"As a matter of fact" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "As a matter of fact, Mr. Porter," Feldstein said in a flat, cold voice, "in view of your record, we felt that the investigation at this time was advisable. You bought a scrap missile and used it illegally. You can hardly blame us for ...
— By Proxy • Gordon Randall Garrett
... of these monstrous engines of war, but as a cloud of secrecy hung over all their movements, had never up to that moment seen one. Those used on this front were much smaller than their French relations, and were as a matter of fact a comparative failure in Palestine. Whether the sand was too much for them, or the rough country over which they had to operate, I do not know, but after the third attempt on Gaza I believe they were never used. One could easily understand their striking terror into ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... inclined," he said, "to quarrel with my good fortune. But as a matter of fact, it is your brother whom I wish to see. There is no reason why I should not—that I ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... refer to this little monument, Madam? As a matter of fact, it is distinguished by an exceptional inscription of a sufficiently curious nature. But may I ask what has procured for me ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... frantically in and out of the murk, often fairly at the flames themselves. The published writings of a certain worthy and sentimental person waste much sympathy over these poor birds dashing frenziedly about above their destroyed nests. As a matter of fact they are taking greedy advantage of a most excellent opportunity to get insects cheap. Thousands of the common red-billed European storks patrolled the grass just in front of the advancing flames, or wheeled barely above the fire. Grasshoppers were their ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... a usurper and a despot. Love of money gets a snatch at the sceptre as well as the rest, not by hereditary right, but because, in the fluctuations of human feelings, a chance wave washes him up to the throne, and the next perhaps washes him off without time to nominate his successor. Since, then, as a matter of fact, a host of appetites and passions do hourly get the better of love of money, what protection does the slave find in his master's interest, against the sweep of his passions and appetites? Besides, a master can inflict upon his slave horrible cruelties without perceptibly ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... founded on the feeling that a sentiment antagonistic to the full development of commercialism exists and is gaining ground, and that this sentiment is an independent growth of the ethics of the present epoch. As a matter of fact, admitting its existence, as I think we must do, it is the birth of the sense of insecurity which is the shadow cast before by the approaching dissolution of ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... clever as can be, my dear Athenais," said Madame de Thianges, "but, as a matter of fact, your cleverness is not of a business kind. You don't look after yourself, but let yourself be neglected; you don't push yourself forward enough, nor stand upon your dignity as ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... what, as a matter of fact, has been the arrangement of spaces to give aesthetic pleasure. The primitive art of all nations shows that it has taken the direction of symmetry about a vertical line. It might be said that this is the result of non-aesthetic influences, such as convenience ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... increasingly restricted with the multiplication and development of the Hindu peoples; each class of society became increasingly specialized. Finally the individual had no choice whatever left him, because of the extreme rigidity of the communal order. As a matter of fact, the individual choice and will was allowed no play whatever in any important matter. Good sense saw that where no freedom is, there moral responsibility cannot be. All one's life is predetermined by the ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... was silenced by the reminder, and she listened quietly while Mollie pressed her mother for details of the present situation. Alas, it was even worse than had been expected! It was so bad that it could not well be worse, and it seemed ridiculous to talk of what they could afford, since, as a matter of fact, they could afford nothing at all. It was a matter of speculation whence the next twenty pounds ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Blunt at once and put the suggestion before him. The Captain thought this the very thing. As a matter of fact, on that evening of Carnival, those two, Mills and Blunt, had been actually looking everywhere for our man. They had decided that he should be drawn into the affair if it could be done. Blunt naturally wanted to see him first. He ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... all. As a matter of fact, after to-day's incidents I was rather expecting you." Rockamore waved his unbidden guest to a chair, and produced a gold cigarette-case. "Smoke? You perhaps prefer cigars—no? ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... Grom had pointed his shaft skyward, he had taken no thought whatever as to its direction, or the distance it might travel. As a matter of fact, he had shot towards the Caves. He had shot strongly; and that first bow was a stiff one. Most of the folk who squatted before the Caves were watching; but there were some who were too indifferent or too stupid to take an interest in anything less arresting than a thump on the head. Among these ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... murder all the sons, by wives, of the three "powerful families" who were intriguing against the ducal rights, and to put concubine sons-being creatures of his own-in their place; thus the succession principles applied not only to ruling families, but also to private houses; though, as a matter of fact, these three were all, in their origin, descended from previous ruling dukes. As explained in Chapters XII. and XXXIII., after five generations a fresh "family" is supposed to spring out ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... As a matter of fact, "civilization" never remains long in the same spot. It is always going somewhere but it does not always move westward by any means. Sometimes its course points towards the east or the south. Often it zigzags across the map. But it keeps moving. After two or three hundred years, civilization ...
— Ancient Man - The Beginning of Civilizations • Hendrik Willem Van Loon
... no attention. He was still studying the map laid out before him on his desk, the cigar in the corner of his mouth drawing one side of his face into harsh, deep lines. As a matter of fact, Ulysses Simpson Grant was very far removed from harshness—he was simply and solely efficiency personified. When nothing was to be said General Grant said nothing. ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... he was beginning to despair, we put up the lioness in a hollow, and fired several shots at her as she hobbled over the opposing slope, one of which hit her, for she rolled over, then picked herself up again, roaring. As a matter of fact, it came from the Captain's rifle, but Higgs, who, like many an inexperienced person was a jealous sportsman, declared that it was his and we did not think it ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... your rose-red city looked like nothing on earth but a fearful and wonderful collection of pink and white birthday cakes, set out for a giants' tea-party! It seemed almost a pity the giants had never come and eaten them up. Vinx said I was ribald. As a matter of fact, he was simply jealous of my brilliant metaphor! Look at him now—bored to death with me, ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... *Clearly cataracts. As a matter of fact they WERE sometimes treated even this long ago, but the treatments did not meet with much success, and Causidiena probably would not have cared to take ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... frames. They made the bricks, lime, and cement, and all tiles necessary for roofing or for paving. They quarried the stone at Pulo Obin for foundations, and for sea and river walls. The blacksmiths cast and forged from the raw state all the iron work for which there was a necessity. As a matter of fact all material and all labour for the execution of any public work required by the Government were executed by these convicts, from a small timber bridge upon a country road, even to the erection of a "cathedral" ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... distressing hesitation about placing his arm around the waist of this brown-eyed Diana? Try as he would he could not find words to break the silence that had fallen between them. She was so imposing; so self-controlled. It really seemed to Jimmy that she should be the one to ask him to dance. As a matter of fact, that was just what happened; and after the dance she suggested that they sit in the garden; and in the garden, with the moonlight barely peeping through the friendly overhanging boughs of the trees, Jimmy found Aggie capable ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... by those who aspire to urbane and liberal judgments because they think it can be defended on humanistic grounds. But, as a matter of fact, it is as offensive to the thoroughgoing humanist as it is to the sincere religionist. They have a common quarrel with it. Take, for example, the notorious naturalistic doctrine of art for art's sake, the defiant divorcing of ethical and aesthetic ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... Any arrests?" he asked of his host. "Why, I told you," said Boyce, testily, though as a matter of fact he had said nothing. "They have got that man Hurd. The ruffian has been a marked man by the keepers and police, they tell me, for the last year or more. And there's my daughter has been pampering him and his wife all the time, and preaching to me about them! ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... has considered this coincidence a demonstration that there exists a strong analogy between a body in solution and a gas; as a matter of fact, it may seem that, in a solution, the distance between the molecules becomes comparable to the molecular distances met with in gases, and that the molecule acquires the same degree of liberty and the same simplicity ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... John, however, declared that he should not give any heed to the document; that King Richard's power over this realm had ceased before he made it; and that he should bestow the earldom upon whomsoever he chose. As a matter of fact, it has been given to Sir Rudolph Fleming, a Norman knight and a creature of the prince. The king has also, I hear, promised to him the hand of the young Lady Margaret, when she shall become of marriageable age. At present she is placed in a convent in Worcester. ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... "As a matter of fact," he announced languidly, "I possess five hundred francs." And so dignified was his air that Tricotrin came near to ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... attacked for his essay on Shelley. His essay on Keats, as a matter of fact, is much less sympathetic and penetrating. Here, more than anywhere else in his work, he seems to be a professor with whiskers drinking afternoon tea and discoursing on literature to a circle of schoolgirls. It is ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... the whole order of the Copernican system by revolving round the earth instead of round the sun. And there are other serious and curious difficulties admitted by Copernicus himself. But even the three great difficulties I have named are not real. As a matter of fact, Mars and Venus do vary in magnitude as required by theory, and Venus does change its shape ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... scene I made was in Rome in the Vatican. I was jealous of her; I can't explain it all to you—as a matter of fact, it hasn't been all explained to me! Something was troubling Ruth that Jack knew, and he said ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... we seem naturally to look for) appears at times so unrealizable, if not impossible. It will be assumed, to make this theory clearer, that the "flow" or "change" does not go on in the art-product itself. As a matter of fact it probably does, to a certain extent—a picture, or a song, may gain or lose in value beyond what the painter or composer knew, by the progress and higher development in all art. Keats may be only partially true when he says that "A work of beauty is a joy forever"—a ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... book round his bulk and into the tail pocket. He flicked his hands away and extended them for an instant, palms upward, much as a conjurer might to show there was nothing in them. "Certainly you may speak to me, Sabre." He performed his neat revolving trick. "As a matter of fact, I rather wanted to speak to you." He pointed across the whale-like front to the massive leathern armchair ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... Jugoslavia as well, or almost as well, as Fiume. Now, I am speaking from first-hand knowledge when I assert that this is not so, for I have seen with my own eyes every harbor, or potential harbor, on the eastern coast of the Adriatic from Istria to Greece. As a matter of fact, the entire coast of Dalmatia would not make up to the Jugoslavs for the loss of Fiume. The map gives no idea of the city's importance as the southernmost point at which a standard-gauge railway reaches the Adriatic, for the railway leading to Ragusa, to which the Italians so repeatedly refer ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... related them to Swann, he was overwhelmed by the revelation of the duplicity to which they pointed. One day, he was trying—without hurting Odette—to discover from her whether she had ever had any dealings with procuresses. He was, as a matter of fact, convinced that she had not; the anonymous letter had put the idea into his mind, but in a purely mechanical way; it had been received there with no credulity, but it had, for all that, remained ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... that Russian Poland would offer excellent conditions for an army on the defensive. And this is quite true, the Vistula, especially, serving as a screen against the attacking armies from the west. As a matter of fact, it would have been extremely difficult to take Warsaw by a frontal attack. Warsaw's weakness lay in the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... key-note to his character. As an artless dog of nature he was accustomed, when the world did not seem just and right to him, to show it plainly—an attitude not conducive to popularity; and it often made him seem surly when as a matter of fact he was only puzzled or depressed. He could not feign an amiability to hide hatred and vindictiveness as did the Tolmans, and it was a constant shock to him to note how the hypocrisy of Tom and his ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... famous he is in North Italy, where he is known—was a painter, and speaks of him as "a local imitator" of Gaudenzio, who "decorated" other chapels, and "whose works only show how rapidly Gaudenzio's influence declined and his school deteriorated." As a matter of fact, Tabachetti was a Fleming and his name was Tabaquet; but this is a detail. Sir Henry Layard thinks that "Miel" was also "a local imitator" of Gaudenzio. It is not likely that this painter ever worked on the Sacro Monte at all; but if he did, Sir Henry Layard should surely know ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... see it, Ned. As a matter of fact, I would have gone to Boylan about that button I found in my airship only I've been so busy on this photo telephone, and in arranging the trap, that I haven't had time. But if this fails—and I'm hoping it won't—I'll get after him," and there was a grim ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... invocations of the sanctity of the paternal tie far shriller. "What right," he cried, "had this Louis XI. to reward the ruffians of his Court with pretty girls and dowries when his royal purse was empty? What had made him choose Rouen, of all towns, for so unjustifiable a caprice?" As a matter of fact, it was about the worst choice he could have made, and Madame Estiennotte about the most unlikely mother he could have picked out for the prosperity of his experiment. She began by putting off the horseman until her husband should come back from market, and the moment his back was ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... see my husband's friends," Josephine replied a little stiffly. "As a matter of fact, however, I was surprised to see you because I left word that I was at home ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it, being a master of your profession, which, by the by, has procured you the honor of having been chosen by me to bear the weight of this secret, which now is shared by us, and by us two alone. I say, advisedly, by us two alone. You could not, as a matter of fact, prove the reality of this secret to anyone, unless I were to confess it, and I defy you to obtain my public confession, as I have confessed it to you, and without danger ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... why I am talking to you so frankly," replied he. "As a matter of fact I find that I'm more frank with you than I am with myself. I've always refused to own to myself that there was anything restless in my feeling toward life; yet here I am saying it ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... more aware of their origin than was their owner. "He meets bills, but nobody gets in behind his window-boxes." And Mr. Height raised his glass of Tom Collins, perfectly contented with the thought that he had enlightened Miss Adair about the private life of Mr. Vandeford. As a matter of fact he had failed utterly to do so, as she had not understood a word of his Broadway patois. "There's the great B. D. and beloved son-in-law," and Mr. Height nodded and smiled at a white-haired man and his companion who were seating themselves at ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... a practical point of view that we wish for peace. But, we may lawfully ask, will not this peace bring with it a special danger, against which we ought to take precautions? As a matter of fact, there is such a danger, and it lies in the fact that the people have been to so great an extent obsessed by the political struggle that they run the risk, once their end is attained, of collapsing and of losing interest in the ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... first paper, fully reveals the fundamental idea underlying this essay; and if the personal attack on Strauss seems sometimes to throw the main theme into the background, we must remember the author's own attitude towards this aspect of the case. Nietzsche, as a matter of fact, had neither the spite nor the meanness requisite for the purely personal attack. In his Ecce Homo, he tells us most emphatically: "I have no desire to attack particular persons—I do but use a personality ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... As a matter of fact, there were no more cases in the mill; and Lena herself had the terrible disease more lightly than any one had dared to hope. The doctor, hurrying through back ways and alleys to change his clothes ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... Deluge, which they will now find for themselves stated, as fully and forcibly as could be wished, by Anglican and other theologians, whose orthodoxy and conservative tendencies have, hitherto, been above suspicion. Yet many fully admit (and, indeed, nothing can be plainer) that, as a matter of fact, the whole earth known to him was inundated; nor is it less obvious that unless all mankind, with the exception of Noah and his family, were actually destroyed, the references to the Flood in the ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... As a matter of fact, there were only three chief outlets. The Canopic branch flowed westward, and fell into the Mediterranean near Cape Abukir, at the western extremity of the arc described by the coast-line. The Pelusiac branch followed the length of the Arabian chain, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... with me. As a matter of fact, he would have agreed to anything that would have restrained us from killing the poor devils who fell into our hands. He was a great fellow to invent gunpowder and fire-arms and cannon; but when it came to using these things to kill people, he was as tender-hearted ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... very fact assumed a menacing aspect. I am glad that Princess Mary is ill; they might be guilty of some impertinence towards her. Grushnitski goes about with dishevelled locks, and wears an appearance of despair: he is evidently afflicted, as a matter of fact; his vanity especially has been injured. But, you see, there are some people in whom even ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... As a matter of fact, the pale red stain kept reappearing on one of the white roses in the carpet pattern. It was as though, on the very threshold of the room, a splash of blood were barring ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... some of the warmer parts of the United States, California, for instance, the word "hardiness" takes on a certain connotation that we should understand better in the north. Its meaning there is "resistance to delayed dormancy", as one California report states it. As a matter of fact, it might be advisable for us all everywhere to think of hardiness in these terms. Delayed dormancy is hazardous in any tree, whether natural to it or induced artificially by late summer or early fall cultivation and fertilizing, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various
... As a matter of fact he knew that his name was Teeters, but injecting an element of doubt into it in this fashion seemed somehow to make the telling easier. Teeters was bad enough, but combined with Clarence! Only Mr. Teeters knew the effort it cost him to tell his name to strangers. ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... indifference, and Taoukwang not merely ordered that the fleet should be provided with all the supplies it needed, but appointed Keshen High Commissioner for the conclusion of an amicable arrangement. The difficulty thus seemed in a fair way toward settlement, but as a matter of fact it was only at its commencement, for the wiles of Chinese diplomacy are infinite and were then only partially understood. Keshen was remarkable for his astuteness and for the yielding exterior which covered a purpose of iron, and in the English political officer, ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... come to the St. Cenis as M. and Mme. Duval. Their baggage was light, but they had been at pains to impress upon the hotel that they were persons of some position and that it was going direct from the railroad to the steamer, after their tour of America. They had, as a matter of fact, done nothing to excite suspicion until the general request ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... raised so much hell on earth that I doubt if there's much we can teach him down here. Really, he's not an amateur at all, but a professional. I don't know whether it wouldn't be more punishment to send him to heaven instead. As a matter of fact, down here he'll feel perfectly ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... in man lies so close to the surface. We think we are human and law-abiding of our own volition, whereas, as a matter of fact, nine-tenths of it is from pure habit. It doesn't occur to us to be anything else. But let all standards and customs be scrapped, let us see the things done freely that never even entered our minds before, and a lot of us are liable to develop ape and tiger proclivities. We nearly all ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... orders," said the colonel quickly. "He got a little upset. He'd taken those tapes and documents around to four editors and had been thrown out four times. The fifth time—at the Globe, as a matter of fact—he accused the editor of being in your pay. A hassle started, and the editor called the Honolulu police. Don't worry, Sire; one of my boys got the tapes ...
— The Unnecessary Man • Gordon Randall Garrett
... As a matter of fact, she found herself enjoying his companionship more than she intended to. She found herself falling in ...
— The Jupiter Weapon • Charles Louis Fontenay
... said Father M'Fadden. "Under Mr. Gladstone's Act of 81, and under the later Act of the present Government, the rents so fixed from '81 to '86 inclusive are subject to revision for three years; but the people have no confidence in the constitution of the Courts, and, as a matter of fact, the improvements of the tenants are confiscated under the Act of '81, and the reductions allowed under the Act of '87 are incommensurate with the fall in prices by 100 per cent. And there still remains the burden of arrears. I feel that I must ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... As a matter of fact, Bobby had had very little to do with matches unless an older person was about, but he did not like the janitor to think he never had matches ...
— Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun • Mabel C. Hawley
... Drusus—soon felt the weight of Cornelia's wrath. The young lady, as soon as Lentulus was out of the way, caused the tell-tale to receive a cruel whipping, which kept the poor slave-girl groaning in her cell for ten days, and did not relieve Cornelia's own distress in the slightest degree. As a matter of fact, Cornelia was perpetually goaded into fresh outbursts of desperation by the tyrannical attitude of her uncle. Lentulus boasted in her presence that he would accomplish Drusus's undoing. "I'll imitate Sulla," he would announce, in mean ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... colonial government has been called a theocracy. As a matter of fact it was an oligarchy, the political power residing in but a small proportion of even the church-going freemen. This is shown in the remonstrance addressed to the colony by the royal commission appointed under ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... mission hard by the foreign colony had such a committee, a remarkable committee in a way, a committee with no fine-spun theories of wholesale reform, a committee with no delicate nostril to be buried in a perfumed handkerchief when pursuing an investigation (as a matter of fact, that committee had no sense of smell at all), a committee of one, namely, John James Parsons, the Methodist missionary, and he worked chiefly with committees of one, of which not the least important was little ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... little or no moment, very serviceable enlarging cameras can be bought for about twenty-five dollars. Such a camera is adapted for reducing as well as enlarging, and so will be found useful for lantern slide making, copying, etc. As a matter of fact, few things are as useful to the amateur as ...
— Bromide Printing and Enlarging • John A. Tennant
... given again and again. The trouble must be counted as nothing compared with the certain loss of time while the plant stands still, to become, perhaps, infested with blue aphis, and utterly ruined. As a matter of fact, a little water may be made to go a long way, and every drop judiciously administered will more than repay its cost. The use of the hoe will greatly help the growth, and a little earth may be drawn towards the stems, not to the extent of 'moulding-up,' ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... by the advocates of both parties, as is prescribed in other of our enactments. Owing to these substitutes the old action of dishonest litigation has become obsolete. The effect of this was to penalize the plaintiff in a tenth part of the value he claimed by action; but, as a matter of fact, we found that the penalty was never exacted, and therefore its place has been taken by the oath above mentioned, and by the rule that a plaintiff who sues without just cause must compensate his opponent for all losses incurred, and also pay ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... give you a few tips if you needed advice," Mr. Cream continued, as they descended the stairs. "As a matter of fact, the wife and me are in need of a new piece for the halls, and it struck me this morning when I heard you were a writer, that mebbe you could do a piece for us. It would be practice ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... "As a matter of fact, he is a useful little fellow. The only time he becomes a nuisance to man is when he makes his little ridges across smooth lawns. Even then he pays for the trouble by destroying the grubs in the grass roots, grubs that in their turn ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... self-governing thing. Perhaps you always fancied that your will was free—that you were actually, as you sometimes said, the "captain of your soul." If so, this was merely one amongst the many illusions which supported your old, enslaved career. As a matter of fact, you were driven along a road, unaware of anything that lay beyond the hedges, pressed on every side by other members of the flock; getting perhaps a certain satisfaction out of the deep warm stir of the collective life, ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... As a matter of fact, there was on Scott's part no trade whatever in the case. If a publisher chose to secure in advance what he anticipated would be a profitable commodity, that was mainly the publisher's affair, and the poet ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... up, seized upon two garments and carried them off from under my very fingers. As he went out a middle-aged lady entered and made straight for the residue upon the counter. A feeling of panic came upon me. "Right you are," I exclaimed hurriedly, "I'll take the lot." As a matter of fact she only wanted a pair of gloves for her nephew ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... "As a matter of fact," said Kivi, smiling, "I suspect the crew would prefer to return at once. I know I would. Seven years may ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... As a matter of fact, the prophets of the Old Testament were all prophets of evil. They were watchmen seeing the sword and giving warning. No one ever spoke more plainly of the penalties of sin than did Christ. The authoritative revelation ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... lookout for gain. His style of paying compliments, charming to superficial people, seemed insulting to others of more delicacy, by its triteness and the cool assurance of its cut-and-dried flattery. As a matter of fact, Melchior lied like a courtier. He remarked without blushing to the Duc de Chaulieu, who made no impression whatever when he was obliged to address the Chamber as minister of foreign affairs, "Your excellency was truly sublime!" Many men like Canalis ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... Monk is extraordinarily interesting, a curious point being that, though he was essentially cautious, level-headed, and, as Clarendon says, 'not enthusiastical,' and therefore unlikely to rouse very vivid sentiments in others, as a matter of fact he awoke violent feelings either of glowing enthusiasm or of extreme bitterness. It is easy to understand his unpopularity with keen partisans who looked on their opponents and all their ways with abhorrence, ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... with the rows of narrow cells, there remains a broad corridor, running all the way round and flanked on the right by high walls with small barred windows. An observer from the street glancing up at the windows might conclude that they were those of the cells in which prisoners were confined. As a matter of fact, the cells have no windows, only a grating which looks directly out into ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... like a true bughunter," said he. "As a matter of fact, this fellow is a remarkable man. Does he intend to remain ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... may be; it likes the authority of a janitor, the society of an elevator-boy. It hates a lower door, an area, an ash-barrel, and a back yard. But if it were willing to confront all these inconveniences, it is intimately, it is osseously, convinced that a house is not cheaper than a flat. As a matter of fact, neither a house nor a flat is cheap enough in New York to bear me out in my theory that New York is no more expensive than those Old World cities. To aid efficiently in my support I must invoke the ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... action, or capture important tracts of territory such as corn land or mining districts, without which he cannot wage the war. Nothing has done us more harm than all this talk about "attrition." People say, "Oh, it's all right, we can strangle Germany by means of our Navy, and only time is wanted." As a matter of fact, Germany is so well prepared by environment, history, and her own endeavours for such a war that were Berlin itself in our hands, I would not like to say we should have won. Berlin has in the past been entered by the enemy, and ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... slowly. "A man of Clephane's habits will accuse anyone of anything at certain times. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't blame Mrs. Clephane, nor any other woman, for chucking such a husband out of the boat. It's contrary to the Acts of Assembly in such cases made and provided, but it's natural justice and ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... done. I am in a position to know. ... I will admit your father discussed such action, but the matter went no farther. Perhaps it was his intention to do as you say, but he put it off.... He seemed to have a prejudice against making a will. As a matter of fact, he died intestate..." ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... As a matter of fact, not any one had talked to Christina on the matter; and she strenuously repeated her own first question in ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... never occurred to me that any of them would seriously have considered the production of a piece so far off the ordinary lines. They had not, like the enterprising Director of the Independent Theatre, undertaken the dreadful trade of educating the public. As a matter of fact, they fought shy of a piece in which "the new hysteria" was studied, and which ended ...
— The Black Cat - A Play in Three Acts • John Todhunter
... triumphal Basilica. He pictured everything on a grand scale, and, full of confidence in the enthusiastic help of Christendom, he worried the architects, requiring them to design real palaces worthy of the Queen of Heaven. As a matter of fact, offerings already abounded, gold poured from the most distant dioceses, a rain of gold destined to increase and never end. Then came his happy years: he was to be met among the workmen at all hours, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... luncheon and she spent the day with them, every man she encountered "swore by her," as they say. In a novel, the editor-in-chief would have married her and Eleanor would have been delighted; but in a novel the editors-in-chief are handsome, athletic young bachelors (which rarely occurs, as a matter of fact) or magnificent widowers whose first marriages were tragic mistakes, so the emotional field is really clear. Now Molly's editor-in-chief was, so far as is known, quite happy with his wife, and his four daughters ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... to him all at once, as he was walking up the strand towards the wigwam, that he had left the dinghy tied to the reef. The dinghy was, as a matter of fact, safe and sound tied to the aoa; but Mr Button's memory told him it was tied to the reef. How he had crossed the lagoon was of no importance at all to him; the fact that he had crossed without the boat, yet without getting wet, did not appear to him ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... that the fort was still provided with grain, maize, beans, and pease, which his soldiers loved as well as the finest corn in the world, and that by surrendering the fort in so good a condition, he should be unworthy to appear before his sovereign, and should deserve chastisement before God and men. As a matter of fact this was untrue, for the French at Quebec were starving and incapable of resistance. A single well-directed broadside would have brought Champlain's ramshackle fort tumbling about his ears. His bold front, however, served its purpose for the ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... as though the energy lying behind all this stillness had pressed forward to the edge of action. This, no doubt, was merely the quickening of my own mind, and had no other justification; for the presence of John Silence always suggested the near possibility of vigorous action, and as a matter of fact, he came in with nothing more than a ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... perpetual injunction, "Keep your eye on the ball," is an irritating formula with little reason behind it. It is, as a matter of fact, a law quite as much for your teacher as for yourself. And don't suppose that you have kept your eye on the ball because you think you have. It is wonderful how easy it is to keep your eye glued—so to speak—to ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... to throw Ronny off his stride. He pushed out his lower lip and said, "Gee, I didn't know they went in subspace." He thought for a moment. "As a matter of fact, I don't think I know what ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... at once communicated to Barton, with the result that every man on duty was instructed to keep an extra sharp look-out. The order was, as a matter of fact, not needed; for the sentries were as alert as they possibly could be. Hour after hour they peered into the darkness, but without seeing any ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... county family, and they didn't look like it. They were too large and coarse, and took up far too much room. There they sat, six big creatures in one pew, all restless, all with big chins, hard eyes, jutting eyebrows, and a dreadful look as if they were buccaneering. As a matter of fact they all felt rather timid and flat, and meant to behave beautifully, though Sir Peter needn't have blown his nose like a trumpet and stamped simultaneously ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... and hustle every minute. My plan was to try to make double marches on the entire return journey; that is to say, to start out, cover one northward march, make tea and eat luncheon, then cover another march, then sleep a few hours, and push on again. As a matter of fact, we did not fall much short of accomplishing this program. To be accurate, day in and day out we covered five northward marches in three return marches. Every day we gained on the return lessened the chances of the trail being destroyed by high winds shifting ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... the point where they seem to be joined together there is a tiny flat white object. Looking closely at this we discover it to be a plant consisting of two minute leaves and a little blunt tip. As a matter of fact, the two seed-leaves are not attached directly to each other, but each is attached to this tiny plant, or embryo, as it is called. The word "embryo" is a valuable one to use later, and its precise meaning can easily be fixed by always calling the young plant tucked ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... off opening the case that held her year's work until next day. She quailed somewhat in anticipation of her parents' criticisms as a matter of fact; she would have preferred to postpone parrying them. She acknowledged this to herself with a little irritation that it should be so, but when her father insisted, chisel in hand, she went down on her knees with charming willingness ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... conscious volition, but by the operation of the laws of association and dissociation. Some we seem unable voluntarily to recall, yet they may appear when least we are expecting them. It is these last to which we have referred as lost in subconscious forgetfulness. As a matter of fact, none are ever ...
— The Trained Memory • Warren Hilton
... like jangled bells, as if struck suddenly. They flared and fell; and for the moment the fall of them was like the fall of the sun and stars out of heaven. It left everything in a primal blindness. As a matter of fact, the road was not yet legitimately dark. There were still red rays of a sunset in the sky, and the brown gloaming was still warmed, as it were, with a feeling as of firelight. But for three seconds after the lanterns swung and sank, I saw in front ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... As a matter of fact, though, Bob alone was concerned. He had thought of the trick, procured a bottle of liquid glue from the drug store, and, watching his chance, had poured it on the chair. Then he had told his chums of it, and they had withdrawn ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... between the proportions of seats obtained and votes polled by the various political parties. These discrepancies have attracted general attention, and have usually been attributed to the great variation in the size of German constituencies. As a matter of fact, the effect of redistribution on the proportionality between seats and votes is not nearly so large as is generally supposed. Apart from the consequences of neglecting the votes of the minority or minorities ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... of pre-Darwinian evolutionists who helped to make the time ripe, yet one cannot help feeling that the citation of them is apt to suggest two fallacies. It may suggest that Darwin simply entered into the labours of his predecessors, whereas, as a matter of fact, he knew very little about them till after he had been for years at work. To write, as Samuel Butler did, "Buffon planted, Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck watered, but it was Mr Darwin who said 'That fruit is ripe,' and shook it into his lap"... ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... As a matter of fact, as all the advanced students and teachers of the occult doctrine know full well, we have no direct knowledge whatsoever of anything that is "outside of the realm of nature, and of Nature's laws." It is true that we may, by an act of faith, profess to believe in powers and ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... deflection of the sensuousness of others from their personal, lawful alcove. And even the respectable paterfamilias himself is not averse to indulge in a love debauch in secret. And really, it is palling to have always the one and the same thing the wife, the chambermaid, and the lady on the side. Man, as a matter of fact, is a poly—and exceedingly so—a polygamous animal. And to his rooster-like amatory instincts it will always be sweet to unfold in such a magnificent nursery garden, A LA Treppel's or Anna Markovna's. Oh, of course, a well-balanced spouse or the happy father of six ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... who have not been in the habit of having animals to keep them company, and who see in them, as did Descartes, merely machines, will no doubt think I am attributing intentions to the bird and the quadruped, but as a matter of fact, I have merely translated their thoughts into human speech. The next day, Madame-Theophile, having somewhat overcome her fright, made another attempt, and was routed in the same fashion. That was enough for her, and henceforth ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... head; that Charles broke away from him and started to run, after which the shooting began. The Picayune, however, declares that Pierce began the firing and that his two shots point blank at Aucoin were the first shots of the fight. As a matter of fact, Pierce never fired a single shot before he was covered by Aucoin's revolver. Charles and the officers did all the shooting. The Picayune's account is ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... about that little affair during late years, her feeling for Seymour Michael having settled down into a passive hatred. The longing to do him some personal injury had died away fifteen years before. She was, as a matter of fact, quite incapable of a lasting feeling of any description. Hers was a life lived for the present only. A tea-party next week was of more importance to her than a change in fortune next year. Some people are thus, and Heaven help those whose lives ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... accurately. As a matter of fact, I have ordered seed-cake and scones, and have invited the Vicarage people ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Dragon tore shrieking out of the mouth of its dark lair, which was the tunnel, all three children stood on the railing and waved their pocket-handkerchiefs without stopping to think whether they were clean handkerchiefs or the reverse. They were, as a matter of fact, very much ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... As a matter of fact, Miss Mayhew had never taken the trouble to notice the Skinners, but now that Skinner had made an impression on the exclusive Mrs. Crawford, that ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... as Sandy Graham was concerned, his unconsciousness might have lasted an hour or a day. As a matter of fact, it was scarcely a minute after the disappearance of Fischer and his confederates when he was conscious of a rush of cold air in the place, and beheld the vision of a tiny flash of light at the lower ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... feet" (7:17,23, 8:5-8). Josephus has preserved a popular tradition regarding the meeting between Alexander and the white-robed Jerusalem priests and the homage paid by the conqueror to the God of the Jews. It bears on its face evidence of its unhistorical character. As a matter of fact, the first goal of Alexander's conquest was the rich land of Egypt. Not being possessed of a navy, he entered it through its one vulnerable point, the Wady Tumilat, that ran from the Isthmus of Suez to the Nile Delta. By 331 B.C. he was master of ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... necessary to prove that the average human life is uninteresting; most of us know that. As a matter of fact the average existence is a monotonous, hopeless dreary stretch of time, dotted at more or less frequent intervals with physical pain and suffering, and with mental ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... from the standpoint of the beloved at least, there is danger in this identification of all beauties as manifestations of the ideal. It is unpropitious to lifelong affection for one person. As a matter of fact, though the English taste for decorous fidelity has affected some poets, on the whole they have not hesitated to picture their race as fickle. Plato's account of the second step in the ascent of the lover, "Soon he will himself perceive that the beauty of one form is truly related to the beauty of ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... and after rummaging among their camp stores, and eating some crackers and canned peaches, the boys, having picketed their horses, turned in, rolled up in their blankets, and were asleep almost as soon as their heads were on the pillows, which were, as a matter of fact, stuffed ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... manure and other plant-food which the soil contains is not in an available condition. It lies dead and inert. It is not soluble, and the roots of the plants cannot get enough of it to enable them to thrive; and in addition to this, you will find as a matter of fact that these poor 'exhausted' farms are infested with weeds, which rob the growing crops of a large part of the ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... And, as a matter of fact, the men esteemed him perhaps somewhat more for the skill and adroitness with which he invariably squirmed out of impending engagements, than they did for all the alacrity and pyrotechnics with which he was wont to surround himself with duelsome entanglements. The boys well knew ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... at the young man, and saw that he meant what he said. When Leo means what he says he always puts on a curious look about the mouth. It has been a trick of his from a child. Now, as a matter of fact, I had no intention of allowing Leo to go anywhere by himself, for my own sake, if not for his. I was far too attached to him for that. I am not a man of many ties or affections. Circumstances have been against me in this ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... Grontovsky sniggered through his teeth. "As a matter of fact everyone shoots here regardless of the prohibition. But once I have met you, it is my duty . . . my sacred duty to warn you. I am a man in a dependent position. If the forest were mine, on the word of honour of a Grontovsky, I should not oppose ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... somewhat aside from my direct purpose, God can forgive sin; which some people nowadays say is impossible. The apparent impossibility arises only from shallow and erroneous notions of what forgiveness is. God does not—it might be too bold to say God cannot, if we believe in miracles—but as a matter of fact, God does not, usually interfere to hinder men from reaping, as regards this life, what they have sown. But as I say, that is not forgiveness; and is there any reason conceivable why it should be impossible for the divine love ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... passed by. It is manifestly unjust to characterize a whole people by its worst members. Of such, amongst both Indians and whites, there were not a few; but it is equally unfair to ascribe to a naturally cruel disposition the infuriated red man's reprisals for intolerable wrongs. As a matter of fact, impartial history not seldom leans to the red man's side; for, in his ordinary and peaceful intercourse with the whites, he was, as a rule, both helpful and humane. In the records of early explorers we are told of savages who possessed estimable qualities lamentably lacking ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... glad to have you see Mr. Carson—my father," and again Dave rather hesitated and stumbled over the word. "But, as a matter of fact, some of the rights he has in Rolling River are subject to some agreement with Mr. Molick. I know my father doesn't like it, for it makes him too dependent on this man, but he could do nothing else. He had to have ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... composers, think they can learn the art of Palestrina from Cherubim's treatise. All this academic art is far worse than the trade in sham antique furniture; for the man who sells me an oaken chest which he swears was made in the XIII century, though as a matter of fact he made it himself only yesterday, at least does not pretend that there are any modern ideas in it, whereas your academic copier of fossils offers them to you as the latest outpouring of the human spirit, and, worst of all, kidnaps young people as pupils and persuades them that his ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... recipient of charity. Therefore,"—did the word suggest far-away school-boy lessons on syllogisms and sophistries—"I have no right to feel offended in that you let me remain, you say, 'through pity', when as a matter of fact it was impossible for me to tender my resignation, in view of—" He finished the rest of a rather involved logical conclusion to himself, taking his hand out of his pocket now and passing it lightly, in a somewhat ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... it is difficult to see any ground for a regular assumption of higher expenditure in the one class than the other. However, the universal impression favors that assumption. All people believe that the rank of Gentleman Commoner imposes an expensive burden, though few people ever ask why. As a matter of fact, I believe it to be true that Gentlemen Commoners spend more by a third, or a half, than any equal number of Commoners, taken without selection. And the reason is obvious: those who become Gentlemen Commoners are usually determined ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... on him but just this minute, sir," said Hinge, "since I left Vienna. But he walked upstairs just now with a latch-key in his hand, and he went into the rooms overhead of yours, sir. That's him a-walking about now, I'll lay a fiver." As a matter of fact, I could bear a heavy footstep pacing the room above. "The odd part of it is, sir," Hinge pursued, "this cove knows Mr. Brunow, and ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... serfs, who were as devoted to him and to his mother as they were miserably afraid of their master. An hour's observation was enough to make plain the fact that Ivan had in him not one of his father's characteristics. For this reason he was said to resemble his mother. But as a matter of fact this statement was hardly more true than one of the paternal resemblance would have been. The boy certainly worshipped his mother; who had been his one staff during that fearful and lonely pilgrimage of his ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... vaccination tends to diminish with the lapse of time; though apparently this is not always the case, nor can any direct statement be made as to the conditions which favour this in one case, or prevent it in another. As a matter of fact, however, we do know that such a tendency does exist, and that this tendency calls for the repetition of vaccination from time to time; such re-vaccination carefully performed being as nearly as possible an absolute ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... as a matter of fact, did not come into their present shape for many years after his death. How long? The critics are not at one in regard to it. A book has recently been translated from the German, by a professor in the Union Theological ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... This, as a matter of fact, worked much better for the Americans than it did for the Germans. If the Huns did succeed in capturing, during a raid, some of our boys, they got little information from them about the units with which the boys of Uncle Sam were connected. ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... As a matter of fact there are such, and they are numerous. In the first rank we may cite that hunter of the domestic bee, Philanthus aviporus (Latreille). For a long time I suspected Philanthus of committing such acts of brigandage for her own benefit, having many times surprised ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... Western critics. This, also, is a result of a working out through Zennism of Taoist ideals. Confucianism, with its deep-seated idea of dualism, and Northern Buddhism with its worship of a trinity, were in no way opposed to the expression of symmetry. As a matter of fact, if we study the ancient bronzes of China or the religious arts of the Tang dynasty and the Nara period, we shall recognize a constant striving after symmetry. The decoration of our classical interiors was decidedly regular in its arrangement. The Taoist and Zen conception of perfection, ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura |
