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Mat   /mæt/   Listen
Mat

adjective
1.
Not reflecting light; not glossy.  Synonyms: flat, matt, matte, matted.  "A photograph with a matte finish"



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"Mat" Quotes from Famous Books



... me. My eyes wandered from the clergy to the benches upon which sat the rich and the great, then back to the poor, among whom I was kneeling. Each humble worshipper had spread a bright-bordered handkerchief upon the bare floor as a kneeling mat. I observed the striking effect, then recollecting my shoes, put my hand back and drew up the hem of my dress, that my two green beauties might be seen by the children behind me. No seven-year-old child ever enjoyed finery more than ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... and after a performance on the door-mat, protracted by reason of a festoon of hemp, followed his hostess ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs

... of their expedition, expressing their determination to proceed at all risks, and making them some presents. They requested the assistance of two guides, to put them in their way; which request the natives readily granted, returning for their presents a mat, which served them as a bed during the voyage. The next day, being the 10th of June, the two Miamis, their guides, embarked with them in sight of all the inhabitants of the village who looked with astonishment on the hardihood of seven Frenchmen ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... be sure, John Henry Menton said. I haven't seen her for some time. He was a finelooking woman. I danced with her, wait, fifteen seventeen golden years ago, at Mat Dillon's in Roundtown. And a ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... shambled before him to the sitting-room, and Billy, familiar enough with the apartment, noticed a bottle of gin in an unusual position upon the table. The liquor stood, with two glasses and a jug of water, between the Coomstock family Bible, on its green worsted mat, and a glass shade containing the stuffed carcass of a fox-terrier. The animal was moth-eaten and its eyes had fallen out. It could be considered in no sense decorative; but sentiment allowed the corpse this central position in a sorry scheme of adornment, ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... green on them, had been set in the soft earth. Across them other poles had been placed cunningly woven in and out. Still other branches, criss-crossed above, and piled high with foliage, offered a thick mat of verdure to shield one from the hot rays of the sun. Within the elfin chamber was a rustic seat; everywhere, their roots enwrapped in ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... fierceness that seemed to have gained more hellish energy and more devilish cruelty from its temporary abatement. The roads were thick with troops of people rushing wildly from their homes and fleeing from their native country as from a land cursed alike by God and by man. Mat Blake, passing along from Dublin to Ballybay, was almost driven to insanity by the sights he saw at the different ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... seemed dark on 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, a woman appeared in this side ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... repenting, could not have been saved for saying, "Lord remember me when thou commest into thy Kingdome;" by which he testified no beleefe of any other Article, but this, That Jesus Was The King. Nor could it bee said (as it is Mat. 11. 30.) that "Christs yoke is Easy, and his burthen Light:" Nor that "Little Children beleeve in him," as it is Matth. 18.6. Nor could St. Paul have said (1 Cor. 1. 21.) "It pleased God by the Foolishnesse of preaching, to save them that beleeve:" Nor could St. Paul himself have been saved, ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... Ruth, vigorously. "If I have to go to Dr. Milroth myself, it shall be stopped. It is hazing of the crudest kind. Oh! what a prettily crocheted table-mat. ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson

... she, the wan sweet maiden, shore away Clean from her forehead all that wealth of hair Which made a silken mat-work for her feet; And out of this she plaited broad and long A strong sword-belt, and wove with silver thread And crimson in the belt a strange device, A crimson grail within a silver beam; And saw the bright boy-knight, and bound it on him, Saying, "My knight, my love, my ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... brought the glass of beer, and Mrs Vernon, with yet another winning smile, and yet more thanks, left him to toss it off on the mat, while the servant waited ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... the chapel close to hand. But I miss our own little place, sure, sometimes, Danny dear! I miss the pot of flowers on the window (it's against the rule to grow flowers here), and me own little blue teapot on the stove, and Tabby curled up on the mat before ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman

... to it everything that it loved. They subsisted only on bread and water; many ate but twice a week, some went to the mountains to cut herbs which they ate raw. They dwelt in grottoes, ruins, and tombs, lying on the earth or on a mat of rushes. The most zealous of them added other tortures to mortify, or kill, the body. St. Pachomius for fifteen years slept only in an erect position, leaning against a wall. Macarius remained six months in a morass, the ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos

... continued falling steadily, with no sign of abatement. Johnny was in ecstasies. This was evidently no night for camping out; it was a night to justify all our expenditure of labour, in planning and perfecting our dwelling. We hung up every extra mat, and fastened them securely with the store of wooden pegs and pins prepared for that purpose. To be sure, we were in complete darkness, but then we were perfectly snug and comfortable; and what a ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... acquaintance; but Mrs. Eccles had a front parlor—a front parlor with the bottled-up smell in it peculiar to front parlors; a parlor with a real mahogany table, on which photograph albums and a few select volumes were symmetrically arranged round an inkstand, nestling in a very choice wool-work mat; a parlor with wax-flowers under glass shades on the mantle-piece, and an avalanche of paper roses and mixed paper herbs ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... to follow the Lady Goose into the house, though they thought she had been quite particular enough. They found it impossible to wipe their feet upon the mat because it was thick with snow, and when the door was closed behind them, they were surprised to feel that it was snowing even harder inside the house than it was out. For a moment they stood half blinded by the ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels

... place, like a disciple with bent head, endued with humility. He saluted the old king, proclaiming his name. 'Sit down' were the words the old king said. Receiving Dhritarashtra's permission, Yudhishthira sat himself down on a mat of Kusa grass. Then the other sons of Pandu with Bhima among them, O thou of Bharata's race, saluted the king and touched his feet and sat themselves down, receiving his permission. The old Kuru king, surrounded by them, looked exceedingly beautiful. Indeed, he blazed with a Vedic splendour ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... held Racey's hand for him to write a letter "his own self," to mother; she showed me how to make, oh! such a pretty handkerchief-case to send mother for her birthday; and taught Tom how to plait a lovely little mat with bright-coloured papers. She helped me with my music, which I found very tiresome and difficult at first, and she was so dear and good to us that when at last as we got to understand things better, it had to be explained to ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth

... going. It were a cry like a siren, rising and falling like. The boats heerd it and turned back, but three of the Squire's men were set on, and a rare fight there was that night. There was broken heads to be mended, and no mistake. Mat Knowles here, the father of him who keeps the public now, he right forgot to shut his inn, and there it was open two hours past the lawful time, and all were drinking as though it were a great day of ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... sleepers in the house. He had a delicate chest, and one night, when it was colder than usual, he caught a cold which soon turned into consumption. After coughing for a whole year poor Pierrot became thin and emaciated, and his coat, formerly so silky, had the mat whiteness of a shroud. His great transparent eyes had become the most important feature in his poor shrunken face; his red nose had turned pale, and he walked with slow steps, in a melancholy fashion, by the sunny side of the wall, watching the yellow autumn leaves whirling and ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier

... terror to the window-sill, and, grappling, tried to strangle him with the rope, which he threw over his head, but which slipped over his struggling shoulders to his feet. Then it tightened round one leg and Patrick dragged him along like a maniac. I snatched a knife from the mat, and, rushing between them, managed to cut the rope before ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... She had agreed to put Elizabeth in battle-array for her visit to Rittenhouse Square. Elizabeth submitted meekly to her borrowed adornings. Her hair was brushed over her face, and curled on a hot iron, and brushed backward in a perfect mat, and then puffed out in a bigger pompadour than usual. The silk waist was put on with Lizzie's best skirt, and she was adjured not to let that drag. Then the best hat with the cheap pink plumes was set atop the elaborate coiffure; the jacket was put on; and a pair of Lizzie's long ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill

... rebounded with the sound, and this man, say they, is a prophet of Mahomet, his armes and legges naked, on his feet he did weare woodden pattens of two sorts, in his hand, a flagge, or streamer set on a short speare painted, he carried a mat and bottels, and other trumpery at his backe, and sometimes vnder his arme, on his head he had a cappe of white Camels haire, flat like an helmet, written about with letters, and about his head ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... little Marie Perdue, now a bright, fair, blue-eyed cherub of seven months old, seated on a mat, and tossing about with screams of delight a number of small, gay-hued ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... allotted to him Robin found new and gay clothes laid out upon a fair, white bed, with a little rush mat beside it. A high latticed window looked out upon the court, and there was a bench in the nook, curiously carven and filled with stuffs and naperies the like of which ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... touch now the lid fell off and there, lying on a mat of softest grass, was a tiny, new-born lamb. Ohs! and Ahs! and laughter greeted it, to which the small creature answered by another feeble "Ma-a-a!" then ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond

... mat at the door, rushed frantically into my arms, mat and all, my little sister hugging me as if we had really been parted for years, instead of only for the short spell of time that had elapsed since our separation; ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson

... all the same. Books ain't made, lad; they happen and they happen because a cove has an eye to see a little way beneath the surface o' things and an ear as can hear voices in the wind, an' a mind as discovers sum'mat in everything to wonder at. So he goes on lookin' an' listenin' an' wonderin' till one day out it has to come—an' there's your book. Now you're full up o' ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... at the brink of ruine by the cruell dissentions then sprung up betuixt the merchands and trades about their priviledges, bot he lyke ane skilfull Chirurgeon bound up and healled their wounds; and being lykewayes sunck under the burthen of debt he procured such gifts and impositions from his Mat'ie upon all sorts of Liquors that he in a short tyme brought doun their debt from eleven hundredth thousand merks to seven hundredth thousand: and being thrcatened by the Lord Lauderdale to erect the citadels of Leith in a burgh Royall, which wold ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... 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 it is as if the whole ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller

... en panne, et c'etait grande fete; Chaque homme sur son mat tenait le verre en main; Chacun a son signal se decouvrit la tete, Et repondit d'en haut par un hourra soudain. Le soleil souriant dorait les voiles blanches; L'air emu repetait ces voix males et franches, Ce noble appel de ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield

... ship Tiger. A daring, dashing, care-for-nobody young English sailor, delighting in adventure, and loving a good scrape. He and his companion Mat Mizen take the side of El Hyder, and help to re-establish the Chereddin, Prince of Delhi, who had been dethroned by Hamlet Abdulerim.—Barrymore, El Hyder, Chief of the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... payed such taxes himselfe. And that the Kings word, is sufficient to take any thing from any subject, when there is need; and that the King is Judge of that need: For he himselfe, as King of the Jewes, commanded his Disciples to take the Asse, and Asses Colt to carry him into Jerusalem, saying, (Mat. 21. 2,3) "Go into the Village over against you, and you shall find a shee Asse tyed, and her Colt with her, unty them, and bring them to me. And if any man ask you, what you mean by it, Say the Lord hath need of them: And they will let them go." They will not ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... woman was lying on a mat; her head was covered with a muslin veil, but I could see her eyes through it full of tears and flashing with the brightness of stars; she held a handkerchief in her mouth, biting it so hard that her teeth were set in it: I never ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... guess. I did stay a little longer, but I knew! I knew I was through. I stayed another week, and then I went to the mat. ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans

... his mat, and I rose up and in reply said: "Before I dare talk to you about treaties, and lands, and your future for this life, and that of your children, I must speak ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young

... had passed in freezing vigil on the landing, before it occurred to her that Bosinney had been used to leave the key of his rooms under the door-mat. She looked and found it there. For some minutes she could not decide to make use of it; at last she let herself in and left the door open that anyone who came might see she was there ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... didn't turn in till an unholy hour. He got up at seven from force of habit, fussed around a while, took some pictures of the neighborhood and developed them, but by that time the poor old door-mat couldn't keep his eyes open. Do you know he wept all the way home last night, telling me how good ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... 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 named Moon ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard

... 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 ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... long time," replied the Chinaman. "See plenty litty mat lice; too-muchy plenty litty mat lice; sixty ton, litty mat lice. I think all-e-time: perhaps plenty ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... help 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 how ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes

... accounts have been published of the change which sheep imported from Europe undergo in the West Indies. Dr. Nicholson of Antigua informs me that, after the third generation, the wool disappears from the whole body, except over the loins; and the animal then appears like a goat with a dirty door-mat on its back. A similar change is said to take place on the west coast of Africa. (3/92. See Report of the Directors of the Sierra Leone Company as quoted in White 'Gradation of Man' page 95. With respect to the change which sheep undergo ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... (rrethe, singular-rreth); Berat, Bulquize, Delvine, Devoll (Bilisht), Dibre (Peshkopi), Durres, Elbasan, Fier, Gjirokaster, Gramsh, Has (Krume), Kavaje, Kolonje (Erseke), Korce, Kruje, Kucove, Kukes, Lac, Lezhe, Librazhd, Lushnje, Malesia e Madhe (Koplik), Mallakaster (Ballsh), Mat (Burrel), Mirdite (Rreshen), Peqin, Permet, Pogradec, Puke, Sarande, Shkoder, Skrapar (Corovode), Tepelene, Tirane, Tropoje (Bajram Curri), Vlore note: administrative divisions have the same names as their administrative ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... this morning 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 ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton

... he cals His fellow mat's, and minions to his fame, Shewes them long lookt for land, and how it brauls, Repulsing backe the billowes as they came, Much he triumphes, and passed griefe for-stals With present ioy (sorrow lights pleasures flame:) And whilst his hopes ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt

... on the road. Mine is the strongest rice wine in the land, Though my bottle is so patched and dirty. These silly rags are not my body, The parts you cannot see are counted pleasant; But you are just too drunk to drink my wine, And just too plain to lie down on my mat. He who would drink the wine of the girl of Ke-Mo Needs a beautiful body ...
— The Garden of Bright Waters - One Hundred and Twenty Asiatic Love Poems • Translated by Edward Powys Mathers

... peered into the primitive little houses upon their stilt-like posts, and the ladies had spent some time in watching a quaint little native mother making efforts to at once ply the queer sticks which helped her in a strange sort of mat-weaving, and keep an eye upon a preternaturally solemn-faced infant, who, despite his gravity, seemed capable of quite as much mischief as the average enfant ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch

... and the manners of George Washington excelled those of a Grand Duke. But although one could see his mouth water, he did not approach the table where our local Ruggles presided over the refreshments. There was "that" about Ruggles' eye which told George Washington he would have to "go to the mat" before his former superior officer would serve him ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... hand and crumpling 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 ago. You ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero

... formed by the junction of the Mat, the Ta, the Po and the Ny rivers, the last being the northernmost of the four. It takes its rise about a mile south and a little east of the Wilderness Tavern. The Po rises south-west of the place, but farther away. Spottsylvania is on the ridge dividing these two streams, and where they are ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... king sent him cooked meat, he put his mat straight, and tasted it first; when he sent him raw flesh, he had it cooked, and offered it to the spirits; when he sent him a live beast, ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius

... head with spears of crimson, and across a sweep of lawn over which oranges had been dropped, by the generosity of an up- hill row of trees that were saying, "We must make room for the next generation." The flowers (oxalis) and leaves I enclose made a mat, close clinging to the earth, a mat of white, red, and lavender resting on these clover-like leaves that rested in turn directly on the ground. And all about, a hundred plants I did not know, into which my footsteps sent quail and ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... 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 us with its gentle influence; ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various

... came to visit him when he was ill, he had himself placed with his head to the east, and lay dressed in his court clothes with his girdle across them. When the prince sent him a present of cooked meat, he carefully adjusted his mat and just tasted the dishes; if the meat were uncooked, he offered it to the spirits of his ancestors, and any animal which was thus sent him he ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... innumerable leaves, till, as day dawned, he reached a clearing, and descried through the mists a cluster of Huron houses. Faint and bedrenched, he entered the principal one, and was greeted with the monosyllable "Shay!"—"Welcome!" A squaw spread a mat for him by the fire, roasted four ears of Indian corn before the coals, baked two squashes in the embers, ladled from her kettle a dish of sagamite, and offered them to her famished guest. Missionaries ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... same moment, Bartholomew drove away from the front door; and Jog, having stood watching the phaeton over the rise of Pennypound Hill, scraped his feet, re-entered his house, and rubbing them heartily on the mat as he closed the sash-door, observed aloud to himself, with a jerk of ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... away a whole company of men. And for future action as well as to put an end to the superstitious terror of the soldiery, the vital necessity was to clear up the mystery. He had no belief in the theory that these men deserted. He knew them too well. He prided himself mat he was thoroughly acquainted with his own regiment, and had well-grounded reasons for pride in his men. For this reason he was the more chary of exposing a fourth brave man where three had already been lost. However, it had to be done. The ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... the Scotch engineer went to Ridan's hut, taking with them food and a new sleeping-mat. He was sitting cross-legged before a tiny fire of coco-nut shells, gazing at the blue, leaping jets of flame, and as the two men entered, slowly turned his face ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... way downstairs, shining my light into the lower passage, and afterward at the doors to see whether they were shut; for I had closed and latched them, placing a corner of a mat against each door, so I should ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson

... his feet on a chair. Behind half-shuttered lids his opaque eyes glittered with excitement. Clearly he was reviewing in his mind the progression of his triumph. Clay restrained a good, healthy impulse to pick a row with him and go to the mat with the ex-prize-fighter. But after all it ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... was worn slightly awry. Originally covered with stucco, the walls had peeled year by year until the dull red of the bricks showed like blotches of paint under a thick coating of powder. Over the wide door two little oblong windows, holding four damaged panes, blinked rakishly from a mat of ivy, which spread from the rotting eaves to the shingled roof, where the slim wooden spire bent under the weight of creeper and innumerable nesting sparrows in spring. After pointing heavenward for half a century, the steeple appeared to ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... palace the strong Prince sat, Taking his ease on cushion and mat, Close at hand lay his staff and his hat "When wilt thou start? the bride waits, O youth."— "Now the moon's at full; I tarried for that, ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... towards the west, where the low sun hung over a ragged range of hills topped with everlasting white. The great valley, dark with an untrodden wilderness of birch and spruce and alder, lay on this side, sombre and changeless, like a great, dark-green mat too large for its resting-place, its edges turned up towards the line of unmelting snow. Beyond were other ranges thrust skyward in a magnificent confusion, while still to the farther side lay the purple ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... Hlwot-dau, where we found the Menghyi surrounded by a crowd of minor officials and suitors squatting on their stomachs and elbows, with their legs under them and their hands clasped in front of their bent heads. The Menghyi came forward several paces to meet us, conducted us to his mat, and sitting down himself and bidding us do the same, explained that as it was with him a busy day, he would not be able personally to present me to the King as he had hoped to have done, but that he had made all arrangements and had delegated the charge ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... the gas down to a mere spark, and stretched my weary limbs on the mat which served the travelled man for a bed, drawing over me a gauze-like fabric, which, I suppose, answers in tropical countries all the purposes of the more voluminous "bed-clothes" of ours. Sleep soon came upon me,—a heavy, but unquiet sleep, in which the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... respects to her, and was at that moment waiting in the drawing-room. Perhaps this last announcement showed in a more striking point of view than many lengthened speeches could have done, the trustfulness and faith of Bailey's nature; since he had, in fact, last seen the visitor on the door-mat, where, after signifying to him that he would do well to go upstairs, he had left him to the guidance of his own sagacity. Hence it was at least an even chance that the visitor was then wandering on the roof of the house, or vainly seeking to extricate himself from the maze of bedrooms; ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... Mrs. Baxter's parlance,—that is to say, some little time before the sun had reached the meridian,—she was ringing Adelaide's door-bell, while she minutely observed the curtains, the door-mat, the ivy plants in the vestibule, and the brightness of the brass knobs on the railing. In this she had a double motive: what was evil she would criticize, what was good ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller

... On the rush-mat below and that of fine bamboos above it, May he repose in slumber! May he sleep and awake, (Saying), 'Divine for me my dreams[1]. What dreams are lucky? They have been of bears and grisly bears; They have been ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... Lucian had sat late the night before, and rose in the morning feeling weary and listless and heavy-headed. While he dressed, his legs dragged him as with weights, and he staggered and nearly fell in bending down to the mat outside for his tea-tray. He lit the spirit lamp on the hearth with shaking, unsteady hands, and could scarcely pour out the tea when it was ready. A delicate cup of tea was one of his few luxuries; ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... wise man's eye, is no better than he that stands upon his head." It is doubted by some, Gravioresne morbi a perturbationibus, an ab humoribus, whether humours or perturbations cause the more grievous maladies. But we find that of our Saviour, Mat. xxvi. 41, most true, "The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak," we cannot resist; and this of [1591]Philo Judeus, "Perturbations often offend the body, and are most frequent causes of melancholy, turning it ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... welcome" was the reply as the lower half of the door swung softly toward its mate. Every boy, before entering, rubbed long and faithfully upon the rough mat, and each made his best bow to the old lady and gentleman at the window. Ben was half inclined to think that these personages were automata like the moving figures in the garden at Broek; for they both nodded their heads slowly, in precisely the same way, and both went on with their employment ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... In the distance, under the palms, he saw Batouch laughing with Ouardi. Near them Ali was reposing on a mat, moving his head from side to side, smiling with half-shut, vacant eyes, ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... neatness meant nothing, the rag mat before the hearth was the most luxurious thing he had ever seen in the whole of his life, and he stretched his lanky aching body on it with a deep sigh of perfect ...
— Dick and Brownie • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... parts look for remedies in Savanarola, Gordonius, Massaria, Mercatus, Johnson, &c. One for the spleen, amongst many other, I will not omit, cited by Hildesheim, spicel. 2, prescribed by Mat. Flaccus, and out of the authority of Benevenius. Antony Benevenius in a hypochondriacal passion, [4389]"cured an exceeding great swelling of the spleen with capers alone, a meat befitting that infirmity, and frequent ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... and fowls were roasting for a hasty dinner. A short snatch of sleep upon the sand, and the voice of the guide again disturbed us. The camels had not been unloaded, but had lain down to rest with their packs, and had thus eaten their feed of dhurra (Sorghum vulgare) from a mat. In a few minutes we started, once more the silent and ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... along in her wake, while, awaking now to a sense of their assailants' position, the Malays hurriedly thrust out sweeps, and others fired, and hurled their spears, a couple of dozen of which stuck in the bamboo mat. Dick in the stern, and a couple of the men in the bows, however, began a steady fire at the prahu, loading as rapidly as they could, while the men amidships cast off the awkward canopy, and, half stunned, but panting with rage and excitement, the lieutenant once more ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... the third Italian (mezzano). To go from masts to sails, we have "duck" from the Swedish duk, and "canvas" from the Mediterranean languages,—from the root canna, a cane or reed,—thence a cloth of reeds or rushes, a mat-sail,—hence any sail. Of the ends of a ship, "stern" is from the Saxon stearn, steering-place; "stem," from the German stamm. The whole family of ropes—of which, by the way, it is a common saying, that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... stint or reserve, or question asked:[50] to every man, according to his degree, who chose to ask for it there was free fee and free lodging; bread, beef, and beer for his dinner; for his lodging, perhaps, only a mat of rushes in a spare corner of the hall, with a billet of wood for a pillow,[51] but freely offered and freely taken, the guest probably faring much as his host fared, neither worse nor better. There was little fear of an abuse of such licence, for suspicious characters ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... more to them than an only child usually is to its parents. The Burmans regarded him as quite a curiosity, for he was the only purely white infant in the place. The baby would lie quietly for hours on a mat in the study, while his parents were poring over their books, and when work was done they would throw the palm leaves on one side, take up the boy, and carry him in state around the house and garden. His presence seemed to light up the ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... Tarascon rose before his eyes. The club. The hat hunters. The green armchair at Costecalde's shop: and soaring above, like the extended wings of an eagle, the formidable moustache of the brave Commandant Bravida. Then to see himself squatting slothfully on his mat, while he was believed to be engaged in slaying lions, filled him with shame. Suddenly he leaped to his feet. "To the lions!... To the lions!" He cried, and hurrying to the dusty corner where lay idle his bivouac tent, his medicine chest, his preserved foods and his weapons, he dragged ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... with presents and an offer of marriage. So the Princess went from her father to be the Queen of the Aztecs, and she took with her the Captive, who served her in everything with entire fidelity and slept upon a mat before her door. ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... by putting layers of various kinds and colors of ice creams into a brick mold. Pack and freeze. At serving time, cut into slices crosswise of the brick, and serve each slice on a paper mat. ...
— Ice Creams, Water Ices, Frozen Puddings Together with - Refreshments for all Social Affairs • Mrs. S. T. Rorer

... thee to tell her," said Sennacherib, with a grunt of scorn. "If I'd ha' been the manner o' man you'd ha' liked for a husband, I should ha' been despisable. My missis"—he addressed his wife's visitor again—"ought to ha' married a door-mat, then her could ha' wiped her feet upon him wheniver the ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray

... their journey the little party was joined by two gentlemen who reached the highway by a cross-road; they lived far from the Wancote neighbourhood. The one Sir James Templemore, the other Mr. Mat Harding. ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... steps I came to an iron wall, made of plates bolted together. Then turning back I struck against a wooden table, near which were ranged several stools. The boards of this prison were concealed under a thick mat, which deadened the noise of the feet. The bare walls revealed no trace of window or door. Conseil, going round the reverse way, met me, and we went back to the middle of the cabin, which measured about twenty feet by ten. As to its height, Ned Land, in spite of his own great height, ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... idle glance came back from the window, it caught the brown eyes of Mr. Pickwick considering him through a silvery, fringy thicket of hair. Mr. Pickwick was said to be royally descended; however that might have been, indubitably his pedigree harbored somewhere both a door-mat and ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... across the beach and through a walk delightfully shaded with breadfruit trees to his own house. Here we found two women at work staining a piece of cloth red. These I found were his wife and her sister. They desired me to sit down on a mat which was spread for the purpose, and with great kindness offered me refreshments. I received the congratulations of several strangers who came to us and behaved with great decorum and attention. The people however thronged about the house in such numbers that I was much incommoded ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh

... 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 were ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne

... over the rugged places we had to pass. Day after day the poor captives dropped through fatigue, till their numbers were much thinned; but still we pushed on. We passed through a number of Indian villages, the inhabitants of which looked out from their mat doors with sad eyes on their unhappy countrymen; and we now discovered that the object of the Spaniards in carrying them on was to strike terror into the hearts of the people. When governors cannot manage a people so as to gain their love, they ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston

... me before I was born that I might not have come into the world at all. They used to say in the market, and your mamma too, with great lack of delicacy, set off telling me that her hair was like a mat on her head, and that she was short of five foot by a wee bit. Why talk of a wee bit while she might have said 'a little bit,' like every one else? She wanted to make it touching, a regular peasant's feeling. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... think. Mercy's mind was a blank as she descended the stairs. On her way down she was conscious of nothing but the one headlong impulse to get to the library in the shortest possible space of time. Arrived at the door, the impulse capriciously left her. She stopped on the mat, wondering why she had hurried herself, with time to spare. Her heart sank; the fever of her excitement changed suddenly to a chill as she faced the closed door, and asked herself the ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins

... Mis' McChesney," returned Jake." Well, nothin' much stirrin'. Whatcha think of the Grand Central? I understand they're going to have a contrivance so you can stand on a mat in the waiting-room and wish yourself down to the track an' train that you're leavin' on. The G'ints have picked a bunch of shines this season. T. A. Junior's got a new sixty-power auto. Genevieve—that yella-headed steno—was married last month to Henry, ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... for dinner. It's your specialty. All right. Take your hat off to that chechacko who has just whaled you blind. He has outgamed you, Colby Macdonald. You don't run in his class. I see he is holding his haid up again. Give him another half-hour and he'd be ready to go to the mat with you again." ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine

... betimes, and to my Journall entries, but disturbed by many businesses, among others by Mr. Houblon's coming to me about evening their freight for Tangier, which I did, and then Mr. Bland, who presented me yesterday with a very fine African mat, to lay upon the ground under a bed of state, being the first fruits of our peace with Guyland. So to the office, and thither come my pretty widow Mrs. Burrows, poor woman, to get her ticket paid ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... the maize-ear Feasted, and slaked their thirst from the water-gourd of the teacher. Soon was their story told; and the priest with solemnity answered:— "Not six suns have risen and set since Gabriel, seated On this mat by my side, where now the maiden reposes, Told me this same sad tale then arose and continued his journey!" Soft was the voice of the priest, and he spake with an accent of kindness; But on Evangeline's heart fell his words as in winter the snow-flakes ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... them—spitting all over the floors of the cottages: disgusting and particularly dangerous in a country where the arch-enemy, tuberculosis, is ever on the watch for victims. But the new era is slowly dawning. Now, instead of hooking "Welcome Home" into the fireside mat, you find "DONT SPIT" worked in letters of flame. It is the harbinger of the feminist ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... as a guest is seated upon his mat, a small tray is set before the master of the house. Upon this tray is a tiny tea-pot with a handle at right angles to the spout. Other parts of this outfit include a highly artistic tea-kettle filled with hot water, and a requisite number ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray

... token of which thirty Indians came soon afterwards, loaded with broiled fish, fowls, fruit, bread made of maize, and vessels with lighted coals to fumigate us with certain perfumes. They then spread a mat on the ground, which they covered with a mantle, on which they laid some golden toys made in form of birds and lizards, and three strings of gold beads, desiring us to accept these presents in a friendly manner, being all the gold they could collect, which did not exceed the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... again, Mat sat looking at the floor. "Every headlong thing I've ever done I've gone headlong over," ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale

... 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 to-night, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... Sarah went with her child to the servants' house. The women, from compassion, yielded a fresh mat to her, but she did not lie down to sleep; she sat the whole night with her ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... retires to a little distance in the bush, 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 ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... cane, and thatched with grass, forms alike the palace of the king, and the hovel of the slave. Their household furniture is equally simple. A hurdle of canes placed upon upright stakes, about two feet from the ground, upon which is spread a mat or bullock's hide, answers the purpose of a bed; a water jar, some earthen pots for dressing their food, a few wooden bowls and calabashes, and one or two low ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... this room lay a mat, on which stood a wooden head-prop, indicating that the naturalist was in the habit ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... men, ascended the Columbia. At the distance of five miles he passed an island in the middle of the river, at the head of which was a small but not dangerous rapid. On the left bank, opposite to this island, was a fishing-place consisting of three mat houses. Here were great quantities of salmon drying on scaffolds; and, indeed, from the mouth of the river upward, he saw immense numbers of dead salmon strewed along the shore, or floating on the surface of the water, which is so clear that the fish may be seen swimming ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks

... shelf was a beautiful pink sea-shell, lying on a mat made of balls of red-shaded worsted. This shell was greatly coveted by mother, but she was only allowed to play with it when she had been particularly good. Hiram had showed her how to hold it close to her ear and hear the roar of the ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... and wiped away their tears with her little hand, and, jabbering in her unknown language, seemed begging them not to cry. This interested the mother, and she soon looked more kindly upon them, and set before them food. But they were too sorrowful to eat, and were glad to be shown a mat, where they were to sleep. Locked in each others' arms, cheek pressed to cheek, they lay and wept as ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams

... ever seen. The stair-rail glistened, the polished floors shone. A neat bouquet of sweet peas stood exactly in the center of a snow-white doily, which was exactly in the middle of a shiny, round table. The very door-mat was brand new; Agatha would never have thought of ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... engagement than he at first experienced. He had become nervously incapable of those proper niceties of sword-play which, without any indecent hacking or maiming, should have stretched Angelo, neatly slain, on the mat of green, before he had a chance. Even now the sight of the man was distressing to an honourable duellist. Angelo was scored with blood-marks. Feeling that he dared not offer another chance to a fellow so desperately close-dealing, Weisspriess thrust fiercely, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... little plant is a general favourite that needs no description. The flowers are not very ornamental, being white or lilac, and produced in small, terminal panicles. A native of Chili, it is not very hardy, but grown against a sunny wall, and afforded the protection of a mat in winter, with a couple of shovelfuls of cinders heaped around the stem, it passes through the most severe weather with little or no injury, save, in some instances, the branch tips being killed back. Propagated readily from cuttings ...
— Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs • A. D. Webster

... nakedness of the walls, are hung out for display on cords stretched transversely. The counter is a flat board of wood, very slightly elevated above the ground, and which serves as a divan to the seller and a seat to the buyer. From this place, which is usually covered with a mat, the Mussulman gazes in silence upon the passing foreigner, whom he rarely deigns to address by the name of Effendi; while, on the contrary, the active and loquacious Armenian even leaves his shop ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various

... said Mat Clark, his mate; "I never knew any good come to any one by doing wrong, and we should be doing wrong if we were to leave Mr Ramsay to take care of his sheep and cattle all by himself. It's not the way we should like ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston

... wind, catching the heavy locks, blew them out like fluttering red-gold pennons. All the Carlyles had red hair of varying shades and natures. Audrey's was long and heavy, with a pretty wave in it. Faith's was shorter, darker, and curly. Tom's curled tightly over his head, a fiery mat of curls. Deborah's, finest and silkiest of all, hung in soft auburn waves to her waist. Baby Joan's fluffy curls were ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... season of pancakes, which was all Lent was to me at the time of which I speak, the Carnival had rushed upon my sight, carrying all our friends through its whirlpool. Every gay cloth, shawl, and mat that could be brought into service I had rejoiced to see displayed upon the balconies. A narrow, winding street the Corso seemed, being so full, and the houses so high; and a merry blue strip of heaven far away overhead, glancing along the housetops, assured us space ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... noted for long memories, but their intentions were good, and the first day of Aunt Anne's visit passed very well, the children remembering to rub their feet on the mat, shut the door softly, and not fidget at meals. But the exertion seemed too much for them, and the second day began rather boisterously, and did not improve as it went on. After lunch, when the twins came into the drawing-room, Lucy drew a footstool near her aunt, ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie

... antechamber, but he had hardly gone four steps before he kicked against something. This something was D'Aubiac lying on a mat. ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... polished bamboo, neatly interwoven, while the floors are carpeted with mats of coloured grass. The walls are decorated with a native cloth, called tapa, which serves the purpose of tapestry. The house is divided into separate chambers at night by mats hung up on lines. The beds are primitive; a mat serves for every purpose, and a wooden roller as a pillow. Many of the Kanakas are well educated, and read and write not only their own, but several European languages likewise. There is one newspaper in the Hawaian language, if not more, ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... oxen—one sitting under a tree singing, another smoking, some fighting, others eating. Inland, husbandmen were driving the plough, beating the oxen, lavishing abuse upon them, in which the owner shared. The wives of the husbandmen, bearing vessels of water, some carrying a torn quilt, or a dirty mat, wearing a silver amulet round the neck, a ring in the nose, bracelets of brass on the arm, with unwashed garments, their skins blacker than ink, their hair unkempt, formed a chattering crowd. Among them one beauty was rubbing her head with ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee

... stored up her crocks according to their size, very artificial, with a dish of oranges plucked from the tree at our door on one side, and a dish of almonds on the other, a pipkin standing betwixt 'em with a handsome posey of roses in it. She had spread a mat on the floor, and folded up our fine blankets to serve for cushions; and all that did not belong to her she had bundled out of sight into that hollowed side I have mentioned ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... until she saw a big, green parrot in a cage. And the bird was screeching to the limit of its capacity. Mrs. Hobbs could hear it! Should Dorothy throw a mat from the ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose

... the rules of the Institution, the hours and nature of the work, the offices in Chapel, the recreation times and hours for meals. Manuela, she said, was not the build for rope and mat work. ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett

... themselves. While the Ancient Brother is reading to the attentive comer, now happy in the thought that he has taken himself in out of the draft, let us survey the sanctum sanctorum; but first let us advance to the centre of the hall, where we find a piece of dirty oil cloth the size of a door mat, and stepping upon this, with body erect and turning our back upon the Ancient Brother, we find ourselves facing the Grand Seignior, who, on our first introduction, is Judge Morris; we salute, which we do by applying ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer

... up in my parcel to answer. "Lot Two," I went on. "A pink-and-white football shirt; would work up into a dressy blouse for adult, or a smart overcoat for child. Lot Three. A knitted waistcoat; could be used as bath-mat. Lot Four. Pair of bedroom slippers in holes. This bit is the slipper; the rest is the hole. Lot Five. Now this is something really good. Truthful Jane—my first ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne

... stable manure brought direct from the cars. There was no preliminary preparation of the manure. A layer of loam one and one-half inches deep was then spread over the surface and forked into the bed of manure one and one-half inches deep, so as to form an earthy mat three inches deep. This was then packed solid with the feet, and a two-inch layer of loose manure added all over. In about ten days the temperature three inches below the surface was about 95 deg., and the beds were then spawned. In spawning, drills were drawn across the beds about ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer

... plenary absolution! When these words were heard, the poor little bird Was so changed in a moment, 'twas really absurd: He grew slick and fat; in addition to that, A fresh crop of feathers came thick as a mat! His tail waggled more even than before; But no longer it wagged with an impudent air, No longer he perched on the Cardinal's chair. He hopped now about with a gait devout; At matins, at vespers, he never was out; And, so far from ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... two Englishmen the body rested for an instant, stretched out long and piteously flat, showing its thin shape through the mat of woven straw which wrapped it, only the head and feet being wound with linen. So, by and by, it would be laid, without a coffin, in its shallow grave in the Arab cemetery, out on the road to ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... door, which they also conceived did open, and something to enter, which came through the room, and also walkt about that room with a heavy step during half an hour, then crept under the bed where Captain Hart and Captain Carelesse lay, where it did seem (as it were) to bite and gnaw the mat and bed-coards, as if it would tear and rend the feather beds; which having done a while, then would heave a while, and rest; then heave them up again in the bed more high than it did before, sometime on the one side, sometime on the other, as if it had tried ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... mat of green wool, I found myself in a small room with a painted floor and a square of green carpet in the middle; the articles of furniture were few, but all bright and exquisitely clean; order reigned through its narrow limits—such order as it soothed my punctilious soul ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... when some stepfather for the query held a handle out, The door-mat from the scraper, is it distant very far? And when no one knew where Moses was when Aaron blew the candle out, And no one had discovered that a door could be a-jar! But your modern hearers are In their tastes particular, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... and then made a fresh start with six men and four baggage horses. Midway between Dandenong and the Bunyip he passed the hut of Big Mat, a new settler from Melbourne, and obtained from him some information about the best route to follow. It began to rain heavily, and it was difficult to ford the swollen creeks before arriving at the Big Hill. At Shady Creek there was nothing for the horses to eat, and ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... and yet a perfect lady, and his three adorable little girls in Rob Roy Macgregor dresses, dancing to the hand organ, performing circus on the floor with startling effects of nudity, and curling up together on a mat to sleep, three sizes, three attitudes, three Rob Roy dresses, and six little clenched fists: the murderer meanwhile brooding and gloating over his chicks, till your whole heart went out to him; and yet his crime on the face of it was dark: disembowelling, in his own house, an old ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... whole country-side, and the sun was brighter and the braes greener and the air sweeter from the day she came. Our lives were common no longer now that we spent them with such a one as she, and the old dull grey house was another place in my eyes since she had set her foot across the door-mat. It was not her face, though that was winsome enough, nor her form, though I never saw the lass that could match her; but it was her spirit, her queer mocking ways, her fresh new fashion of talk, her proud whisk of the dress and toss ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... in the Bay of Tolaga, the right name of which is Houa-Houa, that D'Urville found the first opportunity of gaining some information about the "kiwi," by means of a mat decorated with the feathers of that bird, such mats being articles of luxury among these islanders. The "kiwi" is about the size of a small turkey, and, like the ostrich, has not the power of flying. It is hunted ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... the floor and saw the man that was to be his opponent striding toward the mat in the center of the floor, he wished that some one else had been placed as the keystone in the Kingston arch of success. For Jumbo knew well the man's record as a wrestler. But Jumbo himself, while small, was well put together; and though built, as he said, "close ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes

... Arabic letters of texts, painted on the walls and ceiling. Five times a day, the Muezzin priest mounts the outside of the mosque tower, and calls the faithful to prayer. Each Mohammedan carries his own praying mat. After placing it on the tile floor beneath the thin pillars, he kneels and bows upon his mat, facing Mecca, where our prophet was born. We do not ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson

... the door, stumbled over the mat, and, with a face red as a beet, walked awkwardly to the table and took her seat, which happened ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey

... tines; steel knives with black handles; a hartshorn carving-knife. Thick-lipped china in stacks before the armchair. A round four-pound loaf of black bread waiting to be torn, and tonight, on the festive mat of cotton lace, a cake of pinkly gleaming icing, encircled with five ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst

... whose eyes rolled fearfully at sight of the dead wolf. Both animals wore packs lashed on their backs by ropes of twisted hide. Then another man came along, with another brace of donkeys. Finally, a fourth man, wearing skins for covering and with a mat of beard on his cheeks and chin, appeared. His uncovered head, a bush of uncombed flaxen hair, shone whitish as he knelt beside the dead beast, a knife with a dull-gray blade in his hand, and set to work skinning the wolf with appreciable skill. Three more pairs of donkeys, ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton

... boys, and Laura's brother Mat and his chum, Hugh Bonner, were called upon, and after some grumbling on their part and as much coaxing on the part of the girls they "came in to help the Happy-Go-Luckys out," as they ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne

... now not merely a collector and exploring naturalist, but he observed biological facts of importance. On the 27th of March, 1827, he made a communication to the Plinian Society on the ova, or rather larvae, of the Flustra or sea-mat, a member of the class Polyzoa, forming a continuous mat-like colony of thousands of organisms leading a joint-stock existence. He announced that he had discovered in these larvae organs of locomotion, then so seldom, now so frequently, ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany

... hill, in silence, and in a quarter of an hour had gained the tent. Vincent was severely bitten and torn: as soon as his wounds had been dressed he lay down on his mat, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... Inner Curlo Bank," shouted the coast-guard in his face, and turning on his heel, he ran with the same slow, organised haste, leaving the red-faced man finishing a mouthful on the mat. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... table but the bare ground, and at best a coarse mat; he has no dishes but banana leaves and cocoanut shells, and no forks or spoons but his fingers. He brings water from a stream in a piece of bamboo about three joints long in which all but one joint has been punched out, and drinks it from a piece of cocoanut shell. If he needs to cut anything ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed

... content, and that they could go back to their master, and tell him that in a month's time I would be ready and that he could come for me. This pleased my father, and although at night time I always slept between the two women, as is customary for a taupo, with a mat over me, and they lay on the outside, one on each side, yet in the day time I often met my lover in the forest, whilst ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke

... might as well go fishing. The weather's right, and every affair of yours is so cleaned and oiled and put to rights that there's nothing here for a man to do. One might suppose you were going a long journey. If you don't want me to-morrow, I'll call on old Mat Green—" ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... the big loud-voiced man whose orders were obeyed with instant smartness, who told him, to his amazement and despair, that he must depart with his property. the seals of a sack were broken before him, and its contents displayed and duly accounted for—a sleeping-mat, a small red blanket, the elastic-side boots, two scrolls of sinfully painted silk, a hard round hat stuffed with gaudy handkerchiefs, three watches and varied jewellery in a ginger-jar, the quaintly carved toilet devices, the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... back and make her live with me!" The Sultan smiled, and observed only, "Hem, your wife won't live with you! Well, what can I do?" Another man came forward and cried, "O Sultan! I am a thief, but you must pardon me. I stole this mat because I was a poor man" (holding up the mat). "I restore the mat." His highness observed, "Leave it; I will see what can be done." A collection of stolen articles was restored also by another person. Then came a man more bold, and brought a present from a neighbouring village, consisting ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson

... the women and girls, but is sometimes performed by the men when their women are preoccupied. At one time when an American wished two or three bushels of palay threshed, as horse food for the trail, three Bontoc men performed the work in the classic treadmill manner. They spread a mat on the earth, covered it with palay, and then tread, or rather "rubbed," out the kernels with their bare feet. They often scraped up the mass with their feet, bunching it and rubbing it in a way that strongly ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... ... will cause him to make. [If] thou workest the steering pole against the sail (?), the flood shall gather strength against the doing of what is right. Take good heed to thyself and set thyself on the mat (?) on the look-out place. The equilibrium of the earth is maintained by the doing of what is right. Tell not lies, for thou art a great man. Act not in a light manner, for thou art a man of solid worth. Tell not lies, for thou art a pair ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge

... thee, MacCailein!" said she; "thy daddy put his hand on my head like a son when he came back from his banishment in Spain, and I keened over thy mother dear when she died. The hair of Peggy Bheg's head is thy door-mat, and her son's blood is thy will for ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... he walked wearily to Simulgachi. There was quite a small crowd in Sadhu's courtyard. On one side sat Maini and some other women with faces closely covered; Esaf and the witnesses were on the other. Between them was a mat, on which lay a bag full of money. Ramzan was received without salutations, and ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea



Words linked to "Mat" :   twine, distort, dull, twist, enmesh, mounting, sports equipment, dullness, floor covering, canvas, floor cover, pad, disentangle, unsnarl, mousepad, canvass, master's degree, mass, mesh, ensnarl, change



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