"Mat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and running to the pit where the fire is, and then mounts on some steps which are made high up by the pit. Before they do this they go three times round the fire, and then she mounts the steps and holds in front of her a mat that prevents her from seeing the fire. They throw into the fire a cloth containing rice, and another in which they carry betel leaves, and her comb and mirror with which she adorned herself, saying that all these are needed to adorn herself by her husband's side. Finally ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... to preach; for he that [in effect] condemneth the greatest part of his hearers hath no charity, and therefore is not fit to preach. Then Mr. Bunyan answered, The Lord Jesus Christ preached in a ship to his hearers on the shore (Mat 13), and showed that they were as four sorts of ground, the highway, the stony, the thorny, and the good ground, but those represented by the good ground were the only persons to be saved. And your position ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... light and certainly airy bed-chamber; for half the front wall, and a portion of one of the sides, were entirely formed of wooden trellice, which admitted, with the utmost freedom, all the winds of heaven, the sun, and also the dust. There was a mat upon the floor, and the apartment was whitewashed to the rafters, which were in good condition; and upon Mohammed's declaration that it was free from rats, I felt an assurance of a share of comfort which I had dared not expect before. There were two ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... and is attended by an experienced matron. Delivery is usually very easy, and the mother is almost always able on the following day to attend to her usual occupations. The infant is laid upon a small soft mat which the mother has taken care to prepare beforehand, and which is used for ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... of the sun, and sometimes only once in two days, often even in four; his food was bread with salt, his drink nothing but water. To speak of flesh and wine there is no need, for such a thing is not found among other earnest men. When he slept he was content with a rush-mat: but mostly he lay on the bare ground. He would not anoint himself with oil, saying that it was more fit for young men to be earnest in training, than to seek things which softened the body; and that they must accustom themselves to ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... Elsie's. She was always a restless, wandering child from her early years, and would have her little bed moved from one chamber to another,—flitting round as the fancy took her. Sometimes she would drag a mat and a pillow into one of the great empty rooms, and, wrapping herself in a shawl, coil up and go to sleep in a corner. Nothing frightened her; the "haunted" chamber, with the torn hangings that flapped like wings when there was ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... while the father was fretting and fuming in his arm-chair, the son, the unlucky cause of all this discomfort, had been standing on the mat outside the door, trying to screw up enough courage to go in as if nothing was ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... stood still, petrified. Before their eyes, without a breath of wind, the hugh beech solemnly bowed itself and with a great roar of branches, whipping and crushing the trees about, it fell, its full length thundering on the ground, a great mat of shaggy roots uptorn, leaving an open wound in the stony mountain soil. Then, in a minute, it was all ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... Egyptian god with crystal eyes, like those which Bill Bailey means to make the fashion, stood by my bedside. I asked him politely whether he were Ra or Osiris, deliberately picking the two best gods of the bunch in order to flatter him; but without answering, he pointed a bronze hand to the mat on which he stood. It was a white mat, and on it I read a word which evidently he meant me to take as his name: TAM HTAB. For an instant it seemed to me a fine name for an Egyptian god, though I hadn't met it before. Then I burst out laughing ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... grew in massive profusion all about them. Heavy tropical moss hung from the branches and trailed its green mat over the stones. Birds were beginning to sing, their notes breaking the silence of the place in sharp thrills. Then she studied her ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... of manly form and grace, thundered there. The "Plumed Knight," that grand incarnation of mind and magnetism, was at the zenith of his glory. Edmunds, and Zack Chandler, and the brilliant and learned Jurist, Mat. Carpenter, were there. Thurman the "noblest Roman of them all" was there with his famous bandana handkerchief. The immortal Ben Hill, the idol of the South, and Lamar, the gifted orator and highest type of Southern chivalry were ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... like the natives of the Ladrones, and were so fond of iron, that they stole the nails from the cabin windows, and the bolts from the doors. Their skins were all pictured over with snakes, dragons, and such like reptiles, and they were entirely naked, except a piece of mat before them. A boat was sent ashore well armed, and immediately on landing, about thirty of the natives rushed from a wood, armed with clubs, slings, and long staves or spears, and would have seized the boat and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... and out of the night our pedestrian appeared upon the door-mat. The shepherd arose, snuffed two of the nearest candies, and turned to look ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... was the face of good Miss Talbot, as she opened the door for him at midnight. Hugh took especial pains with his boots and the door-mat, but it was of no use: the austerity of her countenance would not relax in the least. So he took his candle and walked up-stairs to his room, saying only as he went — being unable to think ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... their mothers and learn to become useful at an early age, and to do the different kinds of work a woman is expected to do. When a woman is plaiting a mat of split cane, or of reeds, she often gives the short ends, which she has cut off, to her little girl, who sits by her and tries to make a little mat with them. I have often seen little girls of ten and eleven being taught by their mothers ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes
... ferocity is fuelled and fanned by these good people. One day, before Khalid was banished, Shakib tells us, one of them, Father Farouche by name, comes to pay a visit of courtesy, and finds Khalid sitting cross-legged on a mat writing ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... plates around the table, at equal intervals, and the knives and forks at regular distances, each in the same particular manner, with a cup-mat, or cup-plate, to each, and a napkin at the right side of ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... went on—the position of both head and miniature pleased him now—"do you remember the time I hauled you out from under the table when the hucksters were making a door-mat of your back; and the time I washed you off at the pump, and what you said to the gendarme, and—No, you never remembered anything. You'd rather sprawl out on the grass, or make eyes at Gretchen or the landlady—fifty, if she was a day—maybe fifty-five, and yet she fell in love" (this last ...
— Fiddles - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... impose upon me if they want to," I declared, stoutly. "As long as I have respectful service, I will let those I love make a door-mat of me!" ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... his making any fuss about that old mat," said Minna; "I guess he knows what he's about. It's him that's afraid, an' not me. An old mat that's worth about fifty cents! It ain't half so pretty as one that Frank Olsen's wife got in New Sanderson for four dollars and ninety-eight cents. I'm goin' to have some more of them things, ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... snow, that had ceased falling in the evening, was swept through the streets on the northern blast. They had nowhere to go. The doorman was called downstairs just then to the telegraph office. When he came up again he found father and son curled up on the big mat by the register, sound asleep. It was against the regulations entirely, and he was going to wake them up and put them out, when he happened to glance through the glass doors at the storm without, and remembered that it was Christmas ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... got into the room, closed the shutters, lighted the candles, and ate and drank till hunger and thirst were gone. Then they lay down to rest;—Jack in the bed, the ass in the stable, the dog on the door-mat, the cat by the fire, and the cock ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... memories. These were like flashes of white light on general darkness, for the low house of his memory was white and the broad-leaved trees of the garden cast their shadows on a pale wall: there was a white nursery of unlimited dimensions and a white bath-room with a fluffy mat which comforted the soles of his feet and tickled his toes. Another recollection was of the day when a lady already faintly familiar to him was introduced by an officious nurse as his new mother, and when ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... implement then used in the sports of the river or the field. The floor was in an equal state of disorder. The rushes were filled with half-gnawed bones, brought thither by the hounds; and in one corner, on a mat, was a favourite spaniel and her whelps. The squire however was, happily, insensible to the condition of the chamber, and looked around it with an air of satisfaction, as if he thought it ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... 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
... coverings; and when first taken out of the graves, they have the appearance of unfinished statues; the position of the head, knees, and feet being alone recognisable. A strong net-work, composed of twisted straw or bast incloses a thick rush mat, in which the body is wrapped. These coverings being removed, there is found a broad, woollen bandage, passing round the body, and fastening the rushes or sticks which support it in a sitting position. Under this bandage ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... whose favourite sleeping-place was the mat at his door, lying there as usual, but not asleep. Wide awake, as if on guard. And marvel of marvels! a dear little fair-haired boy fast, fast asleep, with his head on the dog, who was lying so as to make himself into as ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... Ingletons. With Douglas as an instructor, they all set to work on its manufacture. Taking ten inch lengths of the papyrus reeds, they cut them into long, thin, vertical slices, and laid these across each other in the form of a small mat between sheets of blotting paper. This was next squeezed through a wringing-machine to rid it of superfluous moisture, then placed under a heavy weight, in the manner of pressing flowers. When ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... Temple Grammar School, and as many recruits as we could muster, lay behind the walls of Fort Slatter, with three hundred compact snowballs piled up in pyramids, awaiting the approach of the enemy. The enemy was not slow in making his approach—fifty strong, headed by one Mat Ames. Our forces were under the command of General ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... 