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Threshold   /θrˈɛʃˌoʊld/   Listen
Threshold

noun
1.
The starting point for a new state or experience.
2.
The smallest detectable sensation.  Synonym: limen.
3.
The entrance (the space in a wall) through which you enter or leave a room or building; the space that a door can close.  Synonyms: door, doorway, room access.
4.
The sill of a door; a horizontal piece of wood or stone that forms the bottom of a doorway and offers support when passing through a doorway.  Synonyms: doorsill, doorstep.
5.
A region marking a boundary.  Synonyms: brink, verge.



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"Threshold" Quotes from Famous Books



... death. He wondered idly, looking at it, (for the old Huguenot brain of the man was full of morbid fancies,) if it were winter alone that had deadened color and pulse out of these full-blooded hills, or if they could know the colder horror crossing their threshold, and forgot to praise God as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... in this figure, full of the lithe slenderness of the whispering palms overhead, the warm coloring of the deep-toned flowers sleeping in the room, the native grace of the tame antelope lifting its human eyes to his as he lingered on the threshold in an attitude eager yet timid, watching that other figure as it looked into the night and found no ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott

... and he took possession of it immediately. There was a carriage-road from the town, and the valley was in this part less rugged in its aspect. Las Cases was soon sent for. As he ascended the winding path leading to the pavilion he saw Napoleon standing at the threshold of the door. His body was slightly bent, and his hands behind his back: he wore his usual plain and simple uniform and the well-known hat. The Emperor was alone. He took a fancy to walk a little; but there was no level ground on any side of the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... persecuted by the Jews themselves, and eventually whipped in the synagogue for attempting reformation of the Jewish usages, in which, he said, tradition had departed from the law of Moses. He took his thirty-nine lashes, recanted, and lay across the threshold of the synagogue for all his brethren to walk over him. Afterwards he endeavoured to shoot his principal enemy, but his pistol missed fire. He had another about him, and with that he shot himself. This happened about ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... was eating, the people of the town congregated quietly about the open door. Friendly curiosity to see the new Padre, and sincere desire to welcome him animated their simple minds. Naked babes crawled to the threshold and peeped timidly in. Coarsely clad women and young girls, many of the latter bedizened with bits of bright ribbon or cheap trinkets, smiled their gentle greetings. Black, dignified men, bare of ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... with no further remarks. Nelson made a cautious preliminary survey of the outer world to satisfy himself that no more tomatoes were to be apprehended, then opened the door, placed a chair upon the threshold, and settled to the enjoyment of a freshly-filled pipe while waiting for Steiner to put in an appearance. Varr strode to the farther end of the hallway and climbed the flight of narrow, rickety stairs which ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... life speaks to life as a magnet to the pole, what then? Can you break that strong, silent current by a breathed invocation? Did not the Man cry from the cross in his exquisite agony, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani!" And if his divine faith fainted on the threshold of his kingdom, is it strange if human faith sink beneath life's crucifixion and the babble of priest grow poor and harsh before the sweetness of "a little laughter and a little love"—the only hyssop in ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... to his bunk. This was the time to cut his bonds; if at all. Unfortunately Bob could find nothing against which to cut them. Saleratus Bill had carefully removed every abrasive possibility in the two rooms. Bob very wisely relinquished the idea of passing the threshold in search of a suitable rock or piece of tin. He had no notion of risking a bullet until something was likely to ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... by its self-evident truth. Bunyan was drawing no imaginary picture of what others might feel, but simply telling in plain unadorned language what he had felt. The experience was a very tremendous reality to him. Like Dante, if he had not actually been in hell, he had been on the very threshold of it; he had in very deed traversed "the Valley of the Shadow of Death," had heard its "hideous noises," and seen "the Hobgoblins of the Pit." He "spake what he knew and testified what he had seen." Every sentence breathes the most tremendous ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... hand, then, satisfying himself that he had free play, he took up a position before the door and stood there motionless as the statue of a war-god. "Now, by the Cross I fought for," he muttered to himself, "the first man who sets foot across this threshold enters the chamber ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... should it not be? Why should you, who were once Ma-Rim[o]n, priest of Amen-Ra, in the City of Memphis—you who almost stood upon the threshold of the Inmost Sanctuary of Knowledge: you who, if your footsteps had not turned aside into the way of temptation and trodden the black path of Sin, might even now be dwelling on the Shores of Everlasting ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... and, as they were unprovided with windows, or apertures that served for them, the only light from without must have been admitted by the doorways. These were made with the sides approaching each other towards the top, so that the lintel was considerably narrower than the threshold, a peculiarity, also, in Egyptian architecture. The roofs have for the most part disappeared with time. Some few survive in the less ambitious edifices, of a singular bell-shape, and made of a composition of earth and pebbles. They are supposed, however, to have ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... But, wet and cold, crave shelter here; Betray'd by night, and led astray, I've lost, alas! I've lost my way.' Moved with this little tale of fate, I took a lamp, and oped the gate! When, see! a naked boy before The threshold; at his back he wore A pair of wings, and by his side A crooked bow and quiver tied. 'My pretty angel! come,' said I, 'Come to the fire, and do not cry.' I stroked his neck and shoulders bare, And squeez'd the water from his hair; Then chafed his little hands in mine, And cheer'd him ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... is such we call a deliberate response. Precisely this kind of change in neural action and in reaction time is at the basis of voluntary action. And (4) finally, the stimulus may be so weak that it will not induce a reaction except by repetition. Just above this point lies the threshold of sensibility, the determination of which is of ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... until like the Samaritans they say, "Now we believe, not because of thy speaking: for we have heard for ourselves, and know." That is the only use of authority in a vital, realm. It can lead us up to the threshold of a great experience where we must enter, each man for himself, and that service to the spiritual life ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... it is not given us to be happy for long. A knock at the professor's door brings him back to the present, and the knowledge that the landlady—a stout, somewhat erratic person of fifty—is standing on his threshold, a ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford

... already become longer than I intended, but I will ask the reader to have patience while I tell him briefly of my own visit to the threshold of that strange country of which I fear that he may be already ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler

... all CHOKEPEAR'S daughters dined with him. We forgot: one was absent. Some seven years ago she married a poorer husband, and poverty was his only, but certainly his sufficient fault; and her father vowed that she should never again cross his threshold. The Christian keeps his word. He has been to church to celebrate the event which preached to all men mutual love and mutual forgiveness, and he comes home, and with rancour in his heart—keeps ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 25, 1841 • Various

... their neighbours entered with them, and ate and drank, and gave them good wishes and gay songs, and the old priest blessed them with a father's tenderness upon their threshold; and the fiddle of Georges sent gladdest dance-music flying through the open casements, across the road, up the hill, far away to ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various

... the furniture in the room Elfreda bounded through the doorway and vanished. Two minutes later Miriam appeared, an amused look on her dark face, several books tucked under one arm. "Driven from home," she declaimed, posing on the threshold, her free hand appealingly extended. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... rambles into the country, whenever—which was seldom and reluctantly—I bestirred myself to seek that invigorating charm of Nature, which used to give me such freshness and activity of thought the moment that I stepped across the threshold of the Old Manse. The same torpor, as regarded the capacity for intellectual effort, accompanied me home, and weighed upon me in the chamber which I most absurdly termed my study. Nor did it quit me, when, late at night, I sat in the deserted parlor, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... leaving home. They did not know it, but he did. It was the first step over home's threshold. This little walk was the beginning of a long race, of which as yet he knew only the starting-point; and for love of that starting-point and for straitness of heart at turning his back upon it, he could ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... third of a century. Carducci in a fine poem has imagined Letizia, mother of the Bonapartes, a wandering shade haunting the desolate house at Ajaccio, recalling the tragic fate of her children, and, like a Corsican Niobe, standing on her threshold, fiercely stretching forth her arms to the savage Ocean, calling from America, from Britain, from burning Africa, some one of her hapless progeny to find a haven in her breast. But the assegais of South African savages laid low the last hope of ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... outbreathing in the required manner ... Upon the second night—so great was my reward—the wise Soul loosed itself from the silly Body and went free. This I have never before attained, though I have stood on the threshold of it. Consider, for it ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... meet them, but just a step from the threshold of the piazza door he sensed for the first time the long line of smokers watching the two figures grinningly above their puffy brown pipes ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... ransom." In the escape from work, the innocent gaiety of her heart, she broke into a song, and began waltzing round the room. Barely had she passed the open window, her back turned to it, when a gentleman came up, looked in, stepped softly over the threshold, and imprisoned her ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... Rogron started for a little walk. He was quite happy if some shopkeeper standing on the threshold of his door would stop him and say, "Well, pere Rogron, how goes it with you?" Then he would talk, and ask for news, and gather all the gossip of the town. He usually went as far as the Upper town, sometimes to the ravines, according to the weather. Occasionally ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... and sere tufts of grass; and blustering winds rush over the unsheltered reaches, where the rough-haired goats huddle for warmth; and there is no melody save the many-toned voices of the wind and the plover's wild cry. There dwell the children of Coradine, on the threshold of the wind-vexed wilderness, where the stupendous columns of green glass uphold the roof of the House of Coradine; the ocean's voice is in their rooms, and the inland-blowing wind brings to them the salt spray and yellow sand swept at low tide from ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson

... Kate waked with a defiant brightness when the first call came that took her temporarily over the threshold of the new life. She left her own school-room, where her role was as congenial and irresponsible as Sissy's, with an air of importance that roused ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... Nime giv huz pore thortless leds baw a gent on the Dily Chrornicle, lidy. (Rankin returns. Drinkwater immediately withdraws, stopping the missionary for a moment near the threshold to say, touching his forelock) Awll eng abaht within ile, gavner, hin kice aw should be wornted. (He goes into ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw

... occasion he actually succeeded in getting from the bed and standing up. He carefully placed one leaden leg before the other, and was nearly on the threshold of the door when ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... and romance with a vengeance! ready made, too, at one's threshold, without having to seek it out in hall or bower. 'Tis a trifle low to be sure; had it been a shepherd and shepherdess it might do, but a milkman and a—may ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... contemplative position, and with a pale countenance leave the room. There was something in this abruptness which excited the alarm of the Earl of Lennox, who had also been listening to the songs; he rose instantly, and overtaking the chief at the threshold, inquired what was the matter? "Nothing," answered Wallace, forcing a smile, in which the agony of his mind was too truly imprinted; "but music displeased me." With this reply he disappeared. The excuse seemed strange but it was true; for she whose notes were to ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... metaphor at the beginning of his narrative. He comes upon a thicket in the woods, loses the usual path.... He, too, speaks figuratively. Have we almost unaware, in making his symbolism our own, partially drawn away the veil from his mystery? It is a fact confirmed by many observations [Cf. my works on threshold symbolism—Schwellensymbolik, Jahrb. ps. F. III, p. 621 ff., IV, p. 675 ff.] that in hypnagogic hallucinations (dreamy images before going to sleep), besides all kinds of thought material, the state of going to sleep also portrays itself in exactly the same way that in the close of a dream or ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... diamonds, but nobody has the opportunity or the leisure to penetrate into the depths of her mind. A really distinguished woman once said to me, "I feel that I become stupid when I enter these drawing-rooms. Vacancy seizes me at the very threshold." Another, who had lived in France, regretted, with tears, the absence of those charming friendships, so cheerful and so cordial, that exist between the young ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... the Unknown if we declare Him to be the Unknowable. Unknowable to us at present, yes! Unknowable for ever, in other possible stages of existence? We have reached a region into which we cannot penetrate; here all human faculties fail us; we bow our heads on 'the threshold of the unknown.' ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... very flat on his back, but with his face turned toward the door, and beside him sat Laura Rainey, their thin hands clasped together. I stopped on the threshold with the ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... the end it was Annabel who scored. For when at length she crossed Persis' threshold, a young man happened to be passing. A ravishing smile banished Annabel's look of sullen resentment. Her ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... dear general," said Theodora. "Where we are is the threshold of Rome, and if we are wise we shall soon cross it. This arrest of our great friend is a misfortune, but not an irredeemable one. I thoroughly credit what he says about the Italian troops. Rest assured he knows what he is talking about; they will never cross the frontier against ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... to the door. Before either girl could respond, Renee entered. She wore a gay kimona of embroidered silk. Her dark wavy hair hung over her shoulders. She looked like a goddess as she paused an instant on the threshold. Then advancing, she cried, "Oh, girls, do you happen to have any cold cream? I'm out and I do need ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird

... soul:—I know that in another And brighter land my darling walks and waits, Where we shall surely meet and clasp each other, Beyond the threshold ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean

... of four individuals all of whom were females. One was a lady in the decline of her years; another was past the middle age the third was on the very threshold of what is called "life," as it is applied to intercourse with the world; and the fourth was a negress, who might have seen some five-and-twenty revolutions of the seasons. The latter, at that time, and in that country, of course ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... the hall and struck her head against the inner threshold. She lay in a dazed condition for a little, then aroused herself, to catch a glimpse of Hannah peering through the window of the inside door. She vanished instantly, but the expression of her face had told Cordelia where the ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness

... remembrance of it. No prayer, no striving now, would bring back that negative peace; the battle of her life, it seemed, was not to be decided in that short and easy way,—by perfect renunciation at the very threshold of ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... threshold, bury me a load-stone To draw in gallants that wear spurs: the rest, They'll ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson

... about, and seemed to lengthen with each twist; the knocker expanded into a figure in yellow livery, six feet high; the screws by which it was fixed to the door unloosed themselves, and JENKINS GRUFFANUFF once more trod the threshold off which he had been lifted more ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... broken gray and squally, with frequent sharp showers, and had grown into a gurly gusty day. Now and then the sun sent a dim yellow glint through the troubled atmosphere, but it was straightway swallowed up in the volumes of vapour seething and tumbling in the upper regions. As he crossed the threshold, there came a moaning wind from the west, and the water laden branches of the trees all went bending before it, shaking their burden of heavy drops on the ground. It was dreary, dreary, outside and in. He turned and looked at the house. If he might have but one peep of the goddess ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... although half dead. His companions were so completely duped by Mauprat's assurance that they ate and drank merrily, treating the notary as a lunatic and a boor. They left Roche-Mauprat all drunk, singing the praises of their host, and laughing at the notary, who fell down dead upon the threshold of his house ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... licks her hand and whines. Slowly the folding doors push open, and the old couple stand upon the threshold. ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... the lad would have gone forward and entered the College; but on the threshold he felt how unfit he was to meet his fellows' eyes, and he turned and hastened as fast as his trembling limbs would carry him towards his home. The streets, to his excited imagination, were full of spies; he fancied his ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... Father Johannes had no words; his eyes grew dim as he looked at the young, passive face of the Queen, "stripped of every joy," alone on the threshold of life. "Daughter," he said, stumblingly, "I fain would ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... once a year at Para and Santarem, yield flower and fruit all the year round at Ega. The climate is healthy, although one lives here as in a permanent vapour bath. I must not, however, give here a lengthy description of the region while we are yet on its threshold. I resided and travelled on the Solimoens altogether for four years and a half. The country on its borders is a magnificent wilderness where civilised man, as yet, has scarcely obtained a footing; the cultivated ground from ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... to me," he softly said, "on mission high I'm here: Sent by that Glorious One to whom Heav'n bows in loving fear; I seek thee now, whilst thou art still on the threshold of earth's strife, To speak of what thou knowest not yet, ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

... Alkestis has breathed her last, Herakles appears; and his great cheery voice is heard on the threshold of the house of mourning, inquiring if the master be within. Admetus suppresses all signs of emotion, that he may receive him as hospitality demands; and Herakles, hearing what has happened from ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... of very late years that psychologists have begun to realise the enormous dominion of those forces in man of which he is normally unconscious. We cannot escape as easily as these brave men dreamed from the grip of the blind powers beneath the threshold. Indeed, as I see philosophy after philosophy falling into this unproven belief in the Friend behind phenomena, as I find that I myself cannot, except for a moment and by an effort, refrain from making the same assumption, it ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

... stammered unhappy Matthew, seizing the rake and making for the door. At the threshold he recollected that he had not paid for it and he turned miserably back. While Miss Harris was counting out his change he rallied his powers for a ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious year lies before you! In a year you can regain health, ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... to Gravesend and the common lodging-house, and a weary, sad, and very anxious man rose up from his place by the fire when the clickety-clack of the crutch sounded on the threshold. ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit

... from the kitchen opened and Sim Squires stood awkwardly on the threshold, with a face of wooden and vapid stupidity. Apparently he had noted nothing unusual, yet he had looked through the window before entering the house, and back of his unobservant seeming lay ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... the sun at times blazed with intolerable fervor, or again the heat broke in savage storms of thunder, hail and rain. All the elements, all the circumstances seemed in league to warn them back before it was too late, for indeed they were not yet more than on the threshold ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... Agent-General that it was both politically immoral and strategically unsound that forty-four million people should bear the entire weight of the defences of Our mighty Empire, but, as he had observed (here the Agent-General evaporated), we stood now upon the threshold of a new era in which the self-governing and self-respecting (bis) Dominions would rightly and righteously, as co-partners in Empery, shoulder their share of any burden which the Pan-Imperial Council of the Future should allot. The Agent-General ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling

... older, surer feet felt the stairs and pushed on behind the girl. Through the veiling canvas and the old walls I seemed to see the pair ascending. A few seconds more, and a slight farm rounded the jamb of the door. The girl's eyes blinked in the walled twilight of the room. She hesitated on the threshold, but only for a second. The touch of a following frame impelled her forward. Her uncertain foot caught against a bed leg and a white hand gripped the steadying rail. Long-nailed claws laced themselves in the fingers of her other hand and the old ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... bungalows. I never inhabited the same house for three nights running, and grew to be learned in the breed. I lived in Government-built ones with red brick walls and rail ceilings, an inventory of the furniture posted in every room, and an excited snake at the threshold to give welcome. I lived in "converted" ones—old houses officiating as dak-bungalows—where nothing was in its proper place and there wasn't even a fowl for dinner. I lived in second-hand palaces where the wind blew through open-work marble tracery just as uncomfortably ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... part. When there is an overflow of the river one cannot go hunting, nor if one should fall at the start, nor if the rattan bag should drop when the man slings it on his back, or if anybody sneezes when about to leave the house. If when going out on an errand one stubs his toe against the threshold, he must wait an hour. Having started on a fishing or hunting expedition nobody is permitted to go back home; should this be done the enterprise would be a failure for the others; nor should the dogs, on a pig hunt, be ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... be worthy of myself?"—that question appears to me to be sometimes lurking in the minds of men who have played a great part in the world, and who are determined to play it to the end. It is, of course a noble sort of courage which enables a man, at the very threshold of death, to force himself to behave with dignity and grandeur: but it seemed to me now to be an even more supreme courage to be, as Father Payne was, simply himself. Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Thomas More, Charles II, Archbishop Laud ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... in England who started upon the question "why are we becoming inefficient?" a year or two ago, and from that starting point it is I came to this. . . . I do not believe therefore that upon this dusty threshold I shall stand long alone. We take most calmly the most miraculous of things, and it is only quite recently that I have come to see as amazing this fact, that while the greater mass of our English- speaking people is living ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... book by the author of 'Mr. Isaacs'?" he asked (having sent me "Mr. Isaacs" as soon as it appeared, lest I should miss reading so novel and good a story). In the same breath he adds: "I have been reading 'The Freedom of Faith,' by the author of 'On the Threshold,' just published by Houghton & Co. It is refreshing and tonic as the northwest wind. The writer is one of the leaders of the new departure from the ultra-Calvinism. Thank thee just here for the pleasure of reading Annie Keary's biography. What a white, beautiful ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields

... their frosted crests as if in welcome of the morning; behind them the sky gleamed opalescent. Stefan leant forward in the speeding sleigh as if to urge it with the sway of his body, the frosty air stung his nostrils, the breath of the horses trailed like smoke, the road seemed leading up to the threshold of the world. The speed of their cold flight was in tune with the frozen dance of the hills—Stefan whooped again, intoxicated, the others laughed back at him and cheered, Mary's face glowed with delight, they were like children in ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... gathered some fine ripe strawberries, which, with plenty of stewed rice, Indian meal cake, and maple sugar, was to make their dinner. She was weary and warm, for the day had been hot and sultry. Seating herself on the threshold of the door, she leaned her tack against the doorpost, and closed her eyes. Perhaps the poor child's thoughts were wandering back to her far-off, never-to-be-forgotten home, or she might be thinking of the hunters and their game. Suddenly a vague, ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... honour, Mary, always more the woman than the queen, while, on the contrary, Elizabeth was always more the queen than the woman, had no sooner regained her power than her first royal act was to exhume Rizzio, who had been quietly buried on the threshold of the chapel nearest Holyrood Palace, and to have him removed to the burial-place of the Scottish kings, compromising herself still more by the honours she paid him dead, than by the favour she ...
— Quotes and Images From "Celebrated Crimes" • Alexander Dumas, Pere

... abusive word almost, in the only language she understood, on poor Mr. Bennet, turned us both out of doors, declaring she would send my rags after me, but would never more permit me to set my foot within her threshold. ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... the finest educational system in the world. Harvard is, if not the most distinguished, certainly among the first institutions in the country; but it is necessary only to stand upon the threshold of the first Harvard house which I entered, to pass through its mean entry and climb up its uncouth staircase, to be assured that our educational system has not yet found its key-stone. It has all ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... crossed the threshold the mysterious someone pounced upon her and lifted her up bodily from the ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... out the handwriting that is against thee, arid not let thee know it as yet? Is it fit to say unto God, Thou art hard-hearted? Despair not; thou hast no ground to despair, so long as thou livest in this world. It is a sin to begin to despair before one sets his foot over the threshold of hell-gates. For them that are there, let them despair, and spare not; but as for thee, thou hast no ground to do it. What, despair of bread in a land that is full of corn; despair of mercy, when our God is full ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

... door, and stood on the threshold, barring the way. He was leaning against the doorpost with his head against it, as she had often seen her husband lean when he was talking to her on a summer evening. Something in his attitude, so like her husband's, ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley

... intention of going as far as the village public house to have a drink or two, so as to enhance the enjoyment of the rustic scenery. With easy stride, he accordingly walked up to the place. Scarcely had he passed the threshold of the public house, when he perceived some one or other among the visitors who had been sitting sipping their wine on the divan, jump up and come up to greet him, with a face beaming ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... entered he heard a heavy woman plunge down the stairs, and found his arm grasped by Deborah, very red-faced and very furious, the moment he crossed the threshold. Bart could be heard knocking boxes together in the cellar, as he was getting Deborah's belongings ready for removal to Jubileetown, where the cottage, and the drying ground for the laundry, had already been secured through Pash. But Paul had no time to ask what was going on. A glance at the hand-maiden's ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume

... come in his way. If he saw his female servant in any of the rooms, he would order her away instantly, or fly himself to other quarters. Rarely, during all the years of his solitary life, did a woman cross his threshold; and, when one did, he would run from her as if she brought the plague. His servants were all trained to silence, and in giving his orders the fewest words possible were used. His meals were served irregularly, whenever in ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... to-night and turned on all the lights, which were many, while Viola laid aside her dress and slipped into a dressing-gown, something as fragile and beautiful as a rose-leaf, suiting her delicate, elusive beauty. She followed me into the little supper-room, and as I turned and saw her on the threshold, the delicacy of the whole vision struck me. A pain shot into my heart suddenly. Supposing I ever lost her? Saw her fade ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross

... I. No answer, I took the lamp once more and flooded the car with light. In the far corner, still wrapped in the rugs, my lady lay fast asleep. With some difficulty I got her into my arms. On the threshold I met Thomas, our waiter. He had little on but a coat and trousers, and there was slumber in ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... from behind his shoulder came Mr. Fentolin's still, soft voice. There was a little click, and Meekins, as though obeying an unseen gesture, stepped back. Mr. Fentolin glided on to the threshold. He was still dressed. He propelled his chair a few yards down the corridor and beckoned ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... raised the slab to a height of about two feet in its grooves, and had made sure that the stones held it firmly in place, we told each other that it was time to cross the threshold. The rock-door was scarcely more than a yard in width, and we crawled through in single file, Anthony going ahead as before, with his torch. I passed my lantern in after him, and then followed. As I crept through ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... as a matter of course and went to the door; but at the threshold she turned back, rushed to the deathbed, kissed the pure brow and closed eyelids of the sleeper, and then knelt beside her in silent prayer. When she rose she clasped Eva, who had knelt and risen with her, in a close embrace, and whispered: "Whatever happens, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... was too great for her. She sent Akiba away and for twelve long years dwelt alone in sorrow and in want, a "living widow," and at the end of that period she crowned it with a renewal of the same great sacrifice. As Akiba was crossing the threshold, home again after twelve years of study, he overheard Rachel talking with a neighbor. "It served thee right," said the neighbor, "for marrying a man so far beneath thee. Now he has gone off and forsaken thee." "If he hearkened to me," was Rachel's reply, "he would stay away another ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... before; Should pass through the gateway of glittering light, Where jokes that are merry and songs that are bright Ring out a warm welcome with flattering voice, And temptingly say, 'Here's a place for the boys!' Ah, what if they should! What if your boy or mine Should cross o'er the threshold which marks out the line 'Twixt virtue and vice, 'twixt pureness and sin, And leave all his innocent boyhood within? Ah, what if they should, because you and I, While the days and the months and the years hurry by, Are too busy with cares and with life's fleeting toys To ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux

... "As this has been generally considered the least important part of a dictionary the subject has been little investigated, and is very imperfectly understood, even by men of science. Johnson scarcely entered the threshold of the subject. He consulted chiefly Junius and Skinner; the latter of whom was not possessed of learning adequate to the investigation, and Junius, like Vossius, Scaliger, and most other etymologists on the Continent, labored to deduce all languages from the Greek. Hence these authors neglected ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder

... of the household, who were constantly bringing in some bright little story, quaint anecdote or interesting bit of information to add to Peace's rapidly growing collection. At one time Mrs. Campbell would suddenly appear on the threshold with her hands filled with colored plates from some magazine article relating to birds or bees, plants or other nature study. Again Faith would bring in a bundle of laughable incidents gleaned from ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown

... Weldon from the threshold. Tidings like his could wait during no interchange of mere conventional greetings. Weldon heard him to the end, congratulated him, demanded the repetition of all the details. Then, when Carew's excitement ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... expands in search after new light, and feels energetically for new truth, the spirit of the Church is eternally entombed within the four corners of acts of parliament. Her ministers vow almost before they have crossed the threshold of manhood that they will search no more. They virtually swear that they will to the end of their days believe what they believe then, before they have had time either to think or to know the thoughts of others. They take oath, in other words, to lead mutilated lives. If they cannot keep this solemn ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... of the impression; for what daunts the onlooker is that monstrous sum of human suffering by which he stands surrounded. Lastly, no doctor or nurse is called upon to enter once for all the doors of that gehenna; they do not say farewell, they need not abandon hope, on its sad threshold; they but go for a time to their high calling, and can look forward as they go to relief, to recreation, and to rest. But Damien shut-to with his own hand the ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... looking out of the window a shadow darkened the doorway, and they looked up to see a tall young buck Indian standing on the threshold. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor

... winking very fast and clearing his throat. At the threshold he beckoned to his wife. But she had ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco

... Fort Genova, crowning the little point, a small old building due to my old Genoese acquaintance who fought and traded bravely once upon a time. A broken cannon of theirs forms the threshold; and through a dark, low arch we enter upon broad terraces sloping to the centre, from which rain-water may collect and run into that well. Large-breeched French troopers lounge about and are most civil; and the whole party sit down to breakfast in a little white-washed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Alcidiana to be conducted by her Lover into it: Who led her to the Door, and went to give some Order to the Coachman; so that the Lover was about twenty Yards from Alcidiana; when she stood the fairest Mark in the World, on the Threshold of the Entrance of the Theatre, there being many Coaches about the Door, so that hers could not come so near. Tarquin was resolved not to lose so fair an Opportunity, and advanc'd, but went behind the Coaches; ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... presently through the curtain appeared a royal-looking lady splendidly apparelled. She was accompanied by four waiting women who fell back on the threshold and were no more seen. The Prince stepped forward, took both her hands in his and kissed her on the brow, then drew back again, after which they stood a moment looking at each other. While they remained thus I studied her who was known throughout the land as the ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard

... from a small terra-cotta figure of the Assyrian period, and now in the Louvre. It was one of the figures buried under the threshold of one of the gates of the town at Khorsabad, to ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... Amy—"in YOUR apartment? It shall instantly be relieved of my presence." She hastened towards the door; but the sad recollection of her deserted state at once pressed on her mind, and pausing on the threshold, she added, in a tone unutterably pathetic, "Alas! I had forgot—I know ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... at the threshold of this new difficult world, knowing, as I do, that the milestones marking the backward path tell you, with certainty, that the greater part of your life and your work lies behind you, then, in these waiting days ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... of the submarine's presence in American waters. Off Nantucket it appeared in its true guise as a raider of shipping and sank five vessels—three British, one Dutch, and one Norwegian. Having thus brought the submarine war to the very threshold of the United States, causing a reign of terror among held-up shipping along the Atlantic seaboard—a state of mind which, while it lasted, meant a virtual blockade of American ports—it disappeared and was ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... bull's-eye shot, for Roy's desire by day and his dream by night was to trail her to her home; but the fear of her scornful greeting, the thought of a cutting query as to the meaning of his call, checked him at the very threshold of departure a ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... counterfeit, was shocked at seeing himself lauded in three-inch black characters on a flaring red ground, and driven in desperation to explain that while his gratitude was unbounded, he did not want an admiring crowd collected on his threshold. So, much to the disappointment of his servants, who in China feel that their master's glory reflects upon themselves, the announcement was ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon

... Gables. The memory of that long-ago visit lingers yet. He was the agreeable host, the gentleman; more than that, the tender, considerate husband, the kind, affectionate father. It has never been my good fortune to cross the threshold ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... was impossible that I should hesitate; I did not know, it is true, what might await me within, but it could not be worse and might well be better than my present plight. The door was open; I stepped in; and no sooner had I crossed the threshold than I was aware of an experience more extraordinary and delightful than it had ever been my lot to encounter. I had the sensation of seeing light for the first time! For hitherto, as I have tried to explain, though it has been necessary to speak in terms of sight, I have done so only ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson

... knowing his duty as a gunner, he has the same mathematical tools to work with." Upon this principle, Mr Tallboys had added John Hamilton Moore to his library, and had advanced about as far into navigation as he had in gunnery, that is, to the threshold, where he stuck fast, with all his mathematical tools, which he did not know how to use. To do him justice, he studied for two or three hours every day, and it was not his fault if he did not advance—but ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat

... a safe that stood against the wall, chucked the L. 14,000 in, and shammed the iron door sharply; and, as it closed upon the Cash with a clang, the parlour door burst open as if by concert, and David Dodd stood on the threshold, looking terrible. His ruddy colour was all gone, and he seemed black and white with anger and anxiety; and out of this blanched yet lowering face his eyes glowed like coals, and roved keenly to and fro between the banker and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... morning, as some visitors were taking their departure, there was an alarm of fire, and, sure enough, the stick chimney had caught and communicated to the garret, and in a few minutes the whole of the upper part of the house was in flames. Our visitors, who had not gone beyond the threshold, joined with the family and labourers in getting out the furniture as fast as possible. Nearly everything was saved from the lower part of the house, but all that was in the garret was lost. The garret had been used as a store-room, and contained cases which had not been unpacked ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... frontier lay vast and fertile vacant spaces; for the Americans had barely passed the threshold of the continent predestined to be the inheritance of their children and children's children. For generations the great feature in the nation's history, next only to the preservation of its national life, was to be its westward growth; and its ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... sign! When, on a sudden, out of the distance blared the bugle that hangs at the gate; Loud the barbican leaped on its hinges; and the hollow porch and the vacant hall And the roof of the long resounding corridor echoed the advent of unknown feet, The feet of a stranger approaching the threshold step by step irresistibly: Till opened yonder door and through it strode to this Table the Virgin Knight— Strode and stood ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves

... Venice at this time a rich money-lender, named Shylock. Antonio despised and disliked this man very much, and treated him with the greatest harshness and scorn. He would thrust him, like a cur, over his threshold, and would even spit on him. Shylock submitted to all these indignities with a patient shrug; but deep in his heart he cherished a desire for revenge on the rich, smug merchant. For Antonio both hurt his pride and ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit

... their morning meal. To the south ran a thick patch of forest, but I saw beyond it the spur of the mountain over which runs the highroad to Wesselsburg. The clear air of dawn was like wine in my blood. I was not free, but I was on the threshold of freedom. If I could only reach my friends with the Prester's collar in my shirt, I would have performed a feat which would never be forgotten. I would have made history by my glorious folly. Breakfastless and footsore, I was yet a proud ...
— Prester John • John Buchan

... entered. On the threshold they paused with a quick breath for the chaste beauty of vista and line, the soft play of color and shadow. Then sense of beauty faded before a thing that eye can not see nor tongue express, what the seekers had needed and what they found: peace, passing understanding, unseen but undoubted; hovering ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller

... daunted, I suppose, our hidden enemies; for Northmour and I had time to recover, to seize Clara between us, one by each arm, and to rush forth to his assistance, ere anything further had taken place. But scarce had we passed the threshold when there came near a dozen reports and flashes from every direction among the hollows of the links. Mr. Huddlestone staggered, uttered a weird and freezing cry, threw up his arms over his head, and fell backward ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Even on this occasion, serious as it might be deemed, the sergeant did not depart without giving some manifestation of that lightheartedness which no difficulties ever seemed to have the power to conquer. He thrust his head back into the room, after he had crossed the threshold, and said with an encouraging laugh, "Andy and me will teach them, Mistress Ramsay, Pat's point of ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... sojourner as I am in the land—though for me no social hearth may blaze, no hospitable roof throw open its doors, nor the warm grasp of friendship welcome me at the threshold—yet I feel the influence of the season beaming into my soul from the happy looks of those around me. Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven; and every countenance, bright with smiles, and glowing ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving

... duchess sang the last notes of her song, Furio appeared on the threshold. Some remorse for what he was to do, made the water for an instant dim his eyes, as he watched the group. But he had sworn to do his lord's bidding, and he only hesitated for a moment, looking up, Griselda saw him, and ...
— The Children's Portion • Various

... he would not take it, but another. I was grieved exceedingly to find that our people had become quite disheartened, and all resolved to return home. All I can say has no effect. I can only look up to God to influence their minds, that the enterprise fail not, now that we have reached the very threshold of the Portuguese settlements. I am greatly distressed at this change, for what else can be done for this miserable land I do not see. It is shut. O Almighty God, help, help! and leave not this wretched people to the slave-dealer ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... the shore in the direction of Fort Mason, the old red-brick fort at the entrance to the Golden Gate. At this point in the Presidio Government reservation the land is solitary. Wilbur followed the line of the beach to the old fort; and there, on the very threshold of the Western world, at the very outpost of civilization, sat down in the lee of the crumbling fortification, and scene by scene reviewed the extraordinary events of the ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... large chamber (if so that division of the tent might be called) hung with black serge. At the upper part of the space was an estrado, or platform, on which, by a long table, sat three men; while at the head of the board was seen the calm and rigid countenance of Tomas de Torquemada. The threshold of the tent was guarded by two men, in garments similar in hue and fashion to those of the figure who had ushered Almamen into the presence of the inquisitor, each bearing a long lance, and with a long two-edged sword by his side. ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... of people in this vast city, not one million cross the threshold of church or chapel. And then remember their condition. A hundred thousand live in constant want, slowly starving to death, every day and hour, and a quarter of the old people of London die as paupers. Isn't it a wonderful scene, sir? If ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... widowers were after a long cruise, we tarried among you sirens, myself almost at the threshold of my home, where my wife believed me dead, yet waited longingly and waits this morn, dear Patty. Dios da fe! My friend, entasselled with bright Betty, sooner felt remorse at the spectacle of his little child so ill-caressed, and beckoned ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... most solemn and momentous questions which could unite or separate the only two sons of the same father. Though Horatio had reasoned himself into the belief that Homer was as strongly a Union man as he was himself, he had argued without any adequate premises; and now, when he was almost on the threshold of his door, he did not feel sure of the position of his brother, though his ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic

... before the threshold, his out-stretched hands almost touching it, his moccasins already covered out of sight by the powdery snow which ran and trickled incessantly—trickled between his long, dishevelled locks, and over the back of his gloves, and ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... village; the same guard being apparently made to serve for both the prison and the gateway. The building was an almost exact facsimile of their own place of confinement, both in shape and dimensions; but at the very threshold the visitors encountered evidences of female delicacy and refinement in the shape of finely woven grass curtains or portieres across the otherwise unclosed entrance, and these trifling elegances were multiplied a hundred-fold in the interior, converting the ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... the flagstones, then the door rattled under a strong knock. Belding opened it. The Chases, father and son, stood beyond the threshold. ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... value of silence, the knowledge of men, the desire to change the world and the patience to bide his time. A few generations earlier he might have made a right-hand man to Cromwell and held a place in the heart of Hampden. On the very threshold of his manhood, when receiving his degree of Master of Arts at Harvard, he asserted his defiant democracy in a dissertation on the right of the people of a commonwealth to combine against injustice on the part of the head of the State. The badly dressed man with the grave firm face of a Pilgrim ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... these faithful wives, these devoted sons, these chaste daughters, these honest tradesmen, these men and women who were called irreproachable, and they were called irreproachable, and they were all writing at the same time, on the threshold of their eternal abode, the truth, the terrible and the holy truth which everybody is ignorant of, or pretends to be ignorant of, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... taken a wrong tack. It also showed me how deep Whit's trouble really was. I bade him good night and went to my berth, where sleep did not soon visit me. A saucy, sparkling-eyed woman barred Whit Hurtle's baseball career at its threshold. ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey

... was watering and freezing old earth by turns Just bad inquirin' too close among men Laying of ghosts is a public duty Minutes taken up by the grey puffs from their mouths No! Gentlemen don't fling stones; leave that to the blackguards On the threshold of Puberty, there is one Unselfish Hour Opened a wider view of the world to him, and a colder Our most diligent pupil learns not so much as an earnest teacher Rogue on the tremble of detection Rumour ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Richard, driven desperate. "I have been on the threshold of it, but somehow I couldn't lay hands on just the words. Dorothy knows I love her!" he repeated as though to himself. "It would ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... was heard, the inn awoke from its silence. A woman appeared on the threshold holding in her arms a pretty little creature about six ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina

... Father of lights. God's 'glory' is the flashing lustre of His manifested holiness, which fills the earth as the train of the robe filled the temple. The vibrations of that mighty hymn shook the 'foundations of the threshold' (Rev. Ver.) with its thunderous harmonies. 'The house was filled with smoke' which, since it was an effect of the seraph's praise, is best explained as referring to the fragrant smoke of incense which, as we know, symbolised 'the prayers ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... words in jest or earnest. All these mysteries made common and diffused certainly increase the feeling of the equality of opportunity in the world. And day by day such wonderful things are discovered and scattered abroad that we are warranted in believing that we are only on the threshold of turning to account the hidden forces of nature. There would be great danger of human presumption and conceit in this progress if the conceit were not so widely diffused, and where we are all conceited there is no one to whom it will appear unpleasant. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... whilst Martha rushed to the drawing-room door and locked it. They then with one accord began to pray. The steps halted outside the room, the door slowly opened, and the blurred outlines of a group of ghastly-looking figures, supporting a grotesquely shaped object in their midst, appeared on the threshold. For some seconds there was a grim silence. It was abruptly broken by a thud—Ruth had slipped from her chair to the floor in a dead faint; whereupon the shadowy forms solemnly veered round and made their way back again to the front door. The latter ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell

... utterly unsuspicious, he went to his bedroom door at the first summons in the King's name. He seems to have thought that Charles, indulging in one of his usual mad frolics, had come to punish him as he had punished others, like schoolboys. He opened the door and fell dead across the threshold, pierced by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... Swinburne Song, "Again rejoicing Nature sees" Robert Burns To Spring William Blake An Ode on the Spring Thomas Gray Spring Henry Timrod The Meadows in Spring Edward Fitzgerald The Spring William Barnes "When Spring Comes Back to England" Alfred Noyes New Life Amelia Josephine Burr "Over the Wintry Threshold" Bliss Carman March William Morris Song in March William Gilmore Simms March Nora Hopper Written in March William Wordsworth The Passing of March Robert Burns Wilson Home Thoughts, from Abroad Robert Browning Song, "April, April" William Watson ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... expressed the essential France hidden by the glare of the Third Republic. The music of Cesar Franck is the music of the people driven into themselves by the conditions of modern life. It is the music of the fine ones who stand hesitant on the threshold of the world, and have incessantly to struggle for the power to act, for faith and hope. It is the music of those who in the midst of millions feel themselves forsaken and alone and powerless, and in whose obscure ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... on his work-table. The vacuum cleaner's standby light calmed down. The button provided soothing sub-threshold stimuli to the Mahon unit, not quite giving it the illusion of operating perfectly—if a Mahon unit could be said to be capable of illusion—but maintaining it in the rest condition which was the foundation of Mahon-unit operation, since a Mahon machine ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... course; but Angel did not come in. She stopped on the threshold, talking to somebody, or rather somebody was talking to her. Rosemary could not see the person, but she recognised the voice. It was ...
— Rosemary - A Christmas story • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... of verdant forest, of enameled meadow, of crystal stream, of pure sky to one who had been blind. It was another atmosphere, another life. Brief as was her visit, it gave an impulse to those germs which lie deep in every poetic soul. She saw there was an illimitable world of Art, whose threshold as yet she had hardly trodden—and she went home full of the inspiration caught at the ancient fountains of Poetry and Art. From that time an intellectual change seems to have passed over her. Her studies took ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar

... Just over the threshold was the small room where visitors were asked to wait—a square, bare apartment with one window set high in the wall, with one lamp burning dimly on the table now. There were three or four chairs, and that was all. The bare walls were whitewashed. The ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... Katib, 'they, amongst the Franks, are those who for centuries have most rubbed their heads against the imperial threshold, and who have found most favour in the sight of our great and magnanimous sultan. They are powerful in ships; and in ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... saying that they imply abstention from every action that may suggest difficulty or delay in delivery; E.G. the hand must not be thrust into any narrow hole to pull anything out of it; no fixing of things with wooden pegs must be done; there must be no lingering on the threshold on entering or leaving a room. When the appointed day arrives, the woman sits in her room propped up and with a cloth round her, in the attitude commonly adopted during delivery. The child is pushed forward ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... barely passed the threshold before Dora, who had heard all, was at the telephone in her own room and was angrily calling up ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... crossed the threshold ere Smith had his arm about the girl's waist and one hand clapped to her mouth. A stifled gasp she uttered, and he lifted ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... through the darkness till a thread of light marked the threshold of a door. A knock and an answer opened it, and Martin found himself shaking hands with Kreis, a handsome brunette man, with dazzling white teeth, a drooping black mustache, and large, flashing black eyes. Mary, a matronly young blonde, was washing dishes ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... beginning of a new and important era in my life. Although upon the threshold of manhood, I had, until the relation with my master was sundered, only dim perceptions of the responsibilities of a more independent position. I longed to cast off the chains of servitude, because they chafed my free spirit, and because I had a notion that my position was founded ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various



Words linked to "Threshold" :   sill, case, entree, sense experience, outside door, difference limen, doorcase, outset, sense datum, commencement, entry, sensation, differential limen, edge, get-go, entrance, entranceway, start, casing, threshold operation, sense impression, exterior door, kickoff, starting time, showtime, boundary, aesthesis, esthesis, entryway, offset, doorframe, beginning, wall, bound, first



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