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Curtain   /kˈərtən/   Listen
Curtain

verb
(past & past part. curtained; pres. part. curtaining)
1.
Provide with drapery.



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"Curtain" Quotes from Famous Books



... which was erected about the year 1471, is still quite Gothic. In the wall there opens a large pointed and cusped arch, within which at the top there hangs a small tent which, passing through a ring, turns into a great stone curtain upheld by hairy wild men. Inside this curtain Dom Fernao lies in armour on a tomb whose front is covered with beautifully carved foliage, and which has a cornice of roses. On it are three coats of arms, Dom Fernao's, those ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson

... child is to be admitted who cannot read and write; the second apartment is for those who are taught by the under-master; the third is for the boys of the upper form, taught by the high master. These two parts of the school are divided by a curtain, to be drawn at will. Over the headmaster's chair is an image of the boy Jesus, a beautiful work, in the gesture of teaching, whom all the scholars, going and departing, salute with a hymn. There is a representation of God the Father, also, saying, 'Hear ye him,' which words were written ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... government teachers and books are "all positively heathen or quite destitute of all religion." In some parts of the country the government schools secure the attendance of high-caste girls by allowing them to be placed behind a curtain, and thus screened from the eyes of the male teacher or inspector, as all the women of such classes are screened from male visitors. Even the physician sees only a hand protruded from under a curtain, and by the touch of this, with a few unsatisfactory answers to his questions, he is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... we speak things were quiet at the offices. The line of pigeon-holes in the wire curtain was deserted by the public, though the linoleum-covered floor bore abundant traces of a busy morning. Misty London light shone hazily through the glazed windows and cast dark shadows in the corners. ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... waste our griefs and sorrows. They absorb us sometimes with vain regrets. They jaundice and embitter us sometimes with rebellious thoughts. They often break the springs of activity and of interest in others, and of sympathy with others. But their true intention is to draw back the thin curtain, and to show us 'the things that are,' the realities of the throned God, the skirts that fill the Temple, the hovering seraphim, and the coal from the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... haggard, as if he had just committed a crime. He spoke aloud, and he trembled as he gave utterance for the first time to the cry that he had always loved her madly, passionately. Yes, ever since she had grown into womanhood he had adored her. And he saw her clearly before him, as if a curtain had been suddenly torn aside, as she was when, from an awkward girl, she became a charming and lovely creature, with her long tapering limbs, her strong slender body, with its round throat, round neck, and round and ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola

... embroiling the country in a war with Spain. On the contrary, he held that the true remedy of existing grievances in the first instance was an immediate declaration of war against both belligerents, which, now that the curtain is lifted, we see was the true remedy of the hour; but that, if from prudence a declaration of war was withheld, it was unwise, by a total cessation of our most gainful commerce, to inflict upon our own people all the injuries which war would produce without any of the advantages that might ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... slightest noise does not escape him. He heard the rolling of your carriage-wheels, and knows that you are here. He is expecting you, and has commanded that you come unannounced. Have the goodness to enter; you will be alone with the prince." He raised the curtain, and the countess looked ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... of gloom which is said to be the darkest time,—just before the dawn. This seemed to be so to the watchers, but shortly after five the curtain lifted. A slight haze was over the land, but they had found ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay

... he stood on his head or his heels at first, for, in spite of many rehearsals, everything seemed changed. Instead of daylight, gas shone everywhere, the empty seats were full, the orchestra playing splendidly, and when the curtain rose, a sea of friendly faces welcomed them, and the pleasant sound of applause made the hearts under the blue ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... made ready for sleep, in very close proximity to the hard ground, with a hanging canvas curtain between them. ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... the officers of the British Government that this suppliant before God never supposed, nor wished, that the matters [in dispute] between you and myself should come to this issue [literally, "should come out from the curtain"], or that the veil of friendship and amity, which has for many years been upheld between two neighbours and adjoining States, should, without any cause, ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... isn't the wanderers returned!" exclaimed their host, as he entered and saw the two. "Where's my boy? Hiding behind the window curtain?" ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells

... the room revealed a door partly hidden by a curtain next the mantelpiece. Where it led to I did not know, but concluding that any place would be better than to remain in the library, I tried the door, found it open, and ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer

... forward. "Let be, here's a friend!" Saying nothing, Penfeather thrust away the weapon, and gripping the little man in both hands, with prodigious strength jerked him bodily in through the window; which done, he clapped to the lattice and drawing the curtain stood fronting Godby grim-lipped. ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... A Platform before the Castle. As the Curtain rises, shouts and laughs are heard without. A Village Maiden rushes in, as if pursued. She hides herself behind the sentry-box, and then escapes. FRANCISCO, who is on his post, looks about, and is surrounded by Danish Gallants, who have come in pursuit of the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 6, 1892 • Various

... evening, he found his sunny Nell of old at work in the rooms. She was improvising a curtain of some kind, and as he came in she was standing off to study the effect. She had managed to make the room look pretty. Amy acknowledged that she herself had thought the case hopeless all the time, and had made up her mind ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale

... England, and afterwards in the "Rose" on the Bankside, Southwark, the scene of the earliest successes of S. as an actor and playwright. Subsequently to 1594, he acted occasionally in a playhouse in Newington Butts, and between 1595 and 1599 in the "Curtain." In the latter year the "Globe" was built on the Bankside, and 10 years later the "Blackfriars:" and with these two, but especially with the former, the remainder of his professional life was associated. It is not unlikely that he visited various ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... striven to brighten the picture and awaken sympathy for the weakness of the woman, who, royal mistress though she was, could not command her love to be requited, the poetic measure of his lines roughens and hardens to the close, when the curtain falls on what is felt to be a ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... and most dolorous night, and so dolour may complain to dolour when we two meet.... And this is more plain than ever I spoke, to let you know you have a companion in trouble."[89] Once we have the curtain raised for a moment, and can look at the two together for the length of a phrase. "After the writing of this preceding," writes Knox, "your brother and mine, Harrie Wycliffe, did advertise me by writing, that your adversary (the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and comets have orbits to which the laws of the stars do not apply. For all ordinary people, this thick candle-end is a delicious substitute for the ghastly rush-light in its chequered cage, which threw strange figures on wall and curtain, and gave nervous women the megrims. But nothing more is known of Belmonts or night-lights; their birthplace, and the manner of their making, are alike hidden from the outer world; the uninitiated accept the arcana of tallow only in the positive form. It is generally ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various

... upon us. This fateful year was not more successful than we had been in solving the problems which it had set itself, but it demonstrated the fragility of many things which were supposed to be solid, and to young and active minds it seemed like the lowering of a curtain of ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... these same Judas Thomas's Acts, which are not later than the fourth century, we find (eighth act) the story of Mygdonia and Karish. Mygdonia, the wife of Karish, is converted by Thomas and flees from her husband, naked save for the curtain of the chamber door which she has wrapped around her, to her old nurse. With the nurse she goes to Thomas, who pours holy oil over her head, bidding the nurse to anoint her all over with it; then a cloth is put round her loins and he baptizes her; then she is clothed and he gives her ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... way along the paths Made new by walls of moving mist receding The more we follow. . . . What a silver night! That was our bench the time you said to me The long new poem—but how different now, How eerie with the curtain of the fog Making it strange to all the friendly trees! There is no wind, and yet great curving scrolls Carve themselves, ever changing, in the mist. Walk on a little, let me stand here watching To see you, too, grown ...
— Love Songs • Sara Teasdale

... a considerable distance, a rude bridge was discerned, sufficiently indicating a path to some house or village in that direction. The wind was rising in sharp and heavy gusts. The moon, not yet above the hills, was brightening the dark clouds that hung behind them like a huge curtain. The sky was studded, in beauteous intervals, with hosts of stars. This light enabled them to follow a narrow footpath, which, abruptly turning the head of a projecting crag, showed them a distant glimmer as though from some friendly habitation. Seaton bounded ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... saloon. FRITZ enters and goes through an entire programme of negro minstrelsy, to the wild delight of the gallery. At last the lazy curtain slowly consents ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various

... on the unhappy destiny of early risers; and finally, after many turns and grunts, having decided upon defying all engagements and duties, I fell asleep once more. In an instant I was seated in the pit of Her Majesty's Theatre, gazing upon the curtain, and, in common with a large and brilliant audience, anxiously awaiting its arising, and the appearance of Duprez. The curtain does rise; the orchestra are active; Duprez has bowed her thanks to an applauding concourse; and the opera is half concluded: when, just as the theatre ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... little box, one of the new ones, placed as in a French theatre. The great place was nearly dark as they entered, except for the blaze of light that shone through the curtain. The odour of cigarette-smoke and scent greeted them, with the rustle of dresses and the subdued sound of gay talk. The band struck up. Then, after the rolling overture, the curtain ran swiftly up, and a smart young person ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable

... clad in striking robes, and the party proceeded to the North Parade, from which Allen's house is now reached by a passage way. The house is built of stone, and has a very handsome front in the style of the classical Renaissance. In drawing aside the curtain, which veiled the tablet, on which was inscribed "Here lived Ralph Allen, 1727-1764," Lord Londonderry said that there was probably not one of the great men who had been associated with Bath who was more of a benefactor to his town, as ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs

... Susan Chapman, was watching them from a window as they walked and talked. She bit her lips anxiously as she stood behind the curtain. She was trying to imagine what they might be saying to each other. Suppose it was something which told against her. And why should it not be so? What good could be said? Janway's Mills had borne in upon her the complete sense of her outcast state. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... the Plynck was saying, as Sara dropped the curtain behind her the next morning, "to fly around the fountain at least twice every day." As she spoke, she reached out and took, from a bundle that lay within easy reach in a crotch of the Gugollaph-tree, ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker

... knew neither carpet, curtain, nor blind. The sun, the wind, and not seldom the rain and snow were free of it. A small collapsible camp-bed, a copper basin and jug, an old chest, a corner cupboard—these constituted the furniture. The walls were whitewashed. Three of them knew no pictures. On one was her hunting-crop, ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant

... fled with steps uncertain On a thousand-year long race, But the bellying of the curtain Kept me always in one place; While the tumult rose and maddened To the roar of Earth on fire, Ere it ebbed and sank and saddened To a ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... things hid? wherefore have these gifts a curtain before them? are they like to take dust, like Mistress Mall's picture? why dost thou not go to church in a galliard and come home in a coranto? My very walk should be a jig; I would not so much as make water but in a sink-a-pace. What dost thou mean? is it a world to hide virtues in? I did think, ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... moments, I shook with sobs. For a long time I knelt there, holding her hand; and surely it is the darkest hour I ever lived. Afterwards I stood by the open window and looked through the crevice of the curtain. The shouts, laughter, and cries of the two children had come up into the chamber from the open air, making a strange contrast with the death-bed scene. And now, through the crevice of the curtain, I saw my little Una of the golden ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry

... me through some narrow passages until we emerged into a spacious hall, at one end of which hung a curtain. Advancing towards this with silent tread, we were able to look through a slight aperture, where the curtain fell away from the pillar, into the room beyond. It was small and cosy, and a fire burned in the grate, before ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote

... I, my boy!" and, holding his hand out, Harry had no difficulty in recognizing his master and friend, Father Holt. A curtain was over the window of the chaplain's room that looked to the court, and Harry saw that the smoke came from a great flame of papers which were burning in a brazier when he entered the chaplain's room. After giving a hasty greeting and blessing ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... my life again. It is no good trying to set too fine a face upon this complex business, there is gold and clay and sunlight and savagery in every love story, and a multitude of elvish elements peeped out beneath the fine rich curtain of affection that masked our future. I've never properly weighed how immensely my vanity was gratified by her clear preference for me. Nor can I for a moment determine how much deliberate intention I hide ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... somewhat, for it was not the rank of a young dandy. He was nevertheless curious to know who this personage was with whom the countess had been shut up so long. Hearing no one approach the room he was in, he went to the window and opened the curtain cautiously, prepared to let it drop back at the slightest noise, and to make a quick right-about-face to avoid being caught, "flagrante delicto," in curiosity. An elegant coupe, standing at a little distance, was now driven up to the house, a footman in showy livery ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... pass the time, and not to wrest from it a blessing or a triumph, is the main object. The badges, the gardens, the smiles, the agreeable phrase, the keen repartee, the tempting dish, the ingenious vaudeville, the pretty foot, the elegant chair and becoming curtain, the extravagant gesture, the pointed epigram or alluring formula, must be taken as so many agreeabilities,—not for things performed, but imaginatively promised. The folly of war has been demonstrated to the entire ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... to play their part. The curtain rises, the story begins. The morning breaks slowly, the gray streaks redden, a lovely summer landscape lies bathed in primrose light. Under the shadow of a noble tree, the aged knight. Gurnemanz, has been resting with two young attendants. From the neighboring ...
— Parsifal - Story and Analysis of Wagner's Great Opera • H. R. Haweis

... a helpless human being; and that somewhere beyond was his master, calling to them from out the cold and the dark. So, blindly, willingly, they followed the intrepid man who staggered on, and on, till at last the fury of the storm was over. Then the chill mist seemed to rise, as a curtain, and the peaceful Valley of the Kruzgamapa lay before them, bathed in the glow of the ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling

... a soft air, the curtain rises slowly and discovers an Indian boy and girl sleeping under two plantain-trees; and, when the curtain is almost up, the music turns into a tune expressing an alarm, at which ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... deepened in the school-room, for a curtain of clouds was sweeping across the moon. Peering through the window, over the flats, I saw a light gleaming steadily at the head of the village street. It was my light burning in the window, and I knew that Tim was there, waiting for me. All the past rose up to tell me that he ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd

... structures, the true defence of mediaeval forts, from which the besieged delivered their missiles with far more freedom and variety of range than they could shoot through the oblique but immovable loopholes of the curtain, or even through the sloping crenelets of the higher towers. On this the besiegers brought up mangonels, and set them hurling huge stones at these woodworks and battering them to pieces. Contemporaneously they built a triangular wooden tower as high ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... stall at the West End Theater one evening, he was constantly irritated by his next neighbor—a lady—who not only went out between the acts, but several times while the curtain was up. The space between the run of seats was narrow, and the annoyance as ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz

... supposed that he had imagined the whole thing. He had not seen anything definitely; he had merely felt that eyes were watching him; what had seemed a figure across deck might have been the oil coat hanging on a peg or a curtain blowing out of a window. The more he thought over the matter the more assured was he that he had allowed his imaginings to make a fool of him. And by the time the sun flooded the decks next morning he was ready to forget ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... Winnipeg. Coming down two weeks ago we camped near a band of Sioux, and I declare, as I passed a tepee, I saw a woman's face that looked as white as snow. She was sleeping, and the curtain had blown up. Her child was in her arms, and I tell you her bare arms ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... innermost part being of "releeve or whole round," the rest painted. On the left a cave, and on the right a thicket, from which issued Orpheus. At the back part of the scene, at the sudden fall of a curtain, the upper part broke on the spectators, a heaven of clouds of all hues; the stars suddenly vanished, the clouds dispersed; an element of artificial fire played about the house of Prometheus—a bright and transparent cloud, reaching from the heavens ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... as he recognized its genial note. This was one of the things he had prepared himself for, but, now that it had happened, he felt a wave of stage-fright such as he had only once experienced before in his life—on the occasion when he had been young enough and inexperienced enough to take a curtain-call on a first night. Reggie Byng was friendly, and would not wilfully betray him; but Reggie was also a babbler, who could not be trusted to keep things to himself. It was necessary, he perceived, to take ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... true that memory sometimes, as in a vision, seems to raise the curtain upon the past and restore it to us in its pristine reality. We may imagine at such moments experience can never really perish, but, though hidden by chance from the roving eye, endures eternally in some spiritual ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... caught it up and was already at his elbow. His hand was shaking so that the light danced wildly now upon the carpet, now upon the green walls. This room also was deserted. A black gap in the curtain showed where the material had been roughly ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer

... alight, into his cap before he sat down to table; and everyone laughed. A fly, attracted, no doubt, by the sailor's red nose, persisted on settling on it, and when moving too slowly to catch it he knocked it away, it went over to a very fly-spotted curtain whence it seemed to eagerly watch the sailor's highly-colored nasal organ, for it soon flew back and settled ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... through a little hole in the curtain, saw one of the most fashionable audiences old Baltimore had ever turned out—the largest, in fact, Herr Deichenberg had ever drawn to one of his affairs, though the drawing power of the old professor had always ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond

... requirements of the work on hand. Each man's gift was needed, and each in its place was equally necessary. The jewels on the high-priest's breastplate were no more nor less essential than the wood that made some peg for a curtain, or than the cheap goat's-hair yarn that was woven into the coarse cloth flung over the roof of the Tabernacle to keep the wet out. All had equal consecration, because all made one whole. All was equally precious, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... to sit down, for Nannie had not seconded her mother's invitation, and the disappointed boy only lingered to take one peep under the curtain of the cradle of Winnie, and then went home to his abode with a downcast mien, ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... where it would keep just warm, slipped out of the room, letting the curtain at its entrance fall behind him. The sun was touching the white bedclothes with a lingering ray. Passing softly away, it left the room in shade which felt pleasant ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... Massachusetts made a strong speech to the same effect. "Make your officer responsible," he said with prophetic vision, "and the presumption is, that plans and information are properly digested; but if he can secrete himself behind the curtain, he might create a noxious influence, and not be answerable ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... the conversation of the courtiers around him, but it could easily be perceived that he gave but little, if any, attention to their remarks. In fact, hardly had the sound of the rings drawn along the curtain-rods announced that Madame was dressed, and that the goddess was about to make her reappearance, than the king, returning to his former post immediately, and running quite close to the river-bank, gave the signal for all those to approach whose duty or pleasure ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... The curtain was just going down on the dolls' pantomime, and the audience was applauding and hurrying off to make the rounds of the other attractions before dinner time. In clarion tones that made themselves heard above the din Emily Davis was advertising an auction of her animals, beginning with "one perfectly ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde

... near Thebes. Equally eminent as excavator, philologist, and historian, Maspero was the first to popularize Egyptology in France, as Flinders Petrie, the greatest excavator since Mariette, has popularized it in England. Until twenty years ago the curtain rose on the pyramid-builders of the Fourth dynasty. We have now not only recovered the earlier dynasties, but neolithic and palaeolithic Egypt emerges from the primitive cemeteries. The immense accession of new material has enabled Eduard Meyer to construct something like a definite chronology; ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... warfare of his future life, by regarding one set of opinions so steadily, as to leave little reason to apprehend he would ever abandon the most trifling of the outworks of his faith. No citadel ever presented a more hopeless curtain to the besieger, than did the mind of this zealot to the efforts of conviction; for on the side of his opponents, he contrived that every avenue should be closed by a wall blank as indomitable obstinacy could oppose. He appeared to think that all the minor conditions ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... intertwine, The green gauze now is also pasted on the straw windows! What about the cosmetic fresh concocted or the powder just scented; Why has the hair too on each temple become white like hoarfrost! Yesterday the tumulus of yellow earth buried the bleached bones, To-night under the red silk curtain reclines the couple! Gold fills the coffers, silver fills the boxes, But in a twinkle, the beggars will all abuse you! While you deplore that the life of others is not long, You forget that you yourself ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... the Caesar rapidly and continually informed of all the questions which were put and all the answers which were given; and by his pitiless orders, urged as he was by the persuasions of the queen, who kept her ear at the curtain, many were put to death without being permitted to soften the accusations brought against them, or to say a word ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... to feel in the baron's pockets, came upon a bunch of keys, first made sure that the portmanteau behind the curtain held no papers or jewels, and then went ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc

... with the lace of the window curtain. He had no intention of evading his duty, and yet he did not find it agreeable ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... such epilogue the curtain will descend on the great drama now approaching a close. It will be for the younger generations, the reincarnate souls of those who fell in battle, to inaugurate the work of giving expression, in deathless forms of art, to the vision of that ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... off. So I left the track and walked a few hundred yards, and when I got to the edge the hollow was full of mist all white underneath me. Another star appeared and a cold wind arose, and with the wind the mist flapped away like a curtain. ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany

... faithful servants; and all the while they are together, sighing because of yours and laboring for your freedom. But you have only tears in your eyes, and they, arms in hand, are fighting your enemies. As for us two, we were talking of taking to flight tomorrow, when your voice made us draw the curtain. Bethink you, sir, that, after us, the hands that will serve you would not dare refuse to employ poison and the knife." Henry, much moved, resolved to follow the example of the Duke of Anjou. His departure was fixed for ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... scene the night betrayed. In perspective the wall ahead narrowed, until the two sides seemed to come to a point. Back of all was the thick curtain of black that had settled down over the gulf. A little farther out, too, the water seemed rougher. There would seem to be hardly a doubt that ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock

... was open and the curtain drawed down tight. I was settin' inside, smokin' and goin' over the situation, when footsteps sounded on the piazza and a couple come to anchor on the settee right by that window. Cap'n Jonadab and ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln

... but a little while ago there was a kind of drawing aside of the thick curtain of falling snow, and I had a view of some terribly grand rocks, and one glimpse of a most ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner

... from a stool at our passing. I thought I saw Castro's peaked hat and large cloak flit in the gloom into which fell the light from the small doorway of a sort of guardroom near the closed gate. We continued along the arcaded walk; a double curtain was drawn to right and left before me, ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... walls and ceiling are exquisitely frescoed, and ornamented with bas reliefs in plaster. The proscenium is beautifully carved and frescoed, and is adorned with busts of the elder Booth and the proprietor of the theatre; and in the sides before the curtain are arranged six sumptuous private boxes. The curtain is an exquisite landscape. The decoration of the house is not done in the rough scenic style so common in the theatres of the country, but is the perfection of frescoe painting, and will bear the closest inspection. It is impossible, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... of anticlimax, ran from the sight of Vittoria when she was called, after the fall of the curtain. He made his way to Rocco Ricci (who had given his bow to the public from his perch), and found the maestro drinking Asti to counteract his natural excitement. Rocco told Agostino, that up to the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... him violently to the floor, and caned him until he had exhausted the strength of his arm on the poor boy's body. His fury growing with the exercise of it, he now dragged the unresisting victim to the windows, seized the curtain cord, and twisted it tightly around his neck. Frederick had barely strength enough to grasp his father's hand and scream for help. The old brute would probably have strangled him had not a chamberlain rushed in and saved ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... humor the lad, for we were not incurious respecting the picture, and we accompanied him forthwith. His room was quite large, well lighted and airy, with a sleeping-closet attached. Over the blank wall opposite the windows hung a black muslin curtain of most funereal aspect, which rolled up to the ceiling by means of a cord and pulley, and, being now down, effectually concealed from view what we had come to see. Clarian placed three or four ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... infinity, by whatever conventionalism sought, the desire is the same in all, the instinct constant, it is no mere point of light that is wanted in the etching of Rembrandt above instanced, a gleam of armor or fold of temple curtain would have been utterly valueless, neither is it liberty, for though we cut down hedges and level hills, and give what waste and plain we choose, on the right hand and the left, it is all comfortless and undesired, so long as we ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin

... this with a little mixed sour, this and the rest and the corn which is grain, this and the best and certainly no kind of way of saying that it was unexpected, this completed the single selection of a curtain of repetition. This was ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein

... world will be squared away. Some call it a Day of Judgment; I like best to think of it as a day of explanations. I want to hear God's side. Also I know we shall not have to lie weary centuries waiting for it. When the black curtain of death falls on life's troubled scenes, there will appear on it these words in letters of gold, "End of Part I. ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung

... all manner of cries, piercing screams and shrill wailings dreadful to hear, while the deck beneath me, the air about me reeled and quivered to the never-ceasing thunder of artillery. But ever and anon, through some rent in this smoky curtain, I might catch a glimpse of the English ship, her shot-scarred side and rent sails, or the grim havoc of our own decks. And amidst it all, and hard beside me where I crouched in the shelter of the mizzenmast, I beheld Resolution Day limping to and fro, jovial of voice, cheering ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... a way," replied Prescott confidently. "Lift the curtain from the window and look. The night is dark and cold; all who can will be under roofs, and even the sentinels will hug walls and earthworks. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... is still talking as the final curtain descends upon these three: GIBSON seated at his desk, looking fixedly at SIMPSON, NORA waiting thoughtfully by the door that ...
— The Gibson Upright • Booth Tarkington

... gaunt as a gallows-tree, and here the projecting end of a fallen cross. Between showed no vestige of an opening; dark, impervious, formidable as a fortress wall, the tunal met the eye. Ferne, attacking it with his sword, thrust aside a heavy curtain of broad-leaved vine, came upon a network of thorn and spike and prickly leaf, hewed this away, to find behind it a like barrier. Evidently the man had lied!—to what purpose Sir Mortimer Ferne would presently make it his business to discover.... There overtook ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... foam and gyrating in dizzy whirlpools, its surface broken by explosions of spray or pitted by devouring vortices resembling the oily mouths of marine monsters. Below this, in turn, is the White Horse, worst of all. Here the flood somersaults over a tremendous reef, flinging on high a gleaming curtain of spray. These rapids are well named, for the tossing waves resemble nothing more than runaway white horses with ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... was awaked by three or four drums, which Banter had placed under the window; upon which I withdrew the curtain, and enjoyed the unspeakable satisfaction of contemplating those angelic charms which were now in my possession! Beauty! which, whether sleeping or awake, shot forth peculiar graces! The light darting upon my Narcissa's eyes, she awoke also, and recollecting ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... enormous opinion of herself which Mrs. Gresley so frequently deplored, for Hester's thoughts seldom dwelt upon herself. But the altered circumstances of her life forced them momentarily upon herself nevertheless, as a burst pipe will spread its waters down a damask curtain. ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... when the blessed diurnal light Is quench'd by the providential night, To render our slumber more certain! Pity, pity the wretches that weep, For they must be wretched, who cannot sleep When God himself draws the curtain! ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... forms a natural riverine boundary with Zambia; in full flood (February-April) the massive Victoria Falls on the river forms the world's largest curtain of falling water ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... when Sleep Came o'er my sense, the dream went on; Nor, through her curtain dim and deep, Hath ever lovelier vision shone. I thought that, all enrapt, I strayed Through that serene, luxurious shade, Where Epicurus taught the Loves To polish virtue's native brightness,— As pearls, we're told, that fondling doves Have played with, wear a smoother whiteness.[1] 'Twas ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... the evening we were entertained with a sight, that is indeed singularly curious and interesting. In a particular part of the garden a curtain was drawn up, and by means of some mechanism of extraordinary ingenuity, the eye and the ear are so completely deceived, that it is not easy to persuade one's self it is a deception, and that one does not actually see and hear a natural ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz

... Patty, draping the curtain round her shoulders, sontag fashion. "These are fine. Now, see, I'm getting your ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells

... better for him, - the less pain and sorrow are his. When the mist of mortal mind evap- orates, the curse will be removed which says to woman, 557:18 "In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children." Divine Science rolls back the clouds of error with the light of Truth, and lifts the curtain on man as never born and as 557:21 never dying, but ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... confessed, at that first public performance, to all those tributary clarifying rills to the play's progress: but, as it was, vainglory combined with an aversion to "speech-making" to compel a taciturn if smirking acceptance of the curtain-call with which an indulgent audience flustered the nominal author of The Jewel Merchants.... Now, in any case, it is due my collaborators to tell you that The Jewel Merchants has amply fulfilled the purpose of its makers by being enacted to considerable ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell

... large calico curtains drawn across the windows. Serge's eyes, especially, were attracted to them as to the very source of light, in which he sought to steep himself, as in diluted sunshine fitted to his weakness. He could tell that the sun lay behind that yellower gleam upon one corner of the curtain, and that sufficed to make him feel himself again. Meanwhile a far-off rustle of leaves came upon his listening ear, and against the right-hand window the clean-cut greenish shadow of a lofty bough brought him disturbing thoughts of the forest ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... as the space and the sizes of the covers are not always the same. The back is covered with thin boards placed vertically. The front can be covered with a curtain or a paneled door as shown. —Contributed by Gilbert A. ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... in a fan of electric flame, and then the shafts all merged into a filmy, pale chrome sheet. This faded and intensified alternately, and then in an instant disappeared, but more flaming lights burst into view in other parts of the heavens, and a phantom curtain of glittering electric violet trembled between the ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans

... the sister remains enchanted, and cannot be released till the glass is broken and the light extinguished; which can only be done by a Lady who is neither maid, wife, nor widow. The Spirit blows a magical horn, and the Lady appears, breaks the glass, and puts out the light. A curtain being then withdrawn discovers the sister asleep; she is disenchanted, joins her brothers, and the Spirit vanishes.—The resemblance to Milton's Comus need not be pointed out. The difference of the two pieces in all points ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... the outstretched hand of the slave into the dark passage where, in the crimson glow of the hanging curtain, close by its other end, she could see a small dark form crouching near the wall. Her mother was feasting her eyes and ears with what was taking place on the front verandah, and Nina approached to take her share in the rare pleasure of some novelty. She was met by her mother's extended ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad

... enjoyed our mountain retreat very much. The bath was a remarkable feature—a natural stone basin, under the shadow of a great rock, fed by the clearest streamlet and sheltered from view by a heavy bit of curtain, was our bathing-place. We carried a little leaf bucket and our towels in our hands, and while we poured the fresh water over our heads we could now and then stop to look at the great expanse of plain and forest, with silver rivers winding amidst them, and blue smoke stealing up here and there to ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... come. Mrs. McAlister came back from a final survey of the corner house, made her eleventh tour of the parlor, dining-room and kitchen at The Savins, and then took her stand at the front window where she tapped restlessly on the glass and swayed the curtain to and fro impatiently. She was not a nervous woman; but to-night her mood demanded constant action. Moreover, it was only an hour and a quarter before the train was due. If she were not watchful, the carriage might ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray

... to sleep in the shadow of the church, under a black cross, in a bed with a coverlet of grass, for Fanny's bed had been her grandfather's when he was a little baby, and the little girl slept now in the same place as her ancestor. She slept. A cotton curtain with a pattern of roses protected her slumbers. She slept and dreamed. She saw the blue bird flying toward the castle of his love. He looked as beautiful as a star, but she did not expect for a moment to see him perch ...
— Our Children - Scenes from the Country and the Town • Anatole France

... had he dropped the pencil when the wizard lifted a corner of the curtain which hung over the doorway, and advanced into the room. Seeing a paper on the table, he picked it up, and great was his ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various

... The curtain falls on Craigenputtock, the bleak farm by the bleak hills, and rises on Cheyne Row, a side street off the river Thames, that winds, as slowly as Cowper's Ouse, by the reaches of Barnes and Battersea, dotted ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... barely-smothered groan. He was beginning to realize the tragedy upon which he had stumbled. A comic singer followed, who in a dress suit several sizes too large for him gave an imitation of a popular Irish comedian. Then the curtain went up and the professor was seen, standing in front of the curtain and bowing solemnly to a somewhat unresponsive audience. A minute later Beatrice came quietly in and sat by his side. There was nothing new about ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... work, when the audience had been half strangled by the too realistic fumes from the altar, and the chorus, huddled at the back of the stage, had sung the Rain Chorus off the key, to the accompaniment of the torrent which poured down in a thin sheet just back of the curtain, raining neither on the just nor on the unjust, but falling accurately into the groove for the footlights between them. He had sung The Messiah and Arminius until they were a weariness to his flesh, and Hiawatha's call to Gitche Manito, the Mighty ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... passed the outermost shack a light flashed up within it. He saw Marie's head and shoulder silhouetted against the curtain. He recognized her immediately by the heavy mass of her hair. No other woman in Farewell possessed such ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... corner, or the first violin in another. One or two young farmers' boys were a little uproarious with egg-pop, and danced awkward breakdowns at the end of the tent. Then a cracked bell sounded and the curtain rose, showing hardly more of the stage ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... of no mean family, and of form and feature nowise disabled, for he was a brave gentleman, and a very fine courtier, and for the time which he stayed there, which was not lasting, very high in her grace; but he came in, and went out through disassiduity, drew the curtain between himself and the light of her grace, and then death overwhelmed the remnant, and utterly deprived him of recovery; and they say of him that had he brought less to her Court than he did, he might have carried away more than he brought, for he had ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... the pretty muslin curtain of her kitchen window. She was standing in exactly the same place and attitude she had stood in eight months before, on the first day of war. But oh, how different were the sensations and the thoughts with which she now looked out on the familiar scene! She had ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... not, Rowland," she answered. "I cannot break my vow. I will confide it to Father Spencer, who will acquaint you with it when I am no more. Undraw the curtain, love," she added to Thames, "that I ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... magnanimity in doing so, that there had been some reason for her quick withdrawal from his studio or at any rate for her extreme discomposure there. He had a few days before put in a plea for a snatch of worship in that sanctuary and she had accepted and approved it; but the worship, when the curtain happened to blow back, showed for that of a magnificent young woman, an actress with disordered hair, who wore in a singular degree the appearance of a person settled for many hours. The explanation was easy: it dwelt in the simple truth that when one was painting, even ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... me much that our finale has pleased, and that the curtain drops gracefully.[12] You deserve it should, for your promptitude and good nature in arranging immediately with Mr. Dallas; and I can assure you that I esteem your entering so warmly into the subject, and writing to me so soon upon it, as a personal obligation. We shall now part, I hope, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... young to die," Grace observed; "but I am weary of the world. It is my wish to submit myself to the will of God; but, blessed be his holy name, that he sees fit to call me to him this day. Lucy, beloved one—go into the next room, and draw the curtain asunder; I shall then be enabled to gaze on the fields of dear Clawbonny once more; that will be my last look at ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... the Moorish walls by the original gateways. The road, stony and rugged beyond measure, now took to the mountains. From the opposite height, there was a fine view of the town, perched like an eagle's nest on the verge of its tremendous cliffs; but a curtain of rain soon fell before it, and the dense dark clouds settled around us, and filled up the gorges on either hand. Hour after hour, we toiled along the slippery paths, scaling the high ridges by rocky ladders, up which our horses climbed with the greatest difficulty. The scenery, whenever ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... of their choice. The parents then interfere, and the preliminaries being settled, a birnbang takes place. The young women proceed in a body to the upper end of the balli (hall), where there is a part divided off for them by a curtain. They do not always make their appearance before dinner, that time, previous to a second or third meal, being appropriated to cock-fighting or other diversions peculiar to men. In the evening their other amusements take place, of which the dances are the principal. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... brink of some terrible disaster. Surji Rao's wife was a clever woman, and she arranged such a feeling in the Maharajah's zenana, that one day as Dr. Roberts passed along a corridor to His Highness's apartment, a curtain opened swiftly, and some one in the dark behind spat at him. Amongst them they managed to make His Highness extremely uncomfortable. But the old man continued to decline obstinately to send ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... harmony, did our voices blend! Ah! It is impossible to describe this impression. Probably, it happens but once in a lifetime. According to the role, I had to weep, and I wept with sincere, genuine tears. And when, after the curtain, he walked up to me and patted my hair with his big warm hand and with his enchanting, radiant smile said, 'Splendid! for the first time in my life have I sung so' ... and so I—and I am a very proud being—I kissed his hand. And the tears were ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... dandy for a circus net!" Teddy went on. "You can hold one end, and I'll hold the other. But we won't make the tower any higher for a while. I'll get a curtain for a net." ...
— The Curlytops and Their Pets - or Uncle Toby's Strange Collection • Howard R. Garis

... usual first flat, with the cloak upon the nail, the rosaries of onions, the gun and powder-horn and corner-cupboard; here is the inn (this drama must be nautical, I foresee Captain Luff and Bold Bob Bowsprit) with the red curtain, pipes, spittoons, and eight-day clock; and there again is that impressive dungeon with the chains, which was so dull to colour. England, the hedgerow elms, the thin brick houses, windmills, glimpses of the navigable Thames—England, when at last I came to visit it, was only Skelt made evident: ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... He retired to the curtain alcove, and Pearson heard him rustling about, evidently making a hurried change of raiment. During this process he ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... himself go and collects himself as the work before him demands. There are some books, where it is necessary to let one's self go from beginning to end. There are others where a man may sit as he sits at a play, being himself between acts, or at proper intervals when the author lets down the curtain, and being translated the ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee

... Sardinia went in state to the Carlo Felice Theatre at Genoa, and presented to the public, says an Italian correspondent, his niece, the betrothed bride of the heir-apparent of the house of Austria. At seven the court arrived, the curtain rose, and displayed the whole corps dramatique, who sang Dio Salve il Re; or an Italian version of the words and music of our "God save the King," in which Madame Caradori took the principal part. Thus our national anthem is getting naturalized in Italy, the parent of song, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 477, Saturday, February 19, 1831 • Various

... Monpavon of the club, of the foyer of the Varietes, asking news of the Chamber, how matters stood with regard to the Nabob's election—all this coldly, without the least affectation. Then, tired, no doubt, or fearing lest his glance, constantly drawn to that curtain opposite him, from behind which the sentence was to come presently, should betray the emotion which he must have felt in the depths of his soul, he laid his head on the pillow, closed his eyes, and did not ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... A perfectly plain asbestos fire-curtain descended in front of the already locked door. It was none of his business to dispute the drive. If there were any discrepancies between estimate and results, one might be sure that the enemy knew about them, which was ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling

... should advance with caution, lest, ere properly admonished of its presence, their persons should be exposed to some lurking danger. When the three, however, were safely established behind the thick curtain of plank and earth that covered and commanded the entrance, and where their persons, from the shoulders downward, were completely protected, alike from shot and arrow, Content demanded to know, who applied at his gates for ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... time I ever was present at a dramatic representation: it was the benefit of that great actor[5] who was proceeding rapidly toward the highest paths of fame, when death, dropped the oblivious curtain, and closed the scene for ever. The part which he performed was King Lear; his wife, afterward Mrs. Fisher, played Cordelia, but not with sufficient eclat to render the profession an object for her future exertions. The whole school attended, Mr. Powel's two daughters being then pupils ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... and his wife were prosperous people. But they could not be satisfied to have so much done for them and not know to whom they should be grateful. So one night, after the shoemaker had left the pieces of leather on the bench, he and his wife hid themselves behind a curtain, and left a ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant

... in the summer of 1916, I heard childless women say: "Would that I had six sons to give to France!" I heard unmarried women say: "Thank heaven I never married!" I heard bitterness expressed by bereft mothers, terror and despair by others when the curtain had rung down and they could relax the proud and smiling front they presented to the world. Not one would have had her son shirk his duty, nor asked for compromise with the enemy, but all prayed for the war to end. It is true that these men ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... that last scene on Golgotha,—the agony of the dying Saviour, the taunts of the lictors, the wailing of the holy women, the shrieks of the dead whose graves are opened, and who cry aloud for mercy, and finally the rending of the Temple curtain, and the chorus of angels in heaven. All this affects even the most hardened of skeptics with a power that cannot be withstood. For the time being the imagination ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai



Words linked to "Curtain" :   furnishing, frontal, blind, provide, eyehole, barrier, portiere, screen, supply, drop, furnish, eyelet, render, drop cloth, festoon



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