"Matter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sitting-room, continued through the bedroom, the kitchen, the granary, the stable, and the chicken-coop, and was completed by the pig-house. The Dutchman, his wife, and their daughters could go back and forth from the best room to the beasts without leaving its cover. So, no matter how deep the snow was, the cattle never lacked for fodder, the hens for feed, or the hogs for their mash, a boiler of which, sour and fumy, cooked winter and summer upon the kitchen stove; and, when the fiercest of blizzards was blowing, the family ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... overhand stroke. She got very expert, and had decided she'd swim regularly, and even had Charlie Sands show her the Australian crawl business so she could go over some time and swim the Channel. It was a matter of breathing and of changing positions, she said, and was up to intelligence ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... is the matter?" asked his papa, as he looked in the back of the shiny dishpan to see if ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... tired of fighting against the boisterous wind which almost tore his breath away, he entered this dark wood with a vague sense of relief,—it offered some sort of shelter, and if the trees attracted the lightning and he were struck dead beneath them, what did it matter after all! One way of dying was as good ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... matter with me is," she said, "that I cannot collect my thoughts, and am unable to grasp the meaning of what you said to-day in church—that there are so many wicked people, and that they should burn eternally. Alas! eternally—how long! I am only a woman and a sinner before ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... save nothing if I can bring my stomach to carry the burden with a willing hand. I'll eat mild and calm, but steadfast. Brick Willock he says, 'Better starve all at once, when there's nothing left, than starve a little every day,' says Brick. 'When it's a matter of agony,' says ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... in your pocket you will run no risk of finding yourself in a state of absolute destitution, which, I know, you will regard as a degradation—so should I, for that matter. The person to whom you will present it generally has two or three respectable places depending ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... will regulate his bodily habit and training, and so far will he be from yielding to brutal and irrational pleasures, that he will regard even health as quite a secondary matter; his first object will be not that he may be fair or strong or well, unless he is likely thereby to gain temperance, but he will always desire so to attemper the body as to preserve the ...
— The Republic • Plato
... fits in beautifully,' said Mrs. Brown-Smith. 'Just let me look at the page of Bradshaw again.' Merton handed to her a page of closely printed matter. '9.17 P.M., 9.50 P.M.' read Mrs. Brown-Smith aloud; 'it gives plenty of time in case of delays. Oh, this is too delicious! You are sure that these trains won't be altered. It might ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... of University College Hospital, received a letter, with the signature of 'Rebecca' attached, declaring it to be the intention of herself and others to remove the 'obstruction called a gate' on the following night. Mr. Hill, thinking the matter a joke, took no notice of the circumstance; but, to his astonishment, early in the morning following the night on which the threatened attack was promised, he was awakened by the night porter, who informed him that the gate (a large wooden ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... was the production of money that he should use to pay his debts, which might become an accusation against which it would be difficult to defend himself. In any case, he must be ready to explain his position. And what might complicate the matter was, that Caffie, a careful man, had probably taken care to write the numbers of his bank-notes in a ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... surveyors, is saved by those who receive it, and becomes capital again: but what is laid out in the bona fide construction of the railway itself is lost and gone; when once expended, it is incapable of ever being paid in wages or applied to the maintenance of laborers again; as a matter of account, the result is, that so much food and clothing and tools have been consumed, and the country has got a ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... the vast face of the desert was a different matter; and Anstice gazed steadily ahead in an as yet fruitless attempt to make out what this thing which appeared to ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... plantation near the canal, where Gen. Marion now lay, with many prisoners, and without the loss of a man. In his letter of the 10th of August, 1781, noted above, Gen. Greene writes to Marion, "you will see by Col. Harden's letter, the enemy have hung Col. Hayne; do not take any measure in the matter towards retaliation, for I do not intend to retaliate on the tory officers, but the British. It is my intention to demand the reasons of the colonel's being put to death, and if they are unsatisfactory, as I am sure they ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... have now said be not sufficient to deter a man from suffering any consideration, no matter what, to induce him to delegate the care of his children, when very young, to any body whomsoever, nothing that I can say can possibly have that effect; and I will, therefore, now proceed to offer my advice with regard to the management ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... 'spirits' above and by the ghosts below, that he had sent no such message. At the same time the King confessed being partly to blame, as the message had been delivered by his own servant. In the matter of the 'Gold Axe,' however, the mistake was the mistake of the ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... her three rings and a charm with a cross on it, and then put her in a cottage in the forest, thinking to hide the matter securely. ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... and still is, in the Border counties, in Cornwall, and also in Wales. In other parts of England, it is used mostly for malting purposes. It is less nutritive than wheat; and in 100 parts, has of starch 79, gluten 6, saccharine matter 7, husk 8. It is, however, a lighter and less stimulating food than wheat, which renders a decoction of it well adapted for invalids whose digestion ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... ample room for a diversity of opinion among the Greeks themselves; on which side Greece's political interests lay was largely a matter of individual opinion. The chief, and probably the only, reason why there was any popular feeling in favor of the Allies was because they were opposed to the Bulgarians, whom the Greeks hate in ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... 'Wise art thou now, foster-father, but thou shalt be wiser yet in this matter by then a month hath worn: and to-morrow shalt thou know enough to set ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... he saw that it was time, he called a p'liceman, And exclaimed, "Oh, I have broken the Tsar's peace, man. I've killed my wife!—I did it in a fury— But I wish the matter brought before a jury." And the jury, after hearing all the case, Said, "Not Guilty. We'd have done it in his place." And he lately, in a Russian railway carriage, Told Count TOLSTOI all the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... conscience in the matter is clear, and who has never felt that he had received a pound from Hiram's will to which he was not entitled, has naturally taken the part of the church in talking over these matters with his friend, the bishop, ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... more states concerning boundary, jurisdiction or any other cause whatever; which authority shall always be exercised in the manner following. Whenever the legislative or executive authority or lawful agent of any state in controversy with another shall present a petition to congress, stating the matter in question and praying for a hearing, notice thereof shall be given by order of congress to the legislative or executive authority of the other state in controversy, and a day assigned for the appearance of the parties by their lawful ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... a call on your benevolence, my friend. Now, as a matter of Christian charity, how cheap could you afford to let him go, to oblige a young lady that's particular sot ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... It was no easy matter to light a fire, but Ross and Sol at last accomplished it with flint, steel and dry splinters cut from the under side of fallen logs. Then when the blaze had taken good hold they heaped more brushwood upon it and never were heat and warmth ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... ordeine within this land. Also after that Melitus, and the other before mentioned persons were departed from Rome, he sent a letter vnto the same Melitus, being yet on his way toward Britaine, touching further matter concerning the [Sidenote: Bearing with them that had newlie receiued the faith, whereof superstition grew and increased.] churches of England, wherein he confesseth that manie things are permitted to be vsed of the people latelie brought from the errors of gentilitie, in keeping ...
— Chronicles 1 (of 6): The Historie of England 5 (of 8) - The Fift Booke of the Historie of England. • Raphael Holinshed
... listen. I thanked him for his offer, but assured him I would pay his usual price for the work. Mrs. Blake, however, stipulated that she and her neighbors would relieve him of all but the coat, and I could see he was not pleased with her interference. This matter settled, I hastened home, very uncertain how Mr. Winthrop would regard so much of my time being spent on the Mill Road, if he should discover I had been there twice that day. When I got home Mrs. Flaxman told me ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... and brought before one of the Judges of the city to show cause why he held him a slave in Pennsylvania, contrary to the laws of the State, that he should lack neither friends nor money to aid him in the matter; and, moreover, his freedom would be ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... He supposed that it must be the brandy that made it so difficult for him to discern exactly why he was to go to Herr von Lohm instead of to the person principally concerned, the person who had treated him so scandalously; but Herr Dellwig knew best, of course, and judged the matter quite dispassionately. Certainly Herr von Lohm, as an insolently happy rival, ought in mere justice to be annoyed a little; and if the annoyance reached such a pitch of effectiveness as to make him break off the engagement, why then—there ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... man. Looking and listening, with his contempt for them plainly in his face, and yet a dread of their wild fanaticism in his heart, Pilate's ear catches that word Galilee. "Is the man a Galilean?" "Yes." Well, here's an easy way of getting rid of the troublesome matter. Herod, the ruler of Galilee, was in the city at his palace, come to attend the festival. It would be a bit of courtesy that he might appreciate to refer the case to him, and so it would be off his own hands. And so the ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... first, then, to take a general view of the matter, that history as cited in witness against the Christian Revelation, divides itself into two main branches. The one is a critical examination of Christianity, taken by itself—the authorship, and the authenticity of its sacred books, and the origin and growth of its doctrines. ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... the line, was no niggard in the matter of shot, and though he had no real business to come within range until called by signal, still he thought it his duty to be as near to our ships engaged as possible, in order to afford them assistance when required. I was stationed at ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... distance some few persons were idly discussing what was also on Penhallow's mind. Here he turned on his foster-brother, and said, "You set that house on fire. I could get out of your mother enough to make it right to arrest you, but I will not bring her into the matter. Others suspect you. Now, what have you ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... doubt or dispute; and I must leave you to consider the subject at your leisure. But henceforward I tell you plain facts, which admit neither of doubt nor dispute by any one who will take the pains to acquaint himself with their subject-matter. ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... We cannot call it accident—it was the result of forces and events which had long been converging toward this end. Samuel Clemens began his career as an itinerant, tramping "jour" printer. He wrote for the papers on which he served as printer; and he actually read the matter he set up in type. By observation on his travels, by study of the writing of others, Clemens acquired information, knowledge of life, and ingenuity of expression. He hadn't served his ten—years' apprenticeship as a printer for nothing. In the process of setting up tons of good ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... eh? Well, we'll go into the matter at our leisure. Meantime I object to my privacy being broken in upon by the clumsy rural policeman. Go into my study, and you will see two doors facing you. Take the one on the left and close it behind you. You will ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... east) stretched upon a flock bed, in a miserable apartment, unable to protect her from the inclemencies of the weather. It is not to be supposed that the old gentleman was ignorant of what passed, though he affected to know nothing of the matter, and pretended to be very much surprised, when one of his grandchildren, by his eldest son deceased, who lived with him as his heir apparent, acquainted him with the affair; he determined therefore to observe no medium, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... times. Amotto may be emblematical, or it may have some allusion to the person bearing it, or to his name and armorial insignia; or it may be the epigrammatic expression of some sentiment in special favour with the bearer of it. As a matter of course, allusive mottoes, like allusive arms, afford curious examples of medival puns. Igive a few characteristic examples:—"Vero nil verius" (nothing truer than truth, or, no greater verity than in Vere)—VERE; "Fare, fac" (Speak—act; that ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell
... Saint-Beuve gave him in French letters is that of the greatest writer of classic verse after Racine and Boileau. The operatic story is all fiction, more so, indeed, than that of "Madame Sans-Gene." As a matter of fact, the veritable Chenier was thrown into prison on the accusation of having sheltered a political criminal, and was beheaded together with twenty-three others on a charge of having engaged in a conspiracy ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... her friend's face. The look of impassivity had come back to it. "What is the matter, Constance?" she questioned anxiously. "Has ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... welfare in this world; theology in another. Theology has not yet proved that there is another world—its claims are not even based upon hearsay. It is a matter of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... Legends' have been called an English naturalization of the French metrical contes; but Barham owes nothing to his French models save the suggestion of method and form. Not only is his matter all his own, but he has Anglified the whole being of the metrical form itself. His facility of versification, the way in which the whole language seems to be liquid in his hands and ready to pour into any channel of verse, was one of the marvelous ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... heat and oppression were almost beyond endurance. She felt she might be suffocated at any moment. It was like trying to breathe under a feather mattress or in a total vacuum, for that matter. ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: You all know that in the first Continental Congress we pledged to stand by Boston. If General Gage means to make war on that town, let him do it. Is there anything to say on the matter, gentlemen? ...
— History Plays for the Grammar Grades • Mary Ella Lyng
... no answer, and Olive continued, resuming her usual manner. "Come, we will not discuss this matter. All that need be decided now, is, whether or not I shall draw the sum you will require to buy your horse. I will, if you desire it; because, as you say, I have indeed no control over you. But, my dear Christal, I entreat you to pause and consider; ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... period of sexual development is or is not a physiological act; or the question whether sexual abstinence can do any harm to the health. It is true that such differences in scientific opinion are not so extensive as gravely to affect the question of the sexual enlightenment of the child. In the matter of sexual abstinence, for example, the majority of physicians are to-day agreed upon the view that such abstinence in general does no harm; and that those, if any, whose health may be unfavourably influenced by sexual abstinence, constitute at most a very small minority. In my own view, the persons ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... I, "what is the matter?" One of them informed me that a genteelly dressed man had hastily come up to him, and tapping him on ...
— The Pearl Box - Containing One Hundred Beautiful Stories for Young People • "A Pastor"
... condescendin' and unfolds a neat little diagram showin' a Broadway corner and part of the cross street. "It is a matter of three policemen and a barber shop," says he. "Here, in the basement of this hotel on the corner, is ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... to none but Janet could he have made such a communication. But in the middle of his descent he remembered suddenly of what and whom Mr. Sclater had all along been reminding him, and turned aside to Mrs. Sclater to ask her to lend him the Pilgrim's Progress. This, as a matter almost of course, was one of the few books in the cottage on Glashgar—a book beloved of Janet's soul—and he had read it again and again. Mrs. Sclater told him where in her room to find a copy, and presently he had satisfied himself that it was indeed Mr. Worldly Wiseman whom ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... needs be more than knowledge: What matter if I never know Why Aldebaran's star is ruddy, Or ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... familiarity, "I say, my dear sir, that you have done very wrong. I never met a finer nature nor one more worthy of esteem than that of Mlle. Levasseur. The incomparable beauty of her face and figure, her youth, her charm, all these deserved a better treatment. It would indeed be a matter for regret if such a masterpiece of ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... an easy thing to educate his sons at home, it was another matter to teach his daughters, and, according to a family tradition, Cassandra and Jane were dispatched at a very early age to spend a year at Oxford with Mrs. Cawley, a sister of Dr. Cooper—a fact which makes it likely that their cousin, Jane Cooper, was also of the party. Mrs. Cawley was the widow ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... Alexander should meet him, each at the head of his army, and treat concerning a peace. If the attempt at negotiation failed, then he would throw down the gauntlet from Norway and challenge the Scottish monarch to debate the matter with his army in the field, and let God, in His pleasure, ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... pension. That Swift was instigated to take up his pen against the transaction by private griefs against the Ministry is extremely probable; that the thing was not a job less so. As before, I must refer to biographers for the details of the matter; the text is what interests us here. I shall only remind the reader that Swift was fifty-seven when the 'Drapier' wrote, that Gulliver appeared about three years later, and that Swift himself expired—lunatic and miserable beyond utterance—on the 19th October ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... also the more distracting, when one felt entitled to know the lie of the land. For, Aruna apart, wasn't he becoming too deeply immersed in his Indian relations—losing touch, perhaps, with those at home? Did it—or did it not matter—that, day after day, he was strolling with Aruna, riding with Dyan, pig-sticking and buck-hunting with the royal cheetahs and the royal heir to the throne; or plunging neck deep in plans and possibilities, always in connection with those two? His mail letters ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... been alarmed on account of the absence of the English boats, and imagined that the captain, upon the supposition of the desertion of his men, would use violent means for the recovery of his loss. When the matter was explained, it was acknowledged that not a single inhabitant, or a single Englishman, had been hurt. This groundless consternation displayed in a strong light the timorous disposition of the people of the ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... war—Spain? They clutched at school memories of Columbus, Americans finding through him the way to Spain, as through him Spaniards had found the way to America. So Spain was not merely a State historic! She was still in the active world. But what did these things matter? Boats mattered: the place where the Klondykers were caught, this Minook, mattered. And so did the place they wanted to reach—Dawson mattered most of all. By the narrowed habit of long months, Dawson was ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... Sublimities enquire into this matter. After suppressing all violent action[337], placing the holy Gospels in the midst of the Court, and calling in three honourable persons agreed upon by the parties, as assessors, decide with their help upon the matter according to ancient law, due reference being had to ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... ourselves against a misapprehension. We moderns look askance at the writer who borrows without acknowledgment the thoughts and phrases of his forerunners, but the Roman critics of the Augustan Age looked at the matter from a different point of view. They regarded the Greeks as having set the standard of the highest possible achievement in literature, and believed that it should be the aim of every writer to be faithful, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... for a hundred years, led the van in inventions of all kinds, and though to many persons patent specifications may be the driest of all dry reading, there is an infinitude of interesting matter to be found in those documents. Much of the trade history of the town is closely connected with the inventions of the patentees of last century, including such men as Lewis Paul, who first introduced spinning by rollers, and a machine for the carding ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... "Pooh, that doesn't matter, we just take some old dresses—there isn't anybody to see you, especially down at the creek. You know it's private ground and the trees hang over the pool all around so the sun only comes in a little bit. We'll get Marian to ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... seem necessary, to describe more fully the method of traveling which we adopted. I add them the more willingly, as it is my belief that many, whose circumstances are similar to mine, desire to undertake the same romantic journey. Some matter-of-fact statements may be to them useful as well ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... caught and fastened up. They darkened my daylight with that smoking monster yonder, and killed my peace of mind with such a horrid din and clang, I've not a morsel of energy left. I'm a factory slave; and so are you, too, for that matter, now! Don't start; it's not my fault—the way that you were going on, you would have brought up in the Pond below, where there is yet another smoking monster; only worse than this of mine. The Pond there is a horrid fellow; poisoning with some horrid purple dye: I've ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... what will be the result? If the King of Persia hears of it, and it is sure to reach his ears sooner or later, it will go badly with you, Nehemiah. The best thing you can do is to consent to meet me, and we will talk the matter over and see what can be done to prevent this report ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... back over the field of illusion as a whole, we may see the same thing. The day-dreams in which some people are apt to indulge respecting the remote future have little effect on their conduct. So, too, a man's general view of the world is often unrelated to his daily habits of life. It seems to matter exceedingly little, in general, whether a person take up the geocentric or the heliocentric conception of the cosmic structure, or even whether he adopt an optimistic or pessimistic view of life and ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... flat, prosaic routine of matter-of-fact; and sleep itself, erst so prolific of numerical configurations and mysterious stimulants to lottery-adventure, will be disfurnished of its figures and figments. People will cease to harp upon the one lucky number suggested ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... procure in the country. When we expressed our gratitude and unwillingness to be so great a burden on him, he smiled. "What is the use of property, unless to do good with it?" he remarked. "Do not say a word about the matter. When you reach home, should the obligation weigh too heavily on your conscience, you can send me back the value; but I then shall be the loser, as it will show me that you will not believe in the friendship which induces me to bestow these trifles ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... 'he must be ugly! You must know that I can't bear to look at a sexton! But it doesn't matter. I know that it is the Devil, and I sha'n't mind! I feel up to it now. But he must not come ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... and then he gave the matter no further thought, for something came up that needed ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... heard that every one deteriorated in Southern California, and after the first year I began earnestly searching my soul for signs of slackening. Perhaps my soul is naturally easy-going, for somehow I can't feel that the things we let slip matter so greatly. ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... ruling faction, if, through but one opinion conscientiously held, he risks the vague possibility of mistrust or of suspicion, he undergoes popular hostility, pillage, exile, and worse besides; no matter how loyal his conduct may be, nor how loyal he may be at heart, no matter that he is disarmed and inoffensive; it is all the same whether it be a noble, bourgeois, peasant, aged priest, or woman; and this while public ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... sent to Ireland. Would you believe that the town is a desert'! The wedding filled it, the coronation crammed it; Mr. Pitt's resignation has not brought six people to London. As they could not hire a window and crowd one another to death to see him give up the seals, it seems a matter of perfect indifference. If he will accuse a single man of checking our career of glory, all the world will come to see him hanged; but what signifies the ruin of a nation, if no ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... some phenomenal attraction for the sunlight, for, no matter where they sat, a beam brighter than the rest always shone on them; and, when they got up, I noticed that it always followed them, accompanying them from room to room and ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... looking out of the window into the street below, "but if so it will be for the first time. The authors all send me there. I fancy that many of them would have liked to accompany me, but for the little matter ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... unbounded, unwavering faith in the ultimate success of his system. It may seem strange that great effort was required to introduce a light so manifestly convenient, safe, agreeable, and advantageous, but the facts are matter of record; and to-day the recollection of some of the episodes brings a fierce glitter into the eye and keen indignation into the voice of the man who has come so ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... say to the merchant? He took the cool, calculating villain by the throat, and cried, 'Write me out, in your round, clerkly hand, a full avowal of your guilt in this matter, or I'll strangle you!' The merchant knew he would, so he wrote this document with trembling fingers, and he signed it ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Cautious and Prudent Nature, said: "I will not Take Hold of this Matter until I have Carefully Examined it in All its Aspects and Inquired into ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... certain that the matter could not interest a British officer, except in his desire to see a ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... seed which will produce plants that come up year after year? Why not have some hardy perennials and some self-sowing annuals? Poppy and cornflower sow themselves. These are annuals. Think of the perennials, which come year after year to welcome us. I think you should have hardy matter in your gardens. Peonies come up year after year, iris takes care of itself, helianthus or perennial sunflower ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... according to his crotchet, that's my maxim," submitted Bowers as they threshed the matter ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... ship in the sky. What is it? It is man, who has burst the bonds that held him to earth and risen into the clouds. It is matter soaring ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... you! May coins fall into your coffee and the finest wines and wittles lie smilingly about your path, with a kind of dissolving view of fine scenery by way of background; and may all speak well of you—and me too for that matter—and generally all things be ordered unto you totally regardless of expense and with a view to nothing in the world but enjoyment, edification, and a portly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... presupposing his intelligence. This honor, which is possible in personal intercourse scarcely twice in a lifetime, genius perpetually pays; contented, if now and then, in a century, the proffer is accepted. The indicators of the values of matter are degraded to a sort of cooks and confectioners, on the appearance of the indicators of ideas. Genius is the naturalist or geographer of the supersensible regions, and draws on their map; and, by acquainting us with new fields of activity, cools our affection for the old. These are at once accepted ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... 'Well, as a matter of fact, although I have known you for over nine years, it has never before occurred to me to notice that you are an—an—exceedingly pretty ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... her early friend induced Marie de Medicis to make, in this instance, a most unbecoming concession, is certain; while it is no less matter of record that, probably to prevent any opportunity of retractation on the part of Madame de Verneuil, she lavished upon her from that day the most flattering marks of friendship, and publicly treated her with a distinction which was envied by many of the greatest ladies at Court, even ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... says he made this circumstance a matter of much research and inquiry, and fully believes that to William Coleman belongs the credit for so useful and ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... its relation to social welfare and human progress has been made the subject-matter of a special science, eugenics. For a criticism of the claims of eugenics as a social science see Leonard T. Hobhouse, Social Evolution and Political ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... no limit to his impudence? She had witnessed the torturing of Jessie. But Jessie was his fiancee; he had no such claim upon Mrs. Curtis. She answered, with iciness in her tone: "I could not undertake to dictate to my host in such a matter." ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... failure,—your inability to keep a promise. I had hoped you would really be of some help to Sister Theresa; you quite deceived her,—she told me as she left to-day that she thought well of you, —she really felt that her fortunes were safe in your hands. But, of course, that is all a matter of past history now.” ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... mused a moment and said something about the "Leicester possibility," which I knew to be an impossibility, and before I left him he had determined to allow the matter to drop for the present. "I am making a damned pretty mess of the whole affair, I ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... animals are generally in all ages bigger than their biggest terrestrial rivals, and most people lump all our big existing cetaceans under the common and ridiculous title of whales, which makes this vast and varied assortment of gigantic species seem all reducible to a common form. As a matter of fact, however, there are several dozen colossal marine animals now sporting and spouting in all oceans, as distinct from one another as the camel is from the ox, or the elephant from the hippopotamus. ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... Aberdeen side of the Cabinet has been greatly to blame, but the system is the root of the whole evil; if they don't tear up the system they may tear up the Aberdeens 'world without end,' and not better the matter; if they do tear up the system, then shall we all have reason to rejoice at these disasters, apart from our sympathy with individual sufferings. More good will have been done by this one great shock to the heart of England ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... This view of the matter increases the interest of the ruins immensely, besides being very complimentary to the style of building practised by "the ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... own expense, in the expedition. This application met with a refusal, and it was not until the 1st of August 1898 that the Foreign Office replied to a subsequent appeal that the Sirdar would gladly accept their proffer. Had the matter been settled in June, instead of August, there could have been three hospital ships plying, enough to transport every sick soldier by water. By the 6th of September the "Mayflower" was ready with a crew and a complement of nurses. The army provided their own medical staff, the Society ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... endeavouring to make it less so from day to day, and hope very shortly to bring it into that humdrum groove which best befits a married man. Should I ask further assistance from you in doing this, perhaps you will not refuse it if I can succeed in making the matter clear to you. As it is I thank you sincerely for what you have done. I will ask you to pay the L3000 you have so kindly promised, to my account at Messrs. Hunky and Sons, Lombard Street. They are not regular bankers, but I ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... who thus placed the religion of the State on a comparatively high level of ritualistic decency, if not of theological subtlety. The Romans themselves attributed the work to a priest-king, Numa Pompilius, and probably their instinct was a right one. Names matter little in such matters; but there is surely something in the universal Roman tradition of a great religious legislator, something too, it may be, in the tradition that he was a Sabine, a representative of the community on the ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... except their chief or king, to whom they give twenty. The women seem to me to work more than the men. I have not been able to learn whether they have any property of their own. It seems to me that what one possessed belonged to all, especially in the matter of eatables. I have not found in those islands any monsters, as many imagined; but, on the contrary, the whole race is well formed, nor are they black as in Guinea, but their hair is flowing, for they do not dwell ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... these observations, the surface only of the matter is touched. I once heard a conversation, in which the Roman Catholic religion was decried on account of its abuses: 'You cannot deny, however,' said a lady of the party, repeating an expression used by Charles II., ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Andrews. "There's no doubt about it." He was very calm now; he spoke as if he were discussing the most commonplace matter in the world. ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... The cruelty of which he had been an unwilling witness, the coarse and ruffianly behaviour of Squeers even in his best moods, the filthy place, the sights and sounds about him, all contributed to this state of feeling; but when he recollected that, being there as an assistant, he actually seemed—no matter what unhappy train of circumstances had brought him to that pass—to be the aider and abettor of a system which filled him with honest disgust and indignation, he loathed himself, and felt, for the moment, as though the mere consciousness of his present situation must, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... to understand that," retorted the Lonesome Duck. "But I might tell you, as a matter of education, that a home of any sort should be beautiful to those who live in it, and should not be intended to please strangers. The Diamond Palace is my home, and I like it. So I don't care a quack whether YOU like it ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... name. We seem to be strangers to-night; but, indeed, names and ceremonies matter nothing when the mind is in trouble. How soon shall we reach ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... they had money in their own hands, would they not learn to take care of it?-I don't know. I think it would be rather a difficult matter to learn some ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... thought quietly over the matter, And learnt the good lesson, 'No prize can be won By thinking and wishing, by waiting and chatter!' And soon she jumped up and to ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... back, that Mrs. Croly was then leaving a message with me for all clubwomen. I never heard her speak so eloquently. We talked of some of the problems of the General Federation—its possible disruption. Mrs. Croly said: "It does not matter; if anything happens that the General Federation should be disrupted, another will be formed at once." She had absolute faith, if not in a Divine Providence, that there was a possibility it was part of the human scheme of development that must be carried on through the ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... the English to a point of morals on which the American conscience is apt to suffer more or less anguish if it offends. So far as I know they do not think it wrong to take money won at any game; but possibly their depravity in this matter rather comforted us than offended. At any rate, I am sure of the superiority of our own morals in visiting Monte Carlo after we left Genoa. If we did not look forward with our Englishman's complacency to the nice little church there, we ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... matter. I accepted my present relation; and I mean to abide the contract. Oh, my friend! you know not the pain I feel in thus speaking, even to you. This is a subject over which I drew the veil of what I thought to be eternal silence. You have pushed it aside—not roughly, ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... sleep was broken, and she sometimes talked to herself, whether consciously or unconsciously they did not know. The doctor had no remedies but tonics—he did not understand the case; but he gently ventured the opinion that it was mostly a matter of race, that she was pining because civilisation had been infused into ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... laid his hand on Richard's bridle. "Mr. Clare," said he, "I have no wish to talk metaphysics over this matter. You had better say no more. I know that your feelings are not of an enviable kind, and I am therefore prepared to be good-natured with you. But you must be civil yourself. You have done a shabby deed; you are ashamed of it, and you wish ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... elementary knowledge of what he presides over, most generals are amateurs and improvisers. (30) I do not at all suppose that you are one of that sort. I believe you could give as clear an account of your schooling in strategy as you could in the matter of wrestling. No doubt you have got at first hand many of your father's "rules for generalship," which you carefully preserve, besides having collected many others from every quarter whence it was possible to pick up any knowledge which would be of use to a future general. Again, I feel sure you ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... "What's the matter with her? There is nobody in the room, I see nothing! What can frighten her to that extent? ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... remains that every neurosis is the fulfilment of a wish,—a distorted, unrecognized, unsatisfactory fulfilment to be sure, but still an effort to satisfy desire. As Frink remarks, "A neurosis is a kind of behaviour." We always choose the conduct we like. It is a matter of choice. Does not this answer our question as to why some people always take unhealthy suggestions? If we take the bad one, it is because it serves the need of ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... been guided by the heavenly vision of the True Cross, so now Elene would journey to the land of the Jews and find the reality of that Holy Cross. Her will and that of her son were one in this matter, so that before long the whole city resounded with the bustle and clamour of preparation, for Elene was to travel with the pomp and retinue befitting the mother of ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... after present fashion. The use culminates in Kamar al-Zaman II. where it is mentioned six times (Nights cmlxvi. cmlxx. cmlxxi. twice; cmlxxiv. and cmlxxvii.), as being drunk after the dawn-breakfast and following the meal as a matter of course. The last notices are in Abdullah bin ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... matter, sir, especially if you go down and change at once; the mud will come out easy enough if I leave them in a bucket of fresh water ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... consideration for our feelings and thoughts did not exist on this earth we would never know the depths of the love of our friends. There would be no such thing as an earthly reward of merit. We know that no matter what happens to us in the battle of life there will be someone to cheer us on our way. We may be strong and thoroughly able to rely upon ourselves but there comes a time when we need friendship and sympathy. Society would crumble into dust without these influences. The family ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... write down, and here we shall have our own home, as usual. I shall not have to be separated from Ernest, and shall have leisure to devote to two very interesting people who must stay in town all the year round, no matter who goes out of it. I mean dear Mrs. Campbell and Miss Clifford, who both attract me, ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... surrounded with the countless mysteries of everyday experience, all the evidences of the unimaginable stimulus we call life. Would you take them away? Would you resolve life into a disease of the ether—a disease of which you and I, all life and all matter, are symptoms? Would you teach that to the child, and explain to him that the wonder of life and growth is no wonder, but a demonstrable result of impeded force, to be evaluated by the application of an ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... a strange smile, a fine gesture of scorn. "Marry you, loving you not! That will I never do. Protector! That is a word I have grown to dislike. My name! It is a slight thing. What matter if folk look askance when it is only Darden's Audrey? And there are those whom an ill fame does not frighten. The schoolmaster will still give me books to read, and tell me what they mean. He will not care, nor the drunken minister, nor Hugon.... ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... out? Does it look high? does it look large? does it look impressive? You cannot but feel that there is not a vestige of any kind or species of truth in that horizon; and that, however artistical it may be, as giving brilliancy to the distance, (though, as far as I have any feeling in the matter, it only gives coldness,) it is, in the very branch of art on which Claude's reputation chiefly rests, aerial perspective, hurling defiance to nature in ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... suppression of all freedom to try new social experiments and reform obsolete institutions, in snobbery, jobbery, idolatry, and an omnipresent tyranny in which his doctor and his schoolmaster, his lawyer and his priest, coerce him worse than any official or drill sergeant: no matter: it is respectable, says the German, therefore it must be good, and cannot be carried too far; and everybody who rebels against it must be a rascal. Even the Social-Democrats in Germany differ from the rest only in carrying academic ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... become on occasion warm cooperation between the two systems of courts. In Ponzi v. Fessenden,[699] the matter at issue was the authority of the Attorney General of the United States to consent to the transfer on a writ of habeas corpus of a federal prisoner to a State court to be there put on trial upon indictments there pending against him. The Court, speaking by Chief Justice Taft, while conceding ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... matter, Burr, are you sick?" she said, in her quiet voice. She was sitting in a rocking-chair in the sun with her knitting-work. She swayed on gently as she spoke, and her long, delicate fingers still slipped the yarn ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... new. I'll go over to your house and alter it for you. Then with a white cape of Bishop's lawn, and a white cap and apron, we'll make you into the most charming little Quaker maiden imaginable. The character will just suit you, because you suit it. That matter is settled. Go home now and go to bed, and you mustn't dream ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... "It was a simple matter to send Schulte a letter in return, agreeing to his terms, and to have the payment made, as desired, into the bank he mentioned. His communication in reply to this was duly stopped. The address he gave was that of a house situated ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... movement which I have thus indicated seemed to give the Master new confidence in his audience. He turned over several pages until he came to a part of the interleaved volume where we could all see he had written in a passage of new matter in red ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... patterns are drawn for tent stitch, so that if you work in cross stitch, and wish to have it the same size as the pattern, you must count twenty stitches on the canvas, for ten on the paper. The choice of colors, for these patterns, is a matter of essential importance as the transition from shade to shade, if sudden and abrupt, will entirely destroy the beauty of the design. A natural succession of tints, softly blending into each other, ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous
... "Well, yes, as a matter of fact I go when I can. I think it gives her pleasure to see anyone from the old days. She's in a home for such things in London. Her father lodges round the corner to be near her. It's awful to see him. You know how he ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... state of mind had become is matter for exorbitant conjecture. Jane, arriving at his locked door upon an errand, was bidden by a thick, unnatural voice ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... was, therefore, brought up in a Christian manner. From the time she was seven years old she was taught by a Gray sister from Auvergne to whom the Sauviats had done some kindness in former times. Both husband and wife were obliging when the matter did not affect their pockets or consume their time,—like all poor folk who are cordially ready to be serviceable to others in their own way. The Gray sister taught Veronique to read and write; she also taught her the history of the people of God, the catechism, the Old ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... branches are mingled with long extension shoots; there seems, however, no regular alternation between the short and the long shoots, at any rate the rationale of their production is not understood, though in all probability a little observation of the growing plant would soon clear the matter up. ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... without hats or shoes, or a complete covering to their bodies. But that we had at last reached the terminus of a long and laborious march, attended with hardships, exposure, and privation rarely suffered, was a matter of such heartfelt congratulation, that these comparatively trifling inconveniences were not thought of. Men never, probably, in the entire history of military transactions, bore these privations with more ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... "No matter. I send it abroad—I have friends, great Rabbis, great scholars, everywhere, who send me their learned manuscripts, their commentaries, their ideas, for revision and improvement. Let the Anglo-Jewish ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... matter in the least, Frank," Lady Greendale said. "We know how she looks when she is at her best. We shall enjoy a quiet sail in her just as much as if ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... came soon after daylight in full war-costume armed with rifles and tomahawks. Mrs. Van Alstine begged her husband not to show himself but to leave the matter in her hands. The Indians took their course to the stables when they were met by the daring woman alone and asked what they wanted. "Our horses," replied the marauder. "They are ours," she said boldly, "and we mean ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... is, however, contradicted by Major Hallet's great success in improving wheat by the selection of the finest grains. It is possible, however, that man, by long-continued selection, may have given to the grains of the cereals a greater amount of starch or other matter, than the seedlings can utilise for their growth. There can be little doubt, as Humboldt long ago remarked, that the grains of cereals have been rendered attractive to birds in a degree which is highly injurious to the species.) ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... apple-tree. "Last night, it slipped down quite gently to the underside of the branch; and, for that matter, it does ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald |
