"Mat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by inculcating some of those maxims of philosophy whereof I had ever a tolerable stock ready for application. She stopped me, however, by putting her fingers in her ears at the first words I uttered, and then lying down on the mat with her face against the flags; nor could either Warren or the cook root her from that position: she was allowed to lie, therefore, till she chose to rise ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... standing restlessly near the window. The lodge-keeper's son, with his head bound up (for he was the victim of the explosion, and I suppose, the prosecutor), was standing beside the policeman, cap in hand, on the mat. ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... immediately with a fierceness that seemed to have gained more hellish energy and more devilish cruelty from its temporary abatement. The roads were thick with troops of people rushing wildly from their homes and fleeing from their native country as from a land cursed alike by God and by man. Mat Blake, passing along from Dublin to Ballybay, was almost driven to insanity by the sights he saw at the ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... bazaar dotted over with squatting women, cowled with dirty blankets, selling warm griddle-cakes; moving here and there are the same spectral figures, similar dirty blankets veiling them from head to foot; over the way are cylinders of mat, with nets caging the apertures at each end, to hold the cocks and hens, rabbits and pigeons, brought for sale by Riffians, descendants of the corsairs of that ilk, stalwart, brown, and bare-legged, with heads shaven but for the twisted scalp-lock left for the convenience of Asrael when ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... the ordinary meaning of petlatl is a mat or rug; it is here to be taken in its figurative sense of power or authority, chiefs and other prominent persons being provided with ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... door, and Douglas Stone walked down the narrow passage, glancing about him in some surprise as he did so. There was no oilcloth, no mat, no hat-rack. Deep grey dust and heavy festoons of cobwebs met his eyes everywhere. Following the old woman up the winding stair, his firm footfall echoed harshly through the silent house. There ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... glanced at it, placed it upon a silver salver, and, leaving the visitor standing on the mat, passed through the glass swing-doors into ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... was due to come. I was told many times and in many different ways what the one woman thought of me. For the few days during which she and her mother waited at her father's mine for the coming of the Yellowstone party, she used me for a door-mat, as I deserved. That was a year ago last spring. I haven't seen her since; haven't ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... flood. He was trampled into the mire, beneath the iron hoofs of squadrons of horse and the tramp of thousands of mailed men. After the battle, his body was found, so mutilated that it was with difficulty recognized. As it was spread upon a mat before the eyes of Yaropolk, he wept bitterly, and caused the remains to be interred with funeral honors. The monument raised to his memory has long since perished; but even to the present day the inhabitants of Obroutch point out the spot ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... Dingarn continuing, the Captain was again sent to negotiate. This time he was received in the royal mansion, a magnified beehive, where the king was lying on a mat with his head on one of the little stools made to act as pillows, with about fifty women ranged round. As to the matter in question, Gardiner was able to declare that, in the white settlement itself, no deserters had found a home since the treaty, and that none ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... mother?" "She, too, is free from the shadow of sorrow." "And how is my beauteous camel, so strong to bear his load?" "Thy camel is sleek and fat." "My house-dog, too, that guards my gate, pray how is he?" "He is on the mat before thy door, by day, by night, on constant guard." The merchant, having thus his doubts and fears removed, resumed his meal with freshened appetite, but gave nought to the poor nomad, and, having finished, closed his wallet. The Bedouin, seeing his stinginess, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... as 'a grandchild,' made a curtsey the shadow of Aunt Harriet's, received a nod, the shadow of that bestowed upon her, and got out of the way as soon as I could, behind my aunt's chair, where, coming unexpectedly upon three fat pug-dogs on a mat, I sat down among them ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... under a mat-covered lean-to built against the mud-wall. There was no other protection for the prisoners from sunshine or rain than coarse worn matting spread upon sticks and laid against the walls. The enclosure was ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... himselfe. And that the Kings word, is sufficient to take any thing from any subject, when there is need; and that the King is Judge of that need: For he himselfe, as King of the Jewes, commanded his Disciples to take the Asse, and Asses Colt to carry him into Jerusalem, saying, (Mat. 21. 2,3) "Go into the Village over against you, and you shall find a shee Asse tyed, and her Colt with her, unty them, and bring them to me. And if any man ask you, what you mean by it, Say the Lord hath need of them: And they will let them go." They will not ask whether his necessity be a ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... at last," he gasped triumphantly, whilst we watched him with indifferent eyes. "Japhet, help me to wrap it up in the mat and lift it into the box. No, no, you donkey—face upward—so. Never mind the corners, I'll fill them with ring-money and other trifles," and out of his wide pockets he emptied a golden shower, amongst which he sifted handfuls of dust from the floor and anything else he could find ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... it I saw that it was a young bird, nearly as big as a robin just out of the nest. Then I dropped all impedimenta, and gave myself unreservedly to the catching of that bird. He fled under the ferns, which were like a thick mat, and I stooped and parted them, he flying ever ahead till he reached the end and came out in sight. Then I pounced upon him, and had him in ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... that he shall receive anything of the Lord." "Without faith, it is impossible to please God." 5. We may be exercising an unforgiving-temper; and, if so, the Lord has declared that he will not hear our prayers. Mark 11:25, 26. Mat. 18:35. ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... mat covering the "split bottom" of the native bed. There is no other mattress, and the "split bottom" constitutes the springs. Once accustomed to it, the bed is ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... like a granite rock, and with the other he held out the classic hat with a broad brim, filthy and battered, into which, however, there fell abundant alms. His legs were swathed in rags and bandages, and his feet shuffled along in miserable overshoes of woven mat-weed, inside of which he had fastened excellent cork soles. He washed his face with certain compounds, which gave it an appearance of forms of illness, and he played the senility of a centenarian to the life. He reckoned himself a hundred years old ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... The body of the settlement lying upon the river is called Harper, after a 'remarkable negro,' and its suburbs lodge the natives. When I last visited it the people were rising to the third stage of their architecture. The first, or nomad, is the hide or mat thrown over a bush or a few standing sticks; then comes the cylinder, the round hovel of the northern and southern regions, with the extinguisher or the oven-shaped thatch-roof; and, lastly, the square or oblong form which marks growing ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... dorsal fins shot up with a fringe of silver, and then rolled down into the depths again. The sand-banks far out were spotted with uncouth crawling forms, huge turtles, strange saurians, and one great flat creature like a writhing, palpitating mat of black greasy leather, which flopped its way slowly to the lake. Here and there high serpent heads projected out of the water, cutting swiftly through it with a little collar of foam in front, and a long swirling wake behind, rising and falling in graceful, swan-like undulations as ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the door, and Douglas Stone walked down the narrow passage, glancing about him in some surprise as he did so. There was no oil-cloth, no mat, no hat-rack. Deep grey dust and heavy festoons of cobwebs met his eyes everywhere. Following the old woman up the winding stair, his firm footfall echoed harshly through the silent house. There was ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... whether to call it a gift or a hereditary curse. You may rob this lady's coco-patch, steal her canoes, burn down her house, and slay her family scatheless; but one thing you must not do: you must not lay a hand upon her sleeping-mat, or your belly will swell, and you can only be cured by the lady or her husband. Here is the report of an eye-witness, Tasmanian born, educated, a man who has made money—certainly no fool. In 1886 he was present ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... eight o'clock in a sheltered spot among the firs. He built a fire, made a mat of boughs, wrapped himself up in his canvas, and went promptly to sleep. He awoke cold, got his blood running by stamping about, put on fresh fuel and went to sleep again, his feet toward the blaze. Half a dozen ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... held the door open, thanking God it was not the devil, and Evelyn dragged her trunk through the door, letting it drop upon the mat abruptly. ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... and Odette marvelled how one so tall could move so swiftly, and without so much as a sound, across the uncarpeted hallway. He reached the door, turned the knob of the patent lock and jerked it open. A man was standing on the mat and he jumped back at the unexpectedness of Tarling's appearance. The stranger was a cadaverous-looking man, in a brand-new suit of clothes, evidently ready-made, but he still wore on his ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... caught in church, Is dear to dog and cat, Oft shuns the couch of kings, to bless The slave upon his mat; And like the "willow," in the song, Is ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... house of the prime minister, with the intention of waiting upon his Majesty the following morning. I slept in the same apartment with the Doctor. Our beds, by courtesy so called, were made on a mud floor; they consisted merely of a mat spread for each, with a coya-cushion (the outside shell of the cocoa nut) for a pillow; fortunately the climate is too hot to require any covering; we therefore lay down without removing our nether garments; sleep was, however, quite out of the question, for so soon as the lights were out, ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... furnished with long tresses, which must therefore have been a late acquisition. This is likewise indicated by the extraordinary difference in the length of the hair in the different races; in the negro the hair forms a mere curly mat; with us it is of great length, and with the American natives it not rarely reaches to the ground. Some species of Semnopithecus have their heads covered with moderately long hair, and this probably serves as an ornament and was acquired through sexual selection. The same view ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... the middle of the quadrangle and tossed aloft a slender silvery spear of water to break into a myriad gems and so shower down into the broad marble basin. Sakr-el-Bahr washed, as did his followers, and then he went down upon the praying-mat that had been set for him, whilst his corsairs detached their cloaks and spread them upon the ground to serve ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... invitation and accepted it with delight. Three times they wrestled on the grass, "side holds," even as the giants of the mat. And twice was Tom forced to bite grass at the hands of the distinguished lawyer. Dishevelled, panting, each still boasting of his own prowess, they stumbled back to the porch. Millie cast a pert reflection upon the qualities ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... from these words in the Revelation: 'These are those who were not defiled with women; for they are Virgins: and they follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth,' chap. xiv. 4. And as virgins signify the church, therefore the Lord likened it to ten Virgins invited to a marriage, Mat. xxv. And as Israel, Zion, and Jerusalem, signify the church, therefore mention is so often made in the Word, of the Virgin and Daughter of Israel, of Zion, and of Jerusalem. The Lord also describes his marriage with the church in these words: 'upon thy right hand did stand ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... next morning. She had agreed to put Elizabeth in battle-array for her visit to Rittenhouse Square. Elizabeth submitted meekly to her borrowed adornings. Her hair was brushed over her face, and curled on a hot iron, and brushed backward in a perfect mat, and then puffed out in a bigger pompadour than usual. The silk waist was put on with Lizzie's best skirt, and she was adjured not to let that drag. Then the best hat with the cheap pink plumes was set atop the elaborate coiffure; the jacket was put on; and a pair of Lizzie's long silk gloves ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... I said, angrily. But I addressed an empty vestibule. There was absolutely no one there, and then I sat down on the mat and laughed. I never was so glad to see no one in my life. But my ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... find herself a seat. She did not obey at once; she was watching the dog. But 'Dolph, it appeared, bore Mr. Hucks no malice. He walked around for thirty seconds smelling the furniture, found a rag mat, settled himself down on it, and sat wagging his tail with a motion regular almost as a pendulum's. Tilda, observing it, heaved a small sigh, and perched herself on the packing-case, where she confronted Mr. Hucks fair and square ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... remember laughing and looking across the room at him. Well, I saw an expression in his eyes that settled it. He looked as if he could see me—just like I know I am—in the mornings when I first wake up—all frowsy and fuddled, with this little bit of a mat I've got, sticking out in tails, about as long as your hand, on the pillow. It takes a bit of courage for a man to even go and live with a woman after he's seen her like that. I assure you it didn't take me much courage to tell him I'd changed ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... the plain unprotected by the cross, and they clung to his skirts thereafter. When they reached the summit, they lay down to rest and eat their luncheon, Father Carillo reclining carefully on a large mat: his fine raiment was a source of no little anxiety. No skeletons kept them company here. They had left the last many ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... door of her house stood open, and on the porch one of the coloured maids was beating the dust out of the straw mat. "As if dust makes any difference when one is dead," Virginia thought wearily; and an unutterable loathing passed over her for all the little acts by which one rendered tribute to the tyranny of appearances. Then, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... who himself was easily able, and big and strong enough for the killing of such prey as Finn had learned to hunt. The shoulders of a hare or a rabbit were easily smashed between Finn's jaws; but the shoulders of the big fox, with their mat of dense fur, were far otherwise. Finn's teeth sank deep, but they ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... with cozy toes and hands We were dreaming, just like you; Till we thought of palmy lands Coloured like a cockatoo; All in drowsy nursery nooks Near the clutching fire we sat, Searching quaint old story-books Piled upon the furry mat. ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... white, of flying spray and leaping waves, and on the landward side the pines were bending and threshing as if they were being torn in pieces. He came downstairs, somewhat nervous and a trifle excited, to find Mr. Bloomer, garbed in oilskins and sou'wester, standing upon the mat just inside the dining room door. Zacheus, it developed, had come over to borrow some coffee, the supply at the light having run short. As Galusha entered, a more than usually savage blast rushed shrieking over ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... way, then it goes that, Just like a bird on the wing. And all of a tremble I crouch on the mat Like a Lion, preparing ...
— The Kitten's Garden of Verses • Oliver Herford
... finished; chrome calf—finished in tan color, and with a fine, smooth grain; boarded calf—tanned either in chrome or quebracho; wax calf—finished by polishing the flesh side until it took a hard, waxy surface; mat calf that was dull in finish; storm calf, oiled for winter wear; and French calf, which, like wax calf, was ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... Violetta's bed came on and the men threw the pillows from one to the other, as if they were playing ball. They hung up a crucifix, which I thought was unnecessary, and brought in a candlestick. I wondered if they were going to put a warming-pan in the bed. A mat was laid down with great precision. Then Nilsson came in, dressed in a flounced petticoat trimmed with lace, a "matinee," and black slippers, and ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... in the conversation on that evening, and as she sat and listened, she could not but think that Will Belton would have been less adroit, but that he would also have been more straightforward. And yet why should not Captain Aylmer talk to his mat? Will Belton would also have talked to his aunt if he had one, but then he would have talked his own talk, and not his aunt's talk. Clara could hardly make up her mind whether Captain Aylmer was or was not a sincere ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... went, turning now into the broader highway and at last reaching the river road that led straight to Mat son's Ford, beyond which the road led ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis
... show you too many, we will conclude with two rather larger specimens, and examine them carefully. The first, called the Cydippe, is a lovely, transparent living ball, which I want to explain to you because it is so wondrously beautiful. The second, the Sea-mat or Flustra, looks like a crumpled drab-colored seaweed, but is really composed of many thousands of grottos, the homes ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... noisy guide. At last its vagrant dances led To where the thick mimosas' shade Circled and fringed an open glade; There the wild streamlet danced away, The moon was shining strangely white, And by its fitful, gleaming ray The shepherd saw a wondrous sight; In the glade's midst, each on his mat, A group of armed warriors sat, White-robed, majestic, with deep eyes Fixed on him with a stern surprise; And in their midst an aged chief Enthroned sat, whose beard, like foam, Caressed his mighty knees. As leaf Shakes ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... still open, a blank, bright rectangle giving into the deserted vestry, and it was against this mat of light that I spied Minister Malden's head and shoulders thrust furtively, as he peeped in and seemed to harken to the muffled unison ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... I found out the pulpit, and having shut the door, I laid me down on the mat and cushion to sleep; when something thrust and pulled the door, as I thought, for admittance, which prevented my going to sleep. At last it cries, 'Bow, wow, wow;' and I concluded it must be Mr. Saunderson's dog, which had followed me from their house to church; so I opened the door, and called ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... funny as it was, Mamma. Mr. Doran was trying to be polite to the odd collection, evidently not quite knowing which was which. Old Lord and Lady Devnant were glaring at the rest of the company from the hearth-rug, with a look of "You invade this mat at your peril!" Sir Christopher Harford paying extravagant compliments to the parson's wife (I knew which they were because I heard them announced), and the "Squire" and Mrs. de Lacy—who came over with the Conqueror—standing apart with their skinny daughters, all holding their noses in the ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... woman in it, from the little new Swede stock-girl to Gladys Hemingway, who is only working to wear out her old clothes, was standing with her face toward the elevator, and on her face a look that would make the ordinary door-mat marked 'Welcome' seem like an insult. I kind of smoothed my back hair, because I knew that only one thing could bring that look into a woman's face. And down the aisle came a tall, slim, distinguished-looking, ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... one against the other; till majestic Reason, deigning to look downward from her contemplation of eternal causes, spelt backwards for me, with a pitying smile, the homely, harmless inscription on the BATH MAT, which was ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... lie for six weeks in a hospital without Jim Hosley coming to see me? thought I. Why hadn't he insisted on sleeping on the mat just outside the door if they would not let him in? Why had he not sent notes hourly to learn of my condition? Why had I been left to strangers? There could be no excuse for this, even though he were in jail, for ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... how that impish little creature, whom he had always regarded as old Abram's granddaughter, and who glared at him with such savage malignity from her piercing black eye (no figure of speech, for she had but one) when with his foot and cane he gently rolled her off the door-mat, where he found her coiled up asleep on his entrance to the house,—what did he care how that mixture of chimpanzee and evil sprite, to whom were to be attributed nine-tenths of the mischief done in the neighborhood, came by ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... was just crowned with a mat of white flowers, in which the year our Greeley was born, and the present year, were woven with bright red flowers. Down each side the feathery vines trailed and quivered. I tell you, sisters, it ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... Alix also bought several; and Alix, who never forgot any one, bought two charming little baskets that she carried to Celeste. Each of us, even Maggie, secured a broad parti-colored mat to use on the deck as a couch a la Turque. Our last purchases were two Indian bows painted red and blue and adorned with feathers; the first bought by Celestino Carlo, and the other by Suzanne for ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... puzzled and alarmed until she saw a big, green parrot in a cage. And the bird was screeching to the limit of its capacity. Mrs. Hobbs could hear it! Should Dorothy throw a mat from ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... type, analogous to those of the Neolithic races in the rest of the world. In a shallow, oval grave, excavated often but a few inches below the surface of the soil, lay the body, cramped up with the knees to the chin, sometimes in a rough box of pottery, more often with only a mat to cover it. Ready to the hand of the dead man were his flint weapons and tools, and the usual red and black, or buff and red, pots lay beside him; originally, no doubt, they had been filled with the funeral meats, to sustain the ghost in the next world. Occasionally a simple copper ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... to and fro. His dog slept on the mat outside his door, and, unused to such continued sounds within, ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... as they had satisfied themselves, they put out the lights, and each once more sought out a resting-place to his own liking. The donkey laid himself down upon a heap of straw in the yard, the dog stretched himself upon a mat behind the door, the cat rolled herself up on the hearth before the warm ashes, and the cock perched upon a beam on the top of the house; and, as they were all rather tired with their journey, they soon ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... as to lay it quite bare and produce a bad sore. Here he caught cold, and was attacked with a violent fever, so that by the time the proa was ready to sail he was unable to stand. He was carried and laid on the deck without a mat or any kind of clothing. The cold nights and frequent showers of rain would without doubt have killed him, had he not been kept alive by the hopes of reaching Macassar, the thoughts of which ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... were dead: And both to bless it was my drift, By giving each a friend; not thinking How rapidly my girl was sinking. And I remember how, to pat Its neck, she stretched her hand so weak, And its cold nose against her cheek Pressed fondly: and I fetched the mat To make it up a couch just by her, Where in the lone dark hours to lie: For neither dear old nurse nor I Would any single wish deny her. And there unto the last it lay; And in the pastures cared to play Little or nothing: there ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... other first made the concoction of orange juice and brandy; he saw him clearly, leaning in the doorway to the dining room, with the emptied goblet, and a curious, introspective expression on his mobile countenance. "He ought to be hung!" he exclaimed sharply. The fellow should see himself as a mat for Mariana's feet. But that wasn't life, he realized; existence seemed to become more and more heedless of the proprieties, of the simplest concessions to duty. He saw the world as a ship which, admirably navigated a score or more years ago, had jammed its ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... opening of Lake St. Clair. Here he had a small oven-shaped cabin of bark and rushes. Here he dwelt with his squaws and children, and here doubtless he might often have been seen, lounging, Indian style, half naked, on a rush mat ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... our foundation stone for the building of the New Chapel; fifty-five feet in length, and twenty-nine and half feet in breath. The brethren assembled together at my house, and walked in procession to our place of worship, where a short discourse was delivered upon the subject, taken from Mat. XVI. 18. Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against. As soon as divine service was over, we laid a stone in a pillar provided for that purpose, and on the stone was laid a small marble plate, and these words engraven thereon, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... green, except in the dry districts, all the year round; and the common grass of the Islands is the maniania, a fine creeping grass which covers the ground with a dense velvety mat; and where it is kept short by sheep makes an admirable springy lawn. It has a fine deep color and bears drought remarkably well; and it is the favorite pasture grass of the Islands. I do not think it as fattening as the alfilleria of Southern California or ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... which the soldiers and their families live have no partitions, to each couple being assigned a space about eight feet square, which is chalk-marked on the floor. The only article of furniture in each of these "apartments" is a bed, which is really a broad, low platform covered with a grass-mat, for in a land where the mercury not infrequently climbs to 120 in the shade, there is no need for bedding. Here they eat and sleep and make their toilets, the women preparing the meals for their men and for themselves in ovens out-of-doors. ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... shutter. The pale daylight entered from without, throwing a sinister light on the saffron-coloured walls. The floor—for though the laboratory and the vestibule were tiled, The Yellow Room had a flooring of wood—was covered with a single yellow mat which was large enough to cover nearly the whole room, under the bed and under the dressing-table—the only piece of furniture that remained upright. The centre round table, the night-table and two chairs had been overturned. These did not prevent a large stain ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... least come in at the side door instead of the front, especially on muddy days when she was liable to soil the costly carpets. And Jerry, who cared but little how she entered the house, if she only got in, came through the kitchen after the second day, and wiped her feet upon the mat; and once, when her shoes were worse than usual, took them off, lest they ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... America happened to be in Albany, and I got him to come round three or four afternoons a week. Incidentally I may mention that his presence caused me a difficulty with the Comptroller, who refused to audit a bill I put in for a wrestling-mat, explaining that I could have a billiard-table, billiards being recognized as a proper Gubernatorial amusement, but that a wrestling-mat symbolized something unusual and unheard of and could not be permitted. The middleweight champion ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... plant most Southern Californians call—with many profane prefixes—devilgrass. It was yellow, the dirty, grayish yellow of moldy straw; and bald, scuffed spots immodestly exposed the cracked, parched earth beneath. Over the walk, interwoven stolons had been felted down into a ragged mat, repellent alike to foot and eye. Perversely, onto what had once been flowerbeds, the runners crept erect, bristling spines showing faintly green on top—the only live color in the miserable expanse. Where the grass had gone to ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... singular-rreth); Berat, Bulquize, Delvine, Devoll (Bilisht), Dibre (Peshkopi), Durres, Elbasan, Fier, Gjirokaster, Gramsh, Has (Krume), Kavaje, Kolonje (Erseke), Korce, Kruje, Kucove, Kukes, Lac, Lezhe, Librazhd, Lushnje, Malesia e Madhe (Koplik), Mallakaster (Ballsh), Mat (Burrel), Mirdite (Rreshen), Peqin, Permet, Pogradec, Puke, Sarande, Shkoder, Skrapar (Corovode), Tepelene, Tirane, Tropoje (Bajram Curri), Vlore note: administrative divisions have the same names as their administrative centers (exceptions have the ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... hate the coning people. By my faith, I weel see Mr. Silas Ruthyn, and ask wat he mean. I heard him tell old Wyat that Mr. Dudley is gone away to-night. He shall tell me everything, or else I weel make echec et mat aussi vrai ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... Thursday?" asked Elizabeth. She was evidently labouring under some strong excitement, for she panted as she spoke and so far forgot herself in her agitation as to take up the dust in the hall instead of sweeping it under the mat. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... was as long and as flat as a snow shoe, and her hands looked as shapeless and as hard as two large sponges froze solid. Her neck was as thick as a bull's, and her scalp was large and woolly enough for a door-mat. She was as strong as a moose, and as ugly too; and her great-white pointed teeth was ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... generally reconnoitred by his sister from a window over the door, and was compelled to put his shoes through a system of purification, devised by her for his especial benefit. It consisted of three courses of scraper, and two of mat; this being considered by her as strictly necessary to bring his shoes to such a state of cleanliness as would entitle him to admission into the premises of which ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... tell how I did it, but I allowed Sylvester and the agent to grasp my hands, one on either side. Berkley, as to his collar, his cravat, his face and his white gloves, presented one general surface of mat silver. He clasped me with some affection, but his intellect had quite gone, and he said it was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... with dropsy. He sat up all day on the side of the bed (to keep the water out of his body), no mat on the floor, a thin blanket on his legs, and an old coat around his shoulders. A missionary brought him a pair of paper slippers, worth fourpence (I saw them), and proceeded to offer up fifty prayers or so for the good ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... then sprung up betuixt the merchands and trades about their priviledges, bot he lyke ane skilfull Chirurgeon bound up and healled their wounds; and being lykewayes sunck under the burthen of debt he procured such gifts and impositions from his Mat'ie upon all sorts of Liquors that he in a short tyme brought doun their debt from eleven hundredth thousand merks to seven hundredth thousand: and being thrcatened by the Lord Lauderdale to erect the citadels of Leith in a burgh Royall, which wold have broke ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... and COOK's Tourists and Awful Towers do for Parry without hus, I wonder? We shall see! Ah, Madame lar Republick, maybe you'll be sorry, you and your bullyin' jondarms, for chucking o' me afore you're through. As MAT MOPUS ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... crow of delight. He was surprised, when he reached the house and looked up mechanically at the windows, to see that there was no light. He went upstairs and knocked, but got no answer. When Mildred went out she left the key under the mat and he found it there now. He let himself in and going into the sitting-room struck a match. Something had happened, he did not at once know what; he turned the gas on full and lit it; the room was ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Mat macers, fellows and old women who go round in a morning when the servants are cleaning the doorways and ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... stuff or a rug. In the tattered rags which sometimes still exist, costly embroideries and fringed golden tissue have more than once been recognized, while some female skeletons still showed handsome heads of hair gathered into fine nets. The body lies on a reed mat, on its left side, the right hand stretched out so as to reach with the tips of the fingers a bowl, generally of copper or bronze, and sometimes of fine workmanship, usually placed on the palm of the left hand. Around are placed ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... represents its value," "written by CLEMENT, who had seen the blessed apostles and conversed with them, who had the preaching of the apostles still sounding in his ears, and their traditions before his eyes." In this epistle of Clement, he quotes Mat. v. 7, xviii. 6. Next to Clement, Paley notices Hermes who is mentioned by St. Paul, Rom. xvi. 14, in a catalogue of Roman Christians. Hermes wrote a work called the Shepherd or Pastor of Hermes.[5] Says our author, ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... isolation, there was seated at the table the President. On arriving at the door of the apartment, our modern Virgil seemed to have become so overwhelmed with awe that, without daring even to intrude a foot, he turned back, and, in so doing, once more exhibited a back as shiny as a mat, and having adhering to it, in one spot, a chicken's feather. As soon as the two friends had entered the hall of the Presence they perceived that the President was NOT alone, but, on the contrary, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... allow weather to cut it shorter,' said Pitt, throwing himself down on a mat. 'I think I have observed that you too always have some work in hand whenever I ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... chairs, so spare of back and thin of shank that the rustics would stand rather than trust their corn-fed weight upon them. Underfoot was a store-bought carpet, as full of roses as the Elysian Fields, and over by the door lay a round, braided rag mat, into which Isom's old wife had stitched the hunger of her heart and the brine of ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... with her child to the servants' house. The women, from compassion, yielded a fresh mat to her, but she did not lie down to sleep; she sat the whole night with her child ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... notes the chariot's pausing At her low gate; Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling Upon her mat. ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... his life. Now, a man who has saved your life once may do it again; one favour is always the promise of another. So Seti, with a sudden inspiration, went straight to the house of Fielding Bey and sat down before it on his mat. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... consists of a circular, thick mat of straw, from two to four feet in diameter, covered with canvas, painted in a series of circles. The inner circle is a gold color, then comes red, white, black, and the outer circle white. The score for a gold hit is ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... attempts to light this, he discovered it was a safety match. He threw it down, and then it occurred to him that he might have willed it lit. He did, and perceived it burning in the midst of his toilet-table mat. He caught it up hastily, and it went out. His perception of possibilities enlarged, and he felt for and replaced the candle in its candlestick. "Here! you be lit," said Mr. Fotheringay, and forthwith the candle was flaring, and he saw a little black hole in ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... Maryam, Sebhat-Le'ab, Gabra Shelase Tezasu, Aheta-Mikael, which had such a startling effect on the lives of all the other characters, and led indirectly to the finding of the blood-stain on the bath-mat. My own suspicions fell immediately upon Thomas Rooke, of whom we are told nothing more than "R.W.S.," which is obviously the cabbalistic ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... horse, that was brought out and set to gallop round, with a gaudy horse-woman on his back, who jumped through a hoop and did the ordinary feats, the horse's hoofs splashing and possing all the time in the green slush of the ring. An old door-mat was laid down near the entrance for the performers, and as they came out in turn they wiped the mud from their feet before they got up on their horses. A little later the clown came out, to the great delight of the people. He was followed by some gymnasts, and then the horse-people ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... and blow from the picture any particles of dust which may have fallen upon it. Then take strips of sticking paper, about half or three quarters of an inch wide, and firmly and neatly secure it to the glass, having first placed a "mat" between them to prevent the plate being scratched by ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling
... take a whiff out of my pipe, till she learnt to smoke too, and I then taught her to chaw baccy. She was very fond of a quid, let me tell ye, and we became as friendly as two mice. All the time little Chickchick used to sit up in a corner by herself, making a mat or a straw hat, or some such sort of thing, looking up at me with her beautiful eyes, and listening to all I was saying, though, for the matter of that, she could not understand much of my lingo. At last I caught the dear little thing at ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... up to the window, dear, and wait till you hear me open the inside door," said she. "I'll run through the house and enter from the living-room. The key is under the mat, you know." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... started up the river that was called Katsena, Alan and Jeekie seated in a lordly fashion near the stern of the canoe beneath an awning made out of some sticks and a grass mat. In truth after their severe toil and adventures in the forest, this method of journeying proved quite luxurious. Except for a rapid here and there over or round which the canoe must be dragged, the river was broad and the scenery on ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... finished his dinner he wheedles the cook, Picks a coal from the scuttle or tackles a book, Or devotes all his strength to a slipper or mat, To the gnawing of this and the tearing of that: Faute de mieux takes a dress; and his mistress asserts That there's nothing to beat her Like Peter the eater, Attached by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... The beaver-mat camp is a new one and, under favorable conditions, a good one. Cut your poles the length required for the framework of the sides, lash them together with the green rootlets of the tamarack or strips of bark of the papaw, elm, cedar, or ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... good taste and moderate expenditure had converted it into a rustic boudoir of no mean pretensions. Cretonne hangings concealed the rough walls, and a few small pictures served to confine their bright folds to the uneven surface of earth and rock. The earthen floor was covered by a mat. A couch of the light, portable kind was daintily spread. A shelving rock, covered with a mat of Japanese print, held a never-failing lamp, and two camp-chairs completed the furniture, which had been conveyed into the cave with the utmost care and secrecy. A few books and a number of papers ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... the Mediterranean, Egypt, and Asia Minor. Her wharfs were counters across which they could swap merchandise. All she asked was to be allowed to change their money. Instead of which, when any two nations of the Near East went to the mat to settle their troubles, Salonika was the mat. If any country within a thousand-mile radius declared war on any other country in any direction whatsoever, the armies of both belligerents clashed at Salonika. They not only used her as a door-mat, but they used her hills to the north of ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... Mar brought out a wire mat and laid it in front of the door where any one who entered or left would be sure to step on it. The various connections made, the man placed a switch in the concealment of a heavily-curtained window and replaced everything as ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... later, when the War is won And each man murmurs, "Well, that's that," And reckons up what he has done To put the Germans on the mat, I'll say, "It took ten myriad guns And fighting vessels by the batch; But we too served, we ancient ones, Who dug in our ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various
... front of the two Englishmen the body rested for an instant, stretched out long and piteously flat, showing its thin shape through the mat of woven straw which wrapped it, only the head and feet being wound with linen. So, by and by, it would be laid, without a coffin, in its shallow grave in the Arab cemetery, out on the road to ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... wounded under pretence of assisting friends or near relations. They had already expelled a good number of these poor fellows, when, opening the door of a small room, they found a soldier soaked in blood lying on a rough mat, and another soldier apparently attending on him with ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... her radiant beauty. One morning she had bound a cluster of wild arbutus about her brow. Another day she had twisted a band of convolvulus around her waist. On a third she had wound herself up in a mat of bulrushes. ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... London City houses-of-business. This, however, is modernised with whitewash. Here also, it being a Continental court-yard, are the inevitable orange-trees in huge green tubs placed at the four corners. A few pigeons feeding, a blinking cat curled up on a mat, pretending to take no sort of interest in the birds, and a little child playing with a cart. Such is this picture. Externally, not much like a house of business; but it is, and of big business too. We enter a cool and tastefully ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various
... made answer when two women rushed upon the Prophet and dragged him away crying, "Yamout, Mat: he is dying! he is dead!" As the Prophet was pulled away he turned to me mildly and said, "Yâkob, inker, Arise, James." I inquired where he was being dragged to, and was told that the husband of the two women was just dead, and the Prophet was going ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... master of the hotel and all the servants were on the spot. In their excitement to subdue it, before the numerous visitors should be alarmed, they opened the aperture still more, so as to give free vent to the smoke. I at once told them their mistake, and, seizing the nearest door-mat, put it over the aperture; my example was followed, and other exits closed, the servants meanwhile carrying buckets of water below, where the fire had originated. Fortunately, the fire was soon extinguished, little harm being done; but the event showed me that there was ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... unimaginative, substantial, and undreamlike person? I do. And now, since you will not put me quite at my ease by assuming, in words, that I have been properly 'chaperoned' here, I must inform you that my father waits hard by—is, as my riotous young brother says, 'without on the mat.'" ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... serious mishap, reckless of life, unheedful alike of time and eternity, they made the smallest trifles and the biggest tragedies the subjects of chaff and badinage till the next diverting occurrence. But to the Cross Canon outfit Mat Barlow's love for Netty Nevins was so obviously a downright worship, an all-absorbing, dominating cult, that, in a way, and all unknown to her, she became the nearest thing to a religion the Cross Canonites ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... Indians were invited by the Mohicans of New York to leave their New Jersey home and come and live with them. In their invitation the Mohicans said they would like them "to pack up your mat and come and eat out of our dish, which is large enough for all, and our necks are stretched in looking toward the fireside of our grandfather till they are as ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... long iron spike in the other, came up to the captain in a defiant manner, flourishing his weapon, and threatening to throw the stone. Cook told him to desist, but he persisted in his threatening actions, and at length provoked the captain to fire a charge of small-shot into him, having on his war-mat, however, it had no other effect than to stir up his wrath. Several stones were now thrown at the marines, and a native attempted to stab one of the party with his spear; in this, however, he failed, and was knocked down with the butt-end ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne
... his gums on the mat." While a mat will do very well for overshoes, a tooth-brush and sozodont would be better ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... made a strong lather, and scrubbed us soundly with a wad of linden bast shredded into fibres. Her wad was of the choicest sort; not that which is sold in the popular markets, but that which is procured by stripping into rather coarse filaments the strands of an old mat-sack, such as is used for everything in Russia, from wrappers for sheet iron to bags for carrying a pound of cherries. After a final douche with boiling water, we mounted the high shelf, with its wooden ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... lay in luminous blue water; shoreward the water was green-green and brilliant; at the shore itself it broke in a long, white ruffle, and with no crash, no sound that we could hear. The town was buried under a mat of foliage that looked like a cushion of moss. The silky mountains were clothed in soft, rich splendors of melting color, and some of the cliffs were veiled in slanting mists. I recognized it all. It was just as I had ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... name for the most intellectual as well as diverting and entertaining of games. It is called in the East the game of the King, and the word Schach mat, or Shah mat in the Persian language signifies the King is dead, "Checkmate." Chess allows the utmost scope for art and strategy, and gives the most various and extensive employment to the powers of the understanding. Men whose wisdom and sagacity are unquestioned have not hesitated ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... not sparkled, or there had been loose paper on the ground or moulted feathers on the bricks, she would have discovered this with the victorious satisfaction of finding fault. But orderliness prevailed. No; the mat at the front door had been displaced by Rowan's foot as he had hurried from the house. (The impulse was irresistible: she adjusted it with her toe and planted herself on it ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... been in attendance on the body, painted themselves black all over, covered their heads with leaves, and walked in solemn procession, headed by the chief brother-in-law, who carried the skull in the basket. Meantime the male relatives were awaiting them, seated on a large mat in the ceremonial ground, while the women grouped themselves in the background. As the procession of men approached bearing the skull, the mourners shot arrows over their heads as a sign of anger at them ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... and soaked in hot water, after the hair had been removed. When the last hide had been eaten, nothing remained but their boot-tops and the scraps of leather from their wagon. Even the neck-piece of a buffalo-skin which had served as a door-mat was used for food. Thus they kept themselves alive until spring, when they subsisted on thistle-roots and wild garlic, until at length relief came from ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... when shown to his bedroom, looked askance at the neat, comfortable bed that had been prepared for him. In the morning it was found that he had scorned the bed, and, retiring to the piazza, had rolled himself up in his mat and lain down to pleasant dreams. At table, although he had never before seen knives and forks, he picked up their use instantly by quietly observing the manners ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... CHOKE-BERRY (A. nigra), with similar flowers, the berries very dark purple, was formerly confounded with the red choke-berry. But because it sometimes elects to live in dry ground its leaves require no woolly mat on the underside to absorb vapors arising from wet retreats. No wonder that the insipid little berries. related to apples, pears, and other luscious fruits, should share with a cousin, the mountain ash, or rowan, the reproachful ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... hear my petitions when any difficulty occurred, as he formerly had been. When Maria was nearly two months old, her father one morning sent me word that he and all the white prisoners were put into the inner prison in five pairs of fetters each, that his little room had been torn down, and his mat, pillow, &c. been taken by the jailers. This was to me a dreadful shock, as I thought at once it was only a prelude to ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... little dwarf was in the dining-room, pretending to sweep—but he was only sweeping the crumbs under the mat, for he did not like to clean. He heard the rat-tat-tat! but he pretended that he was too busy to ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... beard which, black as his heart, grew up to his very eyes. This beard he twisted into four long tails, tied with ribbons, two of which he tucked behind his outstanding ears, and two over his shoulders. His hair was like a mat and grew low over his forehead. In fact, little of the skin of his face was visible, his fierce eyes glaring from a visage like that of a baboon. In fighting, it was his custom to stick lighted fuses ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... they made their way upstairs, George keeping in front. On the first-floor he saw a pair of lady's shoes on a mat outside the door, and guessed to whom ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... colour and developed an increasing effect of being somehow, albeit colossal, yet slight. He was vastly delicate. His eyes and something about his face grew finer—grew, as people say, "interesting." His hair, after one cutting, began to tangle into a mat. "It's the degenerate strain coming out in him," said the parish doctor, marking these things, but just how far he was right in that, and just how far the youngster's lapse from ideal healthfulness was the ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... the party had been stacked along a stick set in two crotches, and covered with a mat to keep the dampness off. Annawan's feet, and his son's head, opposite, almost touched the ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... machine. By six at work: stopped at half-past ten to give a history lesson to a step-grandson; eleven, lunch; after lunch we have a musical performance till two; then to work again; bath, 4.40; dinner, five; cards in the evening till eight; and then to bed—only I have no bed, only a chest with a mat and blankets—and read myself to sleep. This is the routine, but often sadly interrupted. Then you may see me sitting on the floor of my verandah haranguing and being harangued by squatting chiefs on a question ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The first you know,' I says, 'they'll have your skin off an' layin' on the front piaz' for a door-mat.' ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... divides the hovel into two apartments; each of which has a small opening in the wall to admit the air and light; but one door generally serves as an entrance, the closure of which is frequently nothing more than a strong mat. A blue cotton jacket and a pair of trowsers, a straw hat and shoes of the same material, constitute the dress of the majority of the people. Matting of reeds or bamboo, a cylindrical pillow of wood covered with leather, a kind of rug or felt blanket made of the hairy wool of the ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... responsible for her daughters' names), rising from her chair and pouring what was left of her after dinner coffee into her saucer, a proceeding which caused four pairs of lambent eyes to discover themselves in the coiled mat of red setters that occupied ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... do not think I danced a horn but I did step around lively, maybe, a little on tip He said, he thought he had cured me up, that the application he gave would make me well. I crawled into bed very much pleased indeed to think the mat was settled, as far as I was concerned. John S. had crawled into bed while I was paying the penalty. Father excused him because he was so young; he said I was the one to blame, and must stand it all. I thought as all young Americans do that it was ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... been found in nature in but a few plants, as in tea, in coffee, (then termed caffein), in Mat'e (Paraguay or Brazilian tea), and in the Kola nut of Africa. A very similar principle, having analogous properties, but containing more nitrogen, exists ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... bounded, yet halted to clean his boots on the mat. At that moment he thought he heard a cry, but nothing could stay him now. The shining tool in his clutch was unnecessary: the handle turned, the door opened. He sped across the hall and upstairs. Lights were burning in Christopher's old room; the pendulum ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... are magicians who call themselves teciuhtlazque,[6-[]] and also by the term nanahualtin, who conjure the clouds when there is danger of hail, so that the crops may not be injured. They can also make a stick look like a serpent, a mat like a centipede, a piece of stone like a scorpion, and similar deceptions. Others of these nanahualtin will transform themselves to all appearances (segun la aparencia), into a tiger, a dog or a weasel. Others again will take the ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton
... heads," said the latter, with a dark look at the Decurio; "pay us their worth!" and taking two heads from his pouch he laid them on Numa's mat. ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... he at first experienced. He had become nervously incapable of those proper niceties of sword-play which, without any indecent hacking or maiming, should have stretched Angelo, neatly slain, on the mat of green, before he had a chance. Even now the sight of the man was distressing to an honourable duellist. Angelo was scored with blood-marks. Feeling that he dared not offer another chance to a fellow so desperately close-dealing, Weisspriess thrust ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... process of fabrication, By a Spinning-Jennyish operation, It's hard to say what buzzing it is. However, except that ghost of a sound, She sat in a silence most profound— The cat was purring about the mat, But her Mistress heard no more of that Than if it had been a boatswain's cat; And as for the clock the moments nicking, The Dame only gave it credit for ticking. The bark of her dog she did not catch; Nor yet the click of the lifted latch; ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... "Mat Lucas has been hanging round here all day," said Jimmy. "He wants you to buy out a half-interest in his dry-goods store. What ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... take ship for China. The harbour of Calicut was full of great Chinese ships called junks. These junks struck him as unlike anything he had seen before. "The sails are made of cane reed woven together like a mat, which, when they put into port, they leave standing in the wind. In some of these vessels there will be a thousand men, sailors and soldiers. Built in the ports of China only, they are rowed with large oars, which may be compared to great masts. On ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... present for your doll; it is a doll's mat, woven by a little girl, aged seven years, Rachel Muskrat; and here is a little canoe of red cedar, made ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... proposition: L'homme est incomparablement plus porte au mat qu'au bien, et il se fait dans le monde incomparablement plus de mauvaises actions que de bonnes—est aussi certaine qu'aucun principe de metaphysique. Il est donc incomparablement plus probable qu'une action faite par un homme, est mauvaise, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... "this is beyond bearing. Mr. Mason, I must trouble you to walk out of my office." And then he rang the bell. "Tell Mr. Mat I want to see him." But before that younger partner had joined his father Joseph Mason had gone. "Mat," said the old man, "I don't interfere with you in many things, but on this I must insist. As long as my name is in the firm Mr. Joseph Mason of Groby ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... not to be left in peace. Another hand came to the door, and a voice demanding entrance followed the foiled attempt to open it. He recognized the voice as lady Ann's, and made haste to admit her. But her ladyship stood motionless on the door-mat, erect and cool. Anger itself could not warm her, for that she was angry was plain only from the steely sparkle in ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... that I'm not married yet—not papa or Izzy, but you—you! Never does one of the girls get engaged that you don't look at me like I was wearing the welcome off the door-mat." ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... formality. Prior either accompanied him or followed him, and after his departure had the appointments and authority of an ambassador, though no public character. By some mistake of the queen's orders the court of France had been disgusted, and Bolingbroke says in his letter, "Dear Mat,—Hide the nakedness of thy country, and give the best turn thy fertile brain will furnish thee with to the blunders of thy countrymen, who are not much better politicians than ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... days was unaware of all the painful surprises in store, had taken her to morning service, and allowed her to sit beside her on the mat at the back of the church. All through the first part of the service Chellalu was good; and as the sermon began, she was forgotten. In our church we sit on the floor, men on one side, women and children on the other. A broad aisle is left between, and the ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... legibus approves, if old age, poverty, ignominy, &c. oppress, and which Fabius expresseth in effect. (Praefat. 7. Institut.) Nemo nisi sua culpa diu dolet. It is an ordinary thing in China, (saith Mat. Riccius the Jesuit,) [2774]"if they be in despair of better fortunes, or tired and tortured with misery, to bereave themselves of life, and many times, to spite their enemies the more, to hang at their door." Tacitus the historian, Plutarch the philosopher, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... who pass through the town, which hospitality is like that of the Scotch mountaineers—it is given, but never sold. During two or three days, the traveller has a right to lodging, in which he is supplied with a mat, a pillow, salt, vinegar, wood, cooking vessels, and—paying for the same—all descriptions of food necessary for his subsistence. If, on his departure, he should even require horses and guides to continue his journey, they are procured for him. With respect to the prices of provisions, ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... now presented himself in the hall. He was donned in his Sunday garments, with his most sanctimonious and sourest face, and, holding his hat in one hand, and his stick in the other, he proceeded to clean his shoes on the mat. ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... with lids, mat burials; bodies contracted; funerary furniture, copper, stone or pottery drinking cups held near mouth: copper weapons, fish-hooks, net weights; beads of agate, lapis, shell (unpolished); colour-dishes, (Fara). (The idea that the Babylonians ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... Mrs. Lewis, who were regarded as leaders in the hunger strike protest, removed to the district jail, Mr. Whittaker and his staff at Occoquan began a systematic attempt to break down the morale of the hunger strikers. Each one was called to the mat and interrogated. ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... been drafted. The money his mother had put aside to purchase his release had been used up as a result of six months of poor business and by credits given to certain lorettes on the street, who had left the key under their door-mat one fine morning. He had not prospered, in a business way, himself, and his stock in trade had been taken on execution. He had been that day to ask a former employer to advance him the money to purchase a substitute. But the ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... still the Indian mother weaves Above her babe her mat of plantain leaves, And laughing, plaits. Or pausing, sweet and low Her voice blends with the river's drowsy flow; The while she fitful sings that old, old strain, Forgetting that the love, the deathless pain Of wandering Lilith lives ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... he stood on the door-mat beside his captor merely added mystery to mystery. Just within the luxuriously furnished hall, where the light of the softly shaded hall lantern served to heighten the artistic effect of her red house-gown, stood a woman—a lady, and evidently the mistress of the Georgian mansion. ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... little farms, huddled all together, with wilderness and brush and trees, or the wide open green grass lawn between. The houses were very large and neat-looking. They were constructed quite ingeniously from coco branches. Each branch made one mat. The leaves were all brought over to the same side of the stem, and then plaited. The resulting mat was then six or seven feet long by from twelve to sixteen inches broad, and could be used for ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... and after a performance on the door-mat, protracted by reason of a festoon of hemp, followed his hostess into the ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... the khan. My room was without furniture; but, being lately white-washed, and duly swept out under my own superintendence, and laid with the best mat in the khan, on which I placed my bed and carpets, the addition of a couple of rush-bottomed chairs and a deal table, made it habitable, which was all I desired, as I intended to stay only a few days. I was ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... a sort of mud cave, man-made and door-less, the uneven earth floor covered with excrement, human and otherwise. I returned to peer into the mat-roofed yard with piles of corn-stalks and un-threshed beans, and met the man of the house just arriving with his labor-worn burros. He was a sinewy peasant of about fifty, dressed like all country peons in shirt and tight trousers of thinnest white cotton, showing his brown ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... He carefully rubs his feet on the mat as he enters. Then he advances to the table. MAGGIE dries her eyes with the back of her hand. JESSIE is standing with her ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... of ink. In another corner a ragged old portmanteau on one of the two chairs serves for cabinet or wardrobe; no larger one is needed, for it collapses like the cheeks of a starved man. The floor is bare, except that one old mat, trodden to shreds of rope-yarn, lies perishing upon the hearth. No curtain veils the darkness of the night, but the discoloured shutters are drawn together, and through the two gaunt holes pierced in them, famine might be staring in—the banshee of ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... had not stolen any of our canvas, they were past masters of the art of mat making, and might easily have plaited for themselves a sail of fine grass, which would answer their purpose almost as well as one made of canvas. And if they had done that, what would their speed probably be? The canoe was only a small craft of about twenty-four ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... the gardener's boy left outside the tool-house. I—I—well, I put it on Fritz's head for a hat, you know. He did look so funny, but he tossed up his head and ran away, and it fell, and it is smashed to bits. I have got the bits outside the door on the mat. ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... devoir." It is strange, under what impediments the fire of Jacobinism, like other such fires, will burn. These Soldiers have shoes of wood and pasteboard, or go booted in hayropes, in dead of winter; they skewer a bass mat round their shoulders, and are destitute of most things. What then? It is for Rights of Frenchhood, of Manhood, that they fight: the unquenchable spirit, here as elsewhere, works miracles. "With steel and bread," says the Convention Representative, "one may ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle |