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 ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... gnarled, old oaks, whose dry leaves still clung to the twisted branches and rustled in the crisp air. A fat, sleek, black Tabby lay asleep on the warm porch-rail; a gaunt, ungainly greyhound lay sunning himself on the door mat, and from inside somewhere came the sound of a canary's riotous song. The whole place breathed of home, and with a deep sigh of content, Peace lifted her great, brown eyes to the President's face and whispered, "It seems 'sif ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... mother's light step on the brain, so I 'yoke' again, and next moment she is beside me. She has not exactly left her room, she gives me to understand; but suddenly a conviction had come to her that I was writing without a warm mat at my feet. She carries one in her hands. Now that she is here she remains for a time, and though she is in the arm-chair by the fire, where she sits bolt upright (she loved to have cushions on the unused ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... seems to have been 'the other one'; he was rather shy. He sat down on a mat of reeds that was spread beside a corridor near the gateway; and, gazing up at the sky, meditated for some moments in silence. The chrysanthemums in the gardens were in full bloom, whose sweet perfume soothed ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... entered the hall," Thorndyke continued, "I noted the following facts: Behind the door was a shelf on which were two china candlesticks. Each was fitted with a candle, and in one was a short candle-end, about an inch long, lying in the tray. On the floor, close to the mat, was a spot of candle-wax and some faint marks of muddy feet. The oil-cloth on the stairs also bore faint footmarks, made by wet goloshes. They were ascending the stairs, and grew fainter towards the top. There were two more spots of candle-wax ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... not be idle during these attacks, a bill for a new test was introduced into the house of peers by the earl of Lindesey. All members of either house, and all who possessed any office, were by this bill required to swear mat it was not lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to take arms against the king; that they abhorred the traitorous position of taking arms by his authority against his person, or against those who were commissioned by him; and that they will not at any time endeavor the alteration of the Protestant ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... ribbed tiles with the doves upon them, and the carved Roman capital built into the wall, and the white and blue stripes of the mattresses stuffed out of the windows, and the flapping corners of the mat blinds. All would have been there; not as such, not like the corn, nor blinds, nor tiles, not to be comprehended nor understood, but a confusion of yellow and black spots and strokes, carried far too fine for the eye to follow, microscopic in its minuteness, and filling every atom and ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... in whose quarter we anchored is so absolute, that none of his people dared to sell a single cocoa-nut without his leave. Four boats were sent to his town to desire this liberty, which was granted. Captain Newport went ashore with forty men, and found the governor sitting on a mat, under the side of a junk which was then building, and attended by fifty men. He was dressed in a mantle of blue and red calico, wrapped about him to his knees, his legs and feet bare, and his head covered by a close cap of checquer work. Being presented with a gun and sword, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... in the search, Katherine looked carefully in the hall, but in vain, when her young assistant gave a cry of joy; she had almost trodden on them as they lay between a mangy mat and ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... Rangoon they saw on the hill, near by, the great Shway Dagon Pagoda with its tall, gilded spire shining in the sun with a brilliancy that was dazzling. But soon they turned from gazing at the Mecca of the Burmese Buddhists to view the town, a big collection of bamboo and mat huts protected by forts with guns, which the people fondly believed would utterly destroy any foreign fleet which dared to ascend the river. Many trading vessels were riding at anchor off the city, and canoes of various sizes and design were passing to and from them. It was a busy ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... the mat slide to the floor, and went into the bedroom to get Mrs. Babcock's bonnet and ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... something that will not let the electricity into your body—or stand on something that will "insulate" you; for instance, rubber gloves or rubber tobacco pouches, dry silk handkerchiefs, other silk garments or newspapers used in place of gloves if necessary. Stand on a rubber mat or on dry boards, or glass, or in dire necessity dry clothes can be used to stand on. They must not be wet as then they will carry the electric current through your body and you must also ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... fill supper was served, a rich meal of many strange meats, and of this I was invited to partake, which I did, seated on a mat and eating of the dishes that were placed upon the ground by the women. Among these I noticed one girl who far surpassed all the others in grace, though none were unpleasing to the eye. She was dark, indeed, but her features were regular and her eyes ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... afternoon don't find me missin' any suburban local. Course, Ferdy's mighty intellect ain't suggested to him anything about askin' me out for a meal; so I has to take a chance on what time to land there. But I strikes the mat about two-thirty P. M., and the first one to show up is Marjorie, lookin' as plump and bloomin' a ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... often 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 "all ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... how its icy waters drenched her heart. Ah, what would have happened if Garth had come back in answer to her cry during those first moments of intolerable suffering and loneliness? But Garth was not the sort of man who, when a door has been shut upon him, waits on the mat outside, hoping to be recalled. When she put him from her, and he realised that she meant it he passed completely out of her life. He was at the railway station by the time she reached the house, and from that day to this they had never met. Garth evidently considered ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... chilled for a second, and in that second she changed her position, pulling the cushions around her, nestling into them and drawing herself cosily up like a child playing on a mat in front of the fire, while with a face of perfect innocence she looked up as she drew one of her great books nearer, and said in a ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... ornaments, some bronze arrowheads, and metal or clay vessels. Others contained furniture which, though not as complete as that found in Egyptian sepulchres, must have ministered to all the needs of the spirit. The body was stretched, fully clothed, upon a mat impregnated with bitumen, the head supported by a cushion or flat brick,** the arms laid across the breast, and the shroud adjusted by bands to the loins and legs. Sometimes the corpse was placed on its left side, with the legs slightly bent, and the right hand, extending over the left shoulder, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... think. I never knew a man that didn't believe he drew the prize in matrimony. Ask him, however, six months after he's tied. Say, "What do you think of your ticket now?" Eh, Mat Kearney? It doesn't take twenty or thirty years quarrelling and disputing to show one that a lottery with so many ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... door up in one corner, with Mr FIPS painted on it in characters which were meant to be transparent. There was also a wicked old sideboard hiding in the gloom hard by, meditating designs upon the ribs of visitors; and an old mat, worn into lattice work, which, being useless as a mat (even if anybody could have seen it, which was impossible), had for many years directed its industry into another channel, and regularly tripped up every one of ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... feet on. An' then I pick Bill up in my arms an' carry'm to his corner, an' help bring'm around. Well, they ain't no kick comin'. They pay their money an' they get their blood, an' a knockout. An' a better man than them, that I love, layin' there dead to the world with a skinned face on the mat." ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... I was eager to do it. We three were very comfortable at Mat Cottage, "Mat" being the name Charlie Sands, Tish's nephew, had given it, being the initials of "Middle-Aged Trio." Not that I regard the late forties as middle-aged. But Tish, of course, is fifty. Charlie ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... anxiously. She knew it was something about herself, because the Plynck's tone was exactly like Mother's when she wished to remind Sara, without seeming officious, that she had not wiped her feet on the mat, or spread out her napkin, or remembered to say "Thank you" at ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... the varmint's pretty slick, but I never should ha' thought of her crawling over ninety miles in four hours:"—it was at this time about midnight. "You ask me what I'd do; why now I'll tell you, if I was you, I'd say, Mat. here take the stick,—it wouldn't be the first time,—and I'd crawl out o' that hole and shake myself; and then I'd ask this gentleman for a cigar and a mouthful of liquor, and then I'd clap a bit o' the square mainsail on her, and lift the sloppy little ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... many of them there. Of a few of the personages we have before had a glimpse. When the Duchess of Queensberry passed, and Mr. Wolfe explained who she was, Martin Lambert was ready with a score of lines about "Kitty, beautiful and young," from his favourite Mat Prior. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... didn't come up to the demand, and as me and the bunch had sorta turned them down after they went and lost all their money on the Thanksgiving game, so we had an intimation that developed into a hunch that our little 'welcome' mat on the doorstep would not be crowded with an eager throng. We engaged a couple of window tables at the Cafe des Beaux Minks realizing that though we were not in the money we were still on the track. This was last New Year's Eve. New Year's afternoon we held a reception up at Miss ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... building a platform, might readily pass into a voluntary and conscious act. The orang is known to cover itself at night with the leaves of the Pandanus; and Brehm states that one of his baboons used to protect itself from the heat of the sun by throwing a straw-mat over its head. In these several habits, we probably see the first steps towards some of the simpler arts, such as rude architecture and dress, as they arose amongst the early ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... not much light in the scullery so we could not at first distinguish what lay on the mat beside Giftie. It moved; it snuffled; no—they moved; they snuffled. There were three of them. All at once it burst upon us that they were puppies—her puppies—our puppies—one apiece! We flopped on the floor beside her. She darted from her bed—licked ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... checked an instant, had resumed its flow; I then quitted my sheltered corner and made my exit by the side-door, which was fortunately near. Thence a narrow passage led into the hall: in crossing it, I perceived my sandal was loose; I stopped to tie it, kneeling down for that purpose on the mat at the foot of the staircase. I heard the dining-room door unclose; a gentleman came out; rising hastily, I stood face to face with him: it was ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... the face of the moon, leaving the world in darkness. It passed, and I became aware that we were no longer alone. There in front of us was a mat, and on the mat lay a dead child, the royal child named Seti; there by the mat stood a woman with agony in her eyes, looking at the dead child, the Hebrew woman ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... swept vigorously, moving each piece of furniture, and throwing the rugs out upon the porch for a special sweeping there. The rough mat at the door was a heavy one. As Nan stooped to pick it up and toss it after the other small rugs, she saw the corner of a yellow envelope sticking from under the edge of ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... forth the pretty, bronze fury, stamping down the mat and her apron under it. "She's ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... not bad at this rapid 3 Lodges of mats on the Lard emenc quantites of dried fish, then West 4 miles to the Lower point of an Island on the Stard. Side, 2 lodges of Indians large and built of mats- passed 3 verry large mat lodges at 2 mile on the Stard Side large Scaffols of fish drying at every lodge, and piles of Salmon lying. the Squars engaged prepareing them for the Scaffol- a Squar gave me a dried Salmon from those lodes on the Island an Indian Showed me the mouth of the river which falls in below ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... excellent and good old man. Sit ye here beside us. Nay, not there, but here on mine own mat. So. Hast thy ...
— Pakia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... large mat woven of "phormium" trimmed with dogskins, was clothed with a pair of cotton drawers, blood-stained from recent combats. From the pendant lobe of his ears hung earrings of green jade, and round his neck a quivering necklace of "pounamous," a kind of jade stone sacred among ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... clover or other legumes is very important as a part of the rotation of crops in plow agriculture. Similarly I expect great value can be obtained in our pastured and fertilized nut orchards if we so treat the soil with lime, phosphorous, and whatever else is needed, to give a good mat of white clover and other legumes which are undoubtedly a good nitrogen supply for trees ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... the little girl, give her our love," shouted Guy Clarence, jumping up and down on the door mat. ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and the nature of jet to draw straw unto it, I would have nailed him to the pommel of my chair, till the play were done, and then have carried him to my chamber-door, and laid him at the threshold, as a wisp or a piece of mat, to wipe my shoes on every time I come ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... they were in there, Jerusalem?" she asked, as she tossed the afghan to Alan, and then settled herself on a sweet-grass mat at her mother's feet. "Aunt Jane is reading aloud a report of something or other, and Mr. Baxter looks so bored. He yawned like a chasm ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... to an Indian Tamahnous (incantation), to drive away the evil spirits from a sick man. He lay on a mat, surrounded by women, who beat on instruments made by stretching deer-skin over a frame, and accompanied the noise thus produced by a monotonous wail. Once in a while it became quite stirring, and the sick man seemed to be improved by it. Then an old man crept in stealthily, on all-fours, and, ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... persons written at the farthest part. There are numbers of rooms as they are called, which are yet unexplored. In one of these, a few miles from the entrance, there was discovered many years since, a female figure sitting with a mat wrapped round her shoulders; she was quite dried to a mummy, and has for many years been exhibited in a caravan, through the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 548 - 26 May 1832 • Various
... see the Overland Riders some miles from the scene of their fight with the men from Forty-three, and there must be as little trail left as possible. For the latter reason, Joe Shafto kept to such ground as was covered with a mat of pine needles. These, being springy, gave way under the hoofs of the horses, leaving no hoof-prints, no trail. Of the Overland Riders only two persons observed this—Tom and Grace, for, in her brief trips with him into the woods where he, as a forester, spent much ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... the kitchen should be covered with a good quality of linoleum. A perforated rubber mat may be placed at the sink, although this is not necessary. In fact, it is a better plan for the woman in the kitchen, as indeed elsewhere, to get rubber heels for her shoes. The Arabs have a proverb that to him who is shod ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung, The floors of plaster and the walls of dung, On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw, With tape-tied curtains never meant to draw, The George and Garter dangling from that bed Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... creatures is termed Bryozoa (or Polyzoa), and is composed of very minute animals which live in compound aggregations, and often grow up in an arborescent manner. The common sea-mat (Flustra) is one example of the class, and another—a good type—is called Plumatella. The Bryozoa have many affinities with the Mollusca, to which some naturalists consider ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... my dear," she said, making a peck at Kitty's cheek. "That flunkey, idling his life away on the hall mat, said I should find you here, so I saved him from overwork by showing myself in. How are you, St. John? You're looking a bit peaky ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... coal to get at her below the water-line, so I expect they'll make for the run. Now, sir, it's a very good job as I met you just here, because I can show you the lazarette hatch—here it is, under our feet." And he turned back a large mat upon which we were standing, disclosing a small, square hatch flush ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... 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 of a road; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... crossing as good as won and had just waved mockingly at the engineer of the defeated train who was pretending to feel indifferent about it—but I hung up on him. My strength was waning. Was he here this minute I make no doubt I'd go to the mat with him, unequal as we are in prowess.' He dribbled off into vicious mutterings of what he'd say to the boy if he was to come to ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... devotion (at least in the lower orders) is most sincere, and therefore impressive, are accustomed to repeat their prescribed orisons and prayers, wherever they may be, at the stated hours—of course, frequently in the open air, kneeling upon a light mat (which they carry for the purpose of a bed or cushion as required); the ceremony lasts some minutes, during which they are totally absorbed, and only living in their supplication: nothing can disturb them. On me the simple and entire sincerity of these men, and the spirit ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... both, and his exultation shone through his crooked body and pinched features like an illuminating lamp. Thyra perceived it and vaguely felt something antagonistic in it. She pointed to the rocking-chair, as she might have pointed out a mat to a dog. ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... But it mat be you are tired out. It may be you have seen somebody else—it may be you would wish to change mistresses with that gay wretch Mr. Lovelace. It may be too, that, in that case, Nancy would not be sorry to change lovers—The truly-admirable Miss Clarissa ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... won her heart at once. His master, it appeared, had been staying at East Hornham the last two nights with an old friend, the clergyman there. Both nights, on going to bed late, he had missed 'Captain,' whose usual habit was to sleep on a mat at his door. The first night he was afraid the dog was lost, but to his relief he reappeared again early the next morning; the second night, also, his master happening to be out late at Mr. Turner's, with whom ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... account of the sudden contrast with the glare outside, but as soon as this first impression was overcome, it appeared moderately lighted. It was a chamber about fourteen feet long and ten feet wide, and its walls were whitewashed with burnt gypsum. Deer-hides and a mat plaited of yucca-leaves lay rolled up in one corner. A niche contained a small earthen bowl, painted white with black symbolic figures. A doorway to the right led into another compartment which seemed darker than the first. As soon as the boys entered the room, ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... a present of food, he was particular to set his mat in proper order, and would be the first one to taste it. If the prince's present was one of raw meat, he must needs have it cooked, and make an oblation of it. If the gift were a live animal, he would be sure to keep it and ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... Liberalism, unless the purely nominal honor of minister without portfolio given to C. A. Geoffrion is to be taken as giving this representation. C. A. did not put the honor very high. "I am," he said, "the mat before the door." Tarte, a Quebecker and a Bleu, became Montreal's representative at Ottawa. Disappointment among the Liberals led first to rage and then to rage plus fear as Tarte with the magic wand of the patronage and power of the public works ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... followed her through the scullery (a spacious and airy place) into the kitchen, having first carefully rubbed the dust off my horny soles on the door-mat. And then, with a boy's ready adaptability in the matter of meals, I gave a good account of myself behind a plate of bacon and eggs, with plentiful bread and butter and tea, though I had broken my fast in the bush an hour or two earlier by polishing off the sketchy ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... mater to he declared. Lyke as ye haue herd begynnyng and ende. Well quod Vertu he shall not be spared To the feld I wyl go how it wende. But gramercy Morple{us} myn own dere fre{n}de Of your trew hert & faythfull entente. That ye in this mat{er} ...
— The Assemble of Goddes • Anonymous
... demons. A dozen big fellows rush up, each between the shafts of his "ginrikshaw" like a cab-horse, and invite us to enter, just as cabmen do elsewhere. But look at their costume, or shall I rather say want of costume? No shoes, unless a mat of straw secured with straw strings twisted around and between the big toe and the next one may be called a shoe; legs and body bare, except a narrow strip of rag around the loins; and such a hat! it is either of some dark material, as big as the head of a barrel ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... had I expected that I should be transformed into a rope-girt praying clerk. But so it was. I was given a square black cap and a brown robe, and sent to join the lay brethren. For my hair grew thick as a mat on top and there was ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... hunting bouting, Like Antony, who so went outing With Cleopatra.—So pursuing, Yap and Mark Antony found ruin. A neighbour passing by, then ventured— And, seeing the coast clear, he entered. The squire enjoyed a quiet chat, And said: "Now tell me, neighbour Mat, Why do men shun my hall? Of late, No neighbour enters in my gate; I do not choose ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... 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 lying there ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... "Mother Durgin's had the key, 'course, and has come in regerler to air up and see that things was all right; and Mis' Chilton just wrote and said she and Miss Pollyanna was comin' this week Friday, and ter please see that the rooms and sheets was aired, and ter leave the key under the side-door mat on that day. ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... the Mongolian race, the natives pretended to have little curiosity. When we landed at their villages many continued their occupations and paid no attention to strangers. Above Gorin a Goldee gentleman took me into his house, where a woman placed a mat on the divan and motioned me to a seat. The man tendered me a piece of dried fish, which I ate out of courtesy to my hosts. Several children gathered to look at me, but retired on a gesture from pater familias. I am not able to say if the fact that my eyes were attracted to a pretty ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... princesses' room. Large folding screens, worked with tapestry, representing the lives of the saints, shut off the part used as an oratory and that which served as a bedchamber, where indeed the good man slept on a rush mat on the floor. There were a table and several chairs and stools, all capable of being folded up for transport. The young King occupied a large chair of state, in which he twisted himself in a very undignified ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that morning with Elizabeth Brower and Hope waving their handkerchiefs on the porch and David near them whittling. They had told us what to do and what not to do over and over again. I sat with Gerald on blankets that were spread over a thick mat of hay. The morning air was sweet with the odour of new hay and the music of the bobolink. Uncle Eb and Tip Taylor sang merrily as we rode ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... coolies were straining on the tow-rope a hundred yards ahead. Frequently we passed some fisherman sitting in his little mat hut, with his feet on the windlass that raised his great square net; but never did we see them catch a fish, although on our return the same men were working as assiduously as ever. The country presented the same compact system of farming, the hills in many ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... - and across my other foot lies his wife - and by the shoes of Inspector Field lie their three eldest - and their three youngest are at present squeezed between the open door and the wall. And why is there no one on that little mat before the sullen fire? Because O'Donovan, with his wife and daughter, is not come in from selling Lucifers! Nor on the bit of sacking in the nearest corner? Bad luck! Because that Irish family is late ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... rate thing for you if I did, Miss Mackenzie. All your life you haven't done anything but trample on sissy boys. Now, I expect I'm not a sissy boy, but a fair imitation of a man, and I shouldn't wonder but you'd find me some too restless for a door-mat." His maimed hand happened to be resting on the saddle horn as he spoke, and the story of the maiming emphasized potently the truth of ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... overspread with a deep bloom, as of milk and roses, and her fair hair was magnificent. She had a marvellous growth both for thickness and length, and it was plaited smoothly, covering the back of the head as with a mat. She had come out with a blue handkerchief tied over her head, but she had torn it off, and waved it like a flag of battle in one fat, muscular hand as she lifted on high her voice of musical wrath. She spoke good English, although naturally tinctured by the abuses of the country-side. She had ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... that monument, lamenting him." The king, not regarding what was said by the slave, caused all the house to be diligently searched by his guards for Ganem. He then advanced towards the monument, where he saw the mother and daughter sitting on a mat, and their faces appeared to him bathed in tears. These poor women immediately veiled themselves, as soon as they beheld a man at the door of the dome; but the mother, knowing the king of Damascus, got up, and ran to cast herself at his feet. "My good lady," said he, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... demonstrations of affection as he had been with his evidences of joy, during the welcoming scene. But he had grown in fidelity, if such a thing were possible. He never left the side of his mistress. The hunting dog he treated benevolently, but as a being of a lower order. At night he lay on the rush mat before Effi's door; in the morning, when breakfast was served out of doors by the sundial, he was always quiet, always sleepy, and only when Effi arose from the breakfast table and walked toward the hall to take her straw hat and umbrella ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... 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
... the bank beneath the hedge, he might even in that posture have been seen to own a figure of great strength and beauty. His face, bold of outline, with well curved, wide jaw and strong cheek bones, was shaded by the tangled mat of his wig, tousled in his sleep. His hands, long and graceful, lay idly at his side, though one rested lightly on the hilt of the sword which lay near him. The ruffles of his shirt were torn, and, indeed, had almost disappeared. By study one ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... out beyond the table Anne's very pale face. She laughed a little hysterically, out of the deep shadows between the gloomy mat ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... in Big Hair's lodge snapped and spit gleams of light on the old warrior as he lay back on his resting-mat. He was talking to his sacred symbols. "Though he sleeps very far off, though he sleeps even on the other side, a spirit is what I use to keep him. Make the bellies of animals full which would seek my son; make the wolf and the bear ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... happen," he said, as he laid it down. "To think that Mat Jervoise should be an exile, his old home in the hands of strangers, and he a major in the Swedish service; and that I should never have heard a ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... bladed knife. He then advanced to my bed, upon reaching which he put down the lamp, and felt and patted it with his hand, to satisfy himself he was right, and then plunged the knife, as if through my body, violently through the bed-clothes, piercing even the mat which supplied, with us, the place of a mattress. Having done this, he again took up his lamp and turned round to retrace his steps, when I observed that his countenance, which was before contracted and frowning, was lighted up with a peculiar expression of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... night was far spent—or, rather, the morning far advanced—by that time, the whole party willingly assented. Laihova was supplied with a separate mat, the embers of the wood-fire were drawn together, and they all lay down once more, to make the most of what remained of the period of repose. But circumstances ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... was opened. Donal spent fully a minute rubbing his shoes on the mat, as diligently as if he had just come out of the cattle-yard, and then Gibbie led him in triumph up the stair to the drawing-room. Donal entered in that loose-jointed way which comes of the brains being as yet all in the head, and stood, resisting Gibbie's pull on his arm, his keen hazel eyes ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... Reed was that the only way to work out the freedom of Ireland was by force of arms. Mat at first was inclined to laugh at the idea; but an impressionable and vehement nature such as his was ill calculated to cope for a lengthened time with a nature precise, cold, and stubborn like that of Reed. ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... Man's instinct has been militant since primitive times when it was his job to do the hunting and fighting and woman's to do the work. Woman's instinct has been to conserve and protect life. It is much easier to fight than to make peace. We women would not allow our country to be made the door mat for other nations but we would find a way to settle disputes without ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... it in his.] Well, it might be that you'd miss me for a while— the old dog that you're accustomed to find lying on your door-mat; [pressing her hand to his lips] but you don't love me, Lil— not even as much as you did a year ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... for some minutes before Smith was able to satisfy himself that he had discovered the bungalow. They passed through the compound, looked with a smile at the native servant sleeping on a mat at the door, and laughed to see him jump when awakened by Smith's vigorous rapping. At a word from Smith the man went into the dwelling, but a moment afterwards a window above the entrance was thrown open, and a loud voice demanded ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang |
