"Mat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lawn, with but little of the June grass in sight. Each struggles for possession and does the best it can, and to some extent one supplements the other, with the result that at all times from spring to fall there is a close mat of living green which delights the eye and is pleasant to the feet that tread upon it. In soft ground, with plenty of room, a bit of quick or quack grass, or Bermuda, will extend in a year three to five feet or ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal
... beckoned me to approach. I entered the small room, which had been fitted up by the poor girl with some taste; the furniture was better than any I had seen in a Spanish house before, and there was a mat on the floor, and some exquisite miniatures and small landscapes on the walls. It was her boudoir, opening apparently into a bedroom beyond. It was lighted by a large open unglazed window, with a row of wooden balustrades beyond it, forming part of a small balcony. A Carmelite ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... preparing to pass the night in the branches of the tree, a woman, returning from the labors of the field, perceived how weary and dejected he was, and, taking up his saddle and bridle, invited him to follow her. She conducted him to her hut, where she lighted a lamp, spread a mat on the floor, and bade him welcome. Then she went out, and presently returning with a fine fish, broiled it on the embers, and set his supper before him. The rites of hospitality thus performed toward a stranger in distress, that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... 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 for the ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... L'homme est incomparablement plus porte au mat qu'au bien, et il se fait dans le monde incomparablement plus de mauvaises actions que de bonnes—est aussi certaine qu'aucun principe de metaphysique. Il est donc incomparablement plus probable qu'une action faite par un homme, est mauvaise, qu'il n'est probable qu'elle soit bonne. Il est ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... back chilled for a second, and in that second she changed her position, pulling the cushions around her, nestling into them and drawing herself cosily up like a child playing on a mat in front of the fire, while with a face of perfect innocence she looked up as she drew one of her great books nearer, and said ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... no answer, and the deep-sunken eyes of the man on the sleeping mat stared, glared at him. Nrana could see that those eyes were not yet sane, but he saw, too, that the madness in them was not the same that it had been. Nrana did not know the words for delirium and paranoia, but he ...
— Happy Ending • Fredric Brown
... no embarrassment, even under this crucial test. The Colonel was nonplussed. He led Tracy to a chromo which had suffered damage in a former owner's hands through being used as a lamp mat, and said, with a flourish of his hand toward ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... little me," said Jimmy. "Sorry if I hurt you at all. You really want a mat for that sort ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... Doran was trying to be polite to the odd collection, evidently not quite knowing which was which. Old Lord and Lady Devnant were glaring at the rest of the company from the hearth-rug, with a look of "You invade this mat at your peril!" Sir Christopher Harford paying extravagant compliments to the parson's wife (I knew which they were because I heard them announced), and the "Squire" and Mrs. de Lacy—who came over with the Conqueror—standing apart with their skinny daughters, ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... and toiled too long and too hard each day to bother their heads as to why such a fine gentleman as the Signor appeared to be, should live in such squalid quarters. No one had ever been admitted to his flat. If the baker called, he left the bread on the mat; if a chance peddler or book agent happened to wander in, he had to talk through closed doors. The Signor was always busy and could not be disturbed. The lights often burned all night long, and sometimes people drove up in a taxi and went away again. For a while the ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... have sanctioned their killing 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. Can a Russian peasant ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... by this time, had two or three fainting fits, and had already long ago been changed his mat. As soon as Pao-y realised the situation, he felt unable to repress himself from bursting forth aloud. Li Kuei promptly reasoned with him. "You shouldn't go on in this way," he urged, "you shouldn't. It's because Mr. Ch'in is so ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... more civilised-looking than even the princesses' room. Large folding screens, worked with tapestry, representing the lives of the saints, shut off the part used as an oratory and that which served as a bedchamber, where indeed the good man slept on a rush mat on the floor. There were a table and several chairs and stools, all capable of being folded up for transport. The young King occupied a large chair of state, in which he twisted himself in a very undignified manner; the Bishop-Chancellor sat beside ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... yellow, their sluggish waters being bedded heavily down with the broad leaves of the wintering basswood-trees, which, in some places, touch branch-tips across the narrow straits. The muskrat's hut