"Mat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a headache, and she lay on a mat alone in her house. Suddenly she remembered some fruit that she had heard of but had never seen, and she said to herself, "Oh, I wish I had some of the ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... found them secure. Then, closing the keyholes, they proceeded to unpack the suit cases. Out of them they took, besides various articles of apparel, a complete dictagraph apparatus. The transmitter was hidden under a mat on a table in the reception room that formed part of the suite. The wires were carried down the leg of the table and under the carpets to a small closet; there Anna installed a small table, a pocket electric light and her stenographer's notebook. A small camera was hidden in one of ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... 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 we passed ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... serious work begins for the bridegroom and his male relatives, lasting several weeks. A large white blanket ... and a smaller one must be woven and a reed mat in which the blankets are to be rolled. A white sash with long fringe and a pair of mocassins, each having half a deerskin for leggings, like those worn by the women of the Rio Grande pueblos, complete the costume. The blankets must have elaborate tassels at the four corners. ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... Mat Clark, his mate; "I never knew any good come to any one by doing wrong, and we should be doing wrong if we were to leave Mr Ramsay to take care of his sheep and cattle all by himself. It's not the way we should like to ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... a day, after the setting of the sun, and sometimes only once in two days, often even in four; his food was bread with salt, his drink nothing but water. To speak of flesh and wine there is no need, for such a thing is not found among other earnest men. When he slept he was content with a rush-mat: but mostly he lay on the bare ground. He would not anoint himself with oil, saying that it was more fit for young men to be earnest in training, than to seek things which softened the body; and that ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... Nelson.' I say: 'Please to meet you, Sugar Plum.' Her say: 'I live down at Simpson's Turnout. Glad to have you come down to see me sometime.' After dat us kep' a meetin' in Winnsboro, every Saturday, 'til one day us went 'round to Judge Jno. J. Neils' law office and him married us. Me and Mat have our trials and tribulations and has went up and down de hills in all kind of weather. Us never ceased to bless dat day dat I run into her at Mr. Sailing ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... at the brink of ruine by the cruell dissentions then sprung up betuixt the merchands and trades about their priviledges, bot he lyke ane skilfull Chirurgeon bound up and healled their wounds; and being lykewayes sunck under the burthen of debt he procured such gifts and impositions from his Mat'ie upon all sorts of Liquors that he in a short tyme brought doun their debt from eleven hundredth thousand merks to seven hundredth thousand: and being thrcatened by the Lord Lauderdale to erect the citadels of Leith ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... Morris was talking with some one on the mat in the hall. An extremely tall woman, with a crying baby in her arms, made way for the ladies, not by going out of the house, but by stepping further ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... were also assembled there awaiting the usurper. Before the steps of the Commandant's house a Cossack held by the bridle a magnificent white horse. My eyes sought the body of our good Basilia. It had been dragged aside and covered with an old bark mat. At last Pougatcheff came out on the steps, and saluted the crowd. All heads were bared. One of the chiefs handed him a bag of copper coin, which he threw by the handful among the people. Perceiving me in the crowd, he signed to ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... he stood on the door-mat beside his captor merely added mystery to mystery. Just within the luxuriously furnished hall, where the light of the softly shaded hall lantern served to heighten the artistic effect of her red house-gown, stood a woman—a lady, and evidently the mistress of the Georgian ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... been a matter of indifference to them, so long as they could obtain food. Their women were with them, for the wife and daughters of each warrior had carried on head, with the army, his household goods, a tiny stool, a few calabashes for cooking, a mat to sleep on, and baskets high piled with provisions. They were there to collect sticks, to cook food, draw water, bring fire for his pipe, minister to his pleasures. He could have no more if he were at ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... goddess Kali to stop a pestilence, making vow to offer to Bhairava, her son, a yearly human sacrifice. Higher up, approaching the plateau where were the ruins of a thousand gorgeous shrines, both sides of the pathway were lined by mendicants who sat cross-legged, in front of them a little mat for the receipt of alms—cowries, pice, silver; the mendicants muttering incessantly "Jae, Jae, ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... 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 ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... smaller one either for a pillow or an additional covering if required; but both of these were tossed down in a heap at the present time, to form a luxuriant seat for Frank and Edith. As their legs hung over the edge of the elevated couch, they were thus seated, as it were, on an ottoman. A mat of interlaced willows covered the floor, and on this sat Maximus, towering in his hairy garments like a huge bear, while his black shadow was cast on the pure white wall behind him. In the midst stood a small table, extemporised by Frank out of a ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... dreadful object I had ever seen in my life,— his eyes sunken and dead, his cheeks fallen in 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 ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... she; "thy daddy put his hand on my head like a son when he came back from his banishment in Spain, and I keened over thy mother dear when she died. The hair of Peggy Bheg's head is thy door-mat, and her son's blood is thy ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... hammer examined. There was Dr. Wood there to help me. We found no signs of violence upon it. I was hoping that if Mr. Douglas defended himself with the hammer, he might have left his mark upon the murderer before he dropped it on the mat. ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... freehold in the cabin of an old negress yclept Zoe; but she seldom claimed it, for Zoe was outspoken; she preferred, instead, to lie down by night on a mat in Miss Emma's room, in a corner of the staircase, on the hall-floor, oftenest fallen wherever sleep happened to overtake her;—having so many places in which to lay her head was very like having none ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... notice of me? I was a book-worm. I couldn't do any of the social tricks she admired. I knew as much about music as a cow, and considered tennis a bore. And yet I wanted her. I wanted that eighteen-year-old girl as I've never wanted anything since. I made myself a door-mat for her feet, I took her impudence and said nothing, I waited for her and made no complaint when she forgot to keep an appointment. My mother saw it and did her best to help me (though it wasn't much), for she wanted me to ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... respond to the high duty put upon it. At last the sublime thought came to him upon the swift wings of inspiration. "The ode itself," he says, "was an improvisation. Two days before the commemoration I had told my friend Child that it was impossible—that I was dull as a door-mat. But the next day something gave me a jog, and the whole thing came out of me with a rush. I sat up all night writing it out clear, and took it on the morning of the day to Child." In another letter he says: "The poem was written with ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... on a mat by the door, rose. "Philo, take this ring. Follow me to the door of the banqueting room, and stand behind the hangings. If I say 'Run, Philo!' carry out the orders that I have before given you. Speed first to the room where the Britons sleep, and tell them to arm and come ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... of this hard-worker preclude the notion of any oviparous act, and I take it that one "lays prone" as one lays a mat or strip of carpet, for the purpose of facilitating labour that is done on the knees or stomach. If I am right I should like to get my builder to order some for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... Spanish observer, as the celebrated square of Salamanca. Here were traders from all parts; the goldsmiths from Azcapozalco, the potters and jewelers of Cholula, the painters of Tezcuco, the stone-cutters, hunters, fishermen, fruiterers, mat and chair makers, florists, etc. The pottery department was a large one; so were the armories for implements of war; razors and mirrors—booths for apothecaries with drugs, roots, and medical preparations. In other places again, blank-books or maps for the hieroglyphics ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... [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
... themselves black all over, covered their heads with leaves, and walked in solemn procession, headed by the chief brother-in-law, who carried the skull in the basket. Meantime the male relatives were awaiting them, seated on a large mat in the ceremonial ground, while the women grouped themselves in the background. As the procession of men approached bearing the skull, the mourners shot arrows over their heads as a sign of anger at them for having decapitated their relation. But this was a ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... you're entitled to your trophy, though the skin is pretty well riddled with that big hole through it. Still, Tolly Tip may be able to cure it so as to make a mat for your den ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... supporter meant to say "not on the mat"—in reference to an incident at the close of Mr. HENDERSON'S Ministerial career. But many a true word is said in the Press ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... was a straw mat, the blanket a rather large strip of gray woollen stuff, very warm and almost new. This is what the alcove ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... labor Male activities Female activities Male industries in detail Boat building Mining Plaiting and other activities Female industries in detail Weaving and its accessory processes Pottery Tailoring and mat making ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... sat 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 ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... terrier, asleep on his mat at the foot of the stair, only looked up sleepily and wagged his tail as she stepped over him and stole softly through the hall. The well-oiled bolts slipped back noiselessly, and she ran out down the steps, leaving the door ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... whispering of innumerable drops among innumerable leaves, till, as day dawned, he reached a clearing, and descried through the mists a cluster of Huron houses. Faint and bedrenched, he entered the principal one, and was greeted with the monosyllable "Shay!"—"Welcome!" A squaw spread a mat for him by the fire, roasted four ears of Indian corn before the coals, baked two squashes in the embers, ladled from her kettle a dish of sagamite, and offered them to her famished guest. Missionaries seem to have been a novelty at this place; for, while the Father breakfasted, a crowd, chiefly ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... drafted. The money his mother had put aside to purchase his release had been used up as a result of six months of poor business and by credits given to certain lorettes on the street, who had left the key under their door-mat one fine morning. He had not prospered, in a business way, himself, and his stock in trade had been taken on execution. He had been that day to ask a former employer to advance him the money to purchase a substitute. ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... give physic by way of prevention, Mat, alive and in health, of his tombstone took care; For delays are unsafe, and his pious intention May haply be never ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... was easily able, and big and strong enough for the killing of such prey as Finn had learned to hunt. The shoulders of a hare or a rabbit were easily smashed between Finn's jaws; but the shoulders of the big fox, with their mat of dense fur, were far otherwise. Finn's teeth sank deep, ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... constructed in 1905-6 for the water-works of Bloomington, Ill. This reservoir is 300 ft. in diameter, 15 ft. deep at the circular wall and 25 ft. deep at the center of the spherical bottom. The wall construction is shown clearly by Fig. 278, and the floor is a 6-in. spherical slab reinforced by a mat of -in. round rods placed 6 ins. on centers in both directions. The wall reinforcement is corrugated bars. Neither the wall nor the bottom has ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... germinated well, and the little trees grew thriftily, the catalpa reaching a height of eighteen inches before the Fair closed. A bed of Norway pine showed the plants on half the bed crowded together in a thick mat as if grown from seed sown broadcast; on the other half arranged as if from seed sown in rows across the bed, both methods of sowing seed being followed in actual practice. Four beds were given to two-year-old plants—Norway spruce, white pine, ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... in a large mat woven of "phormium" trimmed with dogskins, was clothed with a pair of cotton drawers, blood-stained from recent combats. From the pendant lobe of his ears hung earrings of green jade, and round his neck a quivering necklace of "pounamous," ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... as if a bullet had reached his heart. Like lightning he turned, his face, frozen with fear, that was scarcely yet comprehended, his eyes like darts. From that white filthy face in its wild beast's mat of hair, his brother's eyes were ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... for future operations must be made, as in this month there are only five hours a day available for out-door work, unless the season be unusually mild. Mat over tulip beds, begin to force roses. Place pots over seakale and surround them with manure, litter, dried leaves, &c. Plant dried roots of border flowers in mild weather. Take strawberries in pots into the greenhouse. Take cuttings of chrysanthemums and strike ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... shoe-buckles—there was nothing left of the boy himself but the whites of his eyes. The tavern is placed where men moving in the new ways of a busy and adventurous world would not see it, for they would not be there. Its dog Ching was asleep on the mat of the portico to the saloon bar; a Chinese animal, in colour and mane resembling a lion whose dignity has become sullenness through diminution. He could doze there all day, and never scare away a chance customer. None would come. ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... little excursions on his own account. His manner was expectant. He knew there must be something unusual about the proceeding, because it was contrary to the habits of his whole life not to be asleep at this hour on the mat in front of the fire. He kept looking up into his master's face, as door after door was tried, with an expression of intelligent sympathy, but at the same time a certain air of disapproval. Yet everything his master did was good in his eyes, and he betrayed as little impatience ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... out of the night our pedestrian appeared upon the door-mat. The shepherd arose, snuffed two of the nearest candles, and turned to look ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... cannot select and hire workmen: guild-regulations forbid. You can only make your contract; and the master-carpenter, when his plans have been approved, will undertake all the rest,—purchase and transport of material,—hire of carpenters, plasterers, tilers, mat-makers, screen-fitters, brass-workers, stone-cutters, locksmiths, and glaziers. For each master-carpenter represents much more than his own craft-guild: he has his clients in every trade related to house-building and house-furnishing; and you must not dream ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... 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 ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... soon as they began. The principal doorways appeared to be in the roofs, and it was through one of these that Bradley was inducted into the dark interior of a low-ceiled room. Here he was pushed roughly into a corner where he tripped over a thick mat, and there his captors left him. He heard them moving about in the darkness for a moment, and several times he saw their large luminous eyes glowing in the dark. Finally, these disappeared and silence reigned, ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and calm. He arose, threw on his cloak, and buckled about his waist a short sword. The Nubian boy that Mardonius had given him for a body-servant awoke on his mat, and asked wonderingly "whither his Lordship was going?" Glaucon informed him he must be at the front before daybreak, and bade him remain behind and disturb no one. But the Athenian was not to execute his design unhindered. As he passed out of the tent and into the night, where the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... brandy; he saw him clearly, leaning in the doorway to the dining room, with the emptied goblet, and a curious, introspective expression on his mobile countenance. "He ought to be hung!" he exclaimed sharply. The fellow should see himself as a mat for Mariana's feet. But that wasn't life, he realized; existence seemed to become more and more heedless of the proprieties, of the simplest concessions to duty. He saw the world as a ship which, admirably navigated ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... to her, and was at that moment waiting in the drawing-room. Perhaps this last announcement showed in a more striking point of view than many lengthened speeches could have done, the trustfulness and faith of Bailey's nature; since he had, in fact, last seen the visitor on the door-mat, where, after signifying to him that he would do well to go upstairs, he had left him to the guidance of his own sagacity. Hence it was at least an even chance that the visitor was then wandering on the roof of the house, or vainly seeking to extricate himself from the maze of ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... courser, With the comb of bones of walrus, That the hair remain uninjured, Nor his handsome tail be twisted; 110 Cover then the bridegroom's courser With a cloth of silver fabric, And a mat of golden texture, And a ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... Peace, after a pause, "I might earn a little crocheting. Once, long ago, I made a mat out of ends of worsted I found, and it didn't hurt me hardly any; on my good days it wouldn't honestly hurt me at all. It's pretty work, crocheting, ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... me uncomfortable that I'm not married yet—not papa or Izzy, but you—you! Never does one of the girls get engaged that you don't look at me like I was wearing the welcome off the door-mat." ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... sudden contrast with the glare outside, but as soon as this first impression was overcome, it appeared moderately lighted. It was a chamber about fourteen feet long and ten feet wide, and its walls were whitewashed with burnt gypsum. Deer-hides and a mat plaited of yucca-leaves lay rolled up in one corner. A niche contained a small earthen bowl, painted white with black symbolic figures. A doorway to the right led into another compartment which seemed darker than the first. As soon as the boys entered the room, a woman appeared in this side ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... circumnavigated the block nine times—he counted them. Coming in on the last tack he sighted the portly form of the banker careening with dignified speed around the corner. Another instant he had crossed the mat and disappeared into his financial harbor. Mr. Strumley steered rapidly in ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... coat on the floor and stamped on them in a perfect fury. On the sitting room table lay the pages of the book which Migwan was making for Professor Green. The edges were already burned and they were ready to be pasted on the brown mat. Betty's eyes suddenly snapped when she saw them. Here was a fine chance to be revenged on Migwan. With an exclamation of triumph she seized the leaves, tore them in half and threw them into the grate, standing by until they were consumed to ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... Smith came, was sent for; meanwhile Pocahontas called together a number of Indian maidens to get up a dramatic entertainment and ballet for the handsome young Englishman and his companions. They made a fire in a level field, and Smith sat on a mat before it. A hideous noise and shrieking were suddenly heard in the adjoining woods. The English snatched up their arms, apprehending foul play. Pocahontas rushed forward, and asked Smith to slay her rather than suspect her of perfidy; so their apprehensions were quieted. Then thirty young ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... them down to the gate. A cart drawn by two oxen was standing there, and the top of it was covered with a mat of rushes. He drew aside a corner of this mat, and by the uncertain light of dawn they saw before them three corpses, the Kiaja's, the Kapudan's, and the ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... and hands We were dreaming, just like you; Till we thought of palmy lands Coloured like a cockatoo; All in drowsy nursery nooks Near the clutching fire we sat, Searching quaint old story-books Piled upon the furry mat. ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... parchment was a matter of great interest to the 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 of the papyrus had adhered ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... 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 ...
— Happy Ending • Fredric Brown
... of the houses in Palestine, this house had a flat roof, with a stairway leading up to it. They placed their friend on a mat, carried him up the stairs, and cut a hole in the roof. After fastening a rope to each corner of the mat, they gently lowered it to the floor, right at ...
— The King Nobody Wanted • Norman F. Langford
... whitewash, the glimmer of which showed me the queer shape of the building even in the darkness. It consisted of two stories, both round as pepper-pots. Above the first ran a narrow circular thatch, serving as a mat (so to say) for the second and smaller pepper-pot. I could not discern how this upper story was roofed, but the roof had a hole in it, from which poured a stray ray of light. Light shone too, but through a blind, from a small window close under the eaves. The lower story showed none ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... days had rung so sweetly over the hill-sides 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 youthful nursery-maid, ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... was neither pleased nor displeased. He paid my accounts exactly, before the camp broke up for the winter, making Skenedonk his agent. My mother Marianne offered me food as she would have offered it to Count de Chaumont; and I ate it, sitting on a mat as a guest. Our children, particularly the elder ones, looked me over with gravity, and refrained from saying anything ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... of the number four. Professor Lethaby has suggested[405] that the four-sided building was determined by certain practical factors, such as the desirability of fashioning a room to accommodate a woven mat, which was necessarily of a square or oblong form. But the study of the evolution of the early Egyptian grave and tomb-superstructures suggests that the early use of slabs of stone, wooden boards, and mud-bricks helped in the process of determining the four-sided ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... swords; in Basundi, especially beautiful ornamented copper rings; on the Congo, clever wood and tablet carvings; in Loango, ornamented clothes and intricately designed mats; in Mayumbe, clothing of finely woven mat-work; in Kakongo, embroidered hats and also burnt clay pitchers; and among the Bayakas and Mantetjes, stuffs of ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... to the right he could see the spring. A girl of about his own age, barefooted, and with only her tangled mat of dark hair for a head covering, was filling her bucket in the pool. He broke a dry twig from the nearest cedar ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... action, was stamped with this purpose. It puzzled White Fang. Never had he seen such a dog. It had no hair protection. It was soft, and bled easily. There was no thick mat of fur to baffle White Fang's teeth as they were often baffled by dogs of his own breed. Each time that his teeth struck they sank easily into the yielding flesh, while the animal did not seem able to defend itself. Another ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... shadows of the tree, offering a concealment equally effectual and inviting, were all circumstances in Nathan's favour; and giving one backward glance to the fire on the square, and then fixing his eye on one of the tents, in which, as the mat at the door shook in the breeze, he could detect the glimmering of a light, and fancied he could even faintly hear the murmur of voices, he crawled among the bushes, scarcely doubting that he was now within but ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... officer in charge was possessed of a flickering memory of his own midshipman days, and his twinkling eyes and cheerful grin were reassuring. The boys all openly adored him, and even though they had dubbed him Hercules Hugh, would have formed a door mat of their bodies had he hinted a desire ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... a delighted heart the Rishi as he lay on that bed. Chyavana, however, quickly disappeared at this, with the bed itself upon which he lay. The king then beheld the Rishi at another part of those woods seated on a mat made of Kusa grass, and engaged in mentally reciting some high Mantras. By his Yoga-power, even thus did that Brahmana stupefy the king. In a moment that delightful wood, those bevies of Apsaras, those bands of Gandharvas, those beautiful ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... there are others whose etymology is acknowledged by every body; as, Alexander, Elick, Scander, Sander, Sandy, Sanny; Elizabetha, Elizabeth, Elisabeth, Betty, Bess; Margareta, Margaret, Marget, Meg, Peg; Maria, Mary, Mal, Pal, Malkin, Mawkin, Mawkes; Mathaeus, Mattha, Matthew; Martha, Mat, Pat; Gulielmus, Wilhelmus, Girolamo, Guillaume, William, Will, Bill, Wilkin, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... too short to allow weather to cut it shorter,' said Pitt, throwing himself down on a mat. 'I think I have observed that you too always have some work in hand whenever ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... ship 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 table ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... frolicked about among the trees and bushes. Some of the adults lay prone upon the soft mat of dead and decaying vegetation which covered the ground, while others turned over pieces of fallen branches and clods of earth in search of the small bugs and reptiles which formed a part ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 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
... teepee and spoke; she brought him the tongue of the bison, Sweet nuts from the hazel and oak, and flesh of the fawn and the mallard. Soft hanpa[P] she made for his feet and leggins of velvety fawn-skin, A blanket of beaver complete, and a hood of the hide of the otter. And oft at his feet on the mat, deftly braiding the flags and the rushes, Till the sun sought his teepee she sat, enchanted with what he related Of the white-winged ships on the sea and the teepees far over the ocean, Of the love and the sweet charity of the Christ and the ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... a dagger, or dark lanthorn, or some such cut-throat appurtenance. With all this the features were preserved and ennobled. It passed from hand to hand into that of Henry, Duke of Buccleuch, who, hearing the general voice affirm that it was very like, said aloud, 'Like Mat Lewis? Why, that picture is like a 'man'.' He looked, and lo! Mat Lewis's head was at his elbow. His boyishness went through life with him. He was a child, and a spoiled child, but a child of high imagination, so that he wasted himself in ghost stories and German nonsense. He had the finest ear for ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... cotton exhibited in the market of Gallabat is produced by the Tokrooris; it is uncleaned, and simply packed in mat bales of a hundred pounds weight, which at that date (April 1862) ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... like to help their mothers and learn to become useful at an early age, and to do the different kinds of work a woman is expected to do. When a woman is plaiting a mat of split cane, or of reeds, she often gives the short ends, which she has cut off, to her little girl, who sits by her and tries to make a little mat with them. I have often seen little girls of ten and eleven being taught by their mothers how ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes
... sunset, as he was 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 savage angel, pointing to the mat, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... little "front room" literally groaned with good things; indeed, so liberally was it provided that half-way through the meal the butcher insisted on removing the vase of chrysanthemums which stood proudly in the middle on a green paper mat, alleging as he did so that "them flowers took up a sight too much room"—an axiom to which he stuck in ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... closed the door, and Douglas Stone walked down the narrow passage, glancing about him in some surprise as he did so. There was no oilcloth, no mat, no hat-rack. Deep grey dust and heavy festoons of cobwebs met his eyes everywhere. Following the old woman up the winding stair, his firm footfall echoed harshly through the silent house. ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Harriet, as she placed still another violet. "I was doing the wrestling, but I went to the mat. I gave up twenty-five dollars and took the directorship of that Mothers' Aid. Never having been a mother, I pointed out to him that I was not exactly qualified, but he laid stress upon my energy and business acumen and I gave up. I mentioned you for the honor, but those marvelous eyes ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... me, and lifted a coarse mat, with which he covered me when I got into the sleigh, and then set ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... storm-proof leather, chrome tanned and dull finished; chrome calf—finished in tan color, and with a fine, smooth grain; boarded calf—tanned either in chrome or quebracho; wax calf—finished by polishing the flesh side until it took a hard, waxy surface; mat calf that was dull in finish; storm calf, oiled for winter wear; and French calf, which, like wax calf, was finished on ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... his protege the better, and after having exhausted an Irish vocabulary of expostulation, succeeded in prevailing on him to come no farther than the street; except on very wet days, when he would sometimes be found on the mat in the entry, looking deplorably beseeching, and bringing on his master an irate, 'Here's that ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and good old man. Sit ye here beside us. Nay, not there, but here on mine own mat. So. Hast thy ...
— Pakia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... want to," she answered listlessly, "but, however, ladies, you've drunk some wine, chatted a bit—don't wear the welcome off the mat." ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... "mizzen." Of these, the first is English, the second Norman-French, the third Italian (mezzano). To go from masts to sails, we have "duck" from the Swedish duk, and "canvas" from the Mediterranean languages,—from the root canna, a cane or reed,—thence a cloth of reeds or rushes, a mat-sail,—hence any sail. Of the ends of a ship, "stern" is from the Saxon stearn, steering-place; "stem," from the German stamm. The whole family of ropes—of which, by the way, it is a common ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... 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 it the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... from the high rock walls across the river. However, there was nothing to do but to make the best of it, so we tethered the horses and went down to the river to relieve ourselves of the dust that seemed determined to unite with the dust that we were made of. Mrs. Louderer declared she was "so mat as nodings and would fire dot Herman so soon as ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... all. Even the slight restrictions which her neat habits imposed on our breezy and turbulent natures seemed all quite graceful and becoming. It was right, in our eyes, to cleanse our shoes on scraper and mat with extra diligence, and then to place a couple of chips under the heels of our boots when we essayed to dry our feet at her spotless hearth. We marvelled to see our own faces reflected in a thousand smiles and winks from her bright brass andirons,—such andirons we thought were seen ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... think. Mercy's mind was a blank as she descended the stairs. On her way down she was conscious of nothing but the one headlong impulse to get to the library in the shortest possible space of time. Arrived at the door, the impulse capriciously left her. She stopped on the mat, wondering why she had hurried herself, with time to spare. Her heart sank; the fever of her excitement changed suddenly to a chill as she faced the closed door, and asked herself the question, Dare ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... sleep, rain or shine or snow," he said. "Now I've spent my life sleeping on the ground, and mother earth makes the best bed. I'll dig out a little pit in this soft mat of needles; that's for your hips. Then the tarpaulin so; a blanket so. Now the other blankets. Your feet must be a little higher than your head; you really sleep down hill, which breaks the wind. So you never catch cold. All you need do is ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... 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 ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... me in a small bathhouse adjacent and very luxurious, I get me to bed early (which was no more than a mat) but Sir Richard, seated upon the floor hard by (for of chairs there were none), Sir Richard, I say, must needs fall to with pen and ink, the great hound drowsing beside him, so that, lulled by the soft scratching of his busy ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... light and certainly airy bed-chamber; for half the front wall, and a portion of one of the sides, were entirely formed of wooden trellice, which admitted, with the utmost freedom, all the winds of heaven, the sun, and also the dust. There was a mat upon the floor, and the apartment was whitewashed to the rafters, which were in good condition; and upon Mohammed's declaration that it was free from rats, I felt an assurance of a share of comfort which I had dared not expect before. There were two neat beds, with musquito-curtains, two tables, ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... primitive little houses upon their stilt-like posts, and the ladies had spent some time in watching a quaint little native mother making efforts to at once ply the queer sticks which helped her in a strange sort of mat-weaving, and keep an eye upon a preternaturally solemn-faced infant, who, despite his gravity, seemed capable of quite as much mischief as the average enfant terrible of civilization. ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... to end, and a third part of it taken, and shaved thin and light, and highly polished. They are attached to the top or the head-dress on each side, in the same place as they rise and stand on the head of a buffalo, rising out of a mat of ermine skins and tails, which hangs over the top of the head-dress somewhat in the form that the large and profuse locks of hair hang and fall over the head of a buffalo bull. This custom is one which belongs to all northeastern tribes, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... Robarts and Gould sat on the two chairs with which the room was supplied, Buller perched himself on the table, Smith on a box—all full of curiosity and expectation. Crawley and Saurin remained standing. The door was closed and a mat placed against it, to prevent any sudden entry ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... rooms in which the soldiers and their families live have no partitions, to each couple being assigned a space about eight feet square, which is chalk-marked on the floor. The only article of furniture in each of these "apartments" is a bed, which is really a broad, low platform covered with a grass-mat, for in a land where the mercury not infrequently climbs to 120 in the shade, there is no need for bedding. Here they eat and sleep and make their toilets, the women preparing the meals for their men and for ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... what to make of your father, that's the long and short of it. He goes by me and never sees me in broad daylight. I ain't proud—but I ain't a door-mat, neither!" ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... whom he had always regarded as old Abram's granddaughter, and who glared at him with such savage malignity from her piercing black eye (no figure of speech, for she had but one) when with his foot and cane he gently rolled her off the door-mat, where he found her coiled up asleep on his entrance to the house,—what did he care how that mixture of chimpanzee and evil sprite, to whom were to be attributed nine-tenths of the mischief done in the neighborhood, came by ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... could see his mouth water, he did not approach the table where our local Ruggles presided over the refreshments. There was "that" about Ruggles' eye which told George Washington he would have to "go to the mat" before his former superior officer would serve him ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... his child's head and hugged him with affection. And the Brahmanas began to utter blessings upon him and the bards began to applaud him. And the monarch then experienced the great delight that one feeleth at the touch of one's son. And Dushmanta also received mat wife of his with affection. And he told her these words, pacifying her affectionately, 'O goddess, my union with the? took place privately Therefore, I was thinking of how best to establish thy purity. My people might think that we were only lustfully united and not as husband and wife, and therefore, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... some time, I suppose, with a sense of disaster And gazed at a picture resembling an egg on a mat, Or a sideslip of squares in the mode of a Pimlico master?— Well, Binks's "Rebellion" and "Afternoon Tea in my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... the khan. My room was without furniture; but, being lately white-washed, and duly swept out under my own superintendence, and laid with the best mat in the khan, on which I placed my bed and carpets, the addition of a couple of rush-bottomed chairs and a deal table, made it habitable, which was all I desired, as I intended to stay only a few days. I was supplied with a most miserable dinner; and, to my horror, the stewed meat was ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... his hands in among them gently, and drew out a tiny child; his peaked little face was black, his thin little arms and legs were black, he was clothed in filthy rags; and his yellowish hair was a tangled mat. The child struggled like a very feeble little wild beast, clawing and scratching, but silent with a terrible silence which showed how he had learned to ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... instead of from the sides. A charming variety of awning or sun-shades, to keep the sun and glare out of rooms, is the old English idea of a straw-thatching, woven in and out until it makes a broad, long mat which is suspended from the top of windows, on the outside of the house, being held out and permanently in place, at the customary angle of awnings. We first saw this picturesque kind of rustic awnings used on little cottages of a large estate ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... put them on too thick. You don't want more than two inches of leaves. If you do they will mat down and smother ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... 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
... snorted Mr. Quilty. "Hivin! Fine comp'ny ye'd be f'r the holy men and blessid saints an' martyrs an' pure, snow-white angels! Why, ye idolatrous, stick-burnin', kow-towin', joss-worshippin' pagan son iv a mat-sailed junk and a chopstick, they'd slam the pearly gates forninst yer face and stick their holy fingers to their blessid noses at yez. Hivin! Ye'll never smell ut, nor scuffle yer filthy shoes on th' goolden streets. Purgathry! Faix, yer ticket reads straight through, ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... down-stairs, Regie bearing in his hand his tin money-box, in which a single coin could be heard to leap. Hester produced a bright threepenny-piece for each child, one of which was irretrievably buried in Regie's money-box, and the other two immediately lost in the mat in the pony-carriage. However, Hester found them, and slipped them inside their white gloves, and the expedition started, accompanied by Boulou, a diminutive yellow-and-white dog of French extraction. Boulou was a well-meaning, kind little ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... to the demand, and as me and the bunch had sorta turned them down after they went and lost all their money on the Thanksgiving game, so we had an intimation that developed into a hunch that our little 'welcome' mat on the doorstep would not be crowded with an eager throng. We engaged a couple of window tables at the Cafe des Beaux Minks realizing that though we were not in the money we were still on the track. This was last New Year's Eve. New Year's afternoon we held a reception up at Miss Verneaque's ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... when a dripping tap is enough to keep us awake? I am told that there were people who slumbered peacefully through the San Francisco earthquake, merely stirring drowsily from time to time to tell an imaginary person to leave it on the mat. Yet ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... world. In a shallow, oval grave, excavated often but a few inches below the surface of the soil, lay the body, cramped up with the knees to the chin, sometimes in a rough box of pottery, more often with only a mat to cover it. Ready to the hand of the dead man were his flint weapons and tools, and the usual red and black, or buff and red, pots lay beside him; originally, no doubt, they had been filled with the funeral meats, to sustain the ghost in the next world. Occasionally a simple copper weapon was ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... large block of stone, matted, loaded with shot, and fitted with ropes, by which it is roused or pulled to and fro to grind the decks withal. Also, a coir-mat filled ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... sporifers are white, stand more or less erect, but are every way finer and larger. Each individual sporifer rises like a stiff stem, as of white thread, 2-3 mm. high; at top a tuft of fruiting branchlets, more or less distinct. All taken together, we have a dense mat completely concealing the substratum and spreading out sometimes over an area of ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride
... child," she said, on the day following the Puppy Show that had coincided with Christian's eighth birthday, when, after a long search, she had discovered her youngest daughter, seated, tailor-wise, in one of the kennels, the centre of a mat of hounds. "This is not a not a place for you! You don't know what you may ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... 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 ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... an hour, I decided to enquire, and, looking about me for the most likely and suitable place at which to do so, I saw a large two- story building, the lower portion of which seemed to consist of offices, while, from the mat curtains which sheltered the balcony above, and the tables and chairs which stood therein, I guessed that the upper floor was the private part of the establishment. A glazed door giving access to the ground-floor part of the building bore upon it ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... of New York city, has patented an improved mat, which consists of longitudinal metal bars provided with alternate mortised and tenoned ends, and composed of series of sockets united by webs and of wooden transverse rods entered through said sockets and ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... the lock, and on the door-mat shewed the white square of an envelope—a note from the other woman, the one whose profile he had not remembered. She was in Paris for a time. She had seen him at the Paix, had wondered whether he had his old rooms, had driven straight up on the chance of being able to leave this—wasn't ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... 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
... outside, cleaning his gums on the mat." While a mat will do very well for overshoes, a tooth-brush and sozodont would ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... of French Catholic Liberalism, unless the purely nominal honor of minister without portfolio given to C. A. Geoffrion is to be taken as giving this representation. C. A. did not put the honor very high. "I am," he said, "the mat before the door." Tarte, a Quebecker and a Bleu, became Montreal's representative at Ottawa. Disappointment among the Liberals led first to rage and then to rage plus fear as Tarte with the magic wand of the patronage and power of the public works department, began to make over ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... coming to it," answered the groom; "that little glass door on my right hand. Steph's a good-natured fellow, and always leaves his door unfastened when old Mat is out late. The room he sleeps in was once a lobby, and opens into the passage; so it comes very convenient to Brook. Everybody likes old Mat Brook, you see; and there isn't one amongst us would peach if he got ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... with dry cattle-dung, and spread a native mat on the ground, close to the smoke, upon which I could sleep if the mosquitoes would allow me. I lay as close to the smoke as possible, with a comfortable log of wood for a pillow, and pondered over the events of the day, feeling very thankful for the change of circumstances, and making plans ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... made answer when two women rushed upon the Prophet and dragged him away crying, "Yamout, Mat: he is dying! he is dead!" As the Prophet was pulled away he turned to me mildly and said, "Yâkob, inker, Arise, James." I inquired where he was being dragged to, and was told that the husband of the two women was just dead, and the Prophet was going to see whether ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... dead wolf. Both animals wore packs lashed on their backs by ropes of twisted hide. Then another man came along, with another brace of donkeys. Finally, a fourth man, wearing skins for covering and with a mat of beard on his cheeks and chin, appeared. His uncovered head, a bush of uncombed flaxen hair, shone whitish as he knelt beside the dead beast, a knife with a dull-gray blade in his hand, and set to work skinning the wolf with ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... series of closets, each furnished with two straight chairs on either side of a table, a carbon print of a chilly-looking cathedral, and a slice of carpet on which one was rather disappointed not to find the label, "Bath Mat." ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... find everything, too large or too small for the happy proportion of the picture, and the conveying of a just notion of the stature. The work will have to be done over, and time sacrificed, if this is not attended to. The adjustment of the head to the size of the plate (as seen from the margin of the mat), is not to be taught: everyone must bring himself, by scrutinizing practice, to mathematical accuracy; for something will be discovered in every face which can be surmounted only ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... 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
... before. He was, I should think, not less than six feet six inches high, and broad in proportion. His great arms hung down until the monstrous hands almost touched the knees. His skin was quite dark, almost negroid; and a thick, close mat of curly black hair covered his huge head like a thatch. His face was muscular, ligamentous; with great bars, ridges and whelks of flesh, especially about the jaws and on the forehead. But the eyes fascinated me. They were the eyes of a wild beast, deep-set, sullen and glaring; they ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... been the first, in all good faith, to deny it and to affirm that all his motives were altruistic. Once he looked back through the cedars. He could still see the boy hunched over, chin in fist, staring at the mat of needles. ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... reminded of Polly everywhere she looked. The mat under her feet was one that Polly had braided. A corduroy blouse hung at the foot of the bed. She remembered now that Polly had worn it the ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... arrests the march of dunes. As these heaps creep away from the sea, they generally come into regions where a greater variety of plants flourish; moreover, their sand grains become decayed, so that they afford a better soil. Gradually the mat of vegetation binds them down, and in time covers them over so that only the expert eye can recognise their true nature. Only in desert regions can the march of these heaps be maintained ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... and more differentiatingly than could any man, than could even a salt-water black or a bushman smell one. He could tell when a crocodile, hauled up from the lagoon, lay without sound or movement, and perhaps asleep, a hundred feet away on the floor mat of jungle. ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... the Glen and recognized certain landmarks. It was a somber place now—its aspect weirdly changed since the first days of our coming. Then it had been a riot of summer-time, the cliffs a mat and tangle of green that had shut us in. On this dull December evening, with its vines and shrubs and gaunt trees bare, its pointed cedars and hemlocks the only green, its dark water swirling under overhanging rocks, ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... officers, Abi, although I think that to yonder Master of the Stars who stands behind you, I should be grateful, since, had you attempted to execute this madness, but for him I might have been forced to kill you, Abi, as one kills a snake that creeps beneath his mat. Astrologer, you shall have a gift from me, for you are a wise man. It may take the place, perhaps, of one that you have lost; was it not a certain woman slave whom your master gave to you last night—after he had ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... Tempest was standing restlessly near the window. The lodge-keeper's son, with his head bound up (for he was the victim of the explosion, and I suppose, the prosecutor), was standing beside the policeman, cap in hand, on the mat. ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... and a heavy concentration of nitrate and phosphate nutrients all combine to make of the upper estuary one vast inspired pool of fertility—the whole surface of the river may be covered with a thick bright emerald mat, and boats that pass at speed leave wakes of green instead of white. The infestation may extend downstream for thirty or forty miles, in various degrees of concentration, and even if the water were bacterially safe this "bloom," as it is called, would prohibit its recreational ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... determined upon waiting until the baron should announce his readiness to depart upon the expedition; and he was as good as his word, for, in about half-an-hour afterwards, he descended to the hall, and then Mr. Leek was summoned, who came out of the bar with such a grand rush, that he fell over a mat that was before him, and saluted the baron by digging his head into his stomach, and then falling sprawling at his feet, and laying hold ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... Camperdown to—I really forget what: Mr. Green to Literature and Science delivering a most undeserved eulogium on myself, with a more rightly directed one on Arnold, Swinburne, and the old pride of Balliol, Clough: this was cleverly and almost touchingly answered by dear Mat Arnold. Then the Dean of Westminster gave the Fellows and Scholars—and then—twelve o'clock struck. We were, counting from the time of preliminary assemblage, six hours and a half engaged: fully five and a half nailed to our chairs at the table: but the ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the 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 ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... of the most respectable class; the rest, provided they do not sell roasted chestnuts, or esteras, which are a species of mat, seek a livelihood by different tricks and practices, more or less ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... had passed in freezing vigil on the landing, before it occurred to her that Bosinney had been used to leave the key of his rooms under the door-mat. She looked and found it there. For some minutes she could not decide to make use of it; at last she let herself in and left the door open that anyone who came might see she ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a house, or houses, would ruin us. We hoped therefore to have been able to purchase land, and build mat houses upon it; but we can get none properly situated. We have in consequence purchased of the Governor's nephew a large house in the middle of the town for Rs.6000, or about L800; the rent in four years would have amounted to the purchase. It consists ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... 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
... moment's precious at a time like this. But if it must be delayed until to-morrow—well, it must, I suppose. But I'll take jolly good care that nobody gets a chance to come within touching distance of the pater—bless him!—until you do come, if I have to sit on the mat before his door until morning. Here's the address on this card, Mr. Headland. When and how shall I expect to see you again? You'll ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Curious to know what they were for, I remained near her. As soon as the stones were made hot, she took them out of the fire, and gave them to an old woman, who was sitting in the hut. She placed them in a heap, laid over them a handful of green celery, and over that a coarse mat, and then squatted herself down, on her heels, on the top of all; thus making a kind of Dutch warming-pan, on which she sat as close as a hare on her seat. I should hardly have mentioned this operation, if I had thought it had no other view than to warm the old woman's backside. I rather ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... complain of, not she!) She then put a few clothes in a bundle, and, tying on her shaker, prepared to walk to Pleasant River, twelve miles distant. As she locked the door and put the key in its accustomed place under the mat, a pleasant young man drove up and explained that he was the advance agent of the Sypher's Two-in-One Menagerie and Circus, soon to appear in that vicinity. He added that he should be glad to give her ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... at the Crittendens', mother?" I asked, in a stern voice, as I walked in and interrupted mother counting the fifteenth row on a lace mat ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... woman might have passed anywhere for a witch, so wizened and weird she was, of small stature, and bent nearly double by years and rheumatism. Her small hands were withered away into claws, and her head was covered with a thick and tangled mat of hair, half dark, half grey, which gave her the look almost of the Fuegian savages who come off from the shore in their flat rafts and clamour to you for "rum" in the Straits of Magellan. Her eyes were intensely bright, and shone like hot coals in her dusky, wrinkled face. It was a raw ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... did." The minister's voice was positive. "And for that reason, dear, aren't you afraid she would not approve of Rebecca Mary's having one? Isn't it rather a delicate mat—" ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... iron pike, (which they call a pahooa,) came up to the captain, flourishing his weapon, by way of defiance, and threatening to throw the stone. The captain desired him to desist; but the man persisting in his insolence, he was at length provoked to fire a load of small shot. The man having his mat on, which the shot were not able to penetrate, this had no other effect than to irritate and encourage them. Several stones were thrown at the marines; and one of the Erees attempted to stab Mr Phillips with his pahooa, but failed in the attempt, and received from him a blow with the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... warriors could have sat in it—and robes of the buffalo, beaver, and other animals were spread about. Big Fox, Brown Bear, and The Bat sat down gravely, each upon a mat of skins, and were served by the warriors with food and drink, which the squaws had brought to the door, but beyond which they could not pass. The three Shawnee belt bearers ate and drank in silence and dignity, and they appreciated the rest and ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... 'a grandchild,' made a curtsey the shadow of Aunt Harriet's, received a nod, the shadow of that bestowed upon her, and got out of the way as soon as I could, behind my aunt's chair, where, coming unexpectedly upon three fat pug-dogs on a mat, I sat down among them and felt ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the brain, so I 'yoke' again, and next moment she is beside me. She has not exactly left her room, she gives me to understand; but suddenly a conviction had come to her that I was writing without a warm mat at my feet. She carries one in her hands. Now that she is here she remains for a time, and though she is in the arm-chair by the fire, where she sits bolt upright (she loved to have cushions on the unused chairs, ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... CHOKE-BERRY (A. nigra), with similar flowers, the berries very dark purple, was formerly confounded with the red choke-berry. But because it sometimes elects to live in dry ground its leaves require no woolly mat on the underside to absorb vapors arising from wet retreats. No wonder that the insipid little berries. related to apples, pears, and other luscious fruits, should share with a cousin, the mountain ash, or rowan, the ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... dwelling as well as a shop was indicated when a bare and hairy arm was thrust from a side window and the refuse in a smoking iron spider was dumped upon the snow. Simultaneously it was shown that more than one person tenanted the building: a man, bareheaded, but with a shaggy mat of roached hair that served in lieu of a hat, issued from the door. The wanton luxuriance of the hair would have stirred envy in any baldheaded man; but Tasper Britt exhibited a passion that was more virulent ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... 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 curiously carved. The pieces were ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan |
