Clean Linen Quotes

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The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public.
Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest)
To this point, he could not really have said that he loved William. Feel the terror of responsibility for him, yes. Carry thought of him like a gem in his pocket, certainly, reaching now and then to touch it, marveling. But now he felt the perfection of the tiny bones of William’s spine through his clothes, smooth as marbles under his fingers, smelled the scent of him, rich with the incense of innocence and the faint tang of shit and clean linen. And thought his heart would break with love.
Diana Gabaldon (The Scottish Prisoner (Lord John Grey, #3))
Mary Farquhar, who always flirts with her own husband across the dinner-table. That is not very pleasant. Indeed, it is not even decent . . . and that sort of thing is enormously on the increase. The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public...
Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest)
Quick, where is the Red Cross God with the ointment and plaster the needle and thread and the clean linen bandages to mummify our festering dreams?
Janet Frame
There is something about the aroma of fresh books that's totally intoxicating. A new book has a certain clean, crisp smell full of promise that is difficult to define. Sort of like the scent and feeling of just-washed bed linens at the moment you slide your legs between them.
Debra Ginsberg (Blind Submission)
Sebastian left the bed and went to the washstand on unsteady legs. He felt dazed, uncertain, as if he were the one who had just lost his virginity instead of Evangeline. He had long thought that there was nothing new for him to experience. He had been wrong. For a man whose lovemaking was a practiced blend of technique and choreography, it had been a shock to find himself at the spontaneous mercy of his own passions. He had meant to withdraw at the last moment, but he had been so mindless with desire that he’d been unable to control his body. Damn. That had never happened before. Fumbling with the clean linen towel at the washstand, he made a project of dampening it with fresh water. By now his breathing had returned to normal, but he wasn’t at all calm. After what had just happened, he should have been satiated for hours. But it hadn’t been enough. He had experienced the longest, hardest, most wrenching climax of his life…and yet the need to have her again, open her, bury himself inside her, had not faded. It was madness. But why? Why with her?
Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Winter (Wallflowers, #3))
There are people on whom even clean linen looks indecent.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Demons)
How I hate this world. I would like to tear it apart with my own two hands if I could. I would like to dismantle the universe star by star, like a treeful of rotten fruit. Nor do I believe in progress. A vermin-eaten saint scratching his filth for heaven is better off than you damned in clean linen. Progress doubles our tenure in a vale of tears. Man is a mistake, to be corrected only by his abolition, which he gives promise of seeing to himself. Oh, let him pass, and leave the earth to the flowers that carpet the earth wherever he explodes his triumphs. Man is inconsolable, thanks to that eternal "Why?" when there is no Why, that question mark twisted like a fishhook in the human heart. "Let there be light," we cry, and only the dawn breaks.
Peter De Vries (The Blood of the Lamb)
A moment later, Garrett Graham’s deep voice comes on the line. “Clean sheets are in the linen closet, and you might want to bring your own pillow. Wellsy thinks mine are too soft.” “They are too soft,” Hannah protests. “It’s like sleeping on a soggy marshmallow.” “It’s like sleeping on a fluffy cloud,” Garrett corrects. “Trust me, Allie, my pillows rock. But you should still bring your own, just in case.
Elle Kennedy (The Score (Off-Campus, #3))
Even the sky a hybrid — here clean and black and starred, there roiling with a brusque signature of cloud or piled in strata like folded linen or the interior of rock.
Stanley Elkin
AN INCOMPLETE LIST: THINGS I LOVE ABOUT HRH PRINCE HENRY OF WALES 1. The sound of your laugh when I piss you off. 2. The way you smell underneath your fancy cologne, like clean linens but somehow also fresh grass (what kind of magic is this?) 3. That thing you do where you stick out your chin to try to look tough. 4. How your hands look when you play piano. 5. All he things I understand about myself now because of you. 6. How you think Return of the Jedi is the best Star Wars (wrong) because deep down you're a gigantic, sappy, embarrassing romantic who just wants the happily ever after. 7. Your ability to recite Keats. 8. Your ability to recite Bernadette's "Don't let it drag you down" monologue from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. 9. How hard you try. 10. How hard you've always tried. 11. How determined you are to keep trying. 12. That when your shoulders cover mine, nothing else in the entire stupid world matters. 13. The goddamn issue of Le Monde you brought back to London with you and kept and have on your nightstand (yes, I saw it). 14. The way you look when you first wake up. 15. Your shoulder-to-waist ratio. 16. Your huge, generous, ridiculous, indestructible heart. 17. Your equally huge dick. 18. The face you just made when you read that last one. 19. The way you look when you first wake up (I know I already said this, but I really, really love it). 20. The fact that you loved me all along.
Red, White & Royal Blue
AS THE heavy door shut behind him the cloud gradually lifted from the room. Rachel moved nervously to the table and began to wrap the leftover corn bread in a clean linen napkin. "Before I do another thing," she said, "I must take this to Widow Brown. She's still far too weak to fend for herself. Forgive me for leaving you, Katherine, but I'll be back in no time at all." "In no time," echoed Judith bitterly, as her mother hurried out into the foggy morning. "Just as soon as she's built up the fire and made gruel and tidied the whole cabin. With more than a day's work waiting here at home.
Elizabeth George Speare (The Witch of Blackbird Pond)
Here was intellectual life, he thought, and here was beauty, warm and wonderful as he had never dreamed it could be. He forgot himself and stared at her with hungry eyes. Here was something to live for, to win to, to fight for—ay, and die for. The books were true. There were such women in the world. She was one of them. She lent wings to his imagination, and great, luminous canvases spread themselves before him whereon loomed vague, gigantic figures of love and romance, and of heroic deeds for woman’s sake—for a pale woman, a flower of gold. And through the swaying, palpitant vision, as through a fairy mirage, he stared at the real woman, sitting there and talking of literature and art. He listened as well, but he stared, unconscious of the fixity of his gaze or of the fact that all that was essentially masculine in his nature was shining in his eyes. But she, who knew little of the world of men, being a woman, was keenly aware of his burning eyes. She had never had men look at her in such fashion, and it embarrassed her. She stumbled and halted in her utterance. The thread of argument slipped from her. He frightened her, and at the same time it was strangely pleasant to be so looked upon. Her training warned her of peril and of wrong, subtle, mysterious, luring; while her instincts rang clarion-voiced through her being, impelling her to hurdle caste and place and gain to this traveller from another world, to this uncouth young fellow with lacerated hands and a line of raw red caused by the unaccustomed linen at his throat, who, all too evidently, was soiled and tainted by ungracious existence. She was clean, and her cleanness revolted; but she was woman, and she was just beginning to learn the paradox of woman.
Jack London (Martin Eden)
Her smile held–held and yet changed, the way freshness depart white linens once you unfold them and put them on the table or bed. Still clean, bright, but something departed.
Alison Atlee (The Typewriter Girl)
Leave a chimney-sweep alone when you see him, Chiltern. Should he run against you, then remember that it is one of the necessary penalties of clean linen that it is apt to be soiled.
Anthony Trollope (The Prime Minister)
I smile at the thought. And finally, there’s a key. “To my heart and soul,” he whispers. Tears prick my eyes. I launch myself at him, curling my arms around his neck and settling into his lap. “It’s such a thoughtful present. I love it. Thank you,” I murmur against his ear. Oh, he smells so good—clean, of fresh linen, body wash, and Christian. Like home, my home. My threatened tears begin to fall.
E.L. James (Fifty Shades Freed (Fifty Shades, #3))
Mr. Brock’s account of his adventure in London has given the reader some short notice of his friend, Mr Macshane. Neither the wits nor the principles of that worthy Ensign were particularly firm: for drink, poverty, and a crack on the skull at the battle of Steenkirk had served to injure the former; and the Ensign was not in his best days possessed of any share of the latter. He had really, at one period, held such a rank in the army, but pawned his half-pay for drink and play; and for many years past had lived, one of the hundred thousand miracles of our city, upon nothing that anybody knew of, or of which he himself could give any account. Who has not a catalogue of these men in his list? who can tell whence comes the occasional clean shirt, who supplies the continual means of drunkenness, who wards off the daily-impending starvation? Their life is a wonder from day to day: their breakfast a wonder; their dinner a miracle; their bed an interposition of Providence. If you and I, my dear sir, want a shilling tomorrow, who will give it us? Will OUR butchers give us mutton-chops? will OUR laundresses clothe us in clean linen? — not a bone or a rag. Standing as we do (may it be ever so) somewhat removed from want,[*] is there one of us who does not shudder at the thought of descending into the lists to combat with it, and
William Makepeace Thackeray (Delphi Complete Works of W. M. Thackeray (Illustrated))
Then her affection was in the soft sofa cushions, clean linens, and good meals; her memory in well-stocked storeroom cabinets and the pantry; her intelligence in the order and healthfulness of her home; her good humor in its light and air. She lived her life not only through her own body but through the house as an extension of her body; part of her relation to those she loved was embodied in the physical medium of the home she made.
Cheryl Mendelson (Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House)
His OFELLUS in the Art of Living in London, I have heard him relate, was an Irish painter, whom he knew at Birmingham, and who had practiced his own precepts of economy for several years in the British capital. He assured Johnson, who, I suppose, was then meditating to try his fortune in London, but was apprehensive of the expence, 'that thirty pounds a year was enough to enable a man to live there without being contemptible. He allowed ten pounds for cloaths and linen. He said a man might live in a garret at eighteen-pence a week; few people would inquire where he lodged; and if they did, it was easy to say, "Sir, I am to be found at such a place." By spending three-pence in a coffee-house, he might be for some hours every day in very good company; he might dine for six-pence, breakfast on bread and milk for a penny, and do without supper. On clean-shirt day he went abroad, and paid visits.
James Boswell (The Life of Samuel Johnson)
As Garrett looked up from the transfuser, she blinked at the sight of a shirtless West Ravenel hoisting himself easily onto the table. Despite his earlier crack about Ethan's athletic form, he was certainly no physical lightweight himself. He had the hard, rippling musculature of a man accustomed to lifting and carrying heavy weight. But what had surprised Garrett was the discovery that his torso was tanned the same shade of golden brown as his face. All over. What kind of gentleman went outside in the sun for that long with no shirt?" Ravenel's lips quirked as he saw her expression. A twinkle of arrogant amusement appeared in his eyes. "Farmwork," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. "And I do some quarrying." "Half naked?" Garrett asked tartly, setting the transfuser on an expanse of clean linen. "I've been loading rocks into horse carts," he said. "Which suits my intellectual capacity perfectly. But it's too hot for a shirt.
Lisa Kleypas (Hello Stranger (The Ravenels, #4))
Imagine that Abundance is a wonderful guest that you would love to come and stay. Clean the house, prepare great food, have fresh linen on the beds, light fires, chill the champagne, buy or grow fresh flowers … just be ready for Abundance to drop in unexpectedly.
Jane Monica-Jones (The Billionaire Buddha)
He would scrub the floors on his hands and knees, beat the rugs, wash the windows and pound the bed linen in the tin bath at the outdoor pump. All those heavy chores he knew intimately; his identity lay in the dirt others left behind and his salvation lay in cleaning it up.
Christina McKenna (The Misremembered Man (Tailorstown #1))
Saturday was general cleaning day in accordance with the rules laid down by the Foundress. Every nun, professed or lay, scrubbed down her cell, took her linen to the laundry room, made up her narrow bed with fresh sheets and changed her underwear for the second time in a week.
Veronica Black (Sister Joan Mysteries #1-5: A Vow of Silence / A Vow of Chastity / A Vow of Sanctity / A Vow of Obedience / A Vow of Penance (Sister Joan Mystery #1-5))
Glistening liquid pooled in two spots. Matthew was trying to clean it up, but his hands were shaking, his jaw working. I grabbed some towels from the linen closet and knelt beside him. “I have this,” I whispered. Matthew sat back, lifting his head and closing his eyes. He let out a staggered breath. “This should’ve never happened.” Tear built in my eyes as I sopped up what was left of Adam. “I know.” They are all like my children. Now I’ve lost another, and for what? It doesn’t make sense.” His shoulders shook. “It never makes sense.” “I’m sorry.” Wetness gathered on my cheeks, and I wiped at my face with my shoulder. “His is my fault. He was trying to protect me.” …. “It’s not just your fault Katy. This was a world you stumbled into, one filled with treachery and greed. You weren’t prepared for it. Neither are any of them.” I lifted my head, blinking back tears. “I trusted Blake when I should’ve trusted Daemon. I let this happen.” Matthew twisted toward me, grasping my cheeks. “You cannot take on the full responsibility for this. You didn’t make the choices Blake did. You didn’t force his hand.” I choked on a broken sob as grief tore through me. His words didn’t ease the guilt, and he knew it. Then the strangest thing happened. He pulled me into his arms, and I broke. Sobs raked my entire body. I pressed my head against his shoulder, my body shaking his, or maybe he was crying for his loss, too. Time passed, and it became New Year. I welcomed it with tears streaming down my face and a heart ripped apart. When my tear dried, my eyes nearly swollen shut. He pulled back, pushing my hair aside. “This isn’t the end of anything for you … for Daemon. This is just the beginning, and now you know what you’re truly up against. Don’t end up like Dawson and Bethany. Both of you are stronger than that.
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Onyx (Lux, #2))
What they did not know was that she chafed at the never-endingness of it. No sooner had she cleaned one surface than it was dirty again. Clothes, even those barely worn, found themselves in crumpled heaps in linen baskets so that she yelled at Kitty and Thierry, hating her shrewish voice. Once, bored to within an inch of her sanity by the act of hanging out yet another lineful, she had simply turned, dropped the basket and walked straight into the lake, pausing only to remove her shoes. The water had been so shockingly cold that it had knocked the breath from her chest, and left her laughing for the sheer joy of feeling something.
Jojo Moyes (Night Music)
With all the arrangements made, Marcus carried Lillian to the largest guest room in the building, where a bath and food were sent up as quickly as possible. It was sparely furnished but very clean, with an ample bed covered in pressed linen and soft, faded quilts. An old copperplate slipper tub was set before the hearth and filled by two chambermaids carrying steaming kettles. As Lillian waited for the bathwater to cool sufficiently, Marcus bullied her into eating a bowl of soup, which was quite tolerable, though its ingredients were impossible to identify. “What are those little brown chunks?” Lillian asked suspiciously, opening her mouth reluctantly as he spooned more in. “It doesn’t matter. Swallow.” “Is it mutton? Beef? Did it originally have horns? Hooves? Feathers? Scales? I don’t like to eat something when I don’t know what—” “More,” he said inexorably, pushing the spoon into her mouth again. “You’re a tyrant.” “I know. Drink some water.
Lisa Kleypas (It Happened One Autumn (Wallflowers, #2))
Sure, I ached for the backroads of my hometown in Missouri, but leaving behind a scholarship would’ve been a defeat for my folks, who had no idea what it was like for me—they who thought their little girl was up north learning the truth of America in the sort of place where a young woman could cross the thresholds of the rich. They told me that my southern charm would get me by. My father wrote letters that began: My Little Glorious. I wrote back on airmail paper. I told them how much I loved my history classes, which was true. I told them I loved walking the woods, true too. I told them that I always had clean linen in my dorm room, true as well.
Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin)
481 I went into the barbershop as usual, with the pleasant sensation of entering a familiar place, easily and naturally. New things are distressing to my sensibility; I’m at ease only in places where I’ve already been. After I’d sat down in the chair, I happened to ask the young barber, occupied in fastening a clean, cool cloth around my neck, about his older colleague from the chair to the right, a spry fellow who had been sick. I didn’t ask this because I felt obliged to ask something; it was the place and my memory that sparked the question. ‘He passed away yesterday,’ flatly answered the barber’s voice behind me and the linen cloth as his fingers withdrew from the final tuck of the cloth in between my shirt collar and my neck. The whole of my irrational good mood abruptly died, like the eternally missing barber from the adjacent chair. A chill swept over all my thoughts. I said nothing. Nostalgia! I even feel it for people and things that were nothing to me, because time’s fleeing is for me an anguish, and life’s mystery is a torture. Faces I habitually see on my habitual streets – if I stop seeing them I become sad. And they were nothing to me, except perhaps the symbol of all of life. The nondescript old man with dirty gaiters who often crossed my path at nine-thirty in the morning… The crippled seller of lottery tickets who would pester me in vain… The round and ruddy old man smoking a cigar at the door of the tobacco shop… The pale tobacco shop owner… What has happened to them all, who because I regularly saw them were a part of my life? Tomorrow I too will vanish from the Rua da Prata, the Rua dos Douradores, the Rua dos Fanqueiros. Tomorrow I too – I this soul that feels and thinks, this universe I am for myself – yes, tomorrow I too will be the one who no longer walks these streets, whom others will vaguely evoke with a ‘What’s become of him?’. And everything I’ve done, everything I’ve felt and everything I’ve lived will amount merely to one less passer-by on the everyday streets of some city or other.
Fernando Pessoa (The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition)
he had developed a system that enabled him to sleep in clean sheets every night without the trouble of bed changing. He’d been proposing the system to Sarah for years, but she was so set in her ways. What he did was strip the mattress of all linens, replacing them with a giant sort of envelope made from one of the seven sheets he had folded and stitched together on the sewing machine. He thought of this invention as a Macon Leary Body Bag. A body bag required no tucking in, was unmussable, easily changeable, and the perfect weight for summer nights. In winter he would have to devise something warmer, but he couldn’t think of winter yet. He was barely making it from one day to the next as it was. At moments—while he was skidding
Anne Tyler (The Accidental Tourist)
Her real secret was that she identified herself with her home. Of course, this did not always turn out well. A controlling woman might make her home suffocating. A perfectionist’s home might be chilly and forbidding. But it is more illuminating to think about what happened when things went right. Then her affection was in the soft sofa cushions, clean linens, and good meals; her memory in well-stocked storeroom cabinets and the pantry; her intelligence in the order and healthfulness of her home; her good humor in its light and air. She lived her life not only through her own body but through the house as an extension of her body; part of her relation to those she loved was embodied in the physical medium of the home she made. My
Cheryl Mendelson (Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House)
The Sun King had dinner each night alone. He chose from forty dishes, served on gold and silver plate. It took a staggering 498 people to prepare each meal. He was rich because he consumed the work of other people, mainly in the form of their services. He was rich because other people did things for him. At that time, the average French family would have prepared and consumed its own meals as well as paid tax to support his servants in the palace. So it is not hard to conclude that Louis XIV was rich because others were poor. But what about today? Consider that you are an average person, say a woman of 35, living in, for the sake of argument, Paris and earning the median wage, with a working husband and two children. You are far from poor, but in relative terms, you are immeasurably poorer than Louis was. Where he was the richest of the rich in the world’s richest city, you have no servants, no palace, no carriage, no kingdom. As you toil home from work on the crowded Metro, stopping at the shop on the way to buy a ready meal for four, you might be thinking that Louis XIV’s dining arrangements were way beyond your reach. And yet consider this. The cornucopia that greets you as you enter the supermarket dwarfs anything that Louis XIV ever experienced (and it is probably less likely to contain salmonella). You can buy a fresh, frozen, tinned, smoked or pre-prepared meal made with beef, chicken, pork, lamb, fish, prawns, scallops, eggs, potatoes, beans, carrots, cabbage, aubergine, kumquats, celeriac, okra, seven kinds of lettuce, cooked in olive, walnut, sunflower or peanut oil and flavoured with cilantro, turmeric, basil or rosemary … You may have no chefs, but you can decide on a whim to choose between scores of nearby bistros, or Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Indian restaurants, in each of which a team of skilled chefs is waiting to serve your family at less than an hour’s notice. Think of this: never before this generation has the average person been able to afford to have somebody else prepare his meals. You employ no tailor, but you can browse the internet and instantly order from an almost infinite range of excellent, affordable clothes of cotton, silk, linen, wool and nylon made up for you in factories all over Asia. You have no carriage, but you can buy a ticket which will summon the services of a skilled pilot of a budget airline to fly you to one of hundreds of destinations that Louis never dreamed of seeing. You have no woodcutters to bring you logs for the fire, but the operators of gas rigs in Russia are clamouring to bring you clean central heating. You have no wick-trimming footman, but your light switch gives you the instant and brilliant produce of hardworking people at a grid of distant nuclear power stations. You have no runner to send messages, but even now a repairman is climbing a mobile-phone mast somewhere in the world to make sure it is working properly just in case you need to call that cell. You have no private apothecary, but your local pharmacy supplies you with the handiwork of many thousands of chemists, engineers and logistics experts. You have no government ministers, but diligent reporters are even now standing ready to tell you about a film star’s divorce if you will only switch to their channel or log on to their blogs. My point is that you have far, far more than 498 servants at your immediate beck and call. Of course, unlike the Sun King’s servants, these people work for many other people too, but from your perspective what is the difference? That is the magic that exchange and specialisation have wrought for the human species.
Matt Ridley (The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves)
Oh, the way he was looking at her, really looking at her . . . this was the Christopher of her dreams. This was the man who had written to her. He was so caring, and real, and dazzling, that she wanted to weep. “I thought . . .” Christopher broke off and drew his thumb over the hot surface of her cheek. “I know,” she whispered, her nerves sparking in excitement at his touch. “I didn’t mean to do that.” “I know.” His gaze went to her parted lips, lingering until she felt it like a caress. Her heart labored to supply blood to her nerveless limbs. Every breath caused her body to lift up against his, a teasing friction of firm flesh and clean, warm linen. Beatrix was transfixed by the subtle changes in his face, the heightening color, the silver brightness of his eyes. She wondered if he were going to kiss her. And a single word flashed through her mind. Please. . .
Lisa Kleypas (Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways, #5))
They here shall be redeemed from sin, Shall here put on their glorious dress, Fine linen, pure, and white, and clean The saints' inherent righteousness. Love, perfect love, expels all doubt, Love makes them to the end endure; Their names thou never wilt blot out; Their life is hid, their heart is pure. Their names thou wilt vouchsafe to own Before thy Father's majesty, Pronounce them good, and say, 'Well done, Enter, and ever reign with me!
Charles Wesley
I dabbled my fingers into the bowl of warm water a Ladies' Day waitress set down in place of my two empty ice cream dishes. Then I wiped each finger carefully with my linen napkin which was still quite clean. Then I folded the linen napkin and laid it between my lips and brought my lips down on it precisely. When I put the napkin back on the table a fuzzy pink lip shape bloomed right in the middle of it like a tiny heart. I thought what a long way I had come.
Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)
I will always be the other woman. I disappear for a time like the moon in daylight, then rise at night all mother-of-pearl so that a man’s upturned face, watching, will have reflected on it the milk of longing. And though he may leave, memory will perfect me. One day the light may fall in a certain way on Penelope’s hair, and he will pause wildly… but when she turns, it will only be his wife, to whom white sheets simply mean laundry— even Nausikaä in her silly braids thought more washing linen than of him, preferring Odysseus clean and oiled to that briny, unkempt lion I would choose. Let Dido and her kind leap from cliffs for love. My men will moan and dream of me for years… desire and need become the same animal in the silken dark. To be the other woman is to be a season that is always about to end, when the air is flowered with jasmine and peach, and the weather day after day is flawless, and the forecast is hurricane.
Linda Pastan (The Imperfect Paradise)
Sometime in the second week it becomes clear to Molly that “cleaning out the attic” means taking things out, fretting over them for a few minutes, and putting them back where they were, in a slightly neater stack. Out of the two dozen boxes she and Vivian have been through so far, only a short pile of musty books and some yellowed linen have been deemed too ruined to keep. “I don’t think I’m helping you much,” Molly says. “Well, that’s true,” Vivian says. “But I’m helping you, aren’t I?
Christina Baker Kline (Orphan Train)
system that enabled him to sleep in clean sheets every night without the trouble of bed changing. He’d been proposing the system to Sarah for years, but she was so set in her ways. What he did was strip the mattress of all linens, replacing them with a giant sort of envelope made from one of the seven sheets he had folded and stitched together on the sewing machine. He thought of this invention as a Macon Leary Body Bag. A body bag required no tucking in, was unmussable, easily changeable, and the perfect weight for summer nights.
Anne Tyler (The Accidental Tourist)
He was able to sleep on bare boards; he drank plain hot water with neither tea nor sugar; he ate stale bread; he wore footcloths rather than socks. He had no bed linen, but she noticed that his shirt collar was always clean, even though the shirt had been washed so many times that it had gone yellow. And in the mornings he always took out a chipped, battered little box that had once contained fruit drops and that now contained his washing things; he would brush his teeth and carefully soap his face, his neck, and his arms up to his elbows.
Vasily Grossman (Everything Flows)
He waked up late next day after a broken sleep. But his sleep had not refreshed him; he waked up bilious, irritable, ill-tempered, and looked with hatred at his room. It was a tiny cupboard of a room about six paces in length. It had a poverty-stricken appearance with its dusty yellow paper peeling off the walls, and it was so low-pitched that a man of more than average height was ill at ease in it and felt every moment that he would knock his head against the ceiling. The furniture was in keeping with the room: there were three old chairs, rather rickety; a painted table in the corner on which lay a few manuscripts and books; the dust that lay thick upon them showed that they had been long untouched. A big clumsy sofa occupied almost the whole of one wall and half the floor space of the room; it was once covered with chintz, but was now in rags and served Raskolnikov as a bed. Often he went to sleep on it, as he was, without undressing, without sheets, wrapped in his old student's overcoat, with his head on one little pillow, under which he heaped up all the linen he had, clean and dirty, by way of a bolster. A little table stood in front of the sofa.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment)
Her fingers clawed uselessly at his clothes as her desire escalated to near madness. Simon invaded her in deep lunges, his rhythm insistent, until rapture shot and echoed through both of them, and their lungs pulled in drafts of air laden with the scent of clean, pressed linen, and their entwined limbs tightened as if to trap the sensation between them. “Damn,” Simon muttered a few minutes later, when he was able to catch his breath. “What?” Annabelle whispered, her head resting heavily against his coat lapel. “For the rest of my life, the smell of starch is going to make me hard.
Lisa Kleypas (Secrets of a Summer Night (Wallflowers, #1))
Well, now, if we’d known we were going to have such…ah…gra…that is, illustrious company, we’d have-“ “Swept off the chairs?” Lucinda suggested acidly. “Shoveled off the floor?” “Lucinda!” Elizabeth whispered desperately. “They didn’t know we were coming.” “No respectable person would dwell in such a place even for a night,” she snapped, and Elizabeth watched in mingled distress and admiration as the redoubtable woman turned around and directed her attack on their unwilling host. “The responsibility for our being here is yours, whether it was a mistake or not! I shall expect you to rout your servants from their hiding places and have them bring clean linens up to us at once. I shall also expect them to have this squalor remedied by morning! It is obvious from your behavior that you are no gentleman; however, we are ladies, and we shall expect to be treated as such.” From the corner of her eye Elizabeth had been watching Ian Thornton, who was listening to all of this, his jaw rigid, a muscle beginning to twitch dangerously in the side of his neck. Lucinda, however, was either unaware of or unconcerned with his reaction, for, as she picked up her skirts and turned toward the stairs, she turned on Jake. “You may show us to our chambers. We wish to retire.” “Retire!” cried Jake, thunderstruck. “But-but what about supper?” he sputtered. “You may bring it up to us.” Elizabeth saw the blank look on Jake’s face, and she endeavored to translate, politely, what the irate woman was saying to the startled red-haired man. “What Miss Throckmorton-Jones means is that we’re rather exhausted from our trip and not very good company, sir, and so we prefer to dine in our rooms.” “You will dine,” Ian Thornton said in an awful voice that made Elizabeth freeze, “on what you cook for yourself, madam. If you want clean linens, you’ll get them yourself from the cabinet. If you want clean rooms, clean them! Am I making myself clear?” “Perfectly!” Elizabeth began furiously, but Lucinda interrupted in a voice shaking with ire: “Are you suggesting, sirrah, that we are to do the work of servants?” Ian’s experience with the ton and with Elizabeth had given him a lively contempt for ambitious, shallow, self-indulgent young women whose single goal in life was to acquire as many gowns and jewels as possible with the least amount of effort, and he aimed his attack at Elizabeth. “I am suggesting that you look after yourself for the first time in your silly, aimless life. In return for that, I am willing to give you a roof over your head and to share our food with you until I can get you to the village. If that is too overwhelming a task for you, then my original invitation still stands: There’s the door. Use it!” Elizabeth knew the man was irrational, and it wasn’t worth riling herself to reply to him, so she turned instead to Lucinda. “Lucinda,” she said with weary resignation, “do not upset yourself by trying to make Mr. Thornton understand that his mistake has inconvenienced us, not the other way around. You will only waste your time. A gentleman of breeding would be perfectly able to understand that he should be apologizing instead of ranting and raving. However, as I told you before we came here, Mr. Thornton is no gentleman. The simple fact is that he enjoys humiliating people, and he will continue trying to humiliate us for as long as we stand here.” Elizabeth cast a look of well-bred disdain over Ian and said, “Good night, Mr. Thornton.” Turning, she softened her voice a little and said, “Good evening, Mr. Wiley.
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
if the diseased area has faded after it has been washed, he shall tear it out of the garment or the skin or the warp or the woof. 57Then if it appears again in the garment, in the warp or the woof, or in any article made of skin, it is spreading. You shall burn with fire whatever has the disease. 58But the garment, or the warp or the woof, or any article made of skin from which the disease departs when you have washed it, shall then be washed a second time, and be clean.” 59This is the law for a case of leprous disease in a garment of wool or linen, either in the warp or the woof, or in any article made of skin, to determine whether it is clean or unclean.
Anonymous (Holy Bible: English Standard Version (ESV))
Ant then, opening her eyes, how fresh like frilled linen clean from a laundry, laid in wicker trays the roses looked; and dark and prim the red carnations, holding their heads up; and all the sweet peas spreading in their bowls, tinged violet, snow white, pale - as if it were the evening and girls in muslin frocks came out to pick sweet peas and roses after the superb summer's day, with its almost blue-black sky, its delphiniums, its carnations, its arum lilies was over; and it was the moment between six and seven when every flower - roses, carnations, irises, lilac - glows; white, violet, red, deep orange; every flower seems to burn by itself, softly, purely in the misty beds; and how she loved the grey-white moths spinning in and out, over the cherry pie, over the evening primroses!
Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway)
gentleman all over; and so was his family. He was well born, as the saying is, and that’s worth as much in a man as it is in a horse, so the Widow Douglas said, and nobody ever denied that she was of the first aristocracy in our town; and pap he always said it, too, though he warn’t no more quality than a mudcat himself. Col. Grangerford was very tall and very slim, and had a darkish-paly complexion, not a sign of red in it anywheres; he was clean shaved every morning all over his thin face, and he had the thinnest kind of lips, and the thinnest kind of nostrils, and a high nose, and heavy eyebrows, and the blackest kind of eyes, sunk so deep back that they seemed like they was looking out of caverns at you, as you may say. His forehead was high, and his hair was black and straight and hung to his shoulders. His hands was long and thin, and every day of his life he put on a clean shirt and a full suit from head to foot made out of linen so white it hurt your eyes to look at it; and on Sundays he wore a blue tail-coat with brass buttons on it. He carried a mahogany cane with a silver head to it.
Mark Twain (The Complete Adventures of Huckleberry Finn And Tom Sawyer (Unabridged))
We need to talk about that comment you just made. Something about how you won't attract notice?" "Yes. Well, what of it?" He put his hands on the dressing table, one on either side of her hips. His blue eyes pinned her, as surely as if she'd been a butterfly pinned to a board. "Like hell you won't attract notice," he said. "You have my notice." Maddie squirmed, trying to escape. "Really, we'll be late. We should be leaving." He didn't budge. "Not just yet." "But I thought you were in a hurry." "I have time for this." The words were a low growl that sank to her belly and simmered there. He leaned close enough that she could breathe in the scent of his clean hair and skin, along with the faint aromas of soap and starched linen. She'd never drawn a more arousing breath. "You may say you dinna want to attract notice. Well, I notice all of you." He tipped his head, letting his gaze saunter down her body. "In fact, I'm starting to fancy myself a sort of naturalist. One with verra particular interests. I'm becoming quite the expert in Madeline Eloise Gracechurch." "Logan..." "And lass, you canna stop me.
Tessa Dare (When a Scot Ties the Knot (Castles Ever After, #3))
I wrote that the sails are our desires that must be perfectly pure and clean, since the port we seek is the knowledge of God, which none can attain save the pure in heart.[291] Hence it is written of the ship of Tyre:  “Fine broidered linen . . . was woven for your sail.” [292]  The mast is the love of God, which the same prophet declares was made of cedar and incorruptible, as the soul should never fail in the practice of any exercise; the cedar must come from Libanus, which means ‘beatitude’, for infused charity is perfect love. To this mast must be fastened the ropes of peace and harmony with God, ourselves, and our neighbor, which in Holy Scripture are called ‘the bands of love.’ [293]  The mariner's compass is faith, by which the rudder must be directed, and the helm is prudence. The compass points to the North, for faith must rule us and raise us to contemplation between the two is discretion, which is very necessary. The pilot is good counsel: he must be guided by the mariner's chart, that is, the Holy Scriptures, if he wishes to avoid mistakes. The sounding-line is prudence, by which we must measure what is to be done if we wish to succeed: the pilot, or sage counsel, must plumb the water over which we sail, that is, our restless life.
Francisco De Osuna (Third Spiritual Alphabet)
Lillian’s lashes lowered as she let him ease her closer, his hand sliding over the length of her spine. Her breasts and waist felt swollen within the insulating grip of her corset, and she suddenly longed to be rid of it. Taking as deep a breath as the stays would allow, she became aware of a sweetly spicy scent in the air. “What is that?” she murmured, drawing in the fragrance. “Cinnamon and wine…” Turning in the circle of his arms, she looked around the spacious bedroom, past the poster bed to the small table that had been set near the window. There was a covered silver dish on the table, from which a few traces of sweet-scented steam were still visible. Perplexed, she twisted back to look at Marcus. “Go and find out,” he said. Curiously Lillian went to investigate. Taking hold of the cover’s handle, which had been wrapped with a linen napkin, she lifted the lid, letting a soft burst of intoxicating fragrance into the air. Momentarily puzzled, Lillian stared at the dish, and then burst out laughing. The white porcelain dish was filled with five perfect pears, all standing on end, their skin gleaming and ruby-red from having been poached in wine. They sat in a pool of clear amber sauce that was redolent of cinnamon and honey. “Since I couldn’t obtain a pear from a bottle for you,” came Marcus’s voice from behind her, “this was the next best alternative.” Lillian picked up a spoon and dug into one of the melting-soft pears, lifting it to her lips with relish. The bite of warm, wine-soaked fruit seemed to dissolve in her mouth, the spiced honey sauce causing a tingle in the back of her throat. “Mmmm…” She closed her eyes in ecstasy. Looking amused, Marcus turned her to face him. His gaze fell to the corner of her lips, where a stray drop of honey sauce glittered. Ducking his head, he kissed and licked away the sticky drop, the caress of his mouth causing a new pleasurable ache deep inside her. “Delicious,” he whispered, his lips settling more firmly, until she felt as if her blood were flowing in streams of white-hot sparks. She dared to share the taste of wine and cinnamon with him, tentatively exploring his mouth with her tongue, and his response was so encouraging that she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself closer. He was delicious, the taste of his mouth clean and sweet, the feel of his lean, solid body immeasurably exciting. Her lungs expanded with shaky-hot breaths, restrained by the clench of her corset stays, and she broke the kiss with a gasp. “I can’t breathe.” Wordlessly Marcus turned her around and unfastened the gown. Reaching her corset, he untied the laces and loosened them with a series of expert tugs, until the stays expanded and Lillian gulped in relief. “Why did you lace so tightly?” she heard him ask. “Because the dress wouldn’t fasten otherwise. And because, according to my mother, Englishmen prefer their women to be narrow-waisted.” Marcus snorted as he eased her back to face him. “Englishmen prefer women to have larger waists in lieu of fainting from lack of oxygen. We’re rather practical that way.” Noticing that the sleeve of her unfastened gown had slipped over her white shoulder, he lowered his mouth to the smooth curve.
Lisa Kleypas (It Happened One Autumn (Wallflowers, #2))
Bruno reappeared with two baskets swathed in white linen napkins and a ramekin of something bright yellow. Thatcher unveiled one basket. "Pretzel bread," he said. He held up a thick braid of what looked to be soft pretzel, nicely tanned, sprinkled with coarse salt. "This is served with Fee's homemade mustard. So right away the guest knows this isn't a run-of-the-mill restaurant. They're not getting half a cold baguette here, folks, with butter in the gold foil wrapper. This is warm pretzel bread made on the premises, and the mustard ditto. Nine out of ten tables are licking the ramekin clean." He handed the bread basket to a waiter with a blond ponytail (male- everyone at the table was male except for Adrienne, Caren, and the young bar back who was hanging on to Duncan's arm). The ponytailed waiter- name?- tore off a hunk of bread and dipped it in the mustard. He rolled his eyes like he was having an orgasm. The appropriate response, Adrienne thought. But remembering her breakfast she guessed he wasn't faking it. "The other basket contains our world-famous savory doughnuts," Thatcher said. He whipped the cloth off like a magician, revealing six golden-brown doughnuts. Doughnuts? Adrienne had been too nervous to think about eating all day, but now her appetite was roused. After the menu meeting, they were going to have family meal. The doughnuts were deep-fried rings of a light, yeasty, herb-flecked dough. Chive, basil, rosemary. Crisp on the outside, soft on the inside. Savory doughnuts. Who wouldn't stand in line for these? Who wouldn't beg or steal to access the private phone line so that they could make a date with these doughnuts?
Elin Hilderbrand (The Blue Bistro)
Annabelle met her at the door, looking strained and weary but wearing a brilliant smile. And there was a tiny bundle of linen and clean toweling in her arms. Daisy put her fingers over her mouth and shook her head slightly, laughing even as her eyes prickled with tears. “Oh my,” she said, staring at the red-faced baby, the bright dark eyes, the wealth of black hair. “Say hello to your niece,” Annabelle said, gently handing the infant to her. Daisy took the baby carefully, astonished by how light she was. “My sister—” “Lillian’s fine,” Annabelle replied at once. “She did splendidly.” Cooing to the baby, Daisy entered the room. Lillian was resting against a stack of pillows, her eyes closed. She looked very small in the large bed, her hair braided in two plaits like a young girl’s. Westcliff was at her side, looking like he had just fought Waterloo singlehandedly. The veterinarian was at the washstand, soaping his hands. He threw Daisy a friendly smile, and she grinned back at him. “Congratulations, Mr. Merritt,” she said. “It seems you’ve added a new species to your repertoire.” Lillian stirred at the sound of her voice. “Daisy?” Daisy approached with the baby in her arms. “Oh, Lillian, she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” Her sister grinned sleepily. “I think so too. Would you—” she broke off to yawn. “Show her to Mother and Father?” “Yes, of course. What is her name?” “Merritt.” “You’re naming her after the veterinarian?” “He proved to be quite helpful,” Lillian replied. “And Westcliff said I could.” The earl tucked the bedclothes more snugly around his wife’s body and kissed her forehead. “Still no heir,” Lillian whispered to him, her grin lingering. “I suppose we’ll have to have another one.” “No, we won’t,” Westcliff replied hoarsely. “I’m never going through this again.
