"Matter of fact" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lovingly. "As a matter of fact, I feel I ought to make a mess of it. It'll be the first big case since we've been together that, while it's been on, we haven't had talks about. You couldn't, of course, with this so near to you. It would be significant, and proper, ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... declares that there exists in those States no legal governments and no adequate protection for life or property, and asserts the necessity of enforcing peace and good order within their limits. Is this true as matter of fact? ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... of the Common. Mrs. Macaulay explained to Tom that he must learn to study without the solace of bread and butter, to which he replied: "Yes, mama, industry shall be my bread and attention my butter." But, as a matter of fact, no one ever crept more unwillingly to school. Each several afternoon he made piteous entreaties to be excused returning after dinner, and was met by the unvarying formula: "No, Tom, if it rains cats ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... him posted as to the movements of the hostile army. General Sherman reported on Saturday that he thought there were about two regiments of infantry and a battery of artillery about six miles out. As a matter of fact, the whole rebel army was not more than six miles out. Later in the day he dispatches: "The enemy is saucy, but got the worst of it yesterday, and will not press our pickets far. I do not apprehend anything like an ...
— "Shiloh" as Seen by a Private Soldier - With Some Personal Reminiscences • Warren Olney
... the creature who bore her was not deformed of body, but she shrank from the thought of what a sight of his face might reveal. How much longer the two could fight off the horde at their heels the girl could not guess; and as a matter of fact she was indifferent to the outcome of the strange, running battle that was being waged with herself as ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... warmly for her good behaviour. As a matter of fact, there was no great merit in this, for she could not stand anything stronger than milk; but we are seldom rewarded when by rights we ought to be and sometimes are when we have ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... before the Senate on Jan. 22, 1917, and laid down some general considerations of what he thought a just peace should be like. It was the logical next step in his effort to stop the war before America should become involved, but it was taken under conditions which made success impossible. As a matter of fact, the Germans had already decided to resume the unrestricted submarine war; the decision had been taken on Jan. 9, but was not to be announced till Jan. 31. Moreover, in America and the allied countries public sentiment was unprepared ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... came to him all at once, as he was walking up the strand towards the wigwam, that he had left the dinghy tied to the reef. The dinghy was, as a matter of fact, safe and sound tied to the aoa; but Mr Button's memory told him it was tied to the reef. How he had crossed the lagoon was of no importance at all to him; the fact that he had crossed without the boat, yet without getting ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... The matter of fact is made plain by the circular (No. 2) which states that "Piozzi is coming back from Italy." He arrived on July 1st, after a fourteen months' absence, which proved both his loyalty and the sincerity of the struggle in her own heart and mind. Her letter (No. 1) as printed, is not signed with ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Several intelligent persons, both gentry and clergy, do I find give a great deal of credit to what is asserted in the papers, and I myself dined with a clergyman who seemed to be persuaded that what is related is matter of fact; but, when I came to attend to his account, I thought I discerned circumstances which did not a little invalidate the woman's story of the manner in which she came by her skill. She says of herself, "that, labouring under ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... boy," he said with maddening calm, "listen to me! I had a hunch this would happen. As a matter of fact, I declined to charter to Morrow & Company direct ten days before you came prancing in with your head all swelled up with a brand-new idea for making a lot of easy money in a hurry. Me charter to them—me!" In his superb scorn Cappy waxed ungrammatical. "I ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... is raising the city against me, as far as he and his friends can, for having stated a mere matter of fact; viz. that Milton had represented Satan as a sceptical Socinian; which is the case; and I could not have explained the excellence of the sublimest single passage in all his writings, had I not previously informed the audience, that Milton had represented ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... peace. But what right have we to assume that our navy is for the purpose of preserving peace, while the navies of the European powers are for the purpose of making war? Is not such an assumption an insult to our neighbors? As a matter of fact, England builds new battleships because Germany does, Germany increases her navy because France does, while the United States builds new dreadnoughts because other nations pursue that policy. Call it by ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... over a very few seconds, for you must let the process run its natural course unimpeded by your efforts at observing it, and then turn your "mental eye" instantly back to observe it retrospectively before it disappears. As a matter of fact, a sensation or feeling or idea hangs on in consciousness for a few seconds, and can be observed in this retrospective way. There is no theoretical objection to this style of introspection, but it is practically difficult ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... affairs began to change. All that I have related as matter of fact, and which certainly is not better authenticated than many other things that happened two or three thousand years ago, which, however, the most sceptical will not presume to maintain did not take place, was treated as the most idle and ridiculous fable by the dealers in pine-apples themselves. They ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... Now, during life, these great vessels are full of blood at a high internal pressure, whereas after death they become almost empty. It follows that, if this wound had been inflicted during life, the cavity in which those vessels lie would have become filled with blood. As a matter of fact, it contained practically no blood, only the merest oozing from some small veins, so that it is certain that the wound was inflicted after death. The presence and nature of the poison I ascertained by analyzing certain secretions from the ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... at conclusions! To say she isn't an angel, doesn't mean dislike. As a matter of fact, I am eager to secure her as ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... a matter of fact, I don't know precisely what he is doing with the money, but I guess it is finding its way into legitimate channels. I'll make him give me an itemized expense account for your benefit when it's all ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... Lamb. corrected the MSS. reading which was simply ut potuerunt, "granting that they had the ability, they gained it by hearing all things, now as a matter of fact they did decide on a single hearing," etc. Iudicaverunt autem: so Lamb. for MSS. aut. Muretus, by what Dav. calls an "arguta hariolatio," read an for aut and put a note of interrogation at contulerunt. C.F. Hermann (Schneidewin's Philologus VII. 466) introduces by ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... matter of fact, Elizabeth lived for nearly seventy years—almost three-quarters of a century—and in that long time there came and went both men and women, those whom she had used and cast aside, with others whom ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... It can be dissolved cold in nitric acid, discharging little gaseous bubbles. The process of solution is a slow one, requiring several hours for a tiny fragment. Everything is dissolved, except a few yellowish flocks, which appear to be of an organic nature. As a matter of fact, a piece of the hatch, when subjected to heat, blackens, proving the presence of an organic glue cementing the mineral matter. The solution becomes muddy if oxalate of ammonia be added; it then deposits a copious white precipitate. These ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... from the tender green spikelets that gleam over the fields in the spring-tide to the yellow abundance of autumn, in one unbroken season of genial months. So would our growth be best, healthiest, happiest. So might our growth be, if the mysterious life in the seed met no checks. But, as a matter of fact, the Church has not thus grown. Rather at the best, its emblem is to be looked for, not in corn, but in the forest tree-the very rings in whose trunk tell of recurring seasons when the sap has risen at the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... upon natural laws of development. Truth is also difficult of definition, but we may understand that when out of experience, as through a process of reasoning, we have reached a conclusion that is something more than a matter of fact, a conclusion touching our emotions and having vital spiritual interest to us, the experience, whether our own directly or at second hand, has brought us to a truth. Truth is, perhaps, that matter of fact of universal intelligence that transcends the ...
— The Writing of the Short Story • Lewis Worthington Smith
... contingents lacked discipline and systematic training, their bravery compensated for the imperfection of their military education. Elam not only refused to admit herself conquered, but she believed herself sure of final victory, and, as a matter of fact, it is not at all certain that Assur-bani-pal's generals would ever have completely triumphed over her, if internal discords and treason had not too often paralysed her powers. The partisans of Khumban-igash were largely responsible ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... need to turn round to feel assured that Rnine was coming to her assistance and that it was his inexplicable appearance that was causing the dealer such dismay. As a matter of fact, a slender figure stole through a heap of easy chairs and sofas: and Rnine came forward ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... plant-food which the soil contains is not in an available condition. It lies dead and inert. It is not soluble, and the roots of the plants cannot get enough of it to enable them to thrive; and in addition to this, you will find as a matter of fact that these poor 'exhausted' farms are infested with weeds, which rob the growing crops of a large part of the ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... I could make Gertrude understand, and yet I could never, never bring myself to say a word. As a matter of fact, what is there to be said? Surely she knows best that her husband will never love any woman but herself. Yet ill, nervous as she is, I quite understand that she must loathe this unceasing talk of Dionea, of the superiority of the model over the statue. ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... promote righteousness, he using lawful means to accomplish it, is greatly accepted of God by Christ; and it is a sign he is a lover of righteousness; and that if he suffereth for so doing, he suffereth not for well-doing, only as to matter of fact, but also for his love to the good thing done, and for ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... by asking what, as a matter of fact, has been the arrangement of spaces to give aesthetic pleasure. The primitive art of all nations shows that it has taken the direction of symmetry about a vertical line. It might be said that this is the result of non-aesthetic influences, such as convenience ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... suddenly. He had dominated the situation quietly, had made one disarm the others, had handcuffed the one he wanted and taken him from his friends through a hostile country where any hour he might be shot from ambush. Moreover, he had traveled with his prisoner two days, always cheerful and matter of fact, not at all uneasy as to what might lie behind the washes or the rocks they passed. Finally he had brought his man safely to Casa Grande, from whence he had gone over the road to the penitentiary. Blackwell ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... As a matter of fact, there were several tugboat-captains hardly less skilful than Captain Barney, and in the time of his idleness they bade fair to secure not a few of his customers. It was an old saying that Captain ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... certain automobile advertises that his vehicle "will hold five ordinary people." And, as a matter of fact, ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... these reports is acknowledged by Morland, the protector's agent, in a confidential letter to secretary Thurloe. "The greatest difficulty I meet with is in relation to the matter of fact in the beginning of these troubles, and during the time of the war. For I find, upon diligent search, that many papers and books which have been put out in print on this subject, even by some ministers of ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... therefore the decision depended entirely upon herself. Just then our zoologist, Signor Michaele Faenze, returned from a long excursion to the central mass of the Kenia; and when Miss Fox took him into her confidence, he at once sided with the Indians. He admitted that, as a matter of fact, there were no tame African elephants; but he maintained that this was simply because the Africans had forgotten how to make the noble beast serviceable to man. The reason did not lie in the character of the African elephant, for in the days of the Romans trained ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... of nothing. She knew that, as a matter of fact, the works would belong to that son of the hated Froments, whenever he might choose to close the doors on their old master, who, as it happened, was never seen now in the workshops. True, there was a clause in the covenant which admitted, so long as that covenant should not be ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... unwittingly, David owed his existence, commercially speaking, to the cunning schemes of his competitors. The Cointets, well pleased with his "craze," as they called it, behaved to all appearance both fairly and handsomely; but, as a matter of fact, they were adopting the tactics of the mail-coach owners who set up a sham opposition coach to keep bona fide ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... understanding without further delay, Mr. Percival Coolidge. My engagement to Miss Natalie may be sudden and unexpected—perhaps not altogether pleasant from your standpoint—yet it hardly warrants you in thus attributing to me mercenary motives. As a matter of fact, I was not aware until last evening that she was an heiress to considerable property. I knew nothing of her relationships. I will say, however, that now I feel perfectly justified in showing an interest in her affairs. As I understand matters, ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... signal, nor uttered any command, but at his last words a grave, elderly Mexican appeared noiselessly at my elbow. As a matter of fact, he came through an unnoticed door at the back, but he might as well have materialized from the thin air for the start that he gave ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... her cousin—ostensibly for criticism, really for admiration. If Phoebe had said exactly what she thought, it would have been that her ear was cruelly outraged: but Phoebe was not accustomed to the sharp speeches which passed for wit with Rhoda. She fell back on a matter of fact. ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... their evidence to discover that it is easier to find two consecutive verses in which the two MSS. differ, the one from the other, than two consecutive verses in which they entirely agree? Now this is a plain matter of fact, of which any one who pleases may easily convince himself. But the character of two witnesses who habitually contradict one another has been accounted, in every age, precarious. On every such occasion, only one of them can possibly be speaking the truth. Shall I be thought ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... (others speak of double the number) stood empty, and on the 27th of June even the magistrate decided to leave off one of the two principal stories from its new magnificent town-hall, then in course of construction, a resolution which fortunately was revoked two years later. As a matter of fact trade weakened heavily until 1660, suffering reverses, not only from England's attitude, but also from France's and Sweden's fiendish acts. Although the town energetically opposed its enemies, often ...