is thatched with the wet, dead leaves,—no thanks to him; and there is a mat of them before his door,—a heavy, yellow mat, on which are scattered the azure shells of the fresh-water clams to be found so often upon the premises of this builder. Does he sup on them, or are they only the cups and saucers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... day after our second return from Germany, which was in May 1795, we mat Bonaparte in the Palais Royal, near a shop kept by a man named Girardin. Bonaparte embraced Bourrienne as a friend whom he loved and was glad to see. We went that evening to the Theatre Francais. The performance consisted ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... arriving at the door of the apartment, our modern Virgil seemed to have become so overwhelmed with awe that, without daring even to intrude a foot, he turned back, and, in so doing, once more exhibited a back as shiny as a mat, and having adhering to it, in one spot, a chicken's feather. As soon as the two friends had entered the hall of the Presence they perceived that the President was NOT alone, but, on the contrary, had seated by his side Sobakevitch, whose form had ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... cinema with which their aunt invariably entertained them. The fine old Chippendale furniture had to be treated with a respect not meted out to the chairs and tables at home, boots must be scrupulously wiped on the door-mat, bedrooms left tidy, and books and ornaments were to be held altogether sacred from the ravages of ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... Dog has bit my leg. Why did he do so? I had my bat and I hit him as he lay on the mat, so he ran at me and bit my leg. Ah, you may not use the bat if you hit the Dog. It is a hot day, and the Dog may go mad. One day a Dog bit a boy in the arm, and the boy had his arm cut off, for the Dog was mad. And did the boy die? ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... heating for hours, made a strong lather, and scrubbed us soundly with a wad of linden bast shredded into fibres. Her wad was of the choicest sort; not that which is sold in the popular markets, but that which is procured by stripping into rather coarse filaments the strands of an old mat-sack, such as is used for everything in Russia, from wrappers for sheet iron to bags for carrying a pound of cherries. After a final douche with boiling water, we mounted the high shelf, with its wooden pillow, and the artistic part of the operation began. As we lay there in ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... worsted and a pair of needles; set up from twenty to forty stitches, more or less, and knit till you are tired. When finished—(the knitting)—draw out the needles and bite off the thread. You will thus have made an elegant lamp-mat, of the same color as the worsted, and the very thing for a Christmas present to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... hoont aftaire ze cap'en," replied Jan, coming up close to us now. "He vas get troonk, and go mat again in ze valleys beyont ze sheep, and I vas run aftaire hims, as he vas run avays, and den he vas go out of zight in one big hole at ze top of ze hill. I vas vollow aftaire hims, but den I loose hims, and ze erdquake vas come ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... powerful bodies, tapering smoothly down to equally powerful tails, corkscrewed around each other viciously, winding up into something resembling tightly twisted lamp cord; and the two Vorkuls, each helpless, fell to the mat with a crash. Fast as was Zerexi, the gladiator from the flagship, Sintris was the merest trifle faster. Like the straightening of a twisted spring of tempered steel that long body uncoiled as they struck ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... led them to a low spot where rank grass was growing. The dead stalks of the previous year's growth were fallen to the earth, making a dense mat of ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... entered the wigwam of Waqua and was not invited to a seat on his mat? Who can say that Waqua fastened his eyes on him like ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... certainly airy bed-chamber; for half the front wall, and a portion of one of the sides, were entirely formed of wooden trellice, which admitted, with the utmost freedom, all the winds of heaven, the sun, and also the dust. There was a mat upon the floor, and the apartment was whitewashed to the rafters, which were in good condition; and upon Mohammed's declaration that it was free from rats, I felt an assurance of a share of comfort which I had dared not expect before. There were two neat beds, with musquito-curtains, ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... Mat Mizen, mate of H.M. ship Tiger. The type of a daring, reckless, dare-devil English sailor. His adventures with Harry Clifton, in Delhi, form the main incidents of Barrymore's melodrama, El Hyder, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... father's eyes tight shut, and heard him give just one little snore—it was rather a make-believe snore—he did let nurse draw him on to her knee; and very soon the little gipsy creature was fast asleep, with all his brown curls lying like a soft mat over nurse's arm. Milly, too, shut her eyes and sat very still; she did not mean to go to sleep, but presently she began to think a great many sleepy thoughts: Why did the hedges run so fast? and why did the telegraph wires go ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and a stile. On the further side of the fireplace was a washhand-stand, with a tin pail below it, and the Major's bowler hat reposing in the basin. There was a piece of carpet underneath the table, and a woolly sort of mat, trodden through in two or three places, beside ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... and out of the night our pedestrian appeared upon the door-mat. The shepherd arose, snuffed two of the nearest candles, and turned to look ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... MAT. Happy fellow! happy fellows all of them! A man may play against fate if he only prepares his cards—I hold none but good ones in my hand. Ha, ha! They have their skins full of my best wine, and go home happy as kings. Ha, ha! there'll be some funny ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... I asked. You see, Mr. Holmes, I am a very stay-at-home man, and, as my business came to me instead of my having to go to it, I was often weeks on end without putting my foot over the door mat. In that way I didn't know much of what was going on outside, and I was always glad ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... boiled their food in wooden vessels, or in ground cavities lined with skins, by means of heated stones. They were ignorant of pottery. "On entering one of their houses he [Captain Clarke] found it crowded with men, women, and children, who immediately provided a mat for him to sit on, and one of the party undertook to prepare something to eat. He began by bringing in a piece of pine wood that had drifted down the river, which he split into small pieces with a wedge made of the elk's horn by means of a mallet of stone ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... saw that the creature was an aged woman. Her face was like an old black apple, within whose skin the pulp had shrunk and withered as it lay forgotten on the ground. Her tawny hair hung along her back like a ragged mat. There was no light in the dim vacuous eyes. She wore a garment made of the unplucked skins of birds. They spoke to her. She uttered a gibberish unknown to them with a voice that croaked like a frog's, then went down on her creaking knees and lifted ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... 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 ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray
... entered as aforesaid shall take out a coarse shirt and a pair of trousers, or petticoat, for each negro intended to be taken aboard; as also a mat, or coarse mattress, or hammock, for the use of the said negroes. The proportions of provision, fuel, and clothing to be regulated by the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... are ironed,—it is perfectly scandalous"; or, "My dear, you must not let Johnnie finger the mirror in the parlor"; or, "My dear, you must stop the children from playing in the garret"; or, "My dear, you must see that Maggie doesn't leave the mat out on the railing when she sweeps the front hall"; and so on, up-stairs and down-stairs, in the lady's chamber, in attic, garret, and cellar, "my dear" is to see that nothing goes wrong, and she is found fault ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... 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 ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... June 10.-His political creed, and opinion of parties and political men. Life of Mr. Baker. Rowley and Chatterton. Mat. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... table; and once more the crimson contents of the buckets were hurled across the grass plot upon the bed of daisies, which was now a sodden, blood-soaked mat of flowers and verdure. And Bouroche, to relieve the tedium until the attendants should bring him "number three," applied himself to probing for a musket-ball, which, having first broken the patient's lower jaw, had lodged in the root of the tongue. The blood flowed freely and collected ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... acid acts upon the casein in solutions containing salt, causing it to dissolve to some extent, thus forming the initial compounds of digestion.[184] This solution of the casein is expressed physically by the "stringing" of the curds on a hot iron. This causes the curds to mat, producing a close, solid body, free from mechanical holes. Still further, the development of this acid is necessary for the digestive activity of the ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... color is that strange mixture which makes, which does make which does not make a ripe juice, which does not make a mat. ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein
... and napping. The cattle also seemed to feel the heat and were hunting patches of shade, lying down to chew their cuds contentedly. The air seemed palpitating with the incessant humming and whirring of insects. Bees, and white and yellow butterflies flittered in a mat of weeds and wild blackberry vines, which had entirely covered an angle of the old ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... commissioner stopped to look at the brown stain which, running under the door, spread over the tiling, as Caffie never had had a mat. ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... the danger of splitting the block was eliminated. The first steps of any importance toward a practical process were made by the Earl of Stanhope around 1800, but not until Claude Genoux in France, between 1828 and 1829, developed the papier mache or wet mat process could acceptable stereotypes of entire pages be produced.[27] By this method, patented on July 24, 1829, and others that followed, a number of duplicate plates of each page could be made as required for rapid printing on a battery of presses. Wood engraving now emerged as ...
— Why Bewick Succeeded - A Note in the History of Wood Engraving • Jacob Kainen
... 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 ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... Ingletons. With Douglas as an instructor, they all set to work on its manufacture. Taking ten inch lengths of the papyrus reeds, they cut them into long, thin, vertical slices, and laid these across each other in the form of a small mat between sheets of blotting paper. This was next squeezed through a wringing-machine to rid it of superfluous moisture, then placed under a heavy weight, in the manner of pressing flowers. When at last it was dry, the alternate layers ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... itself loose upon her house, her dairy, and her fowls. She established a series of precautions to prevent dirt, and the precautions themselves became objects to be protected. There was a rough scraper intervening on behalf of the black-leaded scraper; there was a large mat to preserve the mat beyond it: and although a drugget coveted the stair carpet, Mrs. Bellamy would have been sorely vexed if she had found a footmark upon it. If a friend was expected she put some straw outside the garden gate, and she asked him in gentle tones when he dismounted if he would kindly ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... Peters is about. I daresay you could find Peters, Alice, and if it's not troubling Peters too much, perhaps he would see to it. And ask the gentleman to come in. We can't keep him standing on the door-mat. ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... Came to buy her father's arrows, Sat and rested in the wigwam, Lingered long about the doorway, Looking back as he departed. She had heard her father praise him, Praise his courage and his wisdom; Would he come again for arrows To the Falls of Minnehaha? On the mat her hands lay idle, And her eyes were ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... more and on the morrow his father took him to the fasting lodge and left him there. The boy stretched himself upon a mat, which his mother had made for him, ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... doors was an aged wool rug, maroon as to colouring, with piebald patches here and there where the skin of the lining showed through the scanty tufts. Peggy gave a whoop of triumph, tucked one after the other beneath her arm, and went flying down again, dropping a mat here and there, tripping over it, and nearly falling from top to bottom of the stairs. Hairbreadth escapes were, however, so much a part of her daily existence that she went on her way unperturbed, and carried her bundle into the study, where the ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... [19] The straw mat covering the "split bottom" of the native bed. There is no other mattress, and the "split bottom" constitutes the springs. Once accustomed to it, the ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... the face of good Miss Talbot, as she opened the door for him at midnight. Hugh took especial pains with his boots and the door-mat, but it was of no use: the austerity of her countenance would not relax in the least. So he took his candle and walked up-stairs to his room, saying only as he went — being unable ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... lord will beat you with a very big stick if you forget again," said Craven laughing as he followed her into the little room. O Hara San pouted her scarlet lips at him and laughed softly as she subsided on to a mat on the floor and clapped her hands. Craven sat down opposite her more slowly. In spite of the months he had spent in Japan he still found it difficult to adapt his long legs ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... but, the old creature having begun to beat a door-mat, she resolved to go forward boldly. She peeped into all the cheerless chambers, then ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... read Pilgrim's Progress intensely. Timidly, with shining eyes, she stood one moment upon the red mat outside the parlor door, and then, with sudden courage, turned the knob and entered. At a glance she felt that there was no need of courage; Evangelist was seated comfortably in the horse-hair rocker with his feet to the fire resting on the ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... had been in the sweating lodge and bath several times, his father commanded him to lie down upon a clean mat, in a little lodge ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... a rush mat he is making] Oh! I can do it on me head. It's the miserablest stuff—don't take the brains of a mouse. [Working his mouth] It's here I feel it—the want of a little noise —a terrible little wud ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... just stir — An almanac's aware. Was it the mat winked, Or a nervous star? The moon slides down the ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... those, more profound repose. Yes, my best lord, when labour sent them home And midday suns, when from the social meal The wicker window held the summer heat, Praised have those been who, going unperceived, Opened it wide, that all might see you well: Nor were the children blamed, upon the mat, Hurrying to watch what rush would last arise From your foot's pressure, ere the door was closed, And not yet wondering how they dared to love. Your counsels are more precious now than ever, But are they—pardon if I err—the same? Tarik is gallant, kind, the friend of Julian, Can ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... against his teeth, his hands looking like claws; a dreadful cough, which seemed to rack his whole shattered system, a hollow whispering voice, and an entire inability to move himself. There he lay, upon a mat, on the ground, which was the only floor of the oven, with no medicine, no comforts, and no one to care for, or help him, but a few Kanakas, who were willing enough, but could do nothing. The sight of him made me sick, and faint. Poor fellow! During the four months that I lived upon the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... next morning, in 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 ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... my wealth fell away from me and naught remained to me either above me or below me, and I ceased to be master of aught. Then my condition waxed strait, and as nothing was left to me at home I sold the pots and pans until I lacked even a sleeping-mat, and I used to patch my skirt with my sleeve. And naught profited me, neither friend nor familiar nor lover, nor remained there any one of them to feed me with a loaf of bread; so my case became hard and the folk entreated me evilly, nor was there ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... The lawyer and I followed my aunt and her escort. A man, whom we found posted on the door-mat, brought up the rear. Whether he was Yarcombe or whether he was Foss, mattered but little. In either case he was a hulking, scowling, hideously ill-looking brute. "One of our assistants," we heard the superintendent explain. "It is possible, madam, that we may want two of them, ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... round with trees, or shrubs of ornament, whose fragrancy perfumes the very air in which they breathe. Their household furniture consists of a few wooden platters, cocoa-nut shells, and some neat wooden pillows shaped like four-footed stools or forms. Their common clothing, with the addition of a mat, serves them for bedding. We got from them two or three earthen vessels, which were all we saw among them. One was in the shape of a bomb-shell, with two boles in it, opposite each other; the others were like pipkins, containing about five or six pints, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... the discomfiture of unwarned and absent-minded bagmen. The path to the door was guarded by a low fence of split-bamboo baskets that had once contained sugar from Batavia; a coffee bag from the wreck of a Dutch barque served for door-mat; a rum-cask with a history caught rain-water from the eaves; and a lapdog's pagoda—a dainty affair, striped in scarlet and yellow, the jetsom of some passenger ship—had been deftly adapted by Old Zeb, and stood in line with three straw ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... thought it time to lay another floor, they laid the ends of the beams, covered in by the outer bricks in like manner as in the first story, and from that story they again raised the uppermost floor and the mat-work. In this manner, securely and without a blow or danger, they raised it six stories high, and in laying the materials left loop-holes in such places as they thought ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... would not complain about Shock, when there was a loud thump of the knocker, and directly after I heard the door open, a heavy step in the passage, the door closed, and then the sound of old Brownsmith wiping his shoes on the big mat. ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... Provisions, and Hands ready to set Sail, leaving only the Old, Impotent, and Minors at Home, 'till their successful Return. {They never hearing more of their Fleet.} The Wind presenting, they set up their Mat-Sails, and were scarce out of Sight, when there rose a Tempest, which it's suppos'd carry'd one Part of these Indian Merchants, by Way of the other World, whilst the others were taken up at Sea by an English Ship, ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... dinner he wheedles the cook, Picks a coal from the scuttle or tackles a book, Or devotes all his strength to a slipper or mat, To the gnawing of this and the tearing of that; Faute de mieux takes a dress; and his mistress asserts That there's nothing to beat her Like Peter the eater Attached by his ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... would not for a moment be entertained by the other two sisters, who insisted that the square carpet should be so cut that each should get a square mat of ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... Cleopatra.—So pursuing, Yap and Mark Antony found ruin. A neighbour passing by, then ventured— And, seeing the coast clear, he entered. The squire enjoyed a quiet chat, And said: "Now tell me, neighbour Mat, Why do men shun my hall? Of late, No neighbour enters in my gate; I do not ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... come what might, he would go up those forbidden steps, and let her pat his head. This he did, and after looking about him to assure himself that this was reality and not a dog dream, he lay down upon the door-mat, and, with a sigh of relief, composed himself to sleep. A black turkey gobbler, who looked as if he had been charred in a fire, followed by five turkey hens, also suggesting the idea that water had been thrown over them before anything but ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... rarely I was able to shoot a few guinea-fowl. We reached a village one night following a day on which my wife had had violent convulsions. I laid her down on a litter within a hut, covered her with a Scotch plaid, and I fell upon my mat insensible, worn out with sorrow and fatigue. When I woke the next morning I found my wife breathing gently, the fever gone, the eyes calm. She was saved! The gratitude of that moment I will ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... them, often with this Laconic order only: "Do thy duty, Fais ton devoir." It is strange, under what impediments the fire of Jacobinism, like other such fires, will burn. These Soldiers have shoes of wood and pasteboard, or go booted in hayropes, in dead of winter; they skewer a bass mat round their shoulders, and are destitute of most things. What then? It is for Rights of Frenchhood, of Manhood, that they fight: the unquenchable spirit, here as elsewhere, works miracles. "With steel and bread," says the Convention Representative, "one may get to China." The Generals ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... said Hennessey, leaning forward and gazing into Malkiel's long and excited face round which the heavy mat of ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... wind, call, In entry and in hall, Straight from off the mountain white and wild! Soft purrs the pussy-cat On her little fluffy mat, And beside her nestles ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... inn's worst room, with mat half-hung, The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung, 300 On once a flock-bed, but repair'd with straw, With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw, The George and Garter dangling from that bed Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers[41] lies—alas! how changed from him, That ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... 