Lisa Kleypas (Scandal in Spring (Wallflowers, #4))
The Sun King had dinner each night alone. He chose from forty dishes, served on gold and silver plate. It took a staggering 498 people to prepare each meal. He was rich because he consumed the work of other people, mainly in the form of their services. He was rich because other people did things for him. At that time, the average French family would have prepared and consumed its own meals as well as paid tax to support his servants in the palace. So it is not hard to conclude that Louis XIV was rich because others were poor. But what about today? Consider that you are an average person, say a woman of 35, living in, for the sake of argument, Paris and earning the median wage, with a working husband and two children. You are far from poor, but in relative terms, you are immeasurably poorer than Louis was. Where he was the richest of the rich in the world’s richest city, you have no servants, no palace, no carriage, no kingdom. As you toil home from work on the crowded Metro, stopping at the shop on the way to buy a ready meal for four, you might be thinking that Louis XIV’s dining arrangements were way beyond your reach. And yet consider this. The cornucopia that greets you as you enter the supermarket dwarfs anything that Louis XIV ever experienced (and it is probably less likely to contain salmonella). You can buy a fresh, frozen, tinned, smoked or pre-prepared meal made with beef, chicken, pork, lamb, fish, prawns, scallops, eggs, potatoes, beans, carrots, cabbage, aubergine, kumquats, celeriac, okra, seven kinds of lettuce, cooked in olive, walnut, sunflower or peanut oil and flavoured with cilantro, turmeric, basil or rosemary ... You may have no chefs, but you can decide on a whim to choose between scores of nearby bistros, or Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Indian restaurants, in each of which a team of skilled chefs is waiting to serve your family at less than an hour’s notice. Think of this: never before this generation has the average person been able to afford to have somebody else prepare his meals. You employ no tailor, but you can browse the internet and instantly order from an almost infinite range of excellent, affordable clothes of cotton, silk, linen, wool and nylon made up for you in factories all over Asia. You have no carriage, but you can buy a ticket which will summon the services of a skilled pilot of a budget airline to fly you to one of hundreds of destinations that Louis never dreamed of seeing. You have no woodcutters to bring you logs for the fire, but the operators of gas rigs in Russia are clamouring to bring you clean central heating. You have no wick-trimming footman, but your light switch gives you the instant and brilliant produce of hardworking people at a grid of distant nuclear power stations. You have no runner to send messages, but even now a repairman is climbing a mobile-phone mast somewhere in the world to make sure it is working properly just in case you need to call that cell. You have no private apothecary, but your local pharmacy supplies you with the handiwork of many thousands of chemists, engineers and logistics experts. You have no government ministers, but diligent reporters are even now standing ready to tell you about a film star’s divorce if you will only switch to their channel or log on to their blogs. My point is that you have far, far more than 498 servants at your immediate beck and call. Of course, unlike the Sun King’s servants, these people work for many other people too, but from your perspective what is the difference? That is the magic that exchange and specialisation have wrought for the human species.
Matt Ridley (The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves)
I wanted to feel sorry for him, or disgusted by him, or something definitive. But I wasn't, or couldn't. His jacket looked nice on him, his linen pants were clean and well-pressed, and his hair was really quite beautiful--a great brilliant shock of white.
Glitterati Literaria (Lolo: or Lolita Redux)
Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. (Revelation 19:11–16) The great Lord Jesus, the captain of the Lord's hosts, the King over all kings will descend to defend and protect His chosen people and put a once-and-for-all end to the evil of the Antichrist.
David Jeremiah (What In the World Is Going On?: 10 Prophetic Clues You Cannot Afford to Ignore)
Nerissa, mo grá,” he said weakly, from where he had been dragged to a corner and propped up against someone’s jacket. “Mo cróga, bean laoch álainn.” He was still in the bloodied breeches, a clean band of linen wound just above one knee. “My brave, beautiful warrior woman.” His eyes, deep and bottomless in the lantern-lit darkness, looked up at her through their absurdly long lashes, and she reached a hand, still smelling of gunpowder, down to touch his bristled cheek. He closed his eyes and held it there, reluctant to ever let her go, and she reveling in the warmth of his skin beneath hers, the knowledge that his heart still pumped his lifeblood beneath her hand. “I could not let you die,” she breathed, kneeling down beside him and offering him the strength of her own slim, lithe body. His face was ghostly from loss of blood, and she could see that it was an effort for him to even keep his eyes open, let alone press her hand to his cheek. She sat down on the hard, blood-stained planking and gently gathered him in her arms, stroking his heavy curls as he rested his forehead against her shoulder. “Tá tú mo banlaoch,” he whispered. “My heroine. My savior….” “Sleep, Ruaidri. The ship is back in your men’s hands and you, my love, are safe in mine.” She threaded her fingers up through his hair and gently caressed his scalp, wincing at the hard swelling she found there. She did not want to think about how he must have received it. She did not want to think of him being hurt, she did not want to think of anything but how grateful she was that he was alive and safely in her arms. Hadley… the Royal Navy… Lucien. Strength and a hard, ruthless confidence filled her heart. She had come this far. She could deal with all of them. Ruaidri’s forehead grew heavy against her collarbone. He murmured something unintelligible and, with her hand still quietly caressing him, finally gave himself up to the demands of his body and slept.
Danelle Harmon (The Wayward One (The de Montforte Brothers, #5))
When you give up, you remove the block you’ve placed on God. It’s like placing a Do Not Disturb sign on your hotel room door. As long as the sign is there, the housekeeper, whose job it is to clean, can’t come in and do what he or she has a responsibility to do. But when you remove the sign, the housekeeper is then able to come in; remove the trash, change the dirty linens and make your room habitable again.
Lakisha Johnson (Dear God: Hear My Prayer)
I wake up afraid that she will be taken and folded up in a closet like clean linen.
Eula Biss (The Balloonists)
Norah herself was labelled for all to see. She was labelled 'Middle class, no money.' Hardly enough to keep herself in clean linen. And yet, scrupulously, fiercly clean, but with all the daintiness and prettiness perforce cut out. Everything about her betrayed the woman who has been brought up to certain tastes, then left without the money to gratify them; trained to certain opinions which forbid her even the relief of rebellion against her lot; yet holding desperately to both her tastes and opinions.
Jean Rhys (After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie)
But what did he know? What did he really know about the filth, the stench that permeated every pore? He'd seen it of course, they all had. Some of them had been taken there in the early days, others had seen the newsreels. No amount of soap and water could ever cleanse those memories. That's why even now, even though she is in her early nineties, she has to scrub her nails clean, polish every stick of furniture, sweep every inch of floor and constantly wash clothes and linen. You could never be too clean, but being dirty is another matter. Diseases and death are the consequences of dirt
Suzanne Goldring (The Woman Outside The Walls)
It was not just that slaves worked his fields; they cut his firewood, cooked and served his meals, washed and ironed his linen, brushed his suits, nursed his children, cleaned, scrubbed, polished, opened and closed doors for him, saddled his horse, turned down his bed, waited on him hand and foot from dawn to dusk.
David McCullough (John Adams)
It is right to love beauty and to desire it; but God desires us to love and seek first the highest beauty, that which is imperishable. No outward adorning can compare in value or loveliness with that “meek and quiet spirit,” the “fine linen, white and clean” (Revelation 19:14), which all the holy ones of earth will wear. This apparel will make them beautiful and beloved here, and will hereafter be their badge of admission to the palace of the King.
Ellen Gould White (Our High Calling)
This close, I could see flecks of gray in her blue eyes and smell a trace of her perfume. It was clean and light, like fresh linen with a hint of jasmine. They were things I shouldn’t notice about a woman who tolerated me at best and despised me at worst. But I did, and once I noticed them, I couldn’t stop thinking about them.
Ana Huang (King of Sloth (Kings of Sin, #4))
Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear. REVELATION 19:7 – 8
Anne Graham Lotz (Fixing My Eyes on Jesus: Daily Moments in His Word (A 365-Day Devotional))
If we submit to his authority and do his will, we will come under his covering. In Revelation 19:8, the white robes of fine linen are the righteousness of the saints. All we have to do is eat the clean food that the Lord provides, for man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).
Russell M. Stendal (Uncovering What Religion Has to Hide: The Testimony of Simon Peter)
Open your eyes,” he said. “I want you to know it’s me.” She obeyed, looking up at him. “As if it could be anyone else.” God, the unabashed affection in her gaze . . . It punctured all the defenses he’d built around his heart. A flood of emotions swamped him: anger, confusion, fear. And beneath it all, a foolish, sentimental sort of yearning. He hadn’t known he still was capable of yearning, for anything. She made him feel almost human again. He sank to his knees, pressing his cheek to the cool silk of her inner thigh. “Cecy, my darling. I could kiss you for that.” And he did. Spreading his fingers to frame the slit of her drawers, he pressed his mouth to her core. She bucked against him, and he clutched her hips tight, pinning her to the wall as he teased and tasted her flesh. Her gasp of delight made his pulse stutter. Slowly now. Don’t rush. Yes, he meant to give Cecily an indelible memory, but he was also taking one for himself. He drank in her intoxicating perfume— the scents of clean linen and soap, mingling with the sweet musk of her arousal. He stroked her languidly with his tongue, wanting to memorize her shape, her texture, her taste. Most of all, he took his time learning her, delighting in the smallest discoveries: a caress just so made her moan; a kiss to this spot made her hips convulse. Be it four years or forty— this would be a kiss to remember.
Tessa Dare (The Legend of the Werestag)
I liked her smile. And I knew that I had fallen in love. I knew that I wanted to run rivers with her, and camp, and go out to dinner and dance, and meet people with her by my side, and establish routines, and hear every knock-knock joke in her repertoire. I knew that. The knowledge came as simply as clean linen.
Joseph Monninger (Eternal on the Water)
Some items from your home that you might consider your child having access to include.   Cheese grater.  A good starting activity for a four or five year-old is grating bars of soap. Real scissors. Children’s safety scissors are often clumsy to handle and can be difficult to maneuver. Teaching a child to cut with pointed scissors allows them to more quickly master fine motor skills. Utensils for cutting soft fruit and a cutting board. Make sure they are not too sharp, but not so dull that they are ineffective. Always supervise your child. Pots and pans, dishes, etc. for pretend play. Cleaning supplies such as a gentle vinegar and water (50/50) cleaning solution, sponges, dish soap, towels, short broom, dust pan, etc. Plants for daily care. Coat hanging racks placed at shoulder level of the child allow them to not only take responsibility for their own outerwear but to offer to take care of others as well. Sturdy, non-skid step stool or a handy learning tower (the one in the picture actually folds for easy storage). Accessible linens, including those that can be used for play. Encourage your child to make their own bed, even if it might be a bit messy by your standards. Always keep a few towels and washcloths where they can reach them as needed. A big basket that holds a few blankets and pillows allows a child to take some responsibility for their own level of comfort.     This list is by no means all-inclusive, nor are you required to use what is on it. The point is to take a look around your home and think about ways to implement many of your own household items into your routine. It is also meant to point out that even the youngest of children are often ready for a bit more responsibility than we give them credit for.
Sterling Production (Montessori at Home Guide: A Short Guide to a Practical Montessori Homeschool for Children Ages 2-6)
Evening, Kesmore. What has lured you from the wilds of Kent so early in the year?” Kesmore’s dark brows twitched down. “Raising hogs is vulgarly profitable. I say this to you in strictest confidence as your neighbor and friend, and as a man who has seen you so drunk you sing odes to the barmaid’s feminine attributes. There is, however, a certain hardship upon the man—particularly a man newly married—who undertakes such a commercial endeavor when the weather moderates and the hog pens must be cleaned of several months’ worth of pig shit.” Despite the cloying heat of the ballroom, despite the gauntlet forming for him as the orchestra warmed up, Deene’s lips quirked up. “You came to Town to avoid the smell of pig shit?” “Pig shit wafting in my bedroom window at night, pig shit scenting my linen, pig shit… but I am whining, and thank all the gods it’s not me the mamas are trolling for this year.” Deene
Grace Burrowes (Lady Eve's Indiscretion (The Duke's Daughters, #4; Windham, #7))
Well, come along then.” St. Just held out a hand. “We will feed you and then see what’s to be done with you.” The child stared at his hand, frowned, and looked up at his face, then back down at his hand. The earl merely kept his hand outstretched, his expression calm. “Meat pies,” he mused aloud. “Cheese toast, cold cider, apple tarts, strawberry cobbler, sausage and eggs, treacle pudding, clean sheets smelling of sunshine and lavender, beeswax candles…” He felt a tentative touch of little fingers against his palm, so he closed his hand around those fingers and let his voice lead the child along. “Berry tarts, scones in the morning, ham, bacon, nice hot tea with plenty of cream and sugar, kippers, beefsteak, buttered rolls and muffins…” “Muffins?” the child piped up wistfully. St. Just almost smiled at the angelic expression on the urchin’s face. Great blue eyes peered out of a smudged, beguiling little puss, a mop of wheat blond curls completing a childish image of innocence. “Muffins.” The earl reiterated as they gained the side terrace of the manor and passed indoors. “With butter and jam, if you prefer. Or chocolate, or juice squeezed from oranges.” “Oranges?” “Had them all the time in Spain.” “You were in Spain?” the child asked, eyes round. “Did you fight old Boney?” “I was in Spain,” the earl said, his tone grave, “and Portugal, and France, and I fought old Boney. Nasty business, not at all as pleasant as the thought of tea cakes or clean linen or even some decent bread and butter.” “Bread
Grace Burrowes (The Soldier (Duke's Obsession, #2; Windham, #2))
You were coshed with a fireplace poker,” Mrs. Seaton said, bending over him to sift through the hair above his nape. “These wounds will require careful cleaning.” She wadded up his shirt and folded it to hold against the scalp wound. “Passive voice,” the earl said through clenched teeth, “will not protect you, Mrs. Seaton, since you did the coshing. Jesus and the apostles, that hurts.” Her hand came up to hold his forehead even as she continued to press the linen of his ruined shirt against the bleeding wound. “The bleeding is slowing down,” she said, “and the wounds on your back are not as messy.” “Happily for me,” her patient muttered.
Grace Burrowes (The Heir (Duke's Obsession, #1; Windham, #1))
His warm breath, smelling of clean spice, stroked her cheek and ear. A thrilling shiver coursed over her, the wound on her arm only a minor sting. Then his lips—those full, sensuous lips—grazed her jaw and the soft spot behind her ear, the hairs of his beard brushing her sensitive skin. Her shivers locked her muscles tight. A bolt of tantalizing heat shot down her center. He leveraged closer, all that warrior brawn pressing hard against her side, linen rasping over skin, an exquisite feeling. Yes. This.
Angela Quarles (Must Love Chainmail (Must Love, #2))
Despite an icy northeast wind huffing across the bay I sneak out after dark, after my mother falls asleep clutching her leather Bible, and I hike up the rutted road to the frosted meadow to stand in mist, my shoes in muck, and toss my echo against the moss-covered fieldstone corners of the burned-out church where Sunday nights in summer for years Father Thomas, that mad handsome priest, would gather us girls in the basement to dye the rose cotton linen cut-outs that the deacon’s daughter, a thin beauty with short white hair and long trim nails, would stitch by hand each folded edge then steam-iron flat so full of starch, stiffening fabric petals, which we silly Sunday school girls curled with quick sharp pulls of a scissor blade, forming clusters of curved petals the younger children assembled with Krazy glue and fuzzy green wire, sometimes adding tissue paper leaves, all of us gladly laboring like factory workers rather than have to color with crayon stubs the robe of Christ again, Christ with his empty hands inviting us to dine, Christ with a shepherd's staff signaling to another flock of puffy lambs, or naked Christ with a drooping head crowned with blackened thorns, and Lord how we laughed later when we went door to door in groups, visiting the old parishioners, the sick and bittersweet, all the near dead, and we dropped our bikes on the perfect lawns of dull neighbors, agnostics we suspected, hawking our handmade linen roses for a donation, bragging how each petal was hand-cut from a pattern drawn by Father Thomas himself, that mad handsome priest, who personally told the Monsignor to go fornicate himself, saying he was a disgruntled altar boy calling home from a phone booth outside a pub in North Dublin, while I sat half-dressed, sniffing incense, giddy and drunk with sacrament wine stains on my panties, whispering my oath of unholy love while wiggling uncomfortably on the mad priest's lap, but God he was beautiful with a fine chiseled chin and perfect teeth and a smile that would melt the Madonna, and God he was kind with a slow gentle touch, never harsh or too quick, and Christ how that crafty devil could draw, imitate a rose petal in perfect outline, his sharp pencil slanted just so, the tip barely touching so that he could sketch and drink, and cough without jerking, without ruining the work, or tearing the tissue paper, thin as a membrane, which like a clean skin arrived fresh each Saturday delivered by the dry cleaners, tucked into the crisp black vestment, wrapped around shirt cardboard, pinned to protect the high collar.
Bob Thurber (Nothing But Trouble)
Angry tears stung her eyes. Tension built and boiled inside her. Her cheeks grew hot with suppressed anger, her movements became jerky and abrupt. She shoved an errant strand of hair out of her face, stormed to the washstand — And collided with her husband. He had been coming toward her with a piece of wet linen and a bowl half-filled with water. As he and Juliet bounced off each other, some of the water spilled onto the carpet, the rest down the front of his waistcoat. Ignoring it, Gareth held out the damp rag like a truce offering. "Here." "What's that for?" "She needs washing, doesn't she?" "What do you know about babies?" "Come now, Juliet. I am not entirely lacking in common sense." "I wonder," she muttered, spitefully. He summoned a polite though confused smile — and that only stoked Juliet's temper all the more. She did not want him to be such a gentleman, damn it!  She wanted a good, out-and-out row with him. She wanted to tell him just what she thought of him, of his reckless spending, of his carefree attitude toward serious matters. Oh, why hadn't she married someone like Charles — someone capable, competent, and mature? "What is wrong, Juliet?" "Everything!" she fumed. She plunged the linen in the bowl of water and began swabbing Charlotte's bottom. "I think Perry was right. We should go straight back to your brother, the duke." "You should not listen to Perry." "Why not? He's got more sense than you and the rest of your friends combined. We haven't even been married a day, and already it's obvious that you're hopelessly out of your element. You have no idea what to do with a wife and daughter. You have no idea where to go, how to support us — nothing. Yet you had to come charging after us, the noble rescuer who just had to save the day. I'll bet you didn't give any thought at all to what to do with us afterward, did you? Oh!  Do you always act before thinking? Do you?" He looked at her for a moment, brows raised, stunned by the force of her attack. Then he said dryly, "My dear, if you'll recall, that particular character defect saved your life. Not to mention the lives of the other people on that stagecoach." "So it did, but it's not going to feed us or find us a place to live!"  She lifted Charlotte's bottom, pinned a clean napkin around the baby's hips, and soaped and rinsed her hands. "I still cannot believe how much money you tossed away on a marriage license, no, a bribe, this morning, nor how annoyed you still seem to be that we didn't waste God-knows-how-much on a hotel tonight. You seem to have no concept of money's value, and at the rate you're going, we're going to have to throw ourselves on the mercy of the local parish or go begging in the street just to put food in our bellies!" "Don't be ridiculous. That would never happen." "Why wouldn't it?" "Juliet, my brother is the Duke of Blackheath. My family is one of the oldest and richest in all of England. We are not going to starve, I can assure you." "What do you plan to do, then, work for a living? Get those pampered, lily-white hands of yours dirty and calloused?
Danelle Harmon (The Wild One (The de Montforte Brothers, #1))
Agreeing completely, Zarya came to an abrupt halt as she saw the small side table that had been pulled out for them. “Small” being the operative word. It must have been an end table in the conference room. The chairs were tiny foldaways with stained gray cushions. And while the linens were clean, they, too, were stained in places. It was the ultimate slap in the face. But for Darling, she’d be throwing a tantrum over it. Instead, she smiled at the woman and graciously sat down while Maris followed suit. Never let them know how much they’ve hurt you. Don’t give them the satisfaction. Her father had raised her on those principles and she held them tight. Starskas didn’t flinch or bitch. They got even. Lady
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Born of Silence (The League #5))
Beside her, St. Just listened until Emmie’s breathing had returned to a regular, slow cadence. When he was convinced she’d returned to sleep, he let himself relax, as well, musing that he hadn’t made a specific decision to climb into the bed and fall asleep. He’d decided to greet her before finding his own bed, but she’d already been fast asleep, not even rousing when he knocked quietly on her door. He’d decided to treat himself to the sight of her peaceful slumbers, but he’d done so sitting on the edge of her bed, where it had been all too easy to trace his fingers across her sleeping features. He’d decided to just hold her for a bit, a liberty she’d granted him already and surely no intrusion as long as he didn’t wake her. He’d decided to shed his clothes, as he’d been traveling, and a quick wash was only courteous before he touched her further. He’d decided to climb into bed naked, because his clothes were not clean and the bed linens and lady in the bed were. He’d decided to close his eyes, just to rest for a moment in the inexpressible comfort of having her in his arms again. And
Grace Burrowes (The Soldier (Duke's Obsession, #2; Windham, #2))
When she awoke, clean strips of linen for her cycle were next to the bed. His own shirt, washed and dried overnight—now cut up for her to use as she would.
Sarah J. Maas (Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass, #5))
And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses”.
Ted Naman (Are We The Generation That Will See Christ’s Return?: Ten Signs of our Times Pointing to the Imminent Return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ)
She’d seen his mother. Buddy set Dil on his mother’s bed, which she hadn’t used since he’d slipped a plastic bag over her head while she was watching an old Sean Connery movie twenty months before. She had only been living with him for six weeks then, but it had been six weeks too long. When he’d agreed to care for her, he’d had no idea what he was taking on. He’d figured a bit more cooking, cleaning, ironing, that kind of stuff. The reality was she pissed her bed every night, which meant he had to wash her linens and shower her each morning. Then he’d get home from work only to find she’d pissed herself again, often shitting herself too. Another shower, more laundry. Come dinner he didn’t get a break because the stroke, which had paralyzed much of her body, prevented her from feeding herself. So he’d have to pound her dinner into mush and spoon it into her mouth. In the evening she might signal she needed to use the bathroom instead of letting loose in her diaper. Nevertheless, getting her undressed, on the toilet, cleaning her up—fuck, it was easier to let her soil herself and hose her down in the shower. Needless to say, caring for her simply became too much. But killing her wasn’t the answer. Buddy knew that right after she took her last, agonized breath. Flooded with guilt at what he’d done, he began talking to her, apologizing to her, changing her, bathing her, all the old routines. When her stench became overpowering, he removed her lungs, stomach, liver, intestines, heart, and brain, and treated her body with salt for forty days until no moisture remained. Then he filled the cavities with sawdust from a local
Jeremy Bates (The Midnight Book Club Super Box Set)
I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God’s wrath is completed. And I saw what looked like a sea of glass glowing with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name. They held harps given them by God and sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb: “Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the nations. Who will not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.” After this I looked, and I saw in heaven the temple—that is, the tabernacle of the covenant law—and it was opened. Out of the temple came the seven angels with the seven plagues. They were dressed in clean, shining linen and wore golden sashes around their chests. - Revelation 15:1-6
Clifford T. Wellman Jr. (The Road to Revelation 5: Dire Warnings)
Ad Astra Wet & Dry Cleaning has been keeping clothes, linens and other household materials, clean and fresh since 1950. Dry cleaning is our game, excellent customer service is our promise. As the most professional dry cleaners in Perth, we pride ourselves on offering you the best, most individualised professional cleaning for clothes service in WA.
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During the sixteenth, seventeenth and most of the eighteenth centuries, when people avoided water and believed that a clean linen shirt extracted dirt, there was little or no demand for toilet soap. The rich women who used it, mostly on face and hands, thought of it as more a cosmetic or perfume than a cleanser.
Katherine Ashenburg (Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing)
Since washing the body happened so seldom, it ceased to be a subject for painters. In place of the medieval woodcuts and illuminated manuscripts that pictured warmly sensuous bathhouse scenes came painterly odes to linen.
Katherine Ashenburg (Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing)
When she awoke, clean strips of linen for her cycle were next to the bed.
Sarah J. Maas (Throne of Glass)
I looked around the cabin--its white walls, the linen curtains that puffed in the breeze like sails, paintings of boats and nautical knots. This place, I knew, would not remember me. Already, most traces of my presence had been swept away and scrubbed clean. But what about Jude? I wanted to stain him, like pollen Wanted to press into his skin, Remember me here.
Madelaine Lucas (Thirst for Salt)
a diner’s bill of rights • The right to have your reservation honored The right to water The right to the food you ordered at the temperature the chef intended The right to a clean, working bathroom The right to clean flatware, glassware, china, linen, tables, and napkins The right to enough light to read your menu The right to hear your dining companions when they speak The right to be served until the restaurant’s advertised closing time The right to stay at your table as long as you like The right to salt and pepper
Phoebe Damrosch (Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter)
They occasionally turned up in Tudor inventories and linens would often be recorded in wills as bequeathed to others. Goodman tells us how she followed a Tudor body cleansing regime for a period of three months while living in modern society. No one complained or even noticed a sweaty smell. She wore natural fibre on top of the linen underwear but took neither a shower nor a bath for the whole period. When she recorded The Monastery Farm for television, she only changed her linen smock once weekly and her hose three times over six months and she still did not pong.9 Tudor England was not a place where everyone smelled as sweetly as most people who shower daily today but its people generally managed not to stink. Of course, the past did smell differently but being clean and sweet smelling certainly did matter to many Tudors. In 1485 only a few hundred people in England could afford essential oils which arrived during the Crusades. Perfume for most people originated from natural sources such as posies of violets, lavender bags and smoke from herbs burning over a fire. Sir Thomas More is known to have had a rosemary bush planted beneath his study window so its pleasant scent wafted up towards him as he worked. Lavender was often placed in bedrooms, tucked into the straw of a bolster or hung in bunches on bed posts so that its calming nature might induce relaxation. Rue and Tansey were known as insecticides and
Carol McGrath (Sex and Sexuality in Tudor England)
know, Will,” Edmund said. “You needn’t worry. I won’t muck anything up.” He peeled back the duvet, climbed into the bed, and curled himself into a ball. At this, Mrs. Müller appeared in the doorway bearing a load of crisp white linens, patchwork quilts, and hot-water bottles wrapped in knitted cases the same dove gray as the blanket. On top of the teetering pile was a book. As she set her load down on the dressing table, she looked at Edmund. “Lord love you, child.” She went to the bedside, lifted the duvet, and tucked a hot-water bottle at Edmund’s feet. She tested his forehead once again with the palm of her hand. “Perhaps we’ll forgo the clean linens, just for tonight,” she said. “I hate to extract you, Edmund.” “Yes. I mean—thank you,” he murmured. The librarian smiled and looked at William and Anna. “If I had someplace else to put you two, I’d keep you out of the sick room, but short of making up beds on the floor somewhere…” She trailed off. “We’ll be fine,” William said. “Honestly.” Anna nodded in agreement. None of them wanted to be separated, anyhow. “In bed, then,” Mrs. Müller said. “All three of you.” She pulled back the duvet on the other side of the bed and laid down another hot-water bottle. Anna climbed into the middle, and William took his place beside her. The librarian tucked the duvet around the three of them and brushed each one’s cheek with a tenderness that even Edmund found acceptable. She retrieved the book she’d carried in with the linens and handed it to William. “Perhaps you’re all too old for bedtime stories, but what sort of librarian would I be if I didn’t provide you with some reading material?” For a long moment, the children only looked at one another. Mrs. Müller drew the wrong conclusion from their silence. “Oh, dear. You are entirely too old for bedtime stories, aren’t you?” She took a step back. “Not having children of my own, I’m sure to make a mess of these things—” “No,” Anna whispered. “We’re not too old.” Mrs. Müller looked at the boys. “We’re not too old,” William agreed. “Definitely not,” Edmund said, his voice cracking. Perhaps it was his head cold. But probably not. “Well”—the librarian gestured toward the book in William’s hands—“I hope that one will suit you.” “It will,” Anna said. “Good night, then,” the librarian whispered. As she headed for the door, all three children had the same wish. All three children were surprised that it was William who voiced it. “Would you read it to us?
Kate Albus (A Place to Hang the Moon)
A large double bed, with a huge red feather quilt and large square pillows. The Littlejohns tested its resilience with their hands. It emitted the scent of lavender and straw and clean linen.
George Bellairs (Death in High Provence (Chief Inspector Littlejohn #27))
According to Savot’s reasoning, which he shared with his age, the Greeks and Romans needed baths because they failed to understand the cleansing properties of linen.
Katherine Ashenburg (The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History)
that should’ve made sense, but didn’t. I just couldn’t quite bring it all together. I thought there was movement. I thought there were feather-light touches. I thought there were tears. Mine? Surely not. I’d cried all my tears, hadn’t I? But if not mine, then whose? Smells. Familiar smells. Coconut. Then burning wood. Then clean linen. Softness. Like clouds. Clouds that couldn’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t hold me. I didn’t deserve clouds. I deserved hard, cold concrete. And that was the thought that woke me. A memory. The first in a cascade of memories, of terrors I’d just as soon have forgotten. That would’ve been merciful. But merciful wasn’t to be the case. I opened my eyes to the dim glow of light. A lamp. A familiar ceiling as I blinked up at it. Plain white with a medallion around a gorgeous chandelier. I remembered the day Gabe and I picked it out. Home. I was home. It was a thought. A feeling. A fantasy. How could I ever go home? After what I’d done, after what I’d become, how could I ever go home? I heard sobbing. Gentle, delicate sobbing. Only when a hand pressed lightly onto my shoulder did I realize it was me. The sobs were mine. They were as broken as I was. I rolled onto my side, away from the light. “Bright,” I croaked. I needed darkness.
Leah Montgomery (Right Next Door)
He had brought his bone saw in its leather case. And his white linen smock, the one he used to save his clothes when he had dirty work in store, and would have Li Chang wash and bleach after. An amputation would be the dirtiest work there was. He remembered the smocks the surgeons wore, layer on layer of red, dried blood darker under fresh red splashes, with the occasional white splinter of bone. Joshua prayed as he rode, prayed hard and desperately, prayed that the smock in his bag would be clean and white when he turned homeward.
Karen A. Wyle (What Heals the Heart (Cowbird Creek, #1))
I watched them wrap him tenderly, entwining his body in clean linen, swaddled as I once swaddled his infant frame, enwrapped as he daily wrapped himself in his shawl of prayer, from heaven to earth...from earth to heaven... born and born and born again, light of God wrapped in flickering mystery.
Ann Johnson (Miryam of Judah: Witness in Truth and Tradition)
Come here,” Cam said in a sleep-darkened voice, drawing back the bed linens. A laugh stirred in her throat. “Absolutely not. There is too much to be done. Everyone is busy except you.” “I intend to be busy. As soon as you come here. Monisha, don’t make me chase you this early.” Amelia gave him a severe glance as she obeyed. “It’s not early. In fact, if you don’t wash and dress quickly, we’ll be late to the flower show.” “How can you be late for flowers?” Cam shook his head and smiled, as he always did when she said something he considered to be gadjo nonsense. His gaze was hot and slumberous. “Come closer.” “Later.” She gave a helpless gasp of laughter as he reached out with astonishing dexterity, snaring her wrist in his hand. “Cam, no.” “A good Romany wife never refuses her husband,” he teased. “The maid—” she said breathlessly as she was pulled across the mattress, and clasped against all that warm golden skin. “She can wait.” He unbuttoned her robe, his hand slipping past the lace, fingertips exploring the sensitive curves of her breasts. Amelia’s giggles died away. He knew so much about her—too much—and he never hesitated to take ruthless advantage. She closed her eyes as she reached up to the nape of his neck. The clean, silky locks of his hair slipped through her fingers like liquid. Cam kissed her tender throat, while one of his knees nudged between hers. “It’s either now,” he murmured, “or behind the rhododendrons at the flower show. Your choice.
Lisa Kleypas (Tempt Me at Twilight (The Hathaways, #3))
10 Items People Forget To Pack When Moving Into A New Home Moving into a new home with your family is the world’s happiest thing. In the excitement of shifting from an old house to a new one, people often forget some of the most obvious and essential items. In this article, I am listing down the 10 most essential items people forget to buy or pack when moving into a new home. Let’s get started. 10 Items People Forget To Pack When Moving Into A New Home 1. Smart Door Lock – This should be your number one priority especially if you have kids and pets. Buy the best smart door lock to keep your loved ones safe. 2. Laundry Basket – Yes, one of the most obvious things that you forgot to pack. This is the last thing that comes to mind when packing, and sometimes it’s completely missed. 3. Extra Bulb – Always keep an extra bulb with you even if all the bulbs in your new home are working fine. You never know when you might need one. 4. Drapes & Curtains – This will help you keep your windows covered if you do not want neighbors peeping inside your home. 5. Extension Cord – Not all your electronic appliances will have long cords. It’s best to have an extension cord handy so that you do not struggle to operate your home and kitchen appliances. 6. Ladder – Reaching your attic or storage space to store your belongings will be easy if you have a ladder with you. 7. Home Cleaning Essentials – Some areas of your home might need cleaning as soon as you shift, especially your living room where you will first gather all your packed stuff to starting arranging them in their correct places. This is when you will need cleaning supplies so that your new home doesn’t look dirty. 8. Wardrobe Hanger – The wardrobe hanger will help you arrange your clothes in a neat manner and will take less space so that you can accommodate more. 9. Kitchen Linens – If you love to walk into a clean kitchen this is a must-have item and you should not forget to pack these. 10. Flashlight – You never know when you might have to use a flashlight so it’s best to have one or two of these handy.
saneidea
first i went for my words the i can’ts. i won’ts. i am not good enoughs. i lined them up and shot them dead then i went for my thoughts invisible and everywhere there was no time to gather them one by one i had to wash them out i wove a linen cloth out of my hair soaked it in a bowl of mint and lemon water carried it in my mouth as i climbed up my braid to the back of my head down on my knees i began to wipe my mind clean it took twenty-one days my knees bruised but i did not care i was not given the breath in my lungs to choke it out i would scrub the self-hate off the bone till it exposed love - self-love
Rupi Kaur (The Sun and Her Flowers)
Of course, in Sussex they think that everything means you’re about to die—an owl in the daytime, the smell of roses when there aren’t roses nearby, the wrong fold in clean linen.
Charles Finch (A Death in the Small Hours)
For the seventeenth century, clean linen was not a substitute for washing the body with water—it was better than that, safer, more reliable and based on scientific principles. White linen, learned men believed, attracted and absorbed sweat. As one wrote, with mystifying confidence, “We understand why linen removes the perspiration from our bodies, because the sweat is oleaginous or salty, it impregnates these dead plants [the
Katherine Ashenburg (The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History)
She was just about to run out through the gates, surprised but pleased to see them open, when a man dropped to the ground right in front of her. A soft screech escaped her as she stumbled back a step, even as she frantically looked around in a vain attempt to see where he had come from. “Greetings, lass,” the man said in a deep, rough voice. “Ye probably dinnae remember me. I am Raibeart. I drove your wee bonnie cart back here after we saved ye from those thieving swine.” “Ah, weel, I thank ye. Now, if ye will just excuse me,” she tried to dart around him, but the man swiftly put himself in her path. “Now, ye dinnae really want to go out there. Tis dark, aye? Too dangerous for such a wee lass.” “Ye arenae going to let me leave, are ye?” She cursed when he shook his head. “The laird wants ye to stay here.” “I dinnae care what he wants. He isnae my laird. He isnae my kinsmon, either.” Bridget could feel panic clawing at her insides and struggled to push it aside. “I wish to go to my cousin’s and none of ye have the right to stop me.” She felt a light touch upon her shoulder. Blindly, she turned and struck out, raking her nails across the face of the man who stood behind her. As her fingernails scored soft flesh the feeling pulled her free of the tight grasp fear had upon her. She looked in horror at the bloody furrows she had left upon Jankyn’s cheek. He touched a hand to the cuts as he stared at her, his gaze holding more intense consideration than shock. Mumbling a heartfelt apology, Bridget pulled a square of daintily embroidered linen from a pocket in the lining of her cloak. However, by the time she reached toward Jankyn, intending to clean the blood from his wounds, there was no need for such care. “Your wounds appear to be closing,” she whispered. “Aye. They were only shallow cuts,” he said. “Ye have verra sharp nails, lass.” Keeping his gaze fixed upon her face, he slowly licked the blood from his fingers. “Oh, it needed only that.” Bridget closed her eyes, took a deep breath to calm herself, then scowled at Jankyn. “That was a strange thing to do, lass,” murmured Raibeart as he moved to stand beside her. It was, but Bridget would never admit it. “Nay, it wasnae. I felt a touch and thought I was in danger. Jankyn also crept up behind me when I was feeling agitated.” She abruptly made a dash for the gate, not surprised when both men quickly appeared to block her way. “That could become verra annoying.” “E’en
Hannah Howell (The Eternal Highlander (McNachton Vampires, #1))
Is organic cotton the future of sustainable development? With the increase in climate change and global warming, each step taken by us matters, be it even by transforming our cotton closet into an organic cotton closet. We are living in a time, where each step will either lead to an immense increase in global warming or will lead to the protection of our Mother Earth. So why not make our actions count and take a step by protecting our nature by switching to organic clothing?! As we know, the fashion industry is one of the largest industry of today, in which the cotton textiles lead the line together with the cotton manufacture setting them as the highest-ranked in the fashion industry. These pieces of regular cotton those are constructed into garments leads to 88% more wastage of water from our resources. Whereas Organic Cotton that has been made from natural seeds and handpicked for maintaining the purity of fibres; uses 1,982 fewer gallons of water compared to regular cotton. Gallons of water used by: Regular cotton: 2168 gallons Organic Cotton: 186 gallons Due to increase in market size of the fashion industry every year along with the cotton industry; regular cotton is handpicked by workers to keep up with the increase in demand for the regular cotton and because these crops are handpicked it leads to various damages and crises such as: Damage of fibres: As regular cotton is grown as mono-crop it destroys the soil quality, that exceeds the damage when handpicked by the farmers, leading to also the destruction of fibres because of the speed and time limit ordered. Damage of crops: Regular cotton leads to damage of crops when it is handpicked, as not much attention is paid while plucking it in bulk, due to which all the effort, time and resources used to cultivate the crops drain-out to zero. Water wastage: The amount of clean water being depleted to produce regular cotton is extreme that might lead to a water crisis. The clean water when used for manufacturing turns into toxic water that is disposed into freshwater bodies, causing a hazardous impact on the people deprived of this natural resource. Wastage of resources: When all the above-mentioned factors are ignored by the manufactures and the farmers, it directly leads to the waste of resources, as the number of resources used to produce the regular cotton is way high in number when compared to the results at the end. Regular cotton along with these damages also demands to use chemical dyes for their further process, that is not only harmful to our body but is also very dangerous to the workers exposed to it, as these chemicals lead to many health problems like earring aids, lunch cancer, skin cancer, eczema and many more, other than that people can also lose their lives when exposed to these chemicals for long other than that people can also lose their lives when exposed to these chemicals for long Know More about synthetic dyes on ‘Why synthetic dye stands for the immortality done to Nature?’ Organic cotton, when compared to regular cotton, brings a radical positive change to the environment. To manufacture, just one t-shirt, regular cotton uses 16% of the world’s insecticides, 7% pesticides and 2,700 litres of water, when compared to this, organic cotton uses 62% less energy than regular Cotton. Bulk Organic Cotton Fabric Manufacturer: Suvetah is one of the leading bulk organic cotton fabric manufacturer in India. Suvetah is GOTS certified sustainable fabric manufacturer in Organic Cotton Fabric, Linen Fabric and Hemp Fabric. We are also manufacturer of other fabrics like Denim, Kala Cotton Fabric, Ahimsa Silk Fabric, Ethical Recycled Cotton Fabric, Banana Fabric, Orange Fabric, Bamboo Fabric, Rose Fabric, Khadi Fabric etc.
Ashish Pathania
A big clumsy sofa occupied almost the whole of one wall and half the floor space of the room; it was once covered with chintz, but was now in rags and served Raskolnikov as a bed. Often he went to sleep on it, as he was, without undressing, without sheets, wrapped in his old student's overcoat, with his head on one little pillow, under which he heaped up all the linen he had, clean and dirty, by way of a bolster.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Fyodor Dostoyevsky: The Complete Novels)