"Mat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... has ordinarily no table but the bare ground, and at best a coarse mat; he has no dishes but banana leaves and cocoanut shells, and no forks or spoons but his fingers. He brings water from a stream in a piece of bamboo about three joints long in which all but one joint has been punched out, and drinks it from a piece of cocoanut shell. ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... and entered their room, or rather stumbled into it, in semi-darkness. Mackay peered about him curiously. He discovered three beds, made of planks and set on brick pillars for legs. Each was covered with a dirty mat woven from grass and reeking with ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... said, angrily. But I addressed an empty vestibule. There was absolutely no one there, and then I sat down on the mat and laughed. I never was so glad to see no one in my life. ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... hardly say, because the toffee-miners will not remember, before they go down into the mines, to wipe their muddy boots on the doormats provided by Billy the King, with the Royal Arms in seven colours on the middle of each mat. ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... was signed, his duty lay before him. By nine o'clock he must be at the Palais de Justice to report to Hauteville. No use going home. Better have a rubdown and a cold plunge at the haman, then a turn on the mat with the professional wrestler, and then a few hours sleep. That would put him in shape for the day's work with its main business of running down this woman in the case, this lady of the cloak and leather bag, whose name and address he fortunately had. Ah, he looked forward to his ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... city. He wheeled instantly and charged me with the most appalling speed I had ever beheld. I had thought his short legs a bar to swiftness, but had he been coursing with greyhounds the latter would have appeared as though asleep on a door mat. As I was to learn, this is the fleetest animal on Mars, and owing to its intelligence, loyalty, and ferocity is used in hunting, in war, and as the protector ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... baldricks, horns, spears, guns, and every other implement then used in the sports of the river or the field. The floor was in an equal state of disorder. The rushes were filled with half-gnawed bones, brought thither by the hounds; and in one corner, on a mat, was a favourite spaniel and her whelps. The squire however was, happily, insensible to the condition of the chamber, and looked around it with an air of satisfaction, as if he thought ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the house we found Romata sitting on a mat, in the midst of a number of large bales of native cloth and other articles, which had been brought to him as presents from time to time by inferior chiefs. He received us rather haughtily; but on Bill ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... mat covering the "split bottom" of the native bed. There is no other mattress, and the "split bottom" constitutes the springs. Once accustomed to it, the bed is cool ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... two boys, and Laura's brother Mat and his chum, Hugh Bonner, were called upon, and after some grumbling on their part and as much coaxing on the part of the girls they "came in to help the Happy-Go-Luckys ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... (for simat) ba-la-ti-im is not "conformity of life" as Langdon renders, but that which "belongs to life" like si-mat pag-ri-s, "belonging to her body," in the Assyrian version III, 2a, 3 (Jensen, page 146). "Food," says the woman, "is the staff ...
— An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic • Anonymous
... Jaconet muslin; Messrs. Walter Evans and Co.'s embroidery cotton No. 16. For toilet mat: White pique; ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... 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
... darling, that first morning of my arrival at your house, when your father read at prayers the miracle of healing the sick of the palsy—where he is told to take up his bed and walk? I do, and I can now so well realize the force of that passage. The smallest piece of mat is the bed of the Oriental, and yesterday I saw a native perform the very action, which reminded me to mention it. But you are better read than I, and perhaps you knew all this long ago....One day I bought some small native idols to send ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... give it some resemblance to the human form. When my dog came in as usual, he looked suspiciously at the object, snuffing about and gradually approaching to walk round and observe it. At last he was satisfied, and curled himself up by the skirts of the bogey, where I had placed the mat on which he was accustomed to lie when he was with me. One evening when the moon shone doubtfully and there was just light enough to distinguish the outline of things, I carried the shapeless bogey into the garden near my room, and placed it among some shrubs and bushes. I went back ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... before us rice and beans. After this frugal repast, washed down with cold water, I wanted Lucien to lie down on a large mat; but the restless little being took advantage of his elders being comfortably stretched out to sleep, and ran off to see our hostess's fowls roosting for the night on a dead tree, and then to prowl up and ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... huxter, for this is the Hamburger's substitute for a knocker. We enter a large stone-paved hall, lighted from the back, where a glazed balcony overlooks the teeming canal. You wish to wipe your shoes. Well! do you see this pattern of a small area-railing cut in wood? That is our scraper and door-mat—all ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... drunkard, he roughly bumped against the man with the chin-beard and knocked the portmanteau from his shoulder to the floor. With a face struck suddenly as white as paper, the man with the chin-beard called lamentably on the name of his Maker, and fell in a mere heap on the mat at the foot of the stairs. At the same time, though only for a single instant, the heads of the sick lodger and the Irish nurse popped out like rabbits over the banisters of the first floor; and on both the same scare ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... heavy and fine; and we had oceans of hay. The frost killed the grass early, and early in October we had a heavy rain followed by another freeze, and then a long, calm, warm Indian summer. The prairie was covered with a dense mat of dry grass which rustled in the wind but furnished no feed for our stock. It was a splendid fall for plowing, and I began to feel hope return to me as I followed my plow around and around the lands I laid off, and watched ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... rags which sometimes still exist, costly embroideries and fringed golden tissue have more than once been recognized, while some female skeletons still showed handsome heads of hair gathered into fine nets. The body lies on a reed mat, on its left side, the right hand stretched out so as to reach with the tips of the fingers a bowl, generally of copper or bronze, and sometimes of fine workmanship, usually placed on the palm of the left hand. Around are placed various articles—dishes, in some of ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... himself in at the front door, and stood for some time wiping his boots on the mat The little house was ominously still, and a faint feeling, only partially due to the lapse of time since breakfast, manifested itself behind his waistcoat. He coughed—a matter-of-fact cough—and, with an attempt to hum a tune, hung his hat on the ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... systematically trained, there was persistent reading, meditating upon the advance of women in other nations, quiet debating unsuspected of their masters; and they were growing in numbers and in an almost sinister determination every year. Of course there were plenty of hausfraus cowed to the door mat, and, like the proletariat, needing a war to wake them up; but there were several hundred thousand of the ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... value, specially devised for this purpose, obtained by the daylight photometer.[28] Next a set of carefully chosen pigments, whose reasonable permanence has been tested by long use, and which are prepared so that they will not glisten when spread on the surface of the globe, but give a uniformly mat surface. A glass palette, palette knife, and some fine ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... Cossitollah panorama flows on beneath our window, with all its bizarreness from the bazaars,—its boxwallahs, and its pawn-makers, its peddlers of toys, its money-changers and shopmen, its basket-makers and mat-weavers and chattah-menders, its perambulating cobblers and tailors, its jugglers, gymnasts, and match-girls,—its fellows who feed on glass bottles for the astonishment and delectation of the Sahibs, or who, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... lost an arm, another a leg, and they looked sad and haggard enough, though they seemed perfectly well attended to, and, I dare say, did anything but bless the revolutions that brought them to that state, and with which they had nothing to do; for your Mexican soldier will lie down on his mat at night, a loyal man, and will waken in the morning and find himself a pronunciado. Each one had a separate room, or at least a compartment divided by curtains from the next; and in each was a bed, a chair, and a small table; this on one side of the long hall. The other was occupied by ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... the ordinary meaning 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 mats at the ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... got there? Like Belshazzar, my eyes were troubled by this writing, and my knees smote one against the other; till majestic Reason, deigning to look downward from her contemplation of eternal causes, spelt backwards for me, with a pitying smile, the homely, harmless inscription on the BATH MAT, which was lying ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... a long pause after the soup that in their hunger they began to eat the stewed apples and bottled cherries that were on the table. The brown bread, arranged in thin slices on a white crochet mat in a japanned dish, felt so damp and was so full of caraway seeds that it was uneatable. After a while some roach, caught on the estate, and with a strong muddy flavour and bewildering multitudes ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... 'ava cup; how to spill the libation to the gods; how to invoke a proper blessing on the company. She taught him how to say "O susunga, lau susunga fo'i," on entering a strange house; how to pull the mat over his knee to express his fictitious dependence; how to join in the chorus of "Maliu mai, susu mai" when others entered after him; how, indeed, to comport himself everywhere with the finished courtesy ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... "What's a mat?" hollers Genaro. "What's a use hava the fighta now? Wait till we starta the picture, then everybody she'sa fighta! Something she'sa go wrong. Sapristi! we feexa her then. Joosta ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... chamber where he slept, and the servants' wing, the rest of the house was all Elsie's. She was always a restless, wandering child from her early years, and would have her little bed moved from one chamber to another,—flitting round as the fancy took her. Sometimes she would drag a mat and a pillow into one of the great empty rooms, and, wrapping herself in a shawl, coil up and go to sleep in a corner. Nothing frightened her; the "haunted" chamber, with the torn hangings that flapped like wings when there was air stirring, was one of her ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... sons, was received on board by Captain Houston, and after the Buffalo had visited Tasmania, the New Zealanders were brought to Sydney, where, dressed in the costume of a Chief of his country, Tippahee did homage to Governor King. We are told that this meant laying a mat at Governor King's feet and performing the ceremony of "joining noses." The Governor seems to have developed a great admiration for Tippahee. He allowed the Maori Chief to remain, along with his eldest son, as a guest at Government ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... you, Mis' McChesney," returned Jake." Well, nothin' much stirrin'. Whatcha think of the Grand Central? I understand they're going to have a contrivance so you can stand on a mat in the waiting-room and wish yourself down to the track an' train that you're leavin' on. The G'ints have picked a bunch of shines this season. T. A. Junior's got a new sixty-power auto. Genevieve—that yella-headed steno—was married last month to ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... as in all Tudor houses, and the doors so deeply recessed that there was space for a small mat in front of each. Ordinarily boots placed there were not visible in the line of the corridor, but the detectives' footgear stood well in view. There were two reasons for this. In the first place, Hilton Fenley might like to see them, so his highly probable if modest ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... all the servants were on the spot. In their excitement to subdue it, before the numerous visitors should be alarmed, they opened the aperture still more, so as to give free vent to the smoke. I at once told them their mistake, and, seizing the nearest door-mat, put it over the aperture; my example was followed, and other exits closed, the servants meanwhile carrying buckets of water below, where the fire had originated. Fortunately, the fire was soon extinguished, little ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... Mrs. Simons at the table of that good soul's married daughter; the same who had suckled little Sarah. Esther's frequent eulogiums had secured the poor lonely narrow-chested seamstress this enormous concession and privilege. Bobby squatted on the mat in the passage ready to challenge Elijah. At this table there were two pieces of fried fish sent to Mrs. Simons by Esther Ansell. They represented the greatest revenge of Esther's life, and she felt remorseful towards Malka, remembering to whose gold she owed this proud moment. She made up her mind ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... wert a (mass) of light. And I deem thee worthy of obeisance. Verily I shall give thee water for washing thy feet and such fruits and roots also as may be liked by thee, for this is what my religion hath prescribed to me. Be thou pleased to take at thy pleasure thy seat on a mat made of the sacred grass, covered over with a black deer-skin and made pleasant and comfortable to sit upon. And where is thy hermitage? O Brahmana! thou resemblest a god in thy mien. What is the name of this particular ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... paintings. The general features of the chamber, with its arched ceiling and flattened dome, its leewans (raised platform) and the entrance-passage of colored stones, where guests leave their foot-gear before stepping upon the mat-covered floor of the room, may, for the reasons adduced elsewhere, be accepted as typical of similar apartments of the period ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... reserved for a festival, after their arrival in their own country. Nor was I incorrect in my supposition; they collected together all the bones, which they carried with them, and putting me on board, hoisted their mat sails, and steered ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... low bed, the curtains of which were of white calico, ornamented with lace, gold, silver, beads, and coloured bits of silk. At the foot of this bed was a platform, raised about half a foot from the ground, on which was spread a spotless white mat, with several bronze trays containing cakes, etc. Whilst we were inspecting this apartment we were startled by the din of voices, followed by the sound of music, which, from its peculiar character, was too near ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... was lying on a mat; her head was covered with a muslin veil, but I could see her eyes through it full of tears and flashing with the brightness of stars; she held a handkerchief in her mouth, biting it so hard that her teeth were set in it: I never saw finer limbs, but her body was ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... which, as he moves, is dragged along and kept under him as protection against the cold and wet. His weight rests chiefly on his left hip, the knee bent and the leg drawn up beneath him upon the bear-skin mat. As long as the seal is looking toward him the hunter keeps perfectly still, or raising his head soon drops it upon his shoulder, uttering a noise similar to that produced ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... Mouldy Jakes dryly; "but unfortunately that's what the rotten doctors say." He rose to his feet and extended his uninjured hand, "S'long, Number One! I've got to get back to my old nursing home or I'll find myself on the mat.... S'long, Pills. Give 'em all my love, and tell 'em I'm coming back all right when the plumbers have finished with me." He stopped at the doorway and turned, facing the ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... busied herself about the garden, or as her white socks slipped over the mat-laid floor, she was the picture of grace itself. When at twilight, with her own hands, she lighted the gay lanterns that hung in festoons along the eaves of the tea-house above the verandah, her bright eyes ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... diving for them. In the shallow parts of the rivers and in the brooks, following the course of the stream, two stone walls a foot or two high are built. These walls converge at the lower end and form a channel, in which is placed horizontally a mat of stalks of the eagle fern (Pteris aquilina). When the fish attempt to cross this mat, through which the water passes freely, they are intercepted. Often the fish caught in this way are only an inch long, but none is too small for ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... and windy; the snow, that had ceased falling in the evening, was swept through the streets on the northern blast. They had nowhere to go. The doorman was called downstairs just then to the telegraph office. When he came up again he found father and son curled up on the big mat by the register, sound asleep. It was against the regulations entirely, and he was going to wake them up and put them out, when he happened to glance through the glass doors at the storm without, and remembered that it was Christmas Eve. With a growl he let them sleep, trusting to ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... on the floor at his feet, braiding the rags for her mat, content to hear him speak occasionally, and to look often into his face with dog-like devotion. It was there Susie saw her when she returned from school earlier in the afternoon than usual, and was beckoned into ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... the king—a fact which had escaped the fortunate discoverer. The object is a small ivory plate with incised representations of funerary offerings before the king. Animals are being sacrificed to him; jars full of beer and other things are being offered. The figure of the king, in front of a hanging mat, is not preserved; but the upper corner still remains with the two names, which were written above the figure. First, there is the same Horus name which occurs on all the inscribed objects of this tomb and which may be translated "The Warrior." ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... by the junction of the Mat, the Ta, the Po and the Ny rivers, the last being the northernmost of the four. It takes its rise about a mile south and a little east of the Wilderness Tavern. The Po rises south-west of the place, but farther ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... kerchief round his head, Not over tightly bound, nor nicely spread; And, 'stead of trowsers (ah! too early torn! 480 For even the mildest woods will have their thorn) A curious sort of somewhat scanty mat Now served for inexpressibles and hat; His naked feet and neck, and sunburnt face, Perchance might suit alike with either race. His arms were all his own, our Europe's growth, Which two worlds bless for civilising both; The musket swung behind his ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... 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 ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... beds, which will be found to decline rapidly during cold winds, should be kept up by fresh linings; and air to be given daily, to allow the superfluous moisture to escape, taking care to prevent the wind from entering the frames by placing a mat ...
— In-Door Gardening for Every Week in the Year • William Keane
... turned his head to observe the figure of an Indian warrior standing only a rod or two away. Having finished his work, he carefully spread the meat on some green oak leaves, arranged on the log. Its size was such that it suggested a door mat burned ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... prophet's race, Asked with folded hands the Almighty's grace, Then within the banquet-hall he sat, At his meal, upon the embroidered mat. ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... house but that of a two-story rear extension, he found himself in what seemed a small roof-garden, made private by awnings and Venetian blinds. Between his soles and the stone flooring he could feel the yielding texture of a grass mat, and he could not only dimly discern but also smell the perfume of green things in pots here and there. And his first step forward brought him into soft collision with a ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... spent—or, rather, the morning far advanced—by that time, the whole party willingly assented. Laihova was supplied with a separate mat, the embers of the wood-fire were drawn together, and they all lay down once more, to make the most of what remained of the period of repose. But circumstances were ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... of any size he reached. He was here received by King Jatta, a venerable old man, who had treated Major Haughton with great kindness. He was seated on a mat before his hut, a number of men and women ranged on either side, who were singing and clapping their hands. Park, saluting him respectfully, informed him of the purport of his visit. The king replied that he not ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... That is but to say that Society at present, and the earthly form of the Kingdom of God, are not organised on the basis of religious affinity, but upon a great many other things, such as family, kindred, business, a thousand ties of all sorts which mat men together, and make it undesirable, impossible, contrary to God's intention, that the good people should club themselves together, and leave the bad ones to rot and stink. The two are meant to be in close contact. 'Let both grow together till the harvest.' ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... long before Manners had satisfied his hunger, and in his feverish anxiety he could barely wait to hear Eustace's cheery voice exclaim to the gaoler, "Mat, I have brought thee some ale for letting me ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... small jar. Of course chairs were unknown, and even the highest sat or squatted on mats; not necessarily on the ground, but spread on couches. Hence the word survives the object, just as with us ("covers" at dinner are "provided" but never seen; thus in China a host is "east mat" and a guest "west mat.") In 626, when the ruler of Ts'in was talking politics with the Tartar envoy just mentioned above, he allowed him, as a special favour, to sit alongside of his own mat (on the couch). These couches probably resembled the modern settee, sofa, k'ang, or divan, such as all ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... it, from the little new Swede stock-girl to Gladys Hemingway, who is only working to wear out her old clothes, was standing with her face toward the elevator, and on her face a look that would make the ordinary door-mat marked 'Welcome' seem like an insult. I kind of smoothed my back hair, because I knew that only one thing could bring that look into a woman's face. And down the aisle came a tall, slim, distinguished-looking, ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... even for sick animals, to plant shade-trees, and erect houses for travellers. Mr. Malcom, the Baptist missionary, says that he was resting one day in a zayat in a small village in Birmah, and was scarcely seated when a woman brought a nice mat for him to lie on. Another brought cool water, and a man went and picked for him half a dozen good oranges. None sought or expected, he says, the least reward, but disappeared, and left him to his repose. He adds: "None can ascend the river without being struck with the hardihood, skill, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... beautiful ship. He found the animals gathered round a little door, all talking at once, trying to guess what was inside. The Doctor turned the handle but it wouldn't open. Then they all started to hunt for the key. They looked under the mat; they looked under all the carpets; they looked in all the cupboards and drawers and lockers—in the big chests in the ship's dining-room; they ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... on the grass; it was also repeatedly pounded by the dhenki or pedal, and when sufficiently reduced by this process to make a pulp, it was mixed in a gumla with water, so as to make it of the consistence of thick soup. The frames with which the sheets were taken up were made of mat of the size of a sheet of paper. The operator sitting by the gumla dipped this frame in the pulp, and after it was drained gave it to an assistant, who laid it on the grass to dry: this finished the process with us; but for the native market this ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... liked a little Consomme en Tasse and then a Nice Salad, while he insisted on a Steak the size of a Door Mat and German Fried to ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... to spirit away a whole company of men. And for future action as well as to put an end to the superstitious terror of the soldiery, the vital necessity was to clear up the mystery. He had no belief in the theory that these men deserted. He knew them too well. He prided himself mat he was thoroughly acquainted with his own regiment, and had well-grounded reasons for pride in his men. For this reason he was the more chary of exposing a fourth brave man where three had already ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... hearing a bustle in the entry I looked out, and saw several staid men slowly rubbing their feet on the door-mat; the husbands had come to escort their wives home, and by nine o'clock they all went. Veronica and I stayed by the ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... excelled those of a Grand Duke. But although one could see his mouth water, he did not approach the table where our local Ruggles presided over the refreshments. There was "that" about Ruggles' eye which told George Washington he would have to "go to the mat" before his former superior officer would ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... the quantity of brandy which the English market requires. By the time we repassed it on our way home, many a negro was spending his day's savings, and becoming as happy as wine could make him; and many a traveller was regaling himself with bread, garlic, and salt, and preparing to spread his mat, and lie down in the open air for the night. Night within the tropics is always a gayer and more peopled time than with us; the heat of the day detains many within doors all day, and evening and night become the favourite hours for walking. As we returned through Boa Vista ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... same breath with him; yet now, apparently, he was of the sere-and-yellow-leaf order, professionally speaking. And I was old fogy enough not to have been aware of it. Clearly, I was not fit to be entrusted with the selection of even a door-mat, to say nothing of the wall-papers and carpets. It was with a thankful heart over my foresight that I relinquished to Josephine the whole task of furnishing, with the sole reservation that I should have my say about the ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... lucre. Some of these machines were of finely wrought silver and were expensive. In the centre of the town there is an open space devoted daily to an out-door bazar, where the itinerant traders spread a mat upon the ground and cover it with the articles which they wish to dispose of, seating themselves cross-legged on the ground by the side of their wares. Here we saw displayed copper coins from the neighboring countries, sweetmeats, fruit, beans, rice, betel-nuts, candles, baskets, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... been tried for a murder years ago, for I know it was loaded since I was a child, but that the lock has for the same space of time not been on speaking terms with the barrel. While, then, thus confirmed in our suspicions of mischief by Mat's warlike aspect, we both rose from the table, the door opened, and a young girl rushed in, and fell—actually threw herself into papa's arms. It was Nina herself, who had come all the way from Rome alone, that ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... much swiftness as his aged limbs would permit, he hastened forward to meet the mourners; but ere he reached them he saw the gate-keeper and his wife come out of their house, carrying between them on a mat the dead body of a boy. The husband held one end, his fragile little wife the other, and the gigantic warder was forced to stoop low to keep the rigid form in a horizontal position and not let it slip toward the woman. Three children, preceded ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... way on their journey the little party was joined by two gentlemen who reached the highway by a cross-road; they lived far from the Wancote neighbourhood. The one Sir James Templemore, the other Mr. Mat Harding. ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... is it, then?' 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 of ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... old dog, Bevis, whose favourite sleeping-place was the mat at his door, lying there as usual, but not asleep. Wide awake, as if on guard. And marvel of marvels! a dear little fair-haired boy fast, fast asleep, with his head on the dog, who was lying so as to make himself into as comfortable a pillow ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... the old chief, "thou wast my son! Thou makest thyself an enemy! Thou lovest us not, though we saved thy life! Wouldst kill me, too?" Then, with a rough push to a mat on the ground, "Chagon—now, be merry! It's a merry business you've got into! Give him something ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... jet, breccia, porphyry Polished and rough, sundry amazing busts In baked earth, (broken, Providence be praised!) A wreck of tapestry proudly-purposed web When reds and blues were indeed red and blue, Now offer'd as a mat to save bare feet (Since carpets constitute a cruel cost). * * * * * Vulgarised Horace for the use of schools, 'The Life, Death, Miracles of Saint Somebody, Saint Somebody Else, his Miracles, Death, and Life'— With this, one glance at the lettered back of which, And 'Stall,' cried I; ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... this, both boys had progressed so far that they were able to work on a mat, made up of several layers of thick carpet, without the aid of the "mechanic." Of course their act lacked finish. Their movements were more or less clumsy, but they had mastered the principle of the ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... Weisspriess was chilled by a more curious revulsion from this sort of engagement than he at first experienced. He had become nervously incapable of those proper niceties of sword-play which, without any indecent hacking or maiming, should have stretched Angelo, neatly slain, on the mat of green, before he had a chance. Even now the sight of the man was distressing to an honourable duellist. Angelo was scored with blood-marks. Feeling that he dared not offer another chance to a fellow so desperately ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... limb, but great bulk, massive chest, and immense shoulders evidencing remarkable strength. His face was rugged, the jaws square, the chin pronounced, the brow broad, rather than high, with nose like the beak of a hawk. His thick hair, iron-gray, was a bushy mat. His only clothing consisted of leathern breeches, well worn but clean, and a rough shirt, open at the throat, and sleeveless. This revealed a brawny chest, and arms knotted ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... strange things, which philosophy would bitterly censure if they were done from any motive of interest, or wish for office or power. He may pray, and entreat, and supplicate, and swear, and lie on a mat at the door, and endure a slavery worse than that of any slave—in any other case friends and enemies would be equally ready to prevent him, but now there is no friend who will be ashamed of him and admonish him, and no enemy ...
— Symposium • Plato
... pieces and soaked in hot water, after the hair had been removed. When the last hide had been eaten, nothing remained but their boot-tops and the scraps of leather from their wagon. Even the neck-piece of a buffalo-skin which had served as a door-mat was used for food. Thus they kept themselves alive until spring, when they subsisted on thistle-roots and wild garlic, until at length relief came ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... and sent it back again. For particular ones, it found a new development in one of the most remarkable of all novels, twenty years younger than Otranto, and a few years older than the new outburst of the "Gothic" supernatural in the works of Anne Radcliffe and Mat Lewis. ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... and heart ached to enfold the precious little sinner so grievously worsted in the battle with temptation. "Mamma is very sorry that her darling has been so naughty!" she said, bowing her head upon the pillow beside the mat of curls dampened by the rain from ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... kin' o' l'itered on the mat, Some doubtfle o' the sekle, His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, But ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... Mat Clark, his mate; "I never knew any good come to any one by doing wrong, and we should be doing wrong if we were to leave Mr Ramsay to take care of his sheep and cattle all by himself. It's not the way we ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... want to impose upon a girl; I never DID impose upon a girl; but I like to feel that I'm mistress in my own house. If the work is too hard one day, I will make it easier the next, and so on. But, as Mat says, it LOOKS so disobliging in a maid to have her race off; SHE doesn't care whether you get any tea or not; SHE'S enjoying herself! And after all one's kindness—And then another thing," she presently roused herself to add, "Mat thinks that it is ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... my 'olidays a week come Thursday?" asked Elizabeth. She was evidently labouring under some strong excitement, for she panted as she spoke and so far forgot herself in her agitation as to take up the dust in the hall instead of sweeping it under the mat. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... yet halted to clean his boots on the mat. At that moment he thought he heard a cry, but nothing could stay him now. The shining tool in his clutch was unnecessary: the handle turned, the door opened. He sped across the hall and upstairs. Lights were burning in Christopher's ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... before the Pongo migrated to their present home. If so, these may have been the bones of that wife. When it was finally clear of the ground on which it had grown for so many generations, the great plant was lifted on to a large mat, and after it had been packed with wet moss by Stephen in a most skilful way, for he was a perfect artist at this kind of work, the mat was bound round the roots in such a fashion that none of the contents could escape. Also each flower scape was lashed to a thin bamboo so as ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... been expected from the color of the hair, the figure from the mat seemed a mere child in aspect, and yet the eye, the mouth, and the grasp of the hand, indicated not only maturity of years, but the presence of deep and intense passions. Her size was that of a girl of thirteen years in our northern climate, yet ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... poverty, I am inclined to suppose that he painted historical pictures.), that you may be as fine as Alcibiades! I must lie on bare boards, with a stone (See Aristophanes; Plutus, 542.) for my pillow, and a rotten mat for my coverlid, by the light of a wretched winking lamp, while you are marching in state, with as many torches as one sees at the feast of Ceres, to thunder with your hatchet (See Theocritus; Idyll ii. 128.) at the doors of half the Ionian ladies in Peiraeus. (This was the most ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... advantages instead of apparently ignoring them. Her beautiful fair hair, which had red-gold lights, should have shaded her forehead, which was too high. Instead it was drawn smoothly back, and fastened in a mat of compact flat braids at the back of her head. She was dressed very simply, in black, and her costume was not of the ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... with Clara and myself, was soon busy in trying to find out how the mat—for this was the ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... factory where they made glucose by treating rags with sulphuric acid. A man of good standing was this William T. Forbes, the father of two charming girls—Miss Dorothy, called Doll, and Miss Martha, called Mat, who gave the tone to the ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... man came out to us and said, 'There are madmen in the monastery,[FN200] and amongst them one who speaketh wisdom; if ye saw him, ye would marvel at his speech.' So we arose all and went into the monastery' where we saw a man seated on a skin mat in one of the cells, with bare head and eyes intently fixed upon the wall. We saluted him, and he returned our salaam, without looking at us, and one said to us, 'Repeat some verses to him; for, when he heareth verse, he speaketh.' So I ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... streak of light filtrated through a small curtained window in the concierge's lodge; it served to guide Kennard to the foot of the narrow stone staircase which led to the floors above. Just at the foot of the stairs, on the mat, a white paper glimmered in the dim shaft of light. He paused, puzzled, quite certain that the paper was not there five minutes ago when he went out. Oh! it may have fluttered in from the courtyard beyond, or from anywhere, driven by the draught. But, even so, with that ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... repeated dreamily. "The prettiest, daintiest shoe in all Christendom. I noticed it particularly as she stood there—on that old, worn mat—" ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... tender, that a degree of exposure that would be little felt by the apple or peach tree will destroy the cherry. If you are going to keep a cherry-tree out of the ground half an hour, throw a damp mat, or damp straw, over the roots, and you will save disappointment. The rich alluvial soils of the West are regarded unfavorable to the cherry. We know from observation and experience that the common red cherry does exceedingly well ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... the soft pine-needle mat, face down, and she groveled and burrowed there, in an agony that could not bear the sense of light. All she had suffered was as nothing to this. To have awakened to a splendid and uplifting love for a man whom she had imagined she hated, who had fought for her ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... understand it, would at least show them which way the wind was blowing. The present writer perfectly recalls the comfortable figure of a genial merchant, returned from business to his suburban villa, and saying: "Well, I shall spend this Saturday afternoon on Mat Arnold's new book, and I shall not understand one word of it." It had never occurred to the good man that he was either a Hebraizer or a Hellenizer. He had always believed that he was a Liberal, a Low ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... the door, he rang the bell, and Susan, the maid, let him in. So Susan said, "Why, master Harry, where have you been till now?" But Harry looked down, and rubbed his shoes very hard upon the mat, as if ...
— Pretty Tales for the Nursery • Isabel Thompson
... Howard pattern. The hairspring stud is set in the cock like the Elgin three-quarter-plate movement. The richest finish for such a model is frosted plates and bridges. The frosting should not be a fine mat, like a watch movement, but coarse-grained—in fact, the grain of the frosting should be proportionate to the size of the movement. The edges of the bridges and balance cock can be left smooth. The best process for frosting is by acid. Details ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... the search, Katherine looked carefully in the hall, but in vain, when her young assistant gave a cry of joy; she had almost trodden on them as they lay between a mangy mat and the ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... clang of bell, cleaned out his cell, and folded up his bed more neatly than did ever chamber-maid; at six was breakfast—porridge, and forty minutes allowed for its enjoyment; then chapel and parade; then labor—mat-making was his trade, at which he became a great proficient. His fingers deftly worked, while his mind brooded. At twelve was dinner—bread and potatoes, with seventy minutes allowed for its digestion; then exercise in the yard, and mat-making again till ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... did not look at them until he had scrupulously wiped his feet on the husk mat, and stamped them anew. Then he turned down the legs of his trousers, and carefully examined the lank green carpet-bag he ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... last. Nothing is left now. You think there is one dead man here? Mistake, I 'sure you. I am much more dead. Why don't you hang me?" he suggested suddenly, in a friendly tone, addressing the lieutenant. "I assure, assure you it would be a mat—matter of form altog—altogether." ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... 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 ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... them all, and brought them out to the vestibule. The door-mat was taken up, shaken well, and hung over the balustrade outside, and, after sweeping out the vestibule, Margaret knelt on the seat and scrubbed the marble floor, especially in the corners, and then wiped them dry. The steps had already been swept once that morning, so ...
— A Little Housekeeping Book for a Little Girl - Margaret's Saturday Mornings • Caroline French Benton
... choir and the steps of the platform were potted palms and ferns and Easter lilies. The desk was wreathed with ferns and pure white roses fastened with a broad ribbon bow. On its right was a large basket of white carnations resting on a mat of palms, and on its left a vase filled ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... they 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 proper for working ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar |
