner of which, leaning against the wainscot, was a crippled mangle, with its iron crank tilted in the air like the elbow of the late ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... the wainscot holes, she tried to follow the procession; like everybody else, she knew the way it took from the palace gate, and—as few others were—she was aware of a scaling-place on the outer wall where a huge baobab drooped century-scarred branches nearly to the ground on either side. The sacred monkeys ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... this one will never fade, but always be a pleasure hanging there. Now, I really have something beautiful all my own," said Merry to herself as she ran up to hang the pretty thing on the dark wainscot of her room, where the graceful curve of its pointed leaves and the depth of its white cup would be a joy to her eyes as long as ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... the homes of the gentry, and the entrance-hall ceased to be the common refectory of the owner and his dependants, this apartment had been screened off by perforated panels, which for the sake of warmth and comfort had been filled up into solid wainscot by a succeeding generation. Thus one side of the room was richly carved with geometrical designs and arabesque pilasters, while the other three sides were in small simple panels, with a deep fantastic frieze in plaster, depicting a deer-chase in relief and running be ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... a zealous advocate for the cause of temperance employed a carpenter to make some alterations in his home. In repairing a corner near the fireplace, it was found necessary to remove the wainscot, when some things were brought to light which greatly astonished the workman. A brace of decanters, sundry bottles containing "something to take," a pitcher, and tumblers were cosily reposing in their snug quarters. The joiner ran to the proprietor ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... and I began to test the wainscot, but the Duke stopped me. "You'd never find the place," he said; "and I promised the person who told me not to give away the secret; but that doesn't prevent me from showing you what's ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... As the girl's glance ranged the hall in search of her jailer it rested upon the narrow, unglazed windows beyond which lay freedom. Would she ever again breathe God's pure air outside these stifling walls? These grimy hateful walls! Black as the inky rafters and wainscot except for occasional splotches a few shades less begrimed, where repairs had been made. As her eyes fell upon the trophies of war and chase which hung there her lips curled in scorn, for she knew that they were acquisitions by inheritance rather than by the personal prowess of the present master ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... that led to the front door, and knocked; but as she could only just reach the high knocker, she was not likely to alarm anybody with the noise she made. After a great many little faint raps, which, if anybody heard them, might easily have been mistaken for the attacks of some rat's teeth upon the wainscot, Ellen grew weary of her fruitless toil of standing on tiptoe, and resolved, though doubtfully, to go round the house and see if there was any other way of getting in. Turning the far corner, she saw a long, low outbuilding or shed jutting out from the side of the house. On the ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... were paneled in the oaken wainscot; and here and there the horns of the mighty stag adorned the walls, and united with the cheeriness of comfort associations of that of enterprise. The good old board was crowded with the luxuries meet for a country Squire. The speckled trout, fresh from the stream, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... book-presses, which is, after all, a great bore. No person will be admitted into my sanctum, and I can have the door locked during my absence. 3dly, I expect Mr. Bullock here every day, and should be glad to have the drawings for the dining-room wainscot, as he could explain them to the artists who are to work them. This (always if quite convenient) would be the more desirable, as I must leave this place in a fortnight at farthest,—the more 's the pity,—and, consequently, the risk of blunders will be considerably increased. I should ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... handkerchief, red and yellow, he gathered into a loose pad in his left hand for his cheek and temple to rest on. His face was thus supported by his hand and arm, while the side of his head touched and rested against the wainscot of the wall. ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... their gay burden. Off went their hats; Will. ready at hand in a new livery; up went the head; out rushed my honour; the woman behind the counter all in flutters, respect and fear giving due solemnity to her features, and her knees, I doubt not, knocking against the inside of her wainscot-fence. ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson

... tall clock by the staircase chimed the hour of noon. The insistence of the ancient timepiece seemed to have set up a rival in destruction of the Sunday peace, for no sooner had the twelfth stroke died than a bell began to ring. The little door in the wainscot beyond the clock was opened. An elderly butler put his head round the huge screen of Spanish leather that masked the very existence of the modest means of communication with the quarters of the Ulland domestics. So little was a ring at the front door expected at this hour that Sutton was still ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... ushered Nance into a room cased with yellow wainscot and lighted by tall candles, where two gentlemen sat at a table finishing a bowl of punch. One of these was stout, elderly, and irascible, with a face like a full moon, well dyed with liquor, thick tremulous ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... were put into order, and secured in excellent wainscot presses, by order of the house of peers, in the year 1719 and 1720. Attendance is given at this office, and searches may be made from seven o'clock in the morning to eleven, and from one to five in the afternoon, ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales

... door: At coming in, you saw her stoop; The entry brush'd against her hoop: Each moment rising in her airs, She curst the narrow winding stairs: Began a thousand faults to spy; The ceiling hardly six feet high; The smutty wainscot full of cracks: And half the chairs with broken backs: Her quarter's out at Lady-day; She vows she will no longer stay In lodgings like a poor Grisette, While there are houses to be let. Howe'er, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... sawing into planks a tree, the bark of which is much like cork. The timber...is light, close, and durable, and promises to stand against the effects of worms on the bottoms of vessels. I had a boat built of this wood which proved it to be good...this wood has much the resemblance of wainscot ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee

... quick!" he said just as Grace opened the table cloth with a jerk and flung it over his head. A pistol shot rang out, but David had dodged in time and the bullet was buried in the mahogany wainscot back of him. The astonished burglar dropped the weapon, and began to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower

... the Cats, and poisoned the Rats. The latter have revenged 'emselves by dying behind the Wainscot, which makes the lower Part of the House soe unbearable, 'speciallie to Father, that we are impatient to be off. Mother, intending to turn Chalfont into a besieged Garrison, is laying in Stock of Sope, Candles, Cheese, ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning

... while I lay dreaming in my cosy box bed, I was awakened by hearing a rapping noise. I listened, fancying it was but the noise of some rat behind the wainscot that had come for shelter into the warm house; but the loud knocking came again. I hurriedly drew on some clothes and opened the outer door. A wild gust of wind and snow swished in upon me, and in the deep snow outside there stood a ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton

... house, full of cupboards and passages. Some of the walls were four feet thick, and there used to be queer noises inside them, as if there might be a little secret staircase. Certainly there were odd little jagged doorways in the wainscot, and things disappeared at night— ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter

... remaining. "It consisted," says he, "of a plank of stone of about six inches in thickness, and in its other dimensions equalling the size of an ordinary door, or somewhat less. It was carved in such a manner as to resemble a piece of wainscot: the stone of which it was made was visibly of the same kind with the whole rock; and it turned upon two hinges in the nature of axles. These hinges were of the same entire piece of stone with the door, and were contained in two holes of the immoveable ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... In this smaller hall a simple, though only a molded cornice in harmony with that of the main hall suffices. Unlike the plain dado of the main hall, however, elaborated only by a molded surbase and skirting, a handsome paneled wainscot runs around the staircase hall and up the stairs. The spacing and workmanship displayed in this heavily beveled and molded paneling could hardly be better. At the foot of the flight, on the landing and at ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins

... near to death from very shame and bitterness. But of a sudden something leaped up in my heart, fire raged before my eyes and voices in my ears called on to war and vengeance. I was Baresark—and like hay bands I burst my cords. My axe hung on the wainscot. I snatched it thence, and of what befell I know this alone, that, when the madness passed, eight men lay stretched out before me, and all the place was but a ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard

... hide-and-seek. They never tired of rushing about through the old passages and rooms, and often came upon strange discoveries. Things hidden away for years and forgotten, doors which had remained unopened, or perhaps even had been mistaken for a part of the wainscot for generations. These discoveries were somewhat awe-inspiring, and the game not unfrequently became what the children called 'Treasure-hunting.' They generally managed to keep together on such occasions; it was too uncanny to be alone in ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... There were engraved portraits of Lord Chancellors and other celebrated lawyers of the last century; and there were old pier-glasses to reflect them, as well as the little satin-wood tables and the sofas resembling a prolongation of uneasy chairs, all standing in relief against the dark wainscot This was the physiognomy of the drawing-room into which Lydgate was shown; and there were three ladies to receive him, who were also old-fashioned, and of a faded but genuine respectability: Mrs. Farebrother, the Vicar's white-haired mother, befrilled and kerchiefed with dainty cleanliness, up ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... paved with brick, the roofs covered with a thick coat of stucco, and the walls whitewashed. People of distinction hang their chambers with damask, striped silk, painted cloths, tapestry, or printed linnen. All the doors, as well as the windows, consist of folding leaves. As there is no wainscot in the rooms, which are divided by stone partitions and the floors and cieling are covered with brick and stucco, fires are of much less dreadful consequence here than in our country. Wainscot would afford harbour for bugs: besides, white walls have ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... light which broke through the pane in front sketched the interior of the caravan vaguely in melancholy chiaroscuro. The inscriptions of Ursus, gloryifying the grandeur of Lords, showed distinctly on the worn-out boards, which were both the wall without and the wainscot within. On a nail, near the door, Gwynplaine saw his esclavine and his cape hung up, as they hang up the clothes of a corpse in a dead-house. Just then he had ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... in rooms hardly as good as the garrets which he lived to see occupied by footmen. The floors of the dining rooms were uncarpeted, and were coloured brown with a wash made of soot and small beer, in order to hide the dirt. Not a wainscot was painted. Not a hearth or a chimneypiece was of marble. A slab of common free-stone and fire irons which had cost from three to four shillings were thought sufficient for any fireplace. The best-apartments were hung with coarse woollen stuff, and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... into the house; and if it were goodly without, within it was better. For there was a fair chamber panelled with wainscot well carven, and a cupboard of no sorry vessels of silver and latten: the chairs and stools as fair as might be; no king's might be better: the windows were glazed, and there were flowers and knots and posies in them; and the bed was hung with goodly web from over sea such as the soldan useth. ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... dear father and mother, my head was so giddy, and my limbs trembled so, that I was forced to go holding by the wainscot all the way with both my hands, and thought I should not have got to the door: But when I did, as I hoped this would be my last interview with this terrible hard-hearted master, I turned about, and made a low courtesy, and said, God bless you, sir! God ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... marvellously well preserved. The panelled wainscot, about three feet high, is of chestnut. A magnificent Spanish leather with figures in relief, the gilding now peeled off or reddened, covers the walls. The ceiling is of wooden boards artistically joined and painted and gilded. The gold is scarcely ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... chamberlain said Sir John had exceeded his commission, if he had invited the Dutchmen "to stand in the closet of the queen's side; because the Spanish ambassador would never endure them so near him, where there was but a thin wainscot board between, and a window which might be opened!" Sir John said gently, he had done no otherwise than he had been desired; which however the lord chamberlain, in part, denied, (cautious and civil!) "and I was not so unmannerly as to contest against," ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... was to be heard in the sick-room but the labored breathing of the sufferer. But there was a stir on the floor below him—doubtless a mouse gnawing the wainscot. Bernhard listened uneasily. "How long will it go on gnawing? till it makes a hole at last, and comes into the room." A shudder came over him—he tossed about on his bed—the darkness seemed to press him in—the air grew thick. He rang till the maid came and set down the lamp. Then he ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... open; and, after several shouts, the poor wretch began to sing a college drinking-song, and then to hurray and to shout as if he was in the midst of a wine-party, and to thump with his fist against the wainscot. He ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... entered, bowed without grace in the doorway, and extended his left hand, pointing into the room. The draughts that blew from the rat-holes in the wainscot, or the mere action of entering, beat down the flame of the squat, guttering candle so that the chamber remained dim for a moment, in spite of the candle, as would naturally be the case. Yet the impression ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany

... neither will I now have recourse to such a fallacious expedient. Yet she sleeps in the same chamber with me; and ought I not to beware of inspiring perfidy with projects? 'Tis true my slumbers are broken, my nights restless, and the cracking of the wainscot is as effectual in waking me as a thunder-clap could be. I am resolved, however, to take the key out of the door, and either hide it or hold it all night in my hand. Mischief is meant me, or why am ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... One of the serving women, falling ill, went to Edinburgh to be cured and never came back; paint, blistered and scarred from the doors and window frames by the weather, was not replaced; the holes gnawed and torn by the hungry rats in wainscot and floor were never patched and food was more scarce than ever. Aunt Janet sat, a dourly silent ghost, while Marcella read to Andrew, listening sickly to the beasts clamouring for their scanty meals. And one night, when he had been out alone along Ben ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... secret places to a select few. I found myself a person of immense importance, it having leaked out that I was tolerably well versed in the history of supernaturalism, and had once written a story the foundation of which was a ghost. If a table or a wainscot panel happened to warp when we were assembled in the large drawing-room, there was an instant silence, and everyone was prepared for an immediate clanking of chains ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... he, "you are in error. I have not come to sell, but to buy. I have no curios to dispose of; my uncle's cabinet is bare to the wainscot; even were it still intact, I have done well on the Stock Exchange, and should more likely add to it than otherwise, and my errand to-day is simplicity itself. I seek a Christmas present for a lady," he continued, waxing ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various

... I refrain joining with her in affectionate Tears.—No, but do not weep for me, my excellent Lady, for I have made a pretty competent Estate for thee. Eight thousand Pounds, which I have conceal'd in my Study behind the Wainscot on the left ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... Linlithgow, is finely groined, and there are stags' horns nailed up in it. When the door opens, you find yourself in the entrance-hall, which is, in fact, a complete museum of antiquities and other matters. It is, as described in Lockhart's Life of Scott, wainscoted with old wainscot from the kirk of Dumfermline, and the pulpit of John Knox is cut in two, and placed as chiffoniers between the windows. The whole walls are covered with suits of armor and arms, horns of moose deer, the head of a musk bull, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... water rushing through a weir; Oft interrupted by the din Of laughter and of loud applause, And, in each intervening pause, The music of a violin. The fire-light, shedding over all The splendor of its ruddy glow, Filled the whole parlor large and low; It gleamed on wainscot and on wall, It touched with more than wonted grace Fair Princess Mary's pictured face; It bronzed the rafters overhead, On the old spinet's ivory keys It played inaudible melodies, It crowned the sombre clock with ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... you are mistaken—'twas but the wind in the old wainscot. (Aside.) He is quite capable of destroying that innocent child; but, old and attached servant as he is, there are liberties I still know how to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various

... my wainscot last night, and plunged me in horrible dilemma: for I am equally idiotic over the idea of the creature trapped or free, and I saw sleepless nights ahead of me till I had secured a ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous

... painted with ultramarine and veined with gold[914]. The Vicar of Leeds, writing to Ralph Thoresby in 1723, tells him that a pleasing surprise awaits his return, 'Our altar-piece is further adorned, since you went, with three flower-pots upon three pedestals upon the wainscot, gilt, and a hovering dove upon the middle one; three cherubs over the middle panel, the middle one gilt, a piece of open carved work beneath, going down towards the middle of the velvet.' If, however, the reader cannot altogether ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... The rooms are ventilated through the hollow columns of the kiosks, and each is provided with an electric fan. They are heated by electric heaters. The woodwork of the rooms is oak; the walls are red slate wainscot ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous

... Relation, such as my Lady Hatt's Devil in Essex, who upon laying a Joiner's Mallet in the Window of a certain Chamber, would come very orderly and knock with it all Night upon the Window, or against the Wainscot, and disturb the Neighbourhood, and then go away in the Morning, as well satisfied as may be; whereas if the Mallet was not left, he would think himself affronted, and be as unsufferable and terrifying as possible, breaking the Windows, splitting the Wainscot, committing all the Disorders, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... hokey-pokey, nothin' a lump, if you don't mind, sonny," the boatswain went on; "in a nice airy parlour painted white, with a gilt chandelier an' gilt combings to the wainscot." His picture of the Mansion House as he proceeded was drawn from his reading in the Book of Revelations and his own recollections of Thames-side gin-palaces and the saloons of passenger steamers, and gave ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... ask the Squire for the things this very night when he drops in. Hark! ain't that a sort of rumbling in the wall? I hope there ain't any oven next door; if so, I shall be scorched out. Here I am, just like a rat in the wainscot. I wish there was a low window to look out of. I wonder what Doctor Franklin is doing now, and Paul Jones? Hark! there's a bird singing in the leaves. Bell for ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... late Years there has been a certain Person in the upper Gallery of the Playhouse, who when he is pleased with any Thing that is acted upon the Stage, expresses his Approbation by a loud Knock upon the Benches or the Wainscot, which may be heard over the whole Theatre. This Person is commonly known by the Name of the Trunk-maker in the upper Gallery. Whether it be, that the Blow he gives on these Occasions resembles that which is often heard in the Shops of such Artizans, or that he was supposed to have been a real ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... long, low room with a wainscot of dark walnut, and a single lamp upon the table gave it shadows rather than light. He had just time to notice that a girl and a man were bending over the table in the lamplight, to recognise with a throb of the heart the play ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... kills me quite; A noisy man is always in the right— I twirl my thumbs, fall back into my chair, Fix on the wainscot a distressful stare; And when I hope his blunders all are out, Reply discreetly, "To ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser

... faces in a mist of smoke That up-curled, blue, from long Winchester pipes, While—like some rare old picture, in a dream Recalled—quietly listening, laughing, watching, Pale on that old black oaken wainscot floated One bearded oval face, young, with deep eyes, Whom ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... the grandeur of a state with a canopy, she thought there was no offence in an elbow-chair. She had laid aside your carving, gilding, and Japan work as being too apt to gather dirt. But she never could be prevailed upon to part with plain wainscot and clean hangings. There are some ladies that affect to smell a stink in everything; they are always highly perfumed, and continually burning frankincense in their rooms. She was above such affectation, yet she ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot

... Presidents and Governors looked down at him from their old-time frames ranged in stately ranks along the oaken wainscot. Over the mantel the amazing, Hebraic countenance of a moose leered at him out of little sly, sardonic little eyes, almost bantering in their ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... objects as they were when we got back; both smoking like factories, and both obliged to change everything before they could come to dinner. They have the absurdest ideas of what are tests of walking power, and continually get up in the maddest manner and see how high they can kick the wall! The wainscot here, in one place, is scored all over with their pencil-marks. To see them doing this—Dolby, a big man, and Osgood, a very little ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... papers. Leather (used with paneling or above wainscot), modern tapestries, fabrics of all kinds are suitable for covering dining-room walls. If low, the ceiling should never be dark, since this makes the room appear still lower. (A breakfast room done in lacquer is very effective, however, if not too low.) A single large rug, harmonizing ...
— Prepare and Serve a Meal and Interior Decoration • Lillian B. Lansdown

... Muse's fame; On poets in all times abusive, From Homer down to Pope inclusive. Yet what avails it to complain? You try to take revenge in vain. A rat your utmost rage defies, That safe behind the wainscot lies. Say, did you ever know by sight In cheese an individual mite! Show me the same numeric flea, That bit your neck but yesterday: You then may boldly go in quest To find the Grub Street poet's nest; What spunging-house, in dread of jail, Receives ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... shrunk, the pupils were distended to twice their natural size. She sat upon a stool in a corner, a slight girlish figure in a holland skirt and white cambric blouse-bodice, her slender waist girdled with a belt of brown leather, the colour of her little shoes. Huddled up against the corrugated-iron wainscot of the rough earth wall, the obsession of fear that dilated her eyes and parched her lips shook her in recurrent gusts of trembling, whenever the guns of the Gueldersdorp batteries spoke in thunder, whenever the Boer artillery bellowed Death ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... looked round the old wainscot walls with unusual interest; she thought it would be a fine thing ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... fat shadow nourisheth Each plant set neere to him long flourisheth; The heavie-headed plane-tree, by whose shade The grasse grows thickest, men are fresher made; The oak that best endures the thunder-shocks, The everlasting, ebene, cedar, boxe. The olive, that in wainscot never cleaves, The amourous vine which in the elme still weaves; The lotus, juniper, where wormes ne'er enter; The pyne, with whom men through the ocean venture; The warlike yewgh, by which (more than the lance) The strong-arm'd English ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... better of it, though it would have been impossible to catch cold on such a stifling night I heard every clock strike in Westminster and London. It was light at five, yet the night seemed endless. I would have welcomed even a mouse behind the wainscot. Priscilla is an odious tyrant," making a face at the easy-tempered gouvernante sitting by; "she won't let me have my dogs in my room ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... great hall of audience of the Norman parliament was renowned for its beauty. The ceiling was of ebony, studded with graceful arabesques in gold, azure, and vermilion. The tapestry worked in fleurs-de-lis, the immense fireplace, the gilded wainscot, the violet-coloured dais, and, above all, the immense picture in which were represented Louis XII., the father of his people, and his virtuous minister and friend, the good Cardinal d'Amboise—all united to give the great hall an aspect at once beautiful ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various

... forth his revolver with quivering fingers, levelled it at his guest, and pulled upon the trigger. The bullet sang across the room, passed through armchair and screen into the wainscot beyond. ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease

... Three tall brass candlesticks shed a smoky light upon smoky walls, of what had once been sea-blue, covered with sailor-scrawls of foul anchors, lovers' sonnets, and ocean ditties. On one side, nailed against the wainscot in a row, were the four knaves of cards, each Jack putting his best foot foremost as usual. What these signified I ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... room was closely curtained, and a couple of night-lights shed their feeble and uncertain rays upon the objects within it. The height of the apartment, and the absorbing complexion of the dark oaken wainscot, here and there concealed by falls of tapestry, served to render such an illumination extremely inefficient. But Conrad knew that this must be the chamber of death, even before he was able to distinguish that an apparently light and youthful figure lay ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various

... one of these excursions to this spot, that she observed the following lines written with a pencil on a part of the wainscot: ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... her lips, and a rush of blood flowing under her skin made her red from the roots of her hair to the top of her collar. She remained standing, leaning with her shoulder against the wainscot. ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... as the footsteps died away; he listened, but again the stillness was profound. He felt his way to the secret door; the wainscot screen stood ajar. It was plain that some one had come to the Rat's-Hole only to discover that the key of the outside door was missing. Constans realized that he, too, had missed something—his chance to get to the bottom of the mystery. Shame on ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... like the devil; our landlord here has showed us the window where we must break in, and tells us the plate stands in the wainscot ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar

... especially as the sounds were beginning; but though we generally yielded to him we COULD not give our attention to anything but these. There was first a low moan. 'No great harm in that,' said Griff; 'it comes through that crack in the wainscot where there is a sham window. Some putty will ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and pretend about her until her own eyes would grow large with something which was almost like fear, particularly at night, when the garret was so still, when the only sound that was to be heard was the occasional squeak and scurry of rats in the wainscot. There were rat-holes in the garret, and Sara detested rats, and was always glad Emily was with her when she heard their hateful squeak and rush and scratching. One of her "pretends" was that Emily was a ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... that; And she purred in the softest tone, He wished to make her his own. This man by prayers, by tears, By sorcery and charms, Changed pussy to a woman fair, And took her in his arms. But in the wainscot soon a rat Made itself manifest, And very soon the pussy cat, Could still no longer rest. Her foolish husband who believed That nothing had of cat remained, And as his wife had her received— Was, now, I warrant, somewhat pained. Next time the vermin came, Pussy ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park

... gilding, decorated with rude paintings and horrible statues of saints in coloured wood, paved in the Arabic style with enamelled faience laid out in various mosaic designs, and provided with a fountain or marble conch; the pretty church, unfortunately without an organ, but with wainscot, confessionals, and doors of most excellent workmanship, a floor of finely-painted faience, and a remarkable statue in painted wood of St. Bruno; the little meadow in the centre of the cloister, symmetrically planted with ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... as they were now of the box itself; two or three common books of practice; a jar of ink, a pounce box, a stunted hearth-broom, a carpet trodden to shreds but still clinging with the tightness of desperation to its tacks—these, with the yellow wainscot of the walls, the smoke-discoloured ceiling, the dust and cobwebs, were among the most prominent decorations of the office of Mr ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... axe leaps! The solid forest gives fluid utterances, They tumble forth, they rise and form, Hut, tent, landing, survey, Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade, Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, lamb, lath, panel, gable, Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition-house, library, Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, turret, porch, Hoe, rake, pitchfork, pencil, wagon, staff, saw, jack-plane, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... were many separate flakes of rust. No one wove now in that old room—no one but the assiduous ancient spiders who, watching by the deathbed of the things of yore, worked shrouds to hold their dust. In shrouds about the cornices already lay the heart of the oak wainscot that the worm had ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany

... my tired, worn-out, fretting charge in through the great draughty porch, and was led up the old shallow oak stairs to a big panelled room, clean and scantily furnished, where the rats ran about behind the wainscot, and a rain-laden branch of monthly rose went tap, tap against the window, and a dog howled all night long, I thought we had come to a miserable place at the end of the earth. I thought so still the next morning, when the mist lay in white rolls and curls round the house; and ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... thought I, but he has come, By Charon kindly ferried, To tell me of a mighty sum Behind my wainscot buried? There is a buccaneerish air About that garb outlandish— 70 Just then the ghost drew up his chair And said, 'My name ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... more elegant; though that is to be rather plain than rich, as well in its wainscot as furniture, and to be new-floored. The dear gentleman has already given orders, and you will soon have workmen to put them in execution. The parlour-doors are to have brass-hinges and locks, and to ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... steps were bent. It was of moderate size, and might have been very comfortable if somebody had taken pains to make it so. But it looked as if the pains had not been taken. Half the windows were covered by shutters; the wainscot was sadly in want of a fresh coat of paint; the woodbine, which should have been trained up beside the porch, hung wearily down, as if it were tired of trying to climb when nobody helped it; the very ivy was ragged and dusty. The doors shut with that hollow sound peculiar to ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt

... dinner with a bottle of Offener wine. The wine of Offen resembles much that of Bordeaux in its quality and flavor. The tariff however of the dinners and wines varies daily a few kreutzers, in consequence of the eternal fluctuation of the W.W., so that every morning a fresh tariff is affixed to the wainscot of the saloon where the dinners are served. Supper, served likewise a la carte, is at its full tide between the hours of eight and ten o'clock; and as Vienna is renowned for the celebrity of its beefsteaks ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... audience room, up one pair of stairs—and in which Charles V. received the deputies respecting the famous Augsbourg Confession of Faith, in 1530,—is, to my taste, the most perfectly handsome room which I have ever seen. The wainscot or sides are walnut and chestnut wood, relieved by beautiful gilt ornaments. The ceiling is also of the same materials; but marked and diversified by divisions of square, or parallelogram, or oval, or circular, forms. This ceiling is very lofty, for the size ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... dreamy house, The doors upon their hinges creak'd; The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd, Or from the crevice peer'd about. Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors, Old footsteps trod the upper floors, Old voices call'd her from without. She only said, 'My life is dreary, He cometh not,' she said; She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,' I ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... have a very good correspondence and neighbourhood, but chargeable. All the afternoon at home looking over my carpenters. At night I called Thos. Hater out of the office to my house to sit and talk with me. After he was gone I caused the girl to wash the wainscot of our parlour, which she did very well, which caused my wife and I good sport. Up to my chamber to read a little, and wrote my Diary for three or four days past. The Duke of York did go to-day by break of day to the Downs. The Duke of Gloucester ill. The House of Parliament ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... during the Revolution, feigns the most Jacobin opinions, represents herself a citoyenne of citoyennes, in order to keep him the more safely concealed in her house. He flattens himself, to almost greater peril of life, behind a panel of the wainscot, which she has a secret for opening when he requires air and food and they may for a fearful fleeting instant be alone together; and the point of the picture is in the contrast between these melting moments and the heroine's tenue under the tremendous strain of receiving ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... the door were driven hard home into the wainscot; the wedges underneath were tightly fixed. The bed, with bedding complete, was drawn against the entry. A second line of defence was thrown up of chairs, chest of drawers, book-case, and wash-stand. Beyond that were stacked ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... the plucky guest, who sees a ghost, and knows it is a ghost, and watches it, as it comes into the room and disappears through the wainscot, after which, as the ghost does not seem to be coming back, and there is nothing, consequently, to be gained by stopping ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome

... unless he has been slandered, his lady's influence involved in some political matters which had been more wisely let alone. She was a woman of high principle, however, and masculine good sense, as some of her letters testify, which are still in my wainscot cabinet. ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... terrified me greatly, and I was entirely broke of swearing.—Soon after this, as I was placing the china for tea, my mistress came into the room just as the maid had been cleaning it; the girl had unfortunately sprinkled the wainscot with the mop; at which my mistress was angry; the girl very foolishly answer'd her again, which made her worse, and she call'd upon God to damn her.—I was vastly concern'd to hear this, as she was a fine young lady, and very good to me, insomuch that ...
— A Narrative Of The Most Remarkable Particulars In The Life Of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, An African Prince, As Related By Himself • James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw

... windows seen in the front of the chateau, and over them still hung long sweeping curtains, so tattered and moth-eaten that they were almost falling to pieces. Profound silence reigned here, unbroken save by occasional scurrying and squeaking of mice behind the wainscot, the gnawing of rats in the wall, or the ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... Hilliard and two Olivers or Oliviers, a father and son of French extraction, and by a Swiss named Petitot. A collection of miniatures by the Oliviers, including no less than six of Venitia, Lady Digby, had a similar fate to that of Holbein's drawings. The miniatures had been packed in a wainscot box and conveyed to the country-house in Wales of Mr Watkin Williams, who was a descendant of the Digby family. In course of time the box with its contents, doubtless forgotten, had been transferred to a garret, where it had ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... but nobody was there and for some minutes he looked about. The hall occupied the lower story of the tower. It was square, and roughly-hewn beams, slightly curved, crossed the ceiling. The spaces between were paneled with dark wood and an oak wainscot ran round the wall. Half of one side was occupied by a big fireplace and its old, hand-forged irons. The carved frame and mantel were Jacobean and obviously newer than the rest. The old windows, ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss

... chances, in his bouncing random flight, to get entangled in the glutinous meshes, he shakes and roars, and blusters so loudly, until he breaks away, that the spider affrighted, invariably takes advantage of his long legs to scamper off to his sanctum in the cracked wainscot—like some imbecile watchman, who fearing to encounter a tall inebriated bruiser, sneaks away with admirable discretion to the security of his snug box, praying the drunkard may speedily reel ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various

... taper's glare, checked the motion of their hundred legs upon the wall, or dropped like lifeless things upon the ground; the death-watch ticked; and the scampering feet of rats and mice rattled behind the wainscot. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... of running round a room on the edge of the wainscot, a strange power of holding by the foot: an art which, in lower life, might have been serviceable to him in the showing it. And Anthony, likewise, amongst better and more brilliant qualifications, had the reputation of being amongst the best dancers of the age. In a political ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... the same man who had directed us hither on the other side of the lake, and afterwards we learned that he was the father of our hostess. He showed us into a room up-stairs, begged we would sit at our ease, walk out, or do just as we pleased. It was a large square deal wainscoted room, the wainscot black with age, yet had never been painted: it did not look like an English room, and yet I do not know in what it differed, except that in England it is not common to see so large and well-built a room so ill-furnished: there were two or three large tables, and a few old chairs of ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth

... its mildewing wainscot, became full of ghosts; and he could fancy that the spirits of his ancestors were returned from the other side of Styx to finger the pages of bygone ledgers, and to mock from between the shadows of his incongruous bookshelves, at their degenerate descendant. ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... is related by a correspondent of one of the English newspapers: "This morning," says he, "while reading in bed, I was suddenly interrupted by a noise similar to that made by rats, when running through a double wainscot, and endeavoring to pierce it. The noise ceased for some moments, and then commenced again. I was only two or three feet from the wall whence the noise proceeded; and soon I perceived a great rat making his appearance at a hole. ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth

... flames more terrifying than the glitter of the dagger. When Ginevra saw him approach her she looked at him with an air of triumph, and advancing slowly, knelt down. "No, no! I cannot!" he cried, flinging away the weapon, which buried itself in the wainscot. ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac

... had been taking the waters; for he was full of years, and of Glory, and of infirmities. A message went to his grand house in Pall Mall, and he presently waited on my Grandmother. He was closeted with her for an hour, when the tap of my Grandmother's cane against the wainscot summoned Mistress Talmash, and she, doing her errand, brought ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... particularly their window-heads, are ornamented with the tracery peculiar to Kent. The great hall, the earliest of these buildings, has a characteristic open-timber roof, while its minstrel-gallery, fronted by a wainscot screen, is ornamented with the badge of the Dudleys, the "bear and ragged staff." Within these halls are the family portraits of a noble lineage. Of Mary, daughter of Sir Henry Sidney and heiress of Sir John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... and we made as if to fetch a couple of chairs that stood against the wainscot by the door. As we did so, Sir Deakin push'd the punch bowl ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... forbidden drawing-rooms now; I prowled about as I pleased. If the doors were shut, I might scratch as long as I liked; nobody answered. If open, I walked round and round the room, brushing the wainscot with my tail. There were no china ornaments to be thrown down now, and I might whisk it about as I would. Formerly I had often wished for free entrance to those rooms; now I should have welcomed a friendly hand that shut me out of them. ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland

... queer, quaint, picturesque room!" she went on, looking about her. "I like these old embroidered chairs, and the garlands on the wainscot, and the pictures that may be anything. That one with the ribs—nothing but ribs and darkness—I should think ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot



Words linked to "Wainscot" :   wall, dado, wainscoting, wainscotting



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