— Rembrandt's Amsterdam • Frits Lugt
... in the town who was half Greek, half Russian, had a post either in the bank or in the insurance society, and also carried on a trade in corn. He had a strange surname, something in the style of Populaki or Skarandopulo. . . . Goodness only knows—I have forgotten. . . . As a matter of fact, Kisotchka spoke little and with reluctance about herself. The conversation was only about me. She asked me about the College of Engineering, about my comrades, about Petersburg, about my plans, and everything I said ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... hundred and five it was not to be expected that there would be much movement in Lazette. As a matter of fact, there was little movement anywhere. On the plains, which began at the edge of town, there was no movement, no life except when a lizard, seeking a retreat from the blistering sun, removed itself to a deeper shade under the leaves of the sage-brush, or a prairie-dog, popping its ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Board; but in the order in council of the 14th of January 1869 the sole responsibility of the first lord was officially laid down, and in the order in council of the 19th of March 1872 the first lord was made "responsible to your Majesty and to parliament for all the business of the admiralty.'' As a matter of fact, the authority of the first lord, independent of his colleagues, had existed in an undefined manner from ancient times. Before a select committee of the House of Commons in 1861 the duke of Somerset stated that he considered the first ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... in the cupboard and struck a match. Lighting his pipe he nodded good humouredly as if to say, "I quite understand." As a matter of fact, he probably thought, as I did, that this was a familiar case of a man of possibly blameless life who had become subject to that delusion which leads people to believe themselves threatened by mysterious and ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... wheels of the domestic machinery at Hillside went smoothly. If Geraldine complained that one of the servants did not do her duty, his answer was always prompt: 'Send her away and get another. A servant without a conscience will never do for me.' But, as a matter of fact, no master ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the young person in black and white with the red-nosed man—the one who looks as if he were smelling a rose? Well, she's in our company, and she's very popular at these parties because she's so witty. As a matter of fact, she memorizes the jokes in all the funny papers and springs them as her own. Her men friends say she's too original to ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... life, if we failed in the duty the speaker so strongly recommended. Not once did he speak of eternal torment as a possible issue. What a tremendous incitement to duty is here, could it be but presented with the accent of conviction. But as a matter of fact, it is never presented at all, except in terms so vague that they ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... be found, retort with another word: reticence. It is a mistake, they say, to try to uncover these things; leave the sexual instincts alone, to grow up and develop in the shy solitude they love, and they will be sure to grow up and develop wholesomely. But, as a matter of fact, that is precisely what we can not and will not ever allow them to do. There are very few middle-aged men and women who can clearly recall the facts of their lives and tell you in all honesty that their sexual instincts ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... it is often unsatisfactory to the patrons of the road. The second plan, the division of the earnings, is a more difficult matter to adjust because each road is usually dissatisfied with its proportion. As a matter of fact, however, the first plan of pooling is very apt to grow into ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... lapses the other must do so also. On the other hand, the Boers point to the fact that there is actually a preamble to the second convention, which would seem, therefore, to take the place of the first. As a matter of fact, the discussion is a barren one, since both parties agree that Great Britain retained certain rights over the making of treaties by the Republic, which rights place her in a different position to an entirely independent state. Whether this difference amounts to a suzerainty ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... great gamester and thinks that he's a master of chance," said Talbot, "but as a matter of fact he always loses. See how fast his pile of money is diminishing. It will soon be gone, but he will find another resource. You ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... shocked. He had supposed every Southern plantation had a white overseer as slave driver with a blacksnake whip in his hand. A negro foreman was incredible. As a matter of fact there were more negro foremen than white overseers in ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... narrow passage. At the end of the passage she turned to the left and went down another passage, and then wended her way up some narrow stairs, which curled round and round as if they were going up a tower. This, as a matter of fact, was the case. Presently Iris pushed aside a curtain, and found herself in an octagon room nearly at the top of a somewhat high, but squarely built, tower. This room, which was large and airy, was wainscoted with oak; there was a thick Turkey carpet ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... "It is matter of fact, generally observable in the instances of the soeurs de charite, that in the performance of their duties towards the sick, during the first three or four months, they display all that tender solicitude and devotedness, which romance ascribes to them as constant ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... answer to my query as to what kind of service it was to be, he informed me that two women evangelists were conducting the meeting. I replied that I was not in favor of women preachers but I would go with him as I was not afraid the women would hurt me. As a matter of fact, it was through these women that I was partly awakened spiritually, but did not yet ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag
... "As a matter of fact," said the clergyman, "I'm not only here soon enough, I'm an hour and a half too soon. The train I intended to ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... pass I descend into the Aras Plain, and, behold the gigantic form of Ararat rises up before me, seemingly but a few miles away; as a matter of fact it is about twenty miles distant, but with nothing intervening between myself and its tremendous proportions but the level plain, the distance is deceptive. No human habitations are visible save the now familiar black tents of Koordish tribesmen away off to the north, and as I ride ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... in agonized suspense for three days for tangible evidence that "the nabob was in their midst," as Nib Corkins poetically expressed it; but the city folks seemed glued to the farm and no one of them had yet appeared in the village. As a matter of fact, Patsy and Uncle John were enthusiastically fishing in the Little Bill, far up in the pine woods, and having "the time of their lives" in spite of their scant success in capturing trout. Old Hucks could go out before breakfast and bring in an ample supply of speckled beauties for Mary ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... Sabbath-school teachers. Now a truly godly man or woman, at the head of a school, though never speaking a word directly on the subject of religion, yet by the power of a silent, consistent example, exerts a continual Christian influence. In the second place, as a matter of fact, direct religious teaching is not entirely excluded from our public schools. I think, it by no means holds that prominent position in the course of study which it should hold. But it is not entirely excluded. The Bible, with very rare exceptions, is read daily ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... discusses this subject under the caption of "A Menace to America's Oriental Trade.'' He justly complains that though the exclusion law expressly exempts Chinese merchants, students and travellers, yet as a matter of fact a Chinese gentleman is treated on his arrival as if he were a criminal and is "detained in the pen on the steamship wharf or imprisoned like a felon until the customs officials ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... the neglected-looking, ragged child, who clung to him affectionately enough. The little fellow was happy with him for quite three months, as comparison of dates proved, and what seemed strange became mere matter of fact—to wit, that Dexter was a gentleman ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... passed since then, the good woman was not yet accustomed to that magnificent establishment. "Why, you have given me Queen Jeanne's palace, my dear Bernard," she wrote to her son; "I shall never dare to live in it." As a matter of fact she never had lived in it, having installed herself in the steward's house, a wing of modern construction at the end of the main buildings, conveniently situated for overlooking the servants' quarters and the farm, ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... "As a matter of fact, you were perfectly safe from arrest, as it happened. The body of Roger Unthank has never been found from that day ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... blew over. As a matter of fact, we all assisted at the cooking of this celebrated meal, and made a terrific hash of it, which, nevertheless, we relished greatly, and declared we had never tasted such a dinner since we came to Stonebridge House. No ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... finest place in the world," he replied proudly, and as a matter of fact. "But, for the sake of knowledge, you should see what the rest of the world is. It helps you to understand Chaudiere better. I ask you to be my ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... nothing like first hand evidence," he remarked; "as a matter of fact, my mind is entirely made up upon the case, but still we may as well learn all that is to ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... must be retaken at once by immediate counter attack launched by the unit which lost the ground. As a matter of fact a counter attack is difficult for a platoon or company; it is really necessary for it to be made ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... exciting crisis of national affairs, Burke began to be acquainted with public men. In 1759 he was introduced, probably by Lord Charlemont, to William Gerard Hamilton, who only survives in our memories by his nickname of Single-speech. As a matter of fact, he made many speeches in Parliament, and some good ones, but none so good as the first, delivered in a debate in 1755, in which Pitt, Fox, Grenville, and Murray all took part, and were all outshone by the new luminary. But the new luminary never shone again with its first brilliance. He sought ...
— Burke • John Morley
... past eight the mayor began to speak. He had been somewhat at a loss just how he might introduce Clark, for, as a matter of fact, the only information he had about the visitor was what the visitor himself had volunteered. But here, as always, Clark's tremendous personality had expressed itself. Filmer glanced at his alert but motionless figure, and ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... shores, and, although their departures are usually chronicled in the newspapers, it must not without further evidence be inferred that these birds have gone to look for the North Pole. They may, as a matter of fact, have left this country to avoid being arrested, for here one is continually being arrested. The evidence in favour of the North Pole theory as regards birds is, that nobody knows where they have gone to, and that as the rest of the earth is round ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... felt disappointed at their brief interview; not bitterly disappointed because she never felt bitterly about anything, but consciously sorry to have missed the expected conference in the judge's private chamber. She might never see him again! As a matter of fact, although the probate court necessarily had much to do with her fate in the settlement of the involved estate, it was not for seven years that she had another chance of seeing the judge in chambers, and that, as we shall discover, ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... Catholics aimed at before passing judgment upon them. Froude could never get out of his mind the approval of treason and assassination to which in the sixteenth century the Vatican was committed. It may be fascinating polemics to taunt the Church of Rome with being "always the same." But as a matter of fact the Church is not the same. It improves with the general march of the progress that it condemns. Froude fairly and honourably quotes a crucial instance. Pitt "sought the opinion of the Universities of France and Spain on the charge generally alleged against Catholics that their allegiance to their ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... was evidently meant in deep earnest, moved the mind of the young lady with so great astonishment that she looked at Pitt as at a lusus naturae. But he was quite serious and simply matter of fact in his way of putting things. He looked at her, waiting for an ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... undiscovered for a hundred years unless you had the superhuman wit to divine the purpose of the brass nail. The drawers contain diamonds, probably, or some closely folded document making you the heir to a vast estate. As a matter of fact, I don't know what they contained; the surprise of the drawers themselves was enough for me. I need not add that I did not guess the riddle myself; but nothing that I can call to mind impressed me more than when, one day, my father ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... like we're lepers! Like if we ever come back we'll be carriers of some monstrous disease that will wipe out the human race! As a matter of fact, we're no more likely to catch an extra-terrestrial disease than to catch wry-neck ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... consequently must be all an Allegory; alluding partly to the Old Jewish Church and Temple, partly to Ezekiel's Visionary Representation and Prophetical Paradise. Nor can it, I think, be justly reckoned more criminal, where we have any great instructive Example, which has been real matter of Fact, to expatiate thereon; adding suitable and proper Circumstances and Colours to the whole, especially when the History it self is but succinctly Related, and the Heads of things only left us. And this some great Man have thought was the Method of the Holy Pen-man himself, whoever ...
— Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (second edition, 1697) • Samuel Wesley
... "As a matter of fact," said Haeckel,[2] "there is no scientific doctrine which proclaims more openly than the theory of descent that the equality of individuals, toward which socialism tends, is an impossibility; that this chimerical equality is in absolute contradiction with the ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... to this, it will be desirable to refer briefly to the term "humidity." The humidity of the atmosphere is defined as the degree of its approach to saturation. Air completely saturated is represented by 100, and that absolutely free of vapour by 0. As a matter of fact, however, the latter never occurs; even in the driest regions of Arabia a humidity of 10 per cent. is almost unknown. For its estimation the Wet and Dry Bulb thermometers are employed. These consist of two ordinary thermometers. One has its bulb exposed ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... business was drifting into very dangerous waters. He knew for a matter of fact and also by intuition that Jones was Jones and that Rochester was dead and his unfortunate position was ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... Niemen at Tilsit four days later. He then had the option of awaiting Napoleon, who was close behind, or of making peace, or of withdrawing into the interior beyond the enemy's reach, as Alexander had done after Austerlitz. As a matter of fact, he confessed utter defeat. "This is no longer a fight, it is butchery," he wrote to the Czar's brother, the Grand Duke Constantine. "Tell the Emperor what you will," he said again, "if only ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... was one of great fear. We were told by a priest that we were to be attacked and burned out. While sitting at dinner I heard just behind me a fearful noise that sounded like "Gluck-co-gluck-co." An American officer told me it was an alarm clock, but as a matter of fact it was an immense lizard, an animal for which I soon lost all antipathy, because of its appetite for the numerous bugs that infest the islands. Unfortunately they have no taste for the roaches, the finger-long ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... matter of fact, she had been the only one to demur when Freda had announced that the Madison Hall girls were coming there that evening. She had advanced the argument that "those rich Madison Hall girls won't care to ask us to the dance when they see how poor ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... you're right! Absolutely right! I can see where you three boys have done a fine job for the governor." He slapped Astro on the back and threw his arm around Tom's shoulder, speaking to them in a suddenly confidential tone. "As a matter of fact, I was offered the directorship of the Galactic space lanes only last week," he said. "Do you ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... just about to ask for the job, anyway." He laughed, and the distrust left his eyes. "As a matter of fact, I was going over to Jim Larson's to hang out for the rest of the winter and get away from the lonesomeness of the hills. The old Turk's a pretty good friend of mine. But it looks to me as if you two needed something around that looks like a man a heap more ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... turning from one to another, sometimes saying a word, most frequently giving only a smile or look of assent. Let us talk as we will of highly educated women and of mental equality and a great many other fine things: but as a matter of fact, this gentle auditor and sympathiser, intelligent enough to understand without taking much part, is a more largely accepted symbol of what the woman ought to be, than anything more prominent and individual. Just so Eve sat and listened when Adam discoursed ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... mouse might choose, for example, not the white or the black box, but the box which was to the right or to the left, in accordance with its experience in the previous test. This would be discrimination by position. As a matter of fact, the animals have a strong tendency at first to go uniformly either to the right or to the left entrance. This tendency will be exhibited in the results of the tests. Again, discrimination might depend upon ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... startling state of affairs. Instead of a surplus, the company had been piling up deficits year after year, had been borrowing money right and left on onerous terms, had been charging up millions of dollars of expenses to capital accounts—and as a matter of fact, instead of making money, it had for the most part been losing it. Now the company urgently needed cash, and the only way it could obtain that essential commodity was by selling its express, ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... achievement of which our own age has to boast.... It was assumed as self-evident, until Cantor and Dedekind established the opposite, that if, from any collection of things, some were taken away, the number of things left must always be less than the original number of things. This assumption, as a matter of fact, holds only of finite collections; and the rejection of it, where the infinite is concerned, has been shown to remove all the difficulties that hitherto baffled human reason in this matter." And he adds in another place: "To reconcile us, by the ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... but a few minutes to write out his story, for the steamer Fulton was all ready to move North. How to get the glorious news home, and be first torch-bearer in the race that would flash joy over all the North, was now Carleton's strenuous thought. As matter of fact, this time again, as on several occasions before, he beat the Government and its official despatch-bearers, and all his ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... well aware of this injunction. Yet he entrusted to Flinders this box of despatches, containing material relative to military affairs. It is true that a state of war was not known to exist at the time when the Cumberland sailed from Port Jackson in September, 1803, although as a matter of fact it had broken out in the previous May. But it was well known that war was anticipated. It is also true that Flinders knew nothing of the contents of the despatches. But neither, as a rule, does any other despatch carrier in war time. ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... Account of Satan's strange and dreadful actings, in and about the body of Richard Dugdale, of Surey, near Whalley, in Lancashire. And how he was dispossessed by God's blessing on the Fastings and Prayers of divers Ministers and People. The matter of fact attested by the oaths of several creditable persons, before some of his Majestie's Justices of the Peace in the said county." The "London Monthly Repository" (vol. v., 1810) describes the affair as follows: ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... 288.—We are sorry to observe that the compliment paid to Mr. Wedgewood by a "late traveller" (see note, p. 50), viz. that "an Englishman in journeying from Calais to Ispahan may have his dinner served every day on Wedgewood's ware," is no longer a matter of fact. It has lately been the good or evil fortune of one of our travelling department to pass near to Calais, and to have journeyed through divers Paynim lands to no very remote distance from Ispahan; and neither in the palace ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... "Likewise about her own very pretty little scheme for the subjugation of my brother. Told you that she'd told me, eh? Expect she did! She is pleased to believe she is a designing little adventuress, whereas as a matter of fact she's as clear as crystal, and any one with half an eye could see through her schemes. Well! I laid down the law that neither she nor you are to worry my brother about business matters during his holiday, for, to tell you the truth, he has had his full ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... to rest, or were indifferent about remaining quiet, were picked off, and their tendency eliminated from the future of the species. In this way many animals have come to keep entirely quiet in the presence of danger. It is not a sign of high intelligence. As a matter of fact, it is rather a stupid procedure, so far as the animal itself is concerned, but it is a preserving stupidity, and many animals ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... cut into little bits there and then. But some one ventured to suggest something, and he came at me with great fury and demanded whether I knew where Partab Singh's hidden treasure was. I know I ought to have struck a heroic attitude and refused to speak, but as a matter of fact, I fainted. It was horribly ill-timed, for Sher Singh is bound to believe for ever that it was sheer terror of his alarming aspect that did it, but it was precious fortunate for me, for when I woke up I was in a palanquin, and they had tied up my head ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... As a matter of fact, the Tarahumares assert that the dances have been taught them by the animals. Like all primitive people, they are close observers of nature. To them the animals are by no means inferior creatures; they understand magic and ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... Unfortunately practice night alarms have been very frequent lately, and so we were prepared to move quickly. Every other night last week, almost, we had practices. We were warned that we were to be ready to move on Saturday night any time after midnight, and, as a matter of fact, had two or three hours to get our things ready. We went to bed and got the word to move early this morning. We marched for about three hours and arrived here in comfort in the morning, and found we only had one very dirty and tumbledown farm for the company. Within ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... similar but still more absurd anecdote of Stratonice the wife of Seleucus, who offered a talent to the poet who should best celebrate her hair. As a matter of fact she was bald, with not a hair to call her own. But what matter what her head was like, or that every one knew how a long illness had treated her? she listened to these abandoned poets telling of hyacinthine ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... But, as a matter of fact, she made a very easy and good-natured chaperon, and it was only some of her irritating little ways that troubled them. Without being really deaf, she usually failed to hear any opening speech, and this Diana coped with very summarily. "Aunt Emily," she would begin. "Eh ... eh ... eh ... ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... matter of fact there is no up or down. You discover this quickly enough when you try to pour a glass of water. You do not know where to hold the glass or where to hold the pitcher. No matter how you hold them, the water will not pour—point the top of ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... queen as the other fellows were under their grafting presidents. Then one of the wild-eyed ones stabbed Queen Marguerite, her grandaunt, you know, and the game was on. Isn't it enough to make your blood boil? As a matter of fact, the whole blamed shooting-match wouldn't make a state the size of Rhode Island, so it isn't worth much trouble except for the honor of the thing. There is a bunch of men down there who have kept the old traditions alive by going out into the streets and shooting ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... not properly imagine Jake's mental state, in which everything that happened alarmed him. Having done wrong, he fancied all the time that he was about to be haled up, and made to pay for his wrongdoing. And that, of course, was the explanation of his actions, when, as a matter of fact, he could have walked with entire safety into the station and the midst of the Camp ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... and Mike, fumbling at a glove, tottered out into the sunshine. He heard miles and miles away a sound of clapping, and a thin, shrill noise as if somebody were screaming in the distance. As a matter of fact, several members of his form and of the junior day-room at Wain's nearly burst themselves at ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... L3 or L4 paid per annum by those gentlemen who are out of town for written news, which is so far generally from having any probability of matter of fact, that it is frequently stuffed up with a 'we hear,' or 'an eminent Jew merchant has received a letter,' being nothing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... matter of fact, he has the reputation of being rather a pleasant companion; though I—I confess—I—I don't find him very entertaining. [He goes out. She stands staring at the door through which he has disappeared. There is a knock at the ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... from anything Captain Forest had ever seen. As a matter of fact, much of it would not have been called dancing at all by many people, so different has the modern conception of the art become since the days of the ancients. But where had she received her instruction? The ability to dance, like any other talent, is born in one, not acquired. ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... Association of the meeting that was to be held to choose a candidate, and mentioned my intention of attending, I was bluntly told that I should not be admitted. I had not, it appeared, been elected a member of the Four Hundred. As a matter of fact, very few persons in Leeds had known anything about the election of this body when it took place. It was a startling revelation of the change that had taken place to be thus refused admittance to a body which, in former times, would ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... The station agent's announcement had possessed little meaning for her. There was no wind; the sun was shining brightly now; during the minute she had remained on the station platform she had felt nothing unusual. As a matter of fact she had enjoyed the keen brisk air after the tepid stuffiness of the cars. But presently she began to realize a certain tingling and sharp quality of the air. The little of her face that was exposed began to feel stiff and queer. Even through ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... qualities and her attachment to him, however, Mrs. Winkle was not sure that Eph's moral status was quite sound, and she was inclined to discourage Johnnie's association with him. As a matter of fact she had overheard Johnnie utter several bad words, of which Eph was certainly the prime source. But a mother's solicitude was of little avail when compared with Eph's Delphian wisdom. Johnnie would steal away to join Eph in the field ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... the young man, and saw that he meant what he said. When Leo means what he says he always puts on a curious look about the mouth. It has been a trick of his from a child. Now, as a matter of fact, I had no intention of allowing Leo to go anywhere by himself, for my own sake, if not for his. I was far too attached to him for that. I am not a man of many ties or affections. Circumstances have been against me in this respect, and men and women shrink from me, or at ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... I have established several rowing academies. I know how rowing is done. But, as a matter of fact, I cannot row. Still it's of little consequence, for the boat was given to a museum some time ago. Besides, the latest theories tell us that ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
... with old Boston families that their ancestors came to America in the "Arbella" with Governor Winthrop, but as a matter of fact there were at least fifteen vessels that brought colonists to Massachusetts in 1630, and I cannot discover that any lists of their passengers have been preserved. The statement that certain persons came over at the same time with Governor Winthrop ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... As a matter of fact, however, such an attitude can scarcely be held by any one who is interested both in the success of natural science and in the spiritual development of mankind. We are constrained rather to say that, if these rival ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... raged within in those days," Napoleon once said to Las Casas. "I could have swallowed my food raw and it would have been cooked on its way down, I boiled so. They took me for a snow-clad Alp, when, as a matter of fact, I was a small Vesuvius, with a temperature that would have made Tabasco sauce seem ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... were told they were working for their own profit, were their own masters, and did not grumble. This grinding toil in the fields, as practised here where nothing was wasted, could not of course be a happy or healthful work, nor calculated to elevate the peasant in intelligence, so as a matter of fact the great body of the country people, who were the laborers, were steeped in an extraordinary state ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... tall, with dark, flashing eyes, a heavy black moustache, and an alert military look about him which showed that he had served in the army. The above description savours a trifle of the impossible hero of a young lady's dream; and, as a matter of fact, Ferruci was not unlike that ideal personage. He had all the looks and graces which women admire, and seemed honest and fiery enough in a manly way—the last person, as Lucian thought, to gain his aims by underhand ways, or to kill a helpless old man. But Lucian, legally experienced in human ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... foreign affairs, although he differed from them in domestic matters. On the other hand, the party were frightened about India, for, although Lord Lytton had been removed, the Government refused to make any sign as to the immediate evacuation of Kandahar, and, as a matter of fact, it was a long time before the Queen's resistance upon this point could be overcome. She no doubt felt more able to stand out against Hartington, whom she liked, than against Lord Granville.' [Footnote: See Life of Granville, vol. ii., ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... were accomplices to a certain astrological Squire, and that one BICKERSTAFF might be sauntering thereabouts; because I will assert nothing here but what I dare attest, and plain matter of fact. ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... tradition, he sees neither the ritual origin nor the dramatic value of these divine epiphanies. He thinks of the convenient gods and abstractions who sometimes spoke the prologues of the New Comedy, and imagines that the God appears in order to unravel the plot. As a matter of fact, in one play which he often quotes, the Iphigenia Taurica, the plot is actually distorted at the very end in order to give an opportunity for ...
— The Poetics • Aristotle
... better to be without soap than without society. As a matter of fact, society without soap would be an abomination. Society without any brotherhood would soon cease to be a society at all. Utopia is a little soap, a little society, with a flavouring of brotherhood ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... judicial decisions which either narrowed or enlarged them. Bishop Marsh's Calvinists never thought of having recourse to law. If the Church did not do entirely without a Court of Final Appeal, it is simply a matter of fact that the same weight and authority were not attached to the proceedings of such a court which are attached to them now. But since the Gorham case, the work of settling authoritatively, if not the meaning of doctrines and of formularies, at any ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... alleged Old Master. In his judgment, it was not a Rembrandt at all, but a cunningly-painted and well-begrimed modern Dutch imitation. Moreover, he showed us by documentary evidence that the real portrait of Maria Vanrenen had, as a matter of fact, been brought to England five years before, and sold to Sir J. H. Tomlinson, the well-known connoisseur, for eight thousand pounds. Dr. Polperro's picture was, therefore, at best either a replica by Rembrandt; ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... been circulated, and stating briefly the real circumstances of the case. For some time my letter seemed to produce the intended effect,—but, unluckily, the original story was too tempting a theme for humour and sarcasm to be so easily superseded by mere matter of fact. Accordingly, after a little time, whenever the subject was publicly alluded to,—more especially by those who were at all "willing to wound,"—the old falsehood was, for the sake of its ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... they must of necessity have been hollow mockeries. They took pleasure in forcing one another to go through with them, each trying to outdo the other in cynical, sardonic thrusts, clothed in the most meticulously ceremonious courtesy. As a matter of fact, my captor, by this crude reference to the origin of his ruler, was merely proving himself a crude fellow, guilty of a vulgarity rather than of a treasonable or disrespectful remark. An officer of higher rank and better breeding, would have managed a clever innuendo, ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... As a matter of fact in 1875 or '6, when very young, in the West Indies or rather in the Gulf of Mexico, for my contacts with land were short, few, and fleeting, I heard the story of some man who was supposed to have stolen single-handed a whole lighter-full ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... from London and hide himself from those who knew him. To his wounded spirit the condolences of his friends would be akin to taunts and sneers. When Sir Henry Durwood questioned him he was careful to conceal the fact that he had been a victim of shell-shock. As a matter of fact, Penreath's behaviour in the breakfast room that morning was nothing more than the effects of the air raid on his disordered nerves, but he would sooner have died than admit that to strangers. After listening to the evidence for the defence at the trial, he ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... As a matter of fact, "civilization" never remains long in the same spot. It is always going somewhere but it does not always move westward by any means. Sometimes its course points towards the east or the south. Often it zigzags across the map. But it keeps ...
— Ancient Man - The Beginning of Civilizations • Hendrik Willem Van Loon
... and enviously observed that the handsomest fireman on the road had conquered the mo&t outrageous little coquette between New York and Buffalo. As a matter of fact, she had loved him from the start; the others served as thorns with which she delightedly pricked ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... have been six large pictures or set pieces; but two were not done until years later. One wall being too broken up by windows to be suitable, there remained three,—of which "the back wall" adjoining Meyer's house was not touched at this time. Ostensibly the reason was want of funds; but as a matter of fact the Protestant party (to anticipate this name), which grew strong enough to unseat Meyer before the year was out, was at this time indifferent to art when not ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... whom I have seen, and who hath, I find, a design of concealing her from her family. You know, madam, she is a strange woman; but nothing could misbecome me more than to presume to give any hint to one of your great understanding and great knowledge of the world, besides barely informing you of the matter of fact. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Offenbach with the composition of the words as well as the music of the Grande Duchesse; and as for Carmen, is it not an Italian opera, and is not the book, like the music, the work of some Italian? As a matter of fact, all these plays, unlike as they are to each other, and not only these, but many more—not a few of them fairly well known to the American play-goer—are due to the collaboration of M. Henri Meilhac and M. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... commentary in pamphlet form on the Travels, were published by a Signor Corolini, undoubtedly a pseudonym for Edmund Curll, the London printer and bookseller. But surprisingly, the observations do not exhibit Swift in a harsh factional light. As a matter of fact, in his introduction to the Keys, which are entitled Lemuel Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. Compendiously Methodized, For Publick Benefit: With Observations and Explanatory ...
— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous
... minutes to eleven on the morning named he was at the station, a false beard and spectacles shielding his identity from the public eye. If you had asked him he would have said that he was a Scotch business man. As a matter of fact, he looked far more like a motor-car coming ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... talks great nonsense sometimes. As a matter of fact, I was thinking of going on to Tokyo to-morrow. I think we've seen about all there is to be seen ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... Wine. Alciphron would answer, I cannot deny that; and here the Dialogue would begin. Euphr. When there are plain Evidences that a Man has been drunk, would you deny it to be true? Alciph. I would never speak against Matter of Fact. Euph. Would you pretend to prove from a Man's having been drunk, that he does not love Wine? Alciph. I own I would not. Euph. You, who are a Free Thinker, and have enquir'd so minutely into Human Nature, do you think there is a Capacity in Man, ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... woodcutter bought him a gander, Or at least that was what he supposed, As a matter of fact, 'twas a slander As a later occurrence disclosed; For they locked the bird up in the garret To fatten, the while it grew old, And it laid there a twenty-two carat Fine egg ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... contained at least ten thousand lines. Spenser, therefore, was not exaggerating, or using the language of flattery towards a few elegies or a group of sonnets, when he spoke of Cynthia as a poem of great importance. As a matter of fact, no poem of the like ambition had been written in England for a century past, and if it had been published, it would perhaps have taken a place only second to its immediate contemporary, The ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... hands. She was far too fond of it to permit that, but she had no objection whatever to his assistance. There never was, so Will and Loo thought, anything like the love which these two bore to each other. Extremes meet, undoubtedly. Their love was so intensely matter of fact and earnest that it rose high above the region of romance, in which lower region so many of our race do delight to coo and sigh. There was no nonsense about it. Will Garvie, who was naturally bold—no wonder, ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... As a matter of fact we generally do not make the latter clear to them, and fail in the most important duty of the educator and teacher, namely, that of making the child really experience ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
... soap, common bath soap, is soap, period. All the stuff the copy writers dream up about secret ingredients and health for your skin, and cosmetic qualities, and all the rest, is Madison Avenue gobbledygook and applies as well to one brand as another. As a matter of fact, often two different soap companies, supposedly keen competitors, and using widely different advertising, have their products manufactured in ...
— Subversive • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... being exclusively the church of God, a general feeling of toleration at least (if not in all cases of sincere respect) has come to prevail respecting the different denominational churches. Men have come to look upon the sects as a mere matter of fact, not to be seriously questioned, and we are supposed to cover the whole scene with the mantle of patience and charity and make the best of a ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... But I was all for commercial life; and when I left college, I went into an office here in the town and began to study the ins and outs of foreign trade. Then, when I was just twenty-one, my father sent me a considerable sum—two thousand pounds, as a matter of fact—saying it was for me to start business with. And, do you know, Mr. Lindsey, from that day—now ten years ago—to this, I've never heard a ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... honor of the profession, I named three practitioners whom I had found really good at reading character. He asked whether any of them had been right about past events. I confessed that, as a matter of fact, all three of them had been right in the main. This seemed to amuse him. He asked whether any of them had predicted anything which had since come true. I confessed that all three had predicted that I should do several things which I had since done rather unexpectedly. He asked ...
— A. V. Laider • Max Beerbohm
... argue if electricity be "natural" or "supernatural," of "material" or of "spiritual" origin. As a matter of fact we do not ask these questions in studying electricity; we endeavor to find out the natural laws governing it and in handling live wires we do not argue or speculate about them—we use rubber gloves, etc. It will be the same with Man and the great affairs of Man—we have, ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... made of physio-psychic individuals, as a matter of fact the social individual is made by interactions and reactions arising from human association. Society on one hand and the social individual on the other are both developed at the same time through the process of living together ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... occasion, but it would be necessary that she should be a young person of much simplicity, who would not be alarmed or chilled by the obvious. No one would realise this more clearly than Mount Dunstan himself. He said it coldly and casually, as if it were the simplest matter of fact. If the fellow had been making himself agreeable to Betty, it was as well that certain points should be—as it ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Ibthorp so soon, and I am equally good in wishing to come to you. I believe our merit in that respect is much upon a par, our self-denial mutually strong. Having paid this tribute of praise to the virtue of both, I shall here have done with panegyric, and proceed to plain matter of fact. In about a fortnight's time I hope to be with you. I have two reasons for not being able to come before. I wish so to arrange my visit as to spend some days with you after your mother's return. ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... matter of fact, whichever way we travel, is ultimately compelled to deny the qualitative distinction between good and evil, declaring both to be equally necessary, and thus arrives once more at its conception of a Deity who, though said to be "perfect"—presumably ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... William Lloyd Garrison, and Oliver Johnson came out fairly for him,—not, indeed, because he was altogether satisfactory to them, but because he was in great part so; also because they easily saw that as matter of fact his personal triumph would probably lead to abolition, that he was the only candidate by whom the Democracy could be beaten, and that if the Democracy should not be beaten, abolition would be postponed beyond human vision. Lovejoy said that, to his personal knowledge, the President ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... to be without one. Man, therefore, has far outstripped them in reasoning faculty as well as in power of expression. This, however, does not bar the communications which the lower animals make to one another from possessing all the essential characteristics of language, and as a matter of fact, wherever we can follow them we find such communications effectuated by the aid of arbitrary symbols covenanted upon by the living beings that wish to communicate, and persistently associated with certain corresponding feelings, ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... physician. It is about the doubtful cases, naturally, that a professional opinion is sought, and on that account physicians are perhaps inclined to overestimate the difficulty women have in learning for themselves whether or not they are pregnant. As a matter of fact, it is unusual for a prospective mother to fail to reach a correct decision—a decision for which she relies chiefly upon the ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... staff was, as a rule, recruited from the two Universities (though there was no kind of exclusion for the unmatriculated; as a matter of fact, neither of its first two editors was a son either of Oxford or Cambridge), and it always insisted on the necessity of classical culture.... It observed, for perhaps a longer time than any other ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... miles away who struck at it with a spade and roused in it a blind passion for reprisals. That or something like it is, probably, the explanation of the stings perfectly innocent persons receive from an insect that is said never to touch you if you leave it alone. As a matter of fact, when a bee loses its head, it does not even wait for a human being in order to relieve its feelings, I have seen a dog racing round a field in terror as a result of a sting from an angry bee. I have seen a turkey racing round a farmyard in terror as a result of the same thing. All the trouble ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd |