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 ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... whose cathedral towers The enemies of Beauty dared profane, And in the mat of multicolored flowers That clothe the sunny ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... took of me a second sizing. How he got at my birth behind my tangled mat of hair and wringing linsey-woolsey I know not to this day. But he dropped his Scotch and merchant-captain's manner, and was suddenly a French courtier, making me a bow that had done credit to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... you will not take the trouble to go! There are certain things required of you when you go: perhaps you are too lazy or too dirty in your habits, to like doing them! I have known some refuse to scrape their shoes, or rub them on the door-mat when they went in, and then complain loudly that they were refused admittance. A fine house would such make to their father, were they allowed to run in and out as they pleased! such a house, in fact, as would very soon drive their father himself ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... loaded with chains, cast into a dark, filthy room, and bastinadoed, every day, for eight days, sometimes fainting under the operation, until he was near death. He was then left in his misery, his bed a thin flag mat, his covering his common clothes. The door of his prison was filled up with stone and mortar, and his food was six thin cakes of bread a day, and a scanty cup of water. In this loathsome dungeon, from which there was no access but a small loop hole, through which they passed ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... on this side of the border; but you must learn those on the other side, as well. They are, indeed, of even greater importance in case of pursuit, or for crossing the border unobserved. Hitherto, I have forbidden you to cross the line, but in future Mat Wilson shall go with you. He knows the Scotch passes and defiles, better than any in the band; and so that you don't go near the Bairds' country, you can traverse them safely, so long ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... was a large apartment, whitewashed like a hospital ward, but redeemed by hunting pictures on the walls, graceful drapery, and good furniture. A punkha with a mat frill hung motionless overhead, as weather conditions were sufficiently altered to dispense with an artificial breeze; and the dining table beneath it presented an inviting aspect with its glittering mass ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... knew. Emmy Lou had heard him, too, out on the bench glibly tell Miss Clara about the mat, and a bat, and a black rat. To-day he stood forth with confidence and told about a fat hen. Emmy Lou was glad to have the ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... this a dull letter? I have a cursed headache with drinking with Mat and some more overnight, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... horizontaler oder Seiten-Richtung," and one would be glad of further details of this view of number. We think that the full expression of the thought here shadowed out, is to be found in the Kindergarten occupations of mat-weaving, stick-laying, etc., in their arithmetical aspect. Certainly in these occupations, instead of number being built up as with bricks, etc., it ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... forming stems 12 feet long and 3/4 inch in diameter, and completely choking them up. It cost L300 a year to keep the Avon at Christchurch free from it. The sorrel (Rumex acetosella) covers hundreds of acres with a sheet of red. It forms a dense mat, exterminating other plants, and preventing cultivation. It can, however, be itself exterminated by sowing the ground with red clover, which will also vanquish the Polygonum aviculare. The most noxious weed in New Zealand appears, however, to be the Hypochaeris ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... received these forced benevolences from all parts. He sat, covered with rags, on a shabby palm-leaf mat placed at the outer gate of his ruined palace, holding in his left hand a villainous pipe of the kind used by the lowest people, and in his right an old red cap, which he extended for the donations ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... tail, as if he would ask for a share of his meal. His master one day, pretending to be angry, and shaking his stick at him, said: "You wretched little sluggard! what shall I do to you? While I am hammering on the anvil, you sleep on the mat, and when I begin to eat after my toil, you wake up and wag your tail for food. Do you not know that labor is the source of every blessing, and that none but those who work ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... in many cases as well or better than gold. Put a mat of tin at the cervical wall of proximate cavities in molars and bicuspids, and it makes a good filling which has a therapeutic effect on tooth-structure that prevents the recurrence of caries, probably because the infiltration ...
— Tin Foil and Its Combinations for Filling Teeth • Henry L. Ambler
... to do with the hour in front of her, went up to her bedroom, found the servant making the bed, came down into the drawing-room and sat in a dark corner under a large bead mat, that, nailed to the wall, gave little taps and rustlings as though it were trying ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... called the Baltimore Bird, is a distinguished weaver. With strong stalks and hemp or flax, fastened round two forked twigs corresponding to the proposed width of nest, it makes a very delicate sort of mat, weaving into it quantities of loose tow. The form of the nest might be compared to that of a ham; it is attached by the narrow portion to a small branch, the large part being below. An opening exists at the lower end of the dwelling, and the interior is carefully lined with soft substances, ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung The floors of plaister, and the walls of dung, On once a flock-bed, but repair'd with straw, With tape-ty'd curtains, never meant to draw, The George and Garter dangling from that bed, Where tawdry yellow, strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies—alas! how chang'd from him That ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... a sort of mud cave, man-made and door-less, the uneven earth floor covered with excrement, human and otherwise. I returned to peer into the mat-roofed yard with piles of corn-stalks and un-threshed beans, and met the man of the house just arriving with his labor-worn burros. He was a sinewy peasant of about fifty, dressed like all country peons in shirt ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... sun," constructs a fireplace of three round stones, fashions and bakes a few earthenware pots. When her household labors are done, she gathers roots, locusts, etc., from the fields. On the march she frequently carries a child, a mat, an earthen pot, some ostrich eggshells, and "a few ragged skins bundled on her head or shoulder," while the man carries only his spear, bow, and quiver.[170] The conditions among the American Indians were practically the same. Cotton Mather said of the Indians of Massachusetts: ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... in their part of Devon," he said. And then, after a moment of hesitation, he went down on his knees and began to pick the flowers. The hue of their smooth stalks was pale as the first apple-leaves, springing straight and slender each above its leafy mat. ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... miles back, cantering in front of a tricycle. There was nothing to be done but to go leisurely home, waiting every now and then to see if the dog was coming, while growing always more and more uneasy at his non-appearance. At last the home was reached—and on the front-door mat sat Daniel! ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... rational beings. Though the clouds pour down the water of vegetation, thou canst never gather fruit from a willow twig. Exalt not the fortune of the abject, for thou canst never extract sugar from a mat or common cane." ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... of petlatl is a mat or rug; it is here to be taken in its figurative sense of power or authority, chiefs and other prominent persons being provided with ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... white light on general darkness, for the low house of his memory was white and the broad-leaved trees of the garden cast their shadows on a pale wall: there was a white nursery of unlimited dimensions and a white bath-room with a fluffy mat which comforted the soles of his feet and tickled his toes. Another recollection was of the day when a lady already faintly familiar to him was introduced by an officious nurse as his new mother, and when he looked ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... the building trembled and throbbed, and this throbbing was communicated to the house. As she sat with Aunt Alvirah, and sewed carpet-rags for a braided mat, the distant thunder of the mills and the trembling of the machinery made ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... through a grove of shrubs, thick enough to hide entirely the entrance into a kind of grotto; we had to stoop to pass into it. It resembled much the entrance of the bear's den, which we found in the remote part of our island. A mat of rushes covered the opening, yet permitted the light to penetrate it. Francis ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... of the verdant isle as our young friend Will Corrie. Nothing could delight the heart of the child so much as to witness the mad gambols, not to mention the mischievous deeds, of that ragged little piece of an old door-mat, which, in virtue of its being possessed of animal life, was named Toozle. And when Alice wished to talk quietly,—to pour out her heart, and sometimes her tears,—the bosom she sought on which to lay her head, next to her father's, was that of her useful nursery-maid, ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... said, "How long is it to Christmas? Can I get my mat done for Grandma? And do you think ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... cliffs with him to his hut. Down on the floor we sat. Wilfrid put his treasures between his knees before him, I sat opposite, and the barter began. "What for this fellow, huh?" and he held up a piece of carved ivory, a little triangular mincing-knife, a fur mat that his wife had made, or the skin of a baby-seal. The first thing he asked for was scented soap, the ring that I was wearing, and my porcupine-quill hat-band which looked good to him; every exchange was accompanied with smiles, each bargain sealed ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... the outskirts of the village, a matter of satisfaction to the professor, as it enabled him at once to plunge into his beloved work unobserved by the youngsters. It also afforded him a better opportunity of collecting moths, etcetera, by the simple method of opening his window at night. A mat or wicker-work screen divided the hut into two apartments, one of which was entirely given over to the naturalist ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... very much neglected by writers on the eighteenth century. He has no biographer. M. Walferdin wrote (in an edition of Diderot's Works, Paris, 1821, Vol. XII p. 115): "Nous nous occupons depuis longtemps rassembler les matriaux qui doivent servir venger la mmoire du philosophe de la patrie de Leibnitz, et dans l'ouvrage que nous nous proposons de publier sous le titre "D'Holbach jug par ses contemporains" nous esprons faire ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... Shortly before one there were sounds of ineffectual effort at the front-door latch. Mutimer, who happened to be crossing the hall, heard them, and went to open the door. The result was that his brother fell forward at full length upon the mat. ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... turned 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 same influences haunted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... anent the class of men who compose the ranks of the Irish Parliamentary party reminds me of something I heard in Athlone. A great anti-Parnellite said:—"Poor Mat Harris was the splindid spaker, in throth! Parnell it was that sent him to the House of Commons. Many's the time I seen him on the roof of the Royal Hotel, fixin the tiles, an' puttin things sthraight, that the rain wouldn't ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... wide and roomy, but had seen its best days, and was rather out of repair. The board flooring creaked as you stepped upon it, and the seams of the roof admitted small rills of water when it rained hard, which, falling on the old brown mat, hastened its decay not a little. A large, arched window opened on either side, so that one standing in the porch could be seen from the upper and lower front windows of the house. The outer woodwork and roof of the porch were covered by a woodbine, ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... the picture," he suggested, rising. "Kitchen garden, wasn't it? That means the rear of the house. Let's go out this back way, through the kitchen. Sometimes it pays to look the servants over in a casual fashion before having them on the mat. They're less apt to ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... should first be covered with a mat of double-faced cotton flannel wide enough to fall six inches below the edge of the table, all around. This under mat greatly improves the appearance of the table-cloth, which can be laid much more smoothly over this ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... and it would appear simply that they were despised by the cultivators, and as a considerable number of workers were required to satisfy the demand for baskets and cloth, were adopted by the servile and labouring castes. Basket- and mat-making are callings naturally suited to the primitive tribes who would obtain the bamboos from the forests, but weaving would not be associated with them unless cloth was first woven of tree-cotton. The weavers of the finer cotton and silk cloths, who live in towns, rank much ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... b—— it is;' and forthwith took from its pegs one of the bridles just described and a pair of handcuffs. I followed him to one of the cells which he opened, and therein was a man lying on his straw mat undressed, and to all appearance asleep. —— desired him to get up, calling him by his name, and to dress himself. He did so, and came out into the yard, where —— inserted the ironwood gag into his mouth, and the sound produced by his breathing through ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... place, indeed, as they came in sight of it, nestled under a big tree, that was just budding into pale green in the spring sunshine. Everything was ready for the young bride to take possession on the next day, even to the mat laid before the front door on the new porch, and the bright tin cup hanging to the freshly painted pump in the ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... he snapped. "Then forward and break out steel collision-mat and weld it in place! Every man! You, ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... approached from the far end of the village in single file. First came several men with spears, which they shook on the ground every now and then, shaking their bodies at the same time in a fierce manner. Behind them in single file came a lot of women, each bearing a. rolled-up mat, which they threw down in a heap. These mats are made from the dried "pandanus" leaf. Then several men appeared bearing enormous Fiji baskets full of large rolls of food wrapped up in leaves, also smaller baskets made ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... disengaged hand the woman shoved a door open and hastily retreated. He went into a little sitting-room and sat down. There were only a few pieces of furniture in the room. A worn straw mat lay on the floor; three or four chairs, all but bottomless, stood here and there; a small square table holding a lamp and a family photograph- album bound in red plush was in the center of the room. Oil-portraits of Henderson ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... feature of the Babylonian tombs is their simplicity. The dead body, which was often covered with palm woods, was placed generally on the side—though occasionally on the back—on a board of wood, or wrapped in a mat of reeds or palm fibers, and covered with a tub-shaped clay dish. On the dish there was frequently an ornamental design, but beyond this, there was no attempt at decoration. The body was frequently pressed together in order to be brought within the compass of the ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow |
