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Flatly   /flˈætli/   Listen
Flatly

adverb
1.
In an unqualified manner.  Synonyms: categorically, unconditionally.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Flatly" Quotes from Famous Books



... thy horse and out of my reach, thou wouldst not dare say that to me, thou cuckold dupe of the Americans!" sneered the Indian. This insult to my companion angered me, and I demanded a retraction and an apology therefor from the Indian. When the macho flatly refused and repeated the insult in a more aggravating manner, I replied that I feared not to meet him or any other goatherding Indian and was ready to ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann

... we see that Jesus does not rail against them, nor flatly deny their base assertion that He does His miracles by the power of the Devil, but shows how logically false must be their statement. And then, with grave authority, and, I think, with solemn tenderness in His voice and in His eyes, He adds, "Verily I say unto you, All sins shall ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... conceal the glimmer of the oil lamps. It seems that Papa Penney was not told until an hour before the ceremony that he was to walk up the aisle with the bride on his arm and give her away. This he flatly refused to do. He considered it enough of an affliction to have the wedding in church at all, and it was not until his wife had given her first exhibition of fainting, and Fannie had cried her eyes red, that he ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... I flatly opposed the idea of Frank Hawden going with me. He would make a mull of the whole thing. It was no use arguing with grannie and impressing upon her the fact that I was not the least nervous concerning the horses. ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... Mr. Waddington said to himself that he knew women, and that if he were a wise man, and he was a wise man, he would arrange matters so that the two should never meet. Fanny was docile, and if he said flatly that she was not to call on Mrs. ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair

... lap, and smiling secretly to herself. It did not occur to her, but if any one had told her a month before that she would be sitting alone with two interesting men, watching their relations becoming more and more strained on her account, she would have denied it flatly. Now that it was happening it seemed quite natural. It had doubtless seemed quite natural to Aunt Lucilla.... She darned on placidly, while Clarence continued his infuriating efforts to put John ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer

... naval-defence works. If they went farther, and suspected that we had tried to go to Memmert that very day, the position was worse, but not desperate; for the fear that they would take the final step and suppose that we had actually got there and overhead their talk, I flatly refused to entertain, until I should ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... household. I believe that the Duchess of Sutherland and Lady Normandy—the first the sister and the second the wife of a prominent Liberal—were especially meant; but the Queen took it that she was called on to dismiss all her ladies, and flatly refused, saying that to do so would be "repugnant to her feelings"—forgetting that feeling was no constitutional argument. She had got used to those Ladies of the Bed-Chamber, and they to her. They knew just where everything was, what colors became her, ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood

... the feeling as best I might, and returned to the cavern to get my blanket, which had been brought up from the boat with the other things. There I met Job, who, having been inducted to a similar apartment, had flatly declined to stop in it, saying that the look of the place gave him the horrors, and that he might as well be dead and buried in his grandfather's brick grave at once, and expressed his determination of sleeping with me if I would allow him. This, of course, I was ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... great a waste of time as worrying over the possibilities of the weather. The constitution of the nervous system cannot be estimated until put to the test. And when the first test has revealed to us the long-awaited secret, it is just as likely to be flatly contradicted by the second. The whole ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... regard to herself, had been prone to do anything that Mr. Gilmore would advise, as though she could make up by obedience for the want of that affection which she owed to him. Now, when she was told that she ought to consult Mr. Gilmore, she flatly refused to ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... that time I made up my mind that it would be just as well to get back to business. Accordingly I called Perdosa and directed him to sort and clear of rust the salvaged chain cable. He refused flatly. I took a step toward him. He drew his knife ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams

... visited Scotland, accompanied by her children, for the purpose, if possible, of effecting a reconciliation with her brother; but the duke flatly refused even to accord her an interview. She therefore returned to London, leaving the children in the care of a nurse at Edinburgh. This woman, who had originally accompanied herself and her husband to the continent, treated them in the kindest possible manner; but, notwithstanding ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... a congregation of shopkeepers, traders, and artisans, and his appeal to arms seemed to fall flatly on the trading mind; whilst the old incongruity between the building and the dress of the nineteenth century, was as remarkable as it is in Westminster Abbey; and the contrast between the unchivalrous ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn

... fatherless. Faith, as regards such matters, means firm belief that God will do all He has promised to do, however difficult or unlikely. But some people seem to think that faith means firm belief that God will do whatever they think would suit them, however unreasonable, and however flatly in the face of all the established laws of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... both proclamations of freedom. Europe is filled with his despatches, written at first plainly for, then lukewarmly tolerating, and, at length, flatly against, slavery. European statesmen have thus the exact measure of Mr. Seward's political character. They know that to the very last he defended slavery, and then countersigned the decree of its destruction! In Europe, self-respecting ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski

... man all worked harmoniously together, was a thought that lay too near the human heart to be uprooted by the ills and inequalities of actual life. In this the Hindu sided altogether with the Hebrew, and as flatly contradicted the unworthy speculations of the modern philosopher, who would fain persuade us that human beings have not issued from one single pair, and also, that the primitive type of men is scarcely separable from that ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... launch, in which the culprit was brought back helpless to the ship in the afternoon, noticing his condition when he tried to go up the side, ordered him to report himself to the sergeant of marines; but, Mr Macan, who was valiant in his cups, waxed indignant at this and flatly refused to obey the command, saying that he would not mind going before the commander, or the first lieutenant, or even meeting the doctor himself, though he was loth to see him for the moment with his broken promise staring him in the face; but as for going ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... or reasoning with any lust; 'tis but a preparatory for thy admission of it. The way is at the very first flatly to deny it.—FULLER. ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... written, "was very kind to me, and when I asked him for 'lessons' he refused flatly, but said he would be glad for us to 'study together,' as he put it. This rather staggered me, as my idea in leaving Paris was to get a severe and regenerating overhauling. I worked hard all winter, however, ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman

... occupy my time save making these notes every day in my office letter-book, as my store of stationery was left at Karague. I had no chance of seeing any visitors, save the tiresome pages, who asked me to give or to do something for the king every day; and my prospect was cheerless, as I had been flatly refused a visit to Usoga until Grant should come. For want of better amusement, I made a page of Lugoi, a sharp little lad, son of the late Beluch, but adopted by Uledi, and treated him as a son, which he declared ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... on the surface. All furrows, in every description of plowing, should be near enough together to move the whole, leaving no hard places between them. The usual "cut and cover" system, to get over a large area in a day, is miserable economy. The more evenly and flatly land can be turned over in plowing, the better it will be; it retards the growth of weeds, and secures a better action upon substances plowed under. An exception to deep plowing is in breaking up the original prairies of the West: they have to be broken with plows kept sharp as a knife, ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden

... character and of undoubted veracity."* Mr. Hale had three daughters, and Joe received enough encouragement to his addresses to Emma to induce him to ask her father's consent to their marriage. This consent was flatly refused. Mr. Hale made a statement in 1834, covering his knowledge of Smith and the origin of the Mormon Bible.** When he became acquainted with the future prophet, in 1825, Joe was employed by the so-called "money- ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... Flatly, I stole this play. The one valid excuse for the theft would be mental starvation. That excuse I shant plead. I could have made a dozen better plays than this out of my own head. You don't suppose Shakespeare was so vacant in the upper ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm

... Don Cossacks, had been dismissed by the Provisional Government for his complicity in the Kornilov affair. He flatly refused to resign, and surrounded by three immense Cossack armies lay at Novotcherkask, plotting and menacing. So great was his power that the Government was forced to ignore his insubordination. More than that, it was compelled formally to recognise the Council of the Union of Cossack Armies, ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed

... in the possession of a sublime and seminal thought,)—conceptions which, during these two centuries, have succeeded in overthrowing a doctrine as old as the human mind, closely interknit with the entire texture of opinions, authority, politics, and religion, and establishing a theory flatly contradicted by the universal dictates of experience and common sense, and true only to the transcendental and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... Empress—the Emperor was then dead. To my surprise Mr. Mortimer not only adhered to his resolution but suggested the propriety of my taking M. Rochefort's late lamented journal as a model for our own. This I flatly declined to do and carried my point; I was delighted to promise, however, that the new paper should resemble the old in one particular: it should be irritatingly disrespectful of existing ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... on you, Bobby," she said flatly. "You can't escape so easily as all that. If you're not very, very careful they'll have you married to the charming Miss Maud before ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... can't," said Ives flatly. "Survey traverses those boxes through second-order space. They materialize near a planet and drop in. No computation on earth or off it could trace their normal-space trajectory, let alone what happens in the second-order condition. ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn

... great a sacrifice. They argued that with the wind where it was, the fire might in all probability not extend southward at all, in which case their loss would he useless. They talked and argued the matter out for about twenty anxious minutes, and in fine flatly refused to have their houses touched, preferring to take their chance of escaping the fire to this ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... painstaking and cautious, and I soon found out that he looked askance upon any one whom his nephew might recommend. He liked the Major, but he vowed him to be a roisterer and spendthrift, and one day, some months after my advent, the Judge asked me flatly how I came to fall in with Major Colfax. I told him. At the end of this conversation he took my breath away by bidding me come to live with him. Like many lawyers of that time, he had a little house in one ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... I flatly. Then we both gave the closest attention to the end of my thumb while I triumphantly squeezed a tiny drop of blood out of it. I sucked it. The incident was closed. She was no longer interested in ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... Mr. Hunt, if you have nothing to do, frankly and flatly I have. This is not the day for such a conversation; and so good-bye to ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson

... a belief on the King's part that the validity of the marriage would be confirmed: namely the betrothal of his daughter to Orleans. This however would completely negative the activity of that patriotic motive by which Mr. Froude set so much store. Moreover, it is flatly contradicted by the letter to Anne [Footnote: L. & P., iv., 1467.] in which Henry unmistakably declares his determination to marry her: and by Wolsey's [Footnote: S. P., i., 194. Brewer, ii., 193 ff.] letter to him, stating the case for ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... knock of conviction. I will give it in the language of the original narrator—premising that opponents to the theory of serpent attraction auist knock under, or flatly contradict my tale. In the latter event, I shall be compelled to settle the question as Hodginson did his lawsuit, "by exhibiting the ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty

... would have stopped short with Presbyterianism, while others held that "new presbyter was but old priest writ large," and so pressed on to Independency. It was early in Elizabeth's reign that the zeal of these extreme brethren, inflamed by persecution, gave rise to the sect of Separatists, who flatly denied the royal supremacy over ecclesiastical affairs, and asserted the right to set up churches of their own, with pastors and elders and rules of discipline, independent of queen or bishop. [Sidenote: Puritanism was not intentionally ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... not Mr. Ladley—was talking. Mrs. Ladley broke in: "I won't do it!" she said flatly. "Why should I help him? He doesn't help me. He loafs here all day, smoking and sleeping, and sits up all night, ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... life in your solar plexus and you will return to youth. As I have said, the solar plexus is the great magnetic centre, keep it actively healthy, bathe it with sunshine. In treating the kidneys, place the palm of the hands over them flatly, and use the ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft

... over the cost of feeding, or some other specific item, but that he does not pay the whole cost, including wages for the manager is proven by two facts: First, every large broiler plant yet started has either failed flatly or shifted its main line to other things; second, egg farmers would be only too glad to buy pullets at the price for which they sell the cockerels—a confession that it costs more to produce broilers than ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings

... "Yes," he answered flatly. "Yes," he repeated, and rolled his eyes. "All for your good, you know. Of course she started by calling you names and taking the worst for granted. ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... her straw bonnet (which our contemporaries might look at with conjectural curiosity as at an obsolete form of basket) fell a little backward. She would perhaps be hardly characterized enough if it were omitted that she wore her brown hair flatly braided and coiled behind so as to expose the outline of her head in a daring manner at a time when public feeling required the meagreness of nature to be dissimulated by tall barricades of frizzed ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... some men whom to abuse is pleasant. Coleridge is not one of them. How gladly we would love the author of 'Christabel' if we could! But the thing is flatly impossible. His was an unlovely character. The sentence passed upon him by Mr. Matthew Arnold (parenthetically, in one of the 'Essays in Criticism')—'Coleridge had no morals'—is no less just than pitiless. ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell

... further affectation. 'I am SURE he will,' answered her niece flatly. 'I have not the least fear about it—nor would you, if you knew how he is. ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... statement that the sentry on "Number Five" had fired at somebody or other about half after three; that he had fired by order of the officer of the day, who was on his post at the time; and that now he flatly refused to talk ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King

... old schoolmasters and dons would have hesitated, maybe, to say flatly with Dogberry that 'to write and read comes by nature ... and for your writing and reading, let that appear when there is no need of such vanity.' But in practice their system so worked, and in some of the Public Schools so works to this day. Let me tell ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... you pay no attention to any statement of the patient which flatly contradicts the evidence of your own senses. But even where patients, through some preconceived notion, or from false ideas of shame or discredit attaching to some particular disease, are trying to mislead you, the very vigor of ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... my destiny, I went to the king early in the morning: and as a number of Bushreens were assembled, I thought this a favourable opportunity of discovering their intentions. I therefore began by begging his permission to return to Jarra, which was flatly refused; his wife, he said, had not yet seen me, and I must stay until she came to Benowm, after which I should be at liberty to depart; and that my horse, which had been taken away from me the day after I arrived should ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... with Hack's expedition, a party under Major Warburton was out in the same neighbourhood; in fact, Hack's party crossed Warburton's tracks on one or two occasions. Strange to say, the reports of the two were flatly contradictory. Warburton described the country as dry and arid; but Hack's account was distinctly favourable. Of the two men, however, it is most probable that Hack possessed the more experience and knowledge of country, and, moreover, Time, ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc

... show him common justice. While others in the Eastern Counties were adorning and enlarging with rich gifts St. Edmund's resting-place, which had become a city of refuge for many things, this Earl of Essex flatly defrauded him, by violence or quirk of law, of five shillings yearly, and converted said sum to his own poor uses! Nay, in another case of litigation, the unjust Standard-bearer, for his own profit, asserting that the cause belonged not to St. Edmund's ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... he may," said Mr Whittlestaff, very flatly. And as he said so he made up his mind that he would, for that day, postpone the task of telling Mr Hall ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... treaty of separation was drawn up by the London conference under date of November 25, 1831, under whose terms there were recognized both the independence and the neutrality of the new Belgian monarchy. William of Holland protested and flatly refused to sign the instrument. The British and French governments compelled him outwardly to acquiesce in the agreement, although it was not until April 19, 1839, that he gave it his formal assent. Embittered ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... wharves and roof-tops, all that pitiable experience and dangerous knowledge that had made him a leader and a hero among the thieves and bullies of the river-front he called to his assistance now. He faced the fact flatly and with the cool consideration of an uninterested counsellor. He knew that the history of his life was written on Police Court blotters from the day that he was ten years old, and with pitiless detail; ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... proposing that the purchase money of "The Siege of Corinth" be devoted to this good purpose. Byron, with less enthusiasm, but resigned, wrote to Murray, directing him to forward the six hundred pounds to Godwin; and Murray, having always the courage of his convictions, wrote back, flatly refusing to do anything of the kind. In the end, Byron used the money to pay his own debts, thereby disgusting ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier

... experience, while mine is a theory of "scientific realism," that is, of thought absolutely dependent upon experience. It is quite immaterial here which theory is the true one; the only point involved at present is that the two theories flatly contradict each other, and that it is self-evidently impossible that either could be "borrowed," consciously or unconsciously, from the other. If Dr. Royce had ever done any hard thinking on the theory of universals, or if he had the slightest comprehension ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot

... have exposed had the Imperial government not held his hand. When I was in Vancouver he called to see me and promised me a full exposure of the facts, but before speaking cabled for permission to speak. Permission was flatly refused, and I was told that I was investigating things altogether too deeply. I can see the secret agent's face yet—as he sat bursting with facts repressed by Imperial order—a solemn, strong, relentless man, sad and savage with the knowledge he could not use. Without Hopkinson's aid, it ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... twenty-five rouble note in his pocket and he felt ashamed at Alyosha's seeing it. He had reckoned on receiving his payment later, without Alyosha's knowing of it, and now, feeling ashamed, he lost his temper. Till that moment he had thought it discreet not to contradict Grushenka too flatly in spite of her snubbing, since he had something to get out of her. But now he, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... she seemed to be draped in some soft silky material, and though her neck and arms were bare, they were enveloped in a shimmer of tulle, which she held about her as if for protection. Her hair, parted in the middle, was flatly dressed, and held close to her small head by a little band of jewels which encircled it and crossed her low ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney

... sword hanging by a hair over him, it was this unhappy king, who knew that he was dethroned, and did not know when or by whom the divine rejection would be made visible to all men. But Samuel had faced worse dangers without a murmur; and no doubt his alarm now, which makes him venture all but flatly to refuse to obey, indicates that, to some extent, he had lost his hold of God by his indulgence in his sorrow. If he had been true to his high calling, he would have 'filled his horn,' and gone on God's errand, careless of a hundred Sauls or a hundred deaths. But it is ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... before she could buoy her spirits up with this knowledge they sank again as she perceived Dr. Moxon stalking down the long aisle, with ill-humor expressed in every motion of his bulky figure. He was frowning deeply; his great feet fell flatly upon the creaking planks, as if he were crushing something at every step, and he rated the occupants of the cots on either side as ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... 1920, he was flatly accused of having been an absentee from Canada during the war, employed by the Rockefeller interests and so "entangled in the octopus" that as leader of the Liberal party he would become a menace to Canada. It ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... forewarned that we read Fuller's remarkable statement about the king's change of heart. "The frequency of such forged possessions wrought such an alteration upon the judgement of King James that he, receding from what he had written in his 'Daemonology,' grew first diffident of, and then flatly to deny, the workings of witches and devils, as but falsehoods and delusions."[43] In immediate connection with this must be quoted what Francis Osborne has to say.[44] He was told, he writes, that the king would have ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... him, "His eyes seem to belong to another person." It was not this, but only that the eyes, blue as Saint Veronica's flower, showed suddenly a different aspect of the man, an unexpected tenderness that flatly contradicted the hard features of his face. He looked very nice when he laughed too, so that most people when they had found out the trick, tried to make him ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... nevertheless, for the sake of peace and quiet, offered to allow him to sell, to a man who wished to take the place, any interest he might have had in the holding, and to forgive both the arrears of the rent and the L150 which had been borrowed by him. The ex-tenant flatly refused to accept this offer, became a weekly pensioner upon the National League, and declared war. The landlord was forced to get a caretaker for the place from the Property Defence Association at a cost of L1 per week, to provide a house for a police protection party, and to ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... answer was uttered flatly, in a voice you did not argue with. "Suppose we begin all over again. ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton

... the left, in order to present an equal line to the right wing of the enemy. The order was executed, and to fill up the gap thus produced on the left of his own centre, Agis ordered the Spartan officers commanding on his right wing to bring up their men and occupy the vacant space. They, however, flatly refused to obey the order, and consequently the Sciritae and Brasideans were assailed in front and on both flanks by overwhelming numbers, and driven back with great ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... possibility of misconstruction." Directness, he said, was required in place of equivocation based on delicacy. If the Gillem Board intended black officers to command white officers and men, it should have said so flatly. If it meant the Army should try unsegregated and mixed units, it should have said so. Its report, McCloy concluded, should have put these matters beyond doubt. He was equally forthright in his rejection of the quota, which he found impractical because it deprived the Army of many qualified ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... you so!" said Lewis Fenn, nodding his. "I knew when I flatly accused Miss Fayre this morning of taking the earring, that she was the guilty one. Understand me, she didn't mean to steal. She didn't look upon it as theft. She only took a fancy to the bauble, and appropriated it without ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells

... He refused flatly. So she persuaded Deacon Flugal and several gentlemen who were on the waiting-list of her pupils ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... luck as he had himself; but Mr. Marlin had had all the good luck, while he had had all the bad luck. When he spoke of Mr. Marlin's rise from the ranks, Charley could see plainly enough that Lumley was green with jealousy. He thought he ought not to listen to such talk, and telling Lumley flatly that Mr. Marlin's industry, he was sure, was the main reason for his success, Charley turned the conversation into more agreeable channels. Finally Charley finished coupling up his instruments ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... man is not only a knave but a fool. He flatly declines the prodigious offer I have made for the corner rooms at the end of the corridor. In fact, he refuses to transfer my daughter and me from our present quarters into what might be called the royal suite if one were disposed to be facetious. ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon

... that, if she said anything at all about it, she should most like it to be used for the support of brethren who labor in the word without any salary, and who hazard their lives for the name of Christ. She wished me to have a part of the money; but this I flatly refused, lest I should be evil spoken of in this matter. I then offered to pay her travelling expenses, as she had come to me, which she would not accept, as she did not stand in need of it. In conclusion, I told her that I would now further pray respecting ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller

... Brian Taggert didn't flatly contradict the senator. "Maybe. But you know, John, there's one thing that bothers me about ...
— Psichopath • Gordon Randall Garrett

... one would better serve his turn: for his fancy and humour appear to be inexhaustible. The first thing he did, when he entered the room, was to fall down on his knees, like a child to his school-mistress, holding his hands pressed flatly together, with a piteous face and a 'Pray, pray!' I laughed, and told him he was a very bad child. His 'Pray, pray!' was repeated, with another strangely pleasant contortion of countenance. But I still answered—'No, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... "Flatly refuse to mind, do you? Well, I'll give you one lesson you won't forget!" the man reached over and gripped Bob by his shirt collar. Struggling violently, he was ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson

... word of English—the honest lawyer forgetting no doubt that his own client had just as little English as the keeper. He repeated that he hoped the court would not convict his respectable client on the evidence of these fellows, more especially as they flatly contradicted each other in one material point, one saying that words had passed between the farmer and himself, and the other that no words at all had passed, and were unable to corroborate their testimony by anything visible or tangible. If his client speared the ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... the example, the Marquis de la Sablonniere begged leave to marry another of the girls. Joutel, the gardener's son, concerned that a marquis should so abase himself, and anxious, at the same time, for the morals of the fort, not only flatly refused, but, in the plenitude of his authority, forbade the lovers all farther intercourse. ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... himself fit to be a soldier of the war-lord, had disobeyed orders; he had shown himself a mutineer, a deserter, a traitor; he had lost his patriotism and loyalty; he had dishonored the flag; he had trampled under foot all the gods that he had worshiped now for many years. He had flatly broken the only code of morals that he knew—he was a coward, a hypocrite, a mere civilian, masquerading in the uniform of an officer! Sam buried his face in his hands and the tears trickled down through his fingers. Then he sprang up and walked to ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby

... few days in the Refuge served to largely alter the tenor of Mrs. Fan's mind. The woman who took charge of her was a kind, confidence-inspiring body, with nothing of the "foreign devil" about her. She would hear no harm of the missionaries, and flatly denied that children were enticed on to the premises to be done to death by foul means, or that the foreigner's blue eye could see corpses in their coffins, or that magic incantations were used by means of which all who drank their tea ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable

... the possibility, nay actual evidence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once to flatly contradict the revealed word of God in various passages both of the Old and New Testaments." Blackstone's Commentaries (Vol. 4, ch. ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor

... but she flatly refused to enter it. Nor would she receive any one who called. The doctor remonstrated in vain. He trusted her perfectly and a glass of champagne at dinner would not hurt her. If she expected to become quite ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton

... (Jer. xviii:8-10). (44) What? (45) Are not these two texts directly contradictory? (46) Which of the two, then, would our author want to explain metaphorically? (47) Both statements are general, and each is the opposite of the other - what one flatly affirms, the other flatly, denies. (48) So, by his own rule, he would be obliged at once to reject them as false, and to ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part III] • Benedict de Spinoza

... was the least disturbed of the party. His coolness was imperturbable. He flatly denied all knowledge of the robbery, and in the strongest terms, assured his weeping and grief-stricken ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton

... community. The authorities of the colony were equal to the emergency. In answer to his lordship's announcement of his purpose "to plant and dwell," they gave him welcome to do so on the same terms with themselves, and proceeded to tender him the oath of supremacy, the taking of which was flatly against his Roman principles. Baltimore suggested a mitigated form of the oath, which he was willing to take; but the authorities "could not imagine that so much latitude was left for them to decline from the prescribed form"; ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... which was traced out, and care was taken to smooth the beds of the different courses with the knife, and to cut them so as to give the wall a slight inclination inwards, by which contrivance the building acquired the properties of a dome. The dome was closed somewhat suddenly and flatly by cutting the upper slabs in a wedge-form, instead of the more rectangular shape of those below. The roof was about eight feet high, and the last aperture was shut up by a small conical piece. The whole was built from within, and each slab was cut so that it retained its ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin

... envoy in Brussels—for there was the closest diplomatic communication between Henry III. and Philip, while each was tampering with the rebellious subjects of the other—to Malpierre Parma flatly contradicted all complicity on the part of the Spanish King or himself with the Holy League, of which he knew Philip to be the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... went away to a pleasant, quiet seaside resort. Miss Barry appeared to be ailing a little. Mrs. Minor so far relented as to invite her mother and Irene to spend two months with her at Long Branch. Mrs. Lawrence consented, Irene refused flatly. "She had no money to spend for dress, and she would accept no one's charity," she declared in her haughty way. But she could not stay in the house forever: so she took long walks over wild country ways, angry with the world, ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... throng and most of the crowd, both men and women, were the worse for drink. He easily overcame her protest that she could proceed alone and they went on to St. Paul's. Here it was comparatively quiet, and she flatly refused to permit him to accompany her ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce

... persuaded one of the cooks to climb an unusually tall cocoanut palm. The cluster of nuts at the top was fully one hundred and twenty-five feet from the ground, but that native strode up to the tree, seized it in both hands, jack-knived at the waist so that the soles of his feet rested flatly against the trunk, and then he walked right straight up without stopping. There were no notches in the tree. He had no ropes to help him. He merely walked up the tree, one hundred and twenty-five ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London

... Flatly then, the priests had proposed that some of the girls, the number to be specified later, should be given to the ape-men, and peace won. During the time of reprieve which would thus be afforded, prayers and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various

... four leagues to the north of Punta de Galle, and after some time a woman came to talk with one of our Indians who was in the boat. She said we could have no provisions: but by our desire she went to tell the men. Afterwards two men came to us, who flatly refused to let us have any thing, alleging that our nation had captured one of their boats; but it was the Hollanders not the English. The 14th, in the morning, the southern point of Ceylon, called Tanadare [Dondra], bore E.S.E. of us, some five leagues off. This point ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... about books. Louis flatly refused to take any. Marcella refused to go without some. Finally she packed the New Testament, "Parsifal" and the cookery book inside her swag. Later, opening all her books to write her name in them before ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... floundering statements of the great unknown for whose ability and popularity Mr. Wakeman strongly vouches, should not only be queried, but flatly [20] contradicted, as both untrue and uncivil. English senti- ment is not wholly represented by one man. Nor is the world ignorant of the fact that high and pure ethical tones do resound from Albion's shores. ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... to breakfast, the constraint and consternation of the Bilkins family could not have been greater. How was the astounding intelligence to be broken to Margaret? Her explosive Irish nature made the task one of extreme delicacy. Mrs. Bilkins flatly declared herself incapable of undertaking it. Mr. Bilkins, with many misgivings as to his fitness, assumed the duty; for it would never do to have the news sprung suddenly ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... good captain and Mr. Brown, the whaling-master. It seems that as soon as the matter of the two Spanish ships at Conception was mentioned to Mr. Brown he became very obstinate—and then, with many intemperate expressions and oaths, flatly refused to give up the good prospects of a whaling voyage for the sake of capturing a dozen prizes. Upon this Captain Duck reminded him that he, being only whaling-master, had nought to do with the matter; that it was his duty to aid in making the voyage a success, but that if they failed to ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke

... that sort, Professor Lemm, we will have to dispense with your services in this school," announced Colonel Colby flatly. He was growing weary of the ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer

... wish, he said, had been a mere foolish vanity; they had need of money, and he intended to sell both the library and collection, and when, for the first time in her life, she spoke bitterly, in scorn and anger of his faithlessness, he told her flatly it was useless to bandy words for he had sold them already, and they were to be removed ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... appreciative cackle. Le ffacase turned the deathray of his left eye on him. "Youre a syncophant, Gootes," he stated flatly, "a miserable groveling lowlivered cringing fawning mealymouthed ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... But I flatly refused to go. But she knew I was tempted. It's only curiosity on her part," he added, with a sort of hot, angry boyishness. "She can't make me out, and I didn't call. That's ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... early in the morning; and as a number of bushreens were assembled, I thought this a favourable opportunity of discovering their intentions. I therefore began by begging his permission to return to Jarra, which was flatly refused. His wife, he said, had not yet seen me, and I must stay until she came to Benowm, after which I should be at liberty to depart; and that my horse, which had been taken away from me the day after I arrived, should be again restored to me. Unsatisfactory as this answer ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park

... said the foaming old man, 'whether with a son or a grandmother you make it. Shall my enemy range the field and I sit at home and lap caudle? That is not the way of my house.' He would by all means go that night, and called for volunteers. His English barons, to their credit, flatly refused either to entrap the son of their master or to abandon the city at a time so critical. 'What, sire!' cried they, 'are private resentments, like threadworms, to fret the dams of the state? The floods are out, my lord King, and brimming at the ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... human lives lies there also. There was not a sound timber or a seaworthy article aboard of the schooner from stem to stern. You know well enough that I have told you this,—in more civil language it may be,—again and again; and I hope that the telling of it now, flatly, will induce you to consider the immense responsibility that lies on your shoulders; for there are other ships belonging to your firm in much the same condition—ships with inferior charts and instruments, unsound spars, not enough of boats, and with anchors and chains ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... already, but he had asked the principal twice and Red Shirt once to have the transfer order cancelled, but to no purpose. Porcupine bitterly condemned Hubbard Squash for being too good-natured. If Hubbard Squash, he said, had either flatly refused or delayed the answer on the pretext of considering it, when Red Shirt raised the question of transfer, it would have been better for him. But he was fooled by the oily tongue of Red Shirt, had ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri

... outstanding facts of Chinese history since the overthrow of the Manchus ten years ago and it has manifested itself in intermittent civil war. Yet there are two other statements which are equally true, although they flatly contradict each other and the one just made. One statement is that so far as the people of China are concerned there is no real division on geographical lines, but only the common division occurring everywhere between conservatives and progressives. The other ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey

... bent nails, that the Presbytery ordained a public fast against witchcraft, and by warrant of Privy Council a Commission visited Balgarnock to take evidence of her condition. In the presence of these Commissioners, of whom the Lord Blantyre was president, the young lady flatly accused one Janet Burns, her mother's still-room maid, of tormenting her with aid of the black art, and for witness showed her back and shoulders covered with wales, some blue and others freshly bleeding; and ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... to the future: and my Budget is intended to show samples of the long line of heroes who have fallen without victory, each of whom had his day of confidence and his prophecy of success. Let the future decide: they say roundly that the earth is flat; I say flatly that ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... usual sentiment at meal times, one of his innocent delusions (for his appetite was always obstinate, and flatly contradicted him), awoke no smile in the face of his little wife, who stood among the parcels, pushing the cake-box slowly from her with her foot, and never once looked, though her eyes were cast down too, upon the dainty shoe ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... enthusiasm. And a great throng of slaves also came to him. And when they drew near Carthage, Stotzas sent orders that the people should surrender the city to him as quickly as possible, on condition of their remaining free from harm. But those in Carthage and Theodorus, in reply to this, refused flatly to obey, and announced that they were guarding Carthage for the emperor. And they sent to Stotzas Joseph, the secretary of the emperor's guards, a man of no humble birth and one of the household of Belisarius, who had recently been sent to Carthage on some ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius

... I remember, in a most extraordinary degree upon the temper of his audience. I have heard him read downright flatly and badly to an unresponsive house, and I have seen him vivified and quickened to the most extraordinary display of genius by an audience of the opposite kind. The first occasion on which he ever read ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... she falls for him after reading that lawyer's letter and when she hears what I believe to be the truth about that heroic episode the other night,—why, she ought to get what's coming to her, that's all I have to say," said Mr. Gilfillan flatly. "I've discovered one thing, Mr. Webster. If a woman makes up her mind to marry a man, hell-fire and brimstone can't stop her. The older I get and the more I see of women, the more I am convinced that vice is its own reward. I guess ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... most dreadful of evils are the real grounds why immortality seems initially natural and good. Confidence in living for ever is anterior to the discovery that all men are mortal and to the discovery that the thinker is himself a man. These discoveries flatly contradict that confidence, in the form in which it originally presents itself, and all doctrines of immortality which adult philosophy can entertain are more or less subterfuges and after-thoughts by which the observed fact of mortality and the native inconceivability of death are more ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... his wife had been unjustly snubbed by the great ladies and the off-hand, harum-scarum young war-workers; so he flatly declined to have any of them messing around his studio or initiated into his research work. It was intimated that the Rossiter Thursday afternoons of long ago would not be resumed until after the peace. Linda therefore derived much consolation ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... off; a favor which will make me think kindly of Patrick Ferguson so long as I shall live. For now my work was done; and had he insisted, I should have told him flatly who and what I was—and paid ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... the country. The work in which he had been engaged was zealously pushed home. No one saw his secretaries coming and going so often from his room, and neither of them was willing to admit, in fact they flatly denied when questioned, that they had seen their chief at all. Towards afternoon, Virginia returned from a short drive in the park to be told that two gentlemen were waiting to see her. She found no one in the drawing-room or ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... roasting ox and the ice and the beer, he was almost too busy to say hello to his guests. Fan had contrived to get a clean shirt on him by the trick of whisking away his old one and substituting a white one in its place. He put this on without realizing how splendid it was, but rebelled flatly at the collar, and by the time the ox was well basted his shirt was subdued to a condition which left him almost at ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... an interview he once had with Murat Halstead, who had printed a tart paragraph about him. He went into the office of the Cincinnati editor, and began in his usual jocose way to ask for the needful correction. Halstead resented the proffered familiarity, when Artemus told him flatly, suddenly changing front, that he "didn't care a d—n for the Commercial, and the whole establishment might go to hell." Next day the paper appeared with a handsome amende, and the two became excellent friends. "I have no ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... a notice of his grandfather's life was "to contradict flatly some calumnies by Miss Seward." This appears from a letter of March 27, 1879, to his cousin Reginald Darwin, in which he asks for any documents and letters which might throw light on the character of Erasmus. This led to Mr. Reginald ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... the sail-maker. They're both sail-makers. He's a good one, too. Yatsuda is his name. But he's just had blood-poisoning and lain in hospital in New York for eighteen months. He flatly refused to let them amputate. He's all right now, but the hand is dead, all except the thumb and fore-finger, and he's teaching himself to sew with his left hand. He's as clever a sail-maker as ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London

... Enver Bey. His scheme is flatly revolutionary, namely, the deposition of Abdul, a secret alliance, offensive and defensive, with us; the Germanisation of the Turkish army and navy; the fortification of the Gallipoli district according to our plans; ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... value of the article which is to be redeemed at a certain time at a high rate of interest. If not redeemed, the article is sold. Some of these dealers do not wait for the expiration of the time when an article of value is concerned, but sell it at once, and flatly deny ever having received it. The rate at which all articles are taken is sufficiently low to render it certain that the sale of it will more than cover ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... ideas of rights and duties; the common weal, the bond of union; rising from the family dinner-table to the sacrificial rites of the national gods; drew parallels with trades' unions and benefit clubs, and told them flatly they would not be Christians till they were communicants." No doubt this will seem to most sensible people extravagant enough, even without the quotations from "Wordsworth, Tennyson, and even Pope" with which his addresses were enlivened; but ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... when you cut loose with that field-piece of yours," she said flatly. "So I read your intention to come here. I've been following you ...
— Stop Look and Dig • George O. Smith

... affirmed that benevolence is not an ultimate fact, but an emanation from self-love, through the association of ideas, it has been fancied that these writers dispute the existence of disinterested benevolence or sympathy. Now, the selfish system, in its literal import, is flatly inconsistent with obvious facts, but this is not the system contended for by the writers in question. Still, this distortion has been laid hold of by the opponents of utility, and maintained to be a necessary ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain

... Etta was always surprising her. There was a whole gamut of feeling, an octave of callow, half-formed girlish instincts, of which Etta seemed to be deprived. If she had ever had them, no trace was left of their whilom presence. At first Maggie had flatly refused to come to Russia. When Paul pressed her to do so, she accepted with a sort of wonder. There was something which she ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... "The truth is," confessed Senator Cullom long after, "we were all—Democrats as well as Republicans—trying to get in amendments in the interest of protecting the industries of our respective States." The surplus was no longer an argument in favor of reduction. The free-trade arguments were flatly contradicted by a group of Democratic Senators under whose leadership the bill lost most of its reducing tendency. Out of doors the Republicans attacked the measure and noisily charged it with having produced the panic of 1893. ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... out of him: and the more insulting it was, the less she was hurt by it: it was an amusement for her. But, as she was quick enough to see that Christophe liked nothing so much as sincerity, she would contradict him flatly, and argue tenaciously They would ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... but upon the borders of these privileges lay the temptation of the devil; therefore by the love of these, which yet were lawful in themselves, the devil hardened the heart, and so at last made way for, and perfectly produced in them, flatly to deny, as then, to embrace the words of God's salvation (Matt 22:5; Luke 14:16-20). The like befel our first mother; wherefore though at last she freely objected the word; yet because before she had so much ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... the want of which was, in his more sober moments, a check upon his bad temper, began to inflame his malignity, and he ventured upon several occasions to show his spleen, by contradicting Tyrrel more flatly than good manners permitted upon so short an acquaintance, and without any provocation. Tyrrel saw his ill humour and despised it, as that of an overgrown schoolboy, whom it was not worth his while to answer according ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... fitting the stump With a proxy limb—then flatly and plump She spoke, in the spirit olden; She couldn't—she shouldn't—she wouldn't have wood! Nor a leg of cork, if she never stood, And she swore an oath, or something as good, The proxy limb ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... us again and again for furious quarrels—the fool was quite obstinate. He would not budge from our first encampment—that is to say, out of sight of Santa's grave; and he flatly refused to fit new planks to the ruinated boat which now lay, a thing of ribs, high and dry as we had hauled her close underneath the fern-brake beside the cascade. Again and again I pointed out to him that, patched up, she would serve me for fishing. To this ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... asserted himself. He seemed, indeed, somewhat inclined to browbeat her, loudly arguing her slightest remark after a fashion which she found decidedly exasperating, but presently discovered to be his invariable habit with everyone. He flatly contradicted even Jeff, but she was pleased to hear Jeff bluntly hold his own, and secretly admired him for ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... Lord in heaven knows you have no claim, unless it be such as the wolf has to the lamb. He will not give you the child, you call your niece; and therein I acknowledge that I am far from certain he has the same justice on his side. Moreover, neighbour squatter, he flatly denies your demand for me, miserable and worthless as I am; nor do I think he has been unwise in so doing, seeing that I should have many reasons against journeying far in your company. But he makes you an offer, which it is ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... as I expected, proved to be Dr. Denbigh. The other was flatly and unmistakably Charles Edward. The doctor offered to excuse himself, but I took Charles Edward into the back parlor, and I made so bold as to draw the folding-doors. I felt that the occasion justified ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo

... moving parallel with us during our retreat. Jackson's division was in advance. Instead of going into camp, I, with two messmates, Bolling and Walter Packard, diverged to a log-house for supper. The man of the house was quiet; his wife did the talking, and a great deal of it. She flatly refused us a bite to eat, but, on stating the case to her, she consented to let us have some bread and milk. Seated around an unset dining-table we began divesting ourselves of our knapsacks. She said, "Just keep your baggage on; you can eat a bite and go." We told her ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore

... the other parts of the segments being distinctly and beautifully chequered with white and rosy purple; the tube is stout, and of transparent whiteness; the foliage less than that of the British species, and more wavy. The habit of the flowers is erect, and during sunshine they become flatly expanded, when they will be 4in. to 5in. across, being 3in. to 4in. high. It is a very durable flower, lasting at least a fortnight, and many are produced from one bulb, appearing in succession, so that the blooming period is well extended; it braves the worst weather ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood

... it has always been supposed that this part of the wall was exactly like the rest, and dated from the same period. But a careful examination shows that the stones in this lower portion are laid more regularly than those in the wall above the Portella, that they are more flatly faced on the outside, and that here and there a little mortar is used. Above all, however, there is in the wall on one of the stones under the house no. 24, Via della Fontana an inscription,[40] which Richter, Dressel, and Dessau all think ...
— A Study Of The Topography And Municipal History Of Praeneste • Ralph Van Deman Magoffin

... was not a nice thing, and anyway no one could have bribed them to descend into the darkness of the lower floor with the dead man and the grisly THING that prowled through the haunted chambers; so they flatly refused to ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... appealed to my father. 'Canvass! canvass!' cried he; and he persistently baffled me. It was from Temple I learnt that on the day of our starting for Chippenden, the newspapers contained a paragraph in large print flatly denying upon authority that there was any foundation for the report of an intended marriage between the Princess of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld and an English gentleman. Then I remembered how that morning my father had flung the papers down, complaining ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... always and without exception the decision has been in favor of the validity of the law. But all this practice, all this precedent, all this public approbation, all this solemn adjudication directly on the point, is to be disregarded and rejected, and the constitutional power flatly denied. And, Sir, if we are startled at this conclusion, our surprise will not be lessened when we examine the argument by ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... and tempt me with this interest we are quarrelling about, mother. He was sure that I would jump at it as a greedy fish snaps at the bait. But I disappointed him. I shall never forget the look of surprise,—no, it was wonder,—that came into his eyes when I flatly refused to take this interest. That was nearly a year ago. He began to treat me with a little respect after that. There is scarcely a month goes by that he does not bring up the subject. I think he has never abandoned the hope that I may give in, after all. Lately he has taken ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... said forcibly. Then he dropped down on the sand at Hope's feet, with his back turned flatly towards the figure under the ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray

... reports differed so much. He claimed to be able to turn hand-springs around the largest circus ring that was ever made, and to stand on his head for a week; but some of the boys who were not partners in the enterprise flatly contradicted this, and declared that they could do as many feats in the acrobatic line as ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis

... Savings Bank and demanded a sight of all the bills under discount and mortgages, and that his Excellency declared that he would not give three straws for all the securities put together; but this statement regarding his Excellency is flatly contradicted. Many of the largest holders of land and stock in the colony are said to be so irretrievably embarrassed, by reason chiefly of the high prices at which their investments were made, that ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... he who was called Hans,—"give her up! Ah! my friend Ole, I did not expect such counsel from thee. But I tell thee flatly I will not give her up. She loves me; I love her! Sweet Raneilda! nothing ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne

... flatly formulated before," declared the Skeptic. "It does me good, that's all. So you think the Preacher has had a hand in ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond

... caste? whence did it spring? and what are its effects today in India? Whatever story I tell about its origin, some great authority will flatly contradict it. The beginning of caste, like that of most existing institutions, is lost in obscurity; but the most likely guess to my mind is that which founds caste upon this natural train ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... which characterize the human countenance will not fail to be struck by the peculiarities of the costume of the group of figures before us. At the first glance the eye is caught by the quantity of bright color in their dresses. The older women wear the picturesque white, flatly-folded linen cloth on their heads which is the usual dress of the contadine women in the neighborhood of Rome. The younger have their hair ornamented with some huge filagree pin or other device of a fashion which proclaims itself to the most unskilled ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... again for him in the darkness; his reviving impressions called up yet others, and he was enthralled anew by womanly charm and wit, which at first he had not perceived. He fell to wandering musings, in which the most lucid thoughts grow refractory and flatly contradict each other, and the soul passes through a brief frenzy fit. Youth only can understand all that lies in the dithyrambic outpourings of youth when, after a stormy siege, of the most frantic folly and coolest common-sense, the heart finally yields to the assault of the ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac

... though I naturally did my best for my friend's sake to "keep things going," concluded rather flatly, and I went home after it was all over feeling not a little ...
— The Mysterious Shin Shira • George Edward Farrow

... by too readily believing him," said Bulstrode, oppressed, as by a nightmare, with the inability to deny flatly what Raffles might have said; and yet feeling it an escape that Caleb had not so stated it to him as to ask for ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... master of Rome, Caesar had been one of the very few who had ventured to resist the great man's will. Marius, the leader of the party, was his uncle, and he had himself married the daughter of Cunia, another of the popular leaders. This wife Sulla ordered him to divorce, but he flatly refused. For some time his life was in danger; but Sulla was induced to spare it, remarking, however, to friends who interceded for him, on the ground that he was still but a boy, "You have not a grain of sense, if you do not see that in ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... to accompany the expedition to Dawsbergen in search of his wayward lady-love. Tullis, who liked the gay young nobleman despite the reputation he had managed to live down, was willing that he should be the one to lead the troops, but Colonel Quinnox flatly refused ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... persisted in pressing them as only a woman can. He was left—with the education of a gentleman against him—between the two vulgar alternatives of turning her out by main force, or of yielding, and getting rid of her decently in that way. At any other time, he would have flatly refused to lower himself to the level of a scandal-mongering woman, by entering on the subject. In his present mood, if pacifying Mrs. Galilee, and ridding himself of Mrs. Gallilee, meant one and the same thing, he was ready, ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... perhaps, from its early days with the faculty of hooting, or else skilled in the art by having been taught it by its neighbour, the tawny owl? I beg to remark that though I unhesitatingly grant the faculty of hooting to this one particular individual owl, still I flatly refuse to believe that hooting is common to barn owls in general. Ovid, in his sixth book Fastortim, pointedly says that it screeched in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various

... our reason sleeping when we trusted 30 This madman with the sword, and placed such power In such a hand? I tell you, he'll refuse, Flatly refuse, to obey the Imperial orders. Friend, he can do 't, and what he can, he will. And then the impunity of his defiance— 35 O! what a proclamation of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... He laughed flatly, a senile, cackling laugh. He did not want to laugh, but laughed again and, stooping, reached for the bullets. He stared at his fingers, bewildered; they groped helplessly at a spot a foot from the place where lay the two bullets with their ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... the perfect print of every tooth. The Doctor had bought it from him for fifty cents, and now, wanted to divide it with us four—a rather heroic thought that was, in a man hungry as a wolf. Of course we young fellows flatly refused to divide it, as we knew the Doctor, twice our age, needed it more than we. We said, "We were not hungry; couldn't eat anything to save us." A lie, that I hope the recording Angel, considering the motive, didn't take down; or, if he did, I hope he added a note ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame

... bread-and-butter person, a sluggish, fat-brained person, elementary, not awakened and sharpened to appreciation and wonder. If he had not been in such a good humor he might have been cross, scornful of her; as it was, he indulgently thought her merely too flatly healthy in every taste for anything but the wilds of Cape Cod to which she sometimes ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... forward commissioners to prepare the fleet at Ostia for his reception, he tampered with such officers of the army as were at hand, to prevail upon them to accompany his retreat. But all showed themselves indisposed to such schemes, and some flatly refused. Upon which he turned to other counsels; sometimes meditating a flight to the King of Parthia, or even to throw himself on the mercy of Galba; sometimes inclining rather to the plan of venturing into the forum in mourning apparel, begging pardon for his past offences, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... not," said the Angel flatly. "It's no use wasting precious time talking about it. You are alive. You are breathing; and no matter how badly your bones are broken, what are great surgeons for but to fix you up and make you well again? ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter

... she was upon the point of attempting another visit to Snare Lake, and in all probability would have done so had not Big Lena flatly refused to accompany her under any circumstances whatever. And this attitude the huge Swedish woman stubbornly maintained, preserving a haughty indifference alike to Chloe's taunts of cowardice, ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... valley. There is an inn there quite sufficient for a bachelor artist. The clergyman of the place is a monk, and he will not let one paint on a feast-day. I was told that if I wanted to paint on a certain feast-day I had better consult him; I did so, but was flatly refused permission, and that too as it appeared to me with more peremptoriness than a priest would have ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler

... engine-maker's shop; and neither within nor without, could we discover any thing to justify his opinion, that it is a building of the twelfth or thirteenth century. On the contrary, the windows, which are double, under a flatly-pointed arch, and are all of them trefoil-headed, would rather cause it to be considered ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... Impossibility of performing such a Voyage, in a hollow Tree; but the Fellow would hearken to no Advice of that kind, till the Gentleman told him, if he did not value his own Life, he valu'd his Reputation and Honesty, and so flatly refus'd clearing him; Upon which, the Canoe was sold, and, I think, remains in being still. This Wood is very lasting, and free from the Rot. A Canoe of it will outlast four Boats, and seldom wants Repair. They say, that ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... interrupted; and though the parliament, upon their assembling, renewed the ordinances for impositions, yet so little reverence did the people pay to those legislators, that they gave very slow and unwilling obedience to their commands. The common council of London flatly refused to submit to an assessment required of them; and declared that, till a free and lawful parliament imposed taxes, they never should deem it their duty to make any payment. This resolution, if yielded to, would immediately have put an end to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... my contradicting you flatly. Your instruction, not expressed but implied, to old Stephen, was clearly not to miss his mark. If he had killed Achilles you would have been responsible, as Apollo was responsible for the arrow of ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... "Pardon my flatly contradicting you, Professor Bulge. You have again referred to your visit here a month ago as your last. You will bear witness of that, gentlemen. When I inform you that the professor had access to his safe as recently as on Monday last you will ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah

... preferred not to send for the consul. He offered to release Uncle John if he would give the cabman a good lira in exchange for the bad one. The official fee would be five lira—or say three lira—or even two. Uncle John flatly refused to pay anything to anybody. Only war could settle this international complication—bloody and bitter war. The consul must cable at once for war-ships and troops. He would insist upon it. All compromise was ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne



Words linked to "Flatly" :   flat, unconditionally



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