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At bottom   /æt bˈɑtəm/   Listen
At bottom

adverb
1.
In reality.  Synonyms: at heart, deep down, in spite of appearance, inside.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"At bottom" Quotes from Famous Books



... apprehended the part they were acting, and the principles by themselves vindicated. It has consisted of two principle acts. The Reformation carried republicanism into religion: our own Revolution into legislation. The two movements were parts of one whole; and, to get at the principles at bottom, either will serve for both, as well as for what may remain for finishing the ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington

... the canal is about eighteen miles. The longer portion of it is an open channel, which is made 350 feet wide at bottom. Its course will be marked by large iron floating buoys; these it is proposed to light with gas by a new self-acting process which has been very successful in other parts of the world; by this means the canal will ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various

... usher in a new golden age by the diffusion and thoroughness of what is commonly understood by popular education. With all its funds, and improved school-houses, and able teachers, and grammars, and maps, and black-boards, such an education is essentially defective. Without moral principle at bottom to guide and control its energies, education is a sharp sword in the hands of a practiced and reckless fencer. I have no hesitation in saying, that if we could have but one, moral and religious culture is even more important than a knowledge of letters; and ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... then something happened. A great question arose in this country which, though complicated with legal elements, was at bottom a human question and nothing but a question of humanity. That was the slavery question, and is it not significant that it was then, and then for the first time, that women became prominent in politics in America? Not many women—those prominent in that day are so few that you ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... she answered. "You have always been that way—and I know that it's because at bottom you are timid and disposed to suffer. And then, too, perhaps you have reasons for not having confidence in a wife's intimate friends—lady-killer ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair

... be grounded on the plainest narrative. Afterwards, it may warm itself until it exhales symbols of every kind and color, speaks only through the most poetic forms; but, first and last, it must still be at bottom ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... be getting at bottom facts before we finished with our greaser gang," said Wickham, with no symptom of either surprise or emotion. "Very good, Sanchez. We'll give you the chance to swear to it and bring your witnesses. Take him in, sergeant, and keep this to ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... Wimbledon Common, and planted himself, not sideways, as one ought to do in such encounters (the which posture the squire swore was an unmanly way of shirking), but full front to the mouth of his adversary's pistol, with such sturdy composure that Captain Dashmore, who, though an excellent shot, was at bottom as good-natured a fellow as ever lived, testified his admiration by letting off his gallant opponent with a ball in the fleshy part of the shoulder, after which he declared himself perfectly satisfied. The parties then shook hands, mutual apologies were exchanged, and the squire, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... rather than the vital strength that carries burdens. Grosswell says that children are young because they play, and not vice versa; and he might have added, men grow old because they stop playing, and not conversely, for play is, at bottom, growth, and at the top of the intellectual scale it is the eternal type of research from sheer love of truth. Home, school, church, state, civilization, are measured in one supreme scale of values, viz., whether and how, for they aid in ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... all its gaieties, I felt that something was wanting to my heart. I grew sick of dissipation: I discovered, that the People among whom I lived, and whose exterior was so polished and seducing, were at bottom frivolous, unfeeling and insincere. I turned from the Inhabitants of Paris with disgust, and quitted that Theatre of Luxury without heaving one sigh ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... be vitiated by the confusion of various extraneous interests with a purely artistic satisfaction resting in the thing itself. It is the old fallacy, involved in all the comparisons of Art with Nature. Of course, at bottom the interest is always that of the indwelling idea. But the question is, whether we stop at the outside, the material texture, or pass at once to the other extreme, the thought conveyed, or whether the two ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... the unseemly fact of its existence in the midst of these modern centuries, when the world boasts of human freedom and progression, it began by blushing for its hideous aspect and uttering feeble and deprecative apologies. Not that it was at bottom ashamed of its existence, for slavery, like despotism of all sorts, is characteristically self-confident and proud; but because it had been allowed to grow up under protest in the midst of free institutions, and among a people conscious of the incongruity of the relationship existing between ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... just what position Ichi filled in Carew's following. In the cabin, his manner toward Carew had been of a man toward an equal, rather than a subordinate to a leader. Martin wondered if the yellow crew were at bottom Carew's men or Ichi's. They jumped to Ichi's orders; there, at the rail, Carew's mate was actually fawning upon Ichi's words. Ichi was plainly ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... offended! Offended? What right had he to be offended? I was the offended party. He went to a low theatre. Apparently you see nothing wrong in that? Well, I've always said that every parson had the making of an actor in him. It's a toss-up—the stage or the pulpit. Same thing at bottom. But perhaps even you won't approve of his staying away all night? Smoking! Drinking! He'd been drunk. He confessed it. And there was a woman in it. He confessed that. Said they'd all 'gone to supper together.' Said that he was 'seeing the world'—which a man ('man,' if ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... nature of his occupation left soft and unscarred. Durgin was disposed at times to be sarcastic on these changes, but always stopped short of actual offense; for he remembered that Shackford when a boy, amiable and patient as he was, had had a tiger's temper at bottom. Durgin had seen it roused once or twice, and even received a chance sweep of the paw. Richard liked Durgin's rough wit as little as Durgin relished Richard's good-natured bluntness. It was a mistake, that trying to pick up the dropped thread ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... talk to the Kohen, and try for myself whether he might not be accessible to pity. This greatest of cannibals might, indeed, have his little peculiarities, I thought, and who has not?—yet at bottom he seemed full of tender and benevolent feeling; and as he evidently spent his whole time in the endeavor to make us happy, it seemed not unlikely that he might do something for our happiness in a case where our ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille

... and when he slipped away to Cauldstaneslap for a well-earned holiday, which he did as often as he was able, he astonished the neighbours with his broadcloth, his beaver hat, and the ample plies of his neckcloth. Though an eminently solid man at bottom, after the pattern of Hob, he had contracted a certain Glasgow briskness and aplomb which set him off. All the other Elliotts were as lean as a rake, but Clement was laying on fat, and he panted sorely when he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... pale and swayed over the table. In an instant he was beside her; for though he had been irritable and ungenerous, he had at bottom a kind heart. Catching up a glass of water, he ran an arm round her waist and held ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... principle "the existing order," in the second, "antiquated prejudice." What an impartial man with no further purpose to serve would call "public worship" or a "system of religion," is described by an adherent as "piety," "godliness": and by an opponent as "bigotry," "superstition." This is, at bottom, a subtle petitio principii. What is sought to be proved is, first of all, inserted in the definition, whence it is then taken by mere analysis. What one man calls "placing in safe custody," another calls "throwing into prison." A speaker often betrays his purpose beforehand by the names ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer

... the old school—irascible, even explosive, but at bottom a heart of gold. Often after thrashing a subaltern with his cane for some neglect of duty he would smile suddenly and invite the offender to dine with him at the Regimental Mess ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various

... restraint, if such it can be called, could hardly take a less objectionable form. Monime and Berenice, as ladies whose father was known as a merchant prince of colourless politics, were allowed free access to their friends at the palace. Young Ptolemaeus, who was a dark-eyed and, at bottom, dark-hearted youth, completely under the thumb of Pothinus, exerted himself, after a fashion, to be agreeable to his visitors; but he was too unfavourable a contrast to his gifted sister to win much grace in Cornelia's eyes. ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... examine an object which it fears, you may do terrible damage before you can explain. All fears should be most carefully dealt with, and no force employed; the little one who has no imaginary terrors, and is kindly taught to think every fearful image at bottom some innocent cloak or shadow, will sleep soundly and grow healthy ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... betrayed any loss of confidence in me as a credible witness, and seeing this, the wily lawyer shifted his ground and confined himself to an endeavour to shake me on certain definite and important points. How were the pillows heaped upon the couch? What ones at top, what ones at bottom? Which did I remove first, and why did I remove any of them? What had I expected to find? These questions answered, the still more-to-be-dreaded ones followed of just how my betrothed looked at the moment I uncovered her face. Were the marks very plain upon her throat? How plain; and ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... of art is a great man. You cannot have the art without the man, and when you have the man you have the art. His time and his surroundings will color him; his art will not be at one time or place precisely what it might be at another; but at bottom the art is the man and at all times and in all countries is just as great ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox

... learnedly on angle, and swing, and line of flight, and having raised his stick suddenly to his shoulder, by way of an example, will knock off the hat of an inoffensive passer-by. This incident will remind him of an adventure he had while shooting with Lord X.—"A deuced good chap at bottom; a bit stiff at first, but the best fellow going when you really know him"—through the well-known coverts of his lordship's estate. When travelling safely in a railway-carriage, he is the boldest cross-country rider in existence. He will indicate to you a fence full ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various

... Pharsalus is absurd. That Lucan does this is undeniable, but his words have a deeper significance. It was at Pharsalus, above all other battles, that the republic fell to ruin, and the poet is justified in making it the symbol of that fall.[303] And even where the sentiment is at bottom false, there is such an impetuosity and vigour in the lines, and such a depth of scorn in each epigram, that the reader is swept off his balance and convinced against his will. We hardly pause to think whether Pharsalus, or even ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... by the medival Jewish thinkers on the relation between religion and philosophy. With the exception of Judah Halevi and Hasdai Crescas the commonly accepted view was that philosophy and religion were at bottom identical in content, though their methods were different; philosophy taught by means of rational demonstration, religion by dogmatic assertion based upon divine revelation. So far as the actual philosophical views ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... was a good deal put about when we heard what had happened, through the papers, but I comforted her as much as possible. I said, 'as for myself, I had never liked the look of the poor man with his red hair and freckles. I am sure he had a bad temper at bottom, for red-haired men are always hasty; and then he had a high, thin nose, and men of that kind are always close and stingy, and the stingiest man I ever knew was a Dublin man. Then his manners, you must remember, were anything but nice; he didn't wasteany compliments ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... me, and would meet me, and beg my pardon; and if he had, I should have told him it was only my tongue, and my nerves, and things; my heart was his, and my gratitude. And after all, what do words signify, when I am a good, obedient girl at bottom? So that is what you have lost by not condescending to look after me. Fine love!—Christopher, beg ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... shocking, and as they shouted it forth, judging from their violent gestures and distorted features, you would have concluded them to be bitter enemies; they were, however, nothing of the kind, but excellent friends all the time, and indeed very good-humoured fellows at bottom. Oh, the infirmities of human nature! When will man learn to become ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... wottest, she must needs have the floweret sent thither. And a cruel deal of fair words, how she loved and pined to see her, and more foolery belike. Marry La'kin! ere I had given her her will, I had seen her alongside of King Pharaoh at bottom o' the Red Sea. But the Master, what did he, but write back and say that it should be even as she would. Happy woman ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt

... that most men are so at bottom, but that it is only remarked in the remarkable. The Duchesse de Broglio, in reply to a remark of mine on the errors of clever people, said that 'they were not worse than others, only, being more in view, more noted, especially in ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... Lincoln's other advisers, valor at that moment was lacking. Contrast, however, was not the sole, nor the surest basis of Seward's appeal to Lincoln. Their characters had a common factor. For all their immeasurable difference in externals, both at bottom were void of malice. It was this characteristic above all others that gave them spiritually common ground. In Seward, this quality had been under fire for a long while. The political furies of "that iron time" had failed ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... a fervent Catholic (who never went to mass), and hated all the infidel turnkeys of the Holy Father, he would grin and give a satisfied twirl at the offending mouth-piece, quite flattered at bottom to be likened ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... to do but to have a new date painted on the sign, and to draw on his reserve fund, but at bottom he was vastly perturbed. He had counted on a running start, and every week of delay was a vicious handicap. If he had remotely imagined how elastic a contractor's agreement could be, he would certainly have thought twice about ordering so many changes—he would have steered a middle course, and been ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall

... But at bottom I was aloof from them all. What made me silent and big-eyed was the sense of being in the midst of a tremendous adventure. From morning till night I was all attention. I must credit myself with some pang of parting; I certainly felt ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... moment before reappeared, and mixed with it now was an audible strain of bitterness—a bitterness so abrupt and inconsequent that the girl was afraid she had hurt him. She had often heard that the English are a highly eccentric people, and she had even read in some ingenious author that they are at bottom the most romantic of races. Was Lord Warburton suddenly turning romantic—was he going to make her a scene, in his own house, only the third time they had met? She was reassured quickly enough by her sense of his great good manners, which was not ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... which are to be smaller at top than at bottom, were made in Imitation of the Boles or Trunks of Trees, and their use was taken from the Carpenters' Posts that are made to support the Building. The Architraves which are laid across many Pillars, represent Summers that join many Posts together. The Frises imitate the ...
— An Abridgment of the Architecture of Vitruvius - Containing a System of the Whole Works of that Author • Vitruvius

... himself "Christ's younger brother", and his kingdom was to be called T'ai P'ing ("Supreme Peace"). He made his first comrades, charcoal makers, local doctors, peddlers and farmers, into kings, and made himself emperor. At bottom the movement, like all similar ones before it, was not religious but social; and it produced a great response from the peasants. The programme of the T'ai P'ing, in some points influenced by Christian ideas but more so by traditional Chinese thought, was in many points revolutionary: (a) ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... get the better of it in that sphere; its faculties remain true to their original purpose, viz., to promote the service of the will; it devotes itself steadfastly to this end, and abjures extravagant aims. The genius, on the other hand, is at bottom a monstrum per excessum; just as, conversely, the passionate, violent and unintelligent man, the brainless barbarian, is a monstrum ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer

... the strong. He had always known it. But yesterday that old giant at The Brakes had hammered it home to him. He did not like to admit even to himself that his folly had betrayed Hardy's cause, but at bottom he knew he should not have gone to The Brakes until after the election and that he ought never to have let Killen out of the office without an explanation. Yesterday he would have won back the man somehow by an appeal to ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine

... is the same everywhere," Norbanus said, "fair or dark, great or small. It is modified by climate, by education, by custom, and by civilization, but at bottom it is identical. And now, Pollio, I think you had better take Beric down to the port, the sight of the trade and shipping will ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty

... master interests of mankind, Sex and War, are manifest. The mystery of the individual, in all his distinct uniqueness, begins to be penetrated. And so every phase of social life, in which the individual is at bottom the final determinant, must be reviewed in the light of the new knowledge. History may be examined from an entirely new angle. The biographies of our Heroes of the Past, in the Carlylean sense, will bear reinspection. Even Utopias will have to ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... the interest of having begun the thing and wishing to see it permanently established, as I have started it, but at bottom I don't care what happens to anything, and I am only thankful I have had my thoughts arrested momentarily. I had no right to complain of anything or wish for anything as long as Tibi was alive, and what torments ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff

... ask, 'Have you read Henry Dunbar? and what do you think of it?' so they then asked, 'Have you read the Giaour? and what do you think of it?' Lord Jeffrey, a shrewd judge of the world, employed himself in telling it what to think; not so much what it ought to think, as what at bottom it did think, and so by dexterous sympathy with current society he gained contemporary fame and power. Such fame no critic must hope for now. His articles will not penetrate where the poems themselves do not penetrate. When poetry was noisy, criticism was loud; ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... yoke of old, dead religions, and under the tyranny of instincts. There will still be seen very much the same condition of things as at present in Paris; a society the brain of which is atheistic, and the heart religious. And at bottom there will be no more belief in Christ than in Jupiter; nevertheless, churches will continue to be built mechanically. There are no longer even Deists; for the old chimera of a personal, moral God-witness, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... Yet they also have an inarticulate belief or intuition that they have tried, however brokenly or unsuccessfully, to live up to such light as they had or to some standard of their own. They feel that somehow, though they have often failed, at bottom they are not so very bad, and that God is very, very good. Their vague feeling would probably find its most accurate expression in Faber's hymn, "There's a wideness in God's mercy, like ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy

... be obtained in the body of violin where was cut the mortice previously, fig. 19, into which said neck has to be inserted. To the exact outline of this I now cut the neck end, one and three-eighths of an inch broad at top, one and three-sixteenths of an inch at bottom, and one and nine-sixteenths of an inch deep. I cut on an angle, so as to get the elevation required for correct height of bridge. And then, all being square, I slope to the end which is ultimately to be joined to the button. You will gather all ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson

... of woman for man is a third; moreover, there is this about it—it is the acid which turns all other loves sour. Where are a man's friends when a woman has him by the heart?—although perchance they love him better than ever will the woman who at bottom loves herself best of all. Still, let that be, for so Nature works, and who can fight against Nature? What Quilla takes, Kari loses, and Kari must be content ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... baby-worship, and which will support it to the end. Maturity, with its endless energies and aspirations, may easily be convinced that it will find new things to appreciate; but it will never be convinced, at bottom, that it has properly appreciated what it has got. We may scale the heavens and find new stars innumerable, but there is still the new star we have not found—that on which ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton

... the time; but they must have filled the minds of reasonable men with many revoltings of impatience and disgust. It says much for the real soundness of purpose and truth of intention among the exclusive Church party that they did not permanently injure the great cause which they had at bottom honestly ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... disposition, in spite of ages of oppression. In the course of centuries they have not furnished a single man to that army of rash minds which have carried the rest of Europe headlong through lofty, perhaps, but at bottom empty and idle theories, to the brink of that bottomless abyss into which no one can peer ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... true at any rate of the early crusades, inspired by Peter the Hermit, whatever may have been the political purposes of the popes who encouraged them. It was the same motive that led the people of the Middle Ages to make pilgrimages which led them to join the crusades. At bottom it was an inner restlessness, that sought peace in great hardship and inspiring action, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... way, made me a long while upon this machine; for I worked it effectually by little and little into the form of a shovel or spade, the handle exactly shaped like ours in England, only that the broad part having no iron shod upon it at bottom, it would not last me so long; however, it served well enough for the uses which I had occasion to put it to; but never was a shovel, I believe, made after that fashion, or so ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... of narrow gallery, something less than twelve feet long, leading to chambers on either hand. This gallery, of course, is railed; and so, looking down upon the stairs, and all those landing-places together, with the main one at bottom, resembles not a little a balcony for musicians, in some jolly old abode, in times Elizabethan. Shall I tell a weakness? I cherish the cobwebs there, and many a time arrest Biddy in the act of brushing them ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville

... I could give you a whole string of such abominations; but to begin with I will confine myself to one well-approved truth, which at bottom is a foul lie, but upon which nevertheless Mr. Hovstad and the "People's Messenger" and all the "Messenger's" ...
— An Enemy of the People • Henrik Ibsen

... has always been so prudent and reserved, that every body was sure there was some reason for it at bottom. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... Has he seen or heard from his old friend Madame de Montjoye, who is here with the Queen of the French? The poor dear Queen of the Belgians is quite broken-hearted, but, thank God, Belgium goes on admirably. In Germany also there are everywhere disturbances, but the good Germans are at bottom ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... rolling his head from side to side; "that was when the lot of us were brawling in our cups. I don't count that. You're in a false position, my dear sir. I don't mean last night or this morning—though I can see that you're no brigand or blackmailer at bottom—and I shouldn't wonder if you never forgave Raffles for letting you in for this partic'lar part of this partic'lar job. But that isn't what I mean. You've got in with a villain, but you ain't one ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... You don't understand Nor care to understand about my art, But you can hear at least when people speak: And that cartoon, the second from the door —It is the thing, Love! so such things should be: Behold Madonna!—I am bold to say. I can do with my pencil what I know, {60} What I see, what at bottom of my heart I wish for, if I ever wish so deep— Do easily, too—when I say, perfectly, I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge, Who listened to the Legate's talk last week; And just as much they used to say ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... summat to un, Master, think 'ee? Happen he'd 'tend to you," she pleaded. For Mrs. Moore imagined that there could be no one but would gladly heed what James Moore, Master of Kenmuir, might say to him. "He's not a bad un at bottom, I do believe," she continued. "He never took on so till his missus died. Eh, but he was main fond ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... Past evidently never existed at all; unless, indeed, we call in the aid of the Hegelian philosophy, and set our minds at ease by a fine reduction of contraries, to the effect that since the Present and the Past exclude one another, they evidently must really be the same thing at bottom. ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee

... superficial political devices, into our industry and commerce, still so largely dominated by feudal ideas of the middle age, into our science and art, far more completely into our education, into our social relationship, and beyond all else, into our fundamental attitude of mind. Democracy is, at bottom, not a series of political forms, but ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs

... Winter weather, when the coast was locked in with ice, and continuing until the first cruise of the mail-boat in May, to be precise, Dickie Blue carried his Majesty's mail, once a fortnight, by government contract, from the railroad at Bottom Harbor to Scalawag Run and all the harbors of Whale Bay. It was inevitable, therefore, that he should be aware of the communication addressed to Miss Peggy Lacey of Scalawag Run; and acutely aware of it he was—the communication ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan

... to the top was hoist, And there stood fastened to a joist; But with the upside down, to show Its inclination for below; In vain; for a superior force, Applied at bottom, stops its course: Doomed ever in suspense to dwell, 'Tis now no kettle, but ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... went to the Chateau de Relzieres to see his cousin—though I fancy that at bottom the Duke does not care very much for the Baron de Relzieres. They always look as though they detested one another," said Sonia, without raising her eyes from the letter ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson

... appreciate the 'I love you' of the men; I do not disguise the fact that I know what it signifies at bottom, therefore upon me rests the burden of being offended at hearing them; but when women have penetrated their motives, they have need of their vanity to disconcert their designs. Our anger, when they have offended ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... Mr. Loeb has passed him by, although meanwhile a war has been fought. Mr. Loeb says he wished to enter the army because he did not know what to do, could not foresee whether he would succeed or fail in life, and felt the army would give him "a living and a career." Now if this is at bottom your feeling I should advise you not to go in; I should say yes to some boys, but not to you; I believe in you too much, and have too much confidence ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt

... term, see if I won't make him more sociable. It's a stupid custom that freshmen don't give parties in their first term, or I'd do it at once. Why won't he be more sociable? No, after all sociable isn't the word; he's a very sociable fellow at bottom. What in the world is it ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... classes were moving in the same direction, verandahs and corridors one seething mass of girls, it was the excitement that prevailed. For any break was welcome in the uniformity of the days; and the nervous tension now felt was no more disagreeable, at bottom, than was the pleasant trepidation experienced of old by those who went to be present at ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... mind was in the least disloyal. And yet it was Stephens who, in the autumn of 1864, was singled out by artful men as a possible figurehead in the conduct of a separate peace negotiation with Sherman. A critic very hostile to Stephens and his faction might here raise the question as to what was at bottom the motive of Governor Brown, in the autumn of 1864, in withdrawing the Georgia militia from Hood's command. Was there something afoot that has never quite revealed itself on the broad pages of history? As ordinarily told, the story is simply that certain desperate ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... conversation with Dubberley leaves me a confirmed Radical, and anything like a protracted interview with him converts me into a Socialist for the next twenty-four hours. A week-end in his society, and I should probably buy a red shirt and send out for bombs. He is a good fellow at bottom, and of immense service to the party; but he is the most blatant ass I have ever met. There are Dubberleys on both sides of the House, ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay

... for an indefinite absence, as the newspapers announced—going to the south for motives connected with the health of his wife, which had long kept her in retirement. A year—more than a year—had elapsed since the incident at Bridges, but I had had no further sight of him. I think I was at bottom rather ashamed—I hated to remind him that, though I had irremediably missed his point, a reputation for acuteness was rapidly overtaking me. This scruple led me a dance; kept me out of Lady Jane's house, made me even decline, when in spite of my bad manners she was a second time so ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James

... the harp, whilst Somers who is standing near him, with his hands clasped over his breast, appears to listen with admiration. The King wears a round flat cap, furred, and a vest of imperial purple striped with gold, and fluted at bottom; his doublet is red, padded with white; his hose crimson; on his right leg is a blue garter. Somers is in a vest, with a hood thrown over the back; his stockings are blue; at his girdle is ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... it fool father, for he said only yesterday that there's something more at bottom of the feeling against you than merely a fight of moneyed interests. He knows from what I told him that that dead man tried to murder you; yet he hears constant talk of your 'crime,' of evidence being gathered against you by the county attorney, ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... come, as we say, many other isms; and as the sum of all comes vatetism, the reverse of heroism—sad root of all woes whatsoever. For indeed, as no man ever saw the above said wind element inclosed within its capsule, and finds it at bottom more deniable than conceivable; so too, he finds, in spite of Bridgewater bequests, your clockmaker Almighty an entirely questionable affair, a deniable affair; and accordingly denies it, and along with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... shows that it does, and the middle-aged man therefore continues to go to the City, just as the cat in the cage continues to lift the latch when it has once found it. Of course, in actual fact, human learning is rendered easier, though psychologically more complex, through language; but at bottom language does not alter the essential character of learning, or of the part played by instinct in promoting learning. Language, however, is a subject upon which I do not wish to speak until ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell

... motto, "Christo et Ecclesiae." For, as I interpret those sacred ideas, the cause of Christ and the Church is advanced by whatever liberalizes and enriches and enlarges the mind. All study, scientifically pursued, is at bottom a study of theology; for all scientific study is the study of Law; and "of Law nothing less can be acknowledged than that her seat is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... border in three pieces. Those on R. and L. are 115 mm. in height and contain small figures of prophets standing on tall shafts: that at bottom was designed to be placed vertically, and contains a half-length figure of a prophet springing out of ...
— Henry the Sixth - A Reprint of John Blacman's Memoir with Translation and Notes • John Blacman

... he was so well aware of the extent to which he had gone in idealising his friend, that he even felt able to say: "Wagner in Bayreuth is a vision of my own future.... Now that I can look back upon this work, I would not like to deny that, at bottom, it speaks only of myself" (p. 74). And on another page of the same book we read: "... What I heard, as a young man, in Wagnerian music, had absolutely nothing to do with Wagner: when I described Dionysian music, I only described what I had heard, and I thus translated ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... it, but at the first test I am found lacking. I have lost her confidence, yes—and what is worse, infinitely worse, I have lost my own. She's always seen me at my worst," he went on, "but I'm not that kind at bottom, not that kind. I want to do what's right, and if I have another chance I will, I know I will. I've been ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... Accordingly, we have had an idea of a certain kind of decoration, which, I think, you might help us to make practical. What we want is an alphabet of gilt letters (very much such as people play with), and all mounted on spikes like drawing-pins; say two spikes to each letter, one at top, and I one at bottom. Say that they were this height, I I and that you chose a model of some really exquisitely fine, clear type from some Roman monument, and that they were made either of metal or some composition gilt—the point is, could not you, in your ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... was no lie: it was quite true. But, then, these blackguards were cowards at bottom, and they saw that I'd got a brace o' double-barrelled pistols in my belt, and was pretty well up ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... lower deck. "Look out, youngster, that you don't get treated with greater indignity before long. I took the skipper's measure the day I first set eyes on him. With all his mincing manners and fine talk, depend upon it he'll prove a Tartar at bottom." ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... time and the real joy of being united to her husband at last, she saw on every side more evidences of practical life than she had before anticipated. But these braced her rather than not, and she told herself truly that the sadness at bottom of her heart just then was wholly begotten of the past and her departure from home. Deep unrest came upon her as she walked with her husband and listened to his glad voice. She longed greatly to be alone with him that her heart might be relieved. ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... of obscure sonnets, a painter of subjects from the Vita Nuova. She had sat to him for a Sibylla Palmifera and a Madonna with the Lily. She had also sat to Andrea for a study of the head of Isabella in Boccaccio's story. Art therefore had conferred upon her the stamp of nobility. But, at bottom, she possessed no spiritual qualities whatsoever; she even became tiresome in the long-run by reason of that sentimental romanticism so often affected by English demi-mondaines which contrasts so strangely with ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... only SHE that was not a heroine. Perhaps if he had been more like what she wished she would have felt this less keenly; love leaves little room for the exercise of moral ethics. So Miss Amy Forester, being a good girl at bottom, and not exactly loving this man, felt towards him a frank and tender consideration which a more romantic passion would have shrunk from showing. Consequently, when Tenbrook entered a moment later, he found Amy paler ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... At bottom he was all right and a good-hearted giant, without any harm in him, for it is no harm to bark, if one stops there and does not bite, and it is no harm to be an ass, if one is content to bray and not kick. If this vast structure of brawn ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... he would," cried Bob, who spoke in the most consequential manner. "Your father is rough, but he is very good at bottom." ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn

... fully, though naturally he had no experience of how the theory worked under a representative and parliamentary system. The principle of it all is at bottom the same, and only the change of a single phrase is needed to make the following quotation strictly applicable. "The principle of democracy," he says, "is perverted not only when it loses the spirit of equality, but ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... just human proportions. No man can play the Deity to his fellow man with impunity—I mean, spiritual impunity, of course. For see: if I am at all satisfied with that relation, if it contents me to be in a position of generosity towards others, I must be remarkably indifferent at bottom to the gross social inequality which permits that position, and, instead of resenting the enforced humiliation of my fellow man to myself in the interests of humanity, I acquiesce in it for the sake of the profit it yields to ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger

... only occasion on which she ventured into the impious streets. She was frightened of the streets, but in a particular way, not as if of a danger but as if of a contamination. Yet she didn't fly back to her mountains because at bottom she had an indomitable character, a peasant tenacity of purpose, ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... renounced even the doctrine that there was a residuum of truth in her claim of great relationships, since, existent or not, he cared equally little for her ramifications. The principle of this indifference was at bottom a certain desire to disconnect and isolate Miriam; for it was disagreeable not to be independent in dealing with her, and he could be fully so only ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... we reach truth, except through extremes—we must have foolishness ... even to exhaustion, before we arrive at the beautiful goal of calm wisdom."[68] When it is contended that the "Civil War was at bottom a struggle between two economic principles,"[69] we have the presentation of an important truth, the key to the proper understanding of a great historical event. But when that important fact is exaggerated and torn from its legitimate place to suit the propaganda of a theory, and we are ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo

... indeed be better educated and better trained, less goaded and less exasperated, with ampler opportunities for their finer impulses and smaller scope for rage and secrecy, but they would still be human. At bottom it would still be a struggle for individual ends, albeit ennobled individual ends; for self-gratification and self-realization against external difficulty and internal weakness. Self-gratification would be sought more keenly in self-development and self-realization in ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... with a little salt, pepper and red pepper mixed together; roll up and tie in neat roll with tape; cut up celery, onion, carrot and turnip, and lay them at bottom of saucepan with herbs and parsley; lay mutton on top of these, and pour enough boiling water to three parts cover it, and simmer slowly two hours; lift mutton into roasting tin with a few tablespoonfuls of the gravy; set in hot oven until ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil

... theology to be the instrument of social revival, might still ask whether the sympathetic instincts will not necessarily be already developed to their highest point, before people will be persuaded to accept the religion, which is at bottom hardly more than sympathy under a more imposing name. However that may be, the whole battle—into which we shall not enter—as to the legitimateness of Comtism as a religion turns upon this erection of Humanity into a Being. The various hypotheses, dogmas, proposals, as ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley

... quality of his genius. What was that quality? Was he first and foremost a dramatist, or an epic poet, or a writer of light verse, or an historian, or even perhaps a novelist? In all these directions he was working successfully—yet without absolute success. For, in fact, at bottom, he was none of these things: the true nature of his spirit was not revealed in them. When the revelation did come, it came as the result of an accident. At the age of thirty he was obliged, owing to a quarrel with a ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey

... sense. Thus in the case of the shortened wings and thickened legs of the domestic duck, I believe equally with Darwin and Spencer that "no one will dispute that they have resulted from the lessened use of the wings and the increased use of the legs." "Use" is at bottom the determining circumstance in evolution generally. The trunk of the elephant, the fin of the fish, the wing of the bird, the cunning hand of man and his complicated brain—and, in short, all organs and faculties whatsoever—can ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball

... most nearly approximate the flavor of roasted ones. Break fresh eggs at the small ends, drain away the whites, break down the shells to deepish cups, each with a yolk at bottom, sprinkle yolks lightly with salt and pepper, add a bit of butter to each, then set shells upright, close over the bottom of a pan, pop the pan into a hot oven, bake twenty minutes, and serve piping hot. This Mammy gave us to keep from wasting yolks when wedding or Christmas cake demanded ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams

... his ranch but himself is named after his voice," returned Buck. "His real name is Jackson, but it is seldom used now. Every one knows him as Roaring Bull. He's not a bad fellow at bottom, but something overbearing, and has made a good many enemies since he came to this part of ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... expostulation, he was (like most of us, incurably an actor in private as well as in public life) merely running through business which convention has designated as appropriate to such circumstances. At bottom he was being stimulated to thought more than ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... tradition, a half-anxious sense of the delight of meadow and acre and wood and river; a certain amount (not too much, let us hope) of common-sense, a liking for making materials serve one's turn, and perhaps at bottom some little grain of sentiment—this, I think, was what went to the ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... running loops with incredible speed, "and I don't quite like the way they are living there. They associate too much with the cutting-women. You know, Edward, that isn't good for boys of their age—and they must be nice at bottom or they wouldn't be trying to work ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin

... nevertheless, in a chronic state of what the B.E.F. calls "wind up" on account of this exam. I am so eager to do well that the mere thought of failing is abhorrent. I am inclined to ascribe these feelings at bottom to egotism. ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

... are at bottom not matters of conscious purpose but of quality of active response. Their acquisition is fostered of course by conscious intent, but self-deception is very easy. Desires are urgent. When the demands and wishes of others forbid their direct expression they are easily ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... way; because he thought their success in England rather exceeded the due proportion of their real merit; and because he could not but seenin them that nationality which I believe no liberal-minded Scotsman will deny. He was indeed, if I may be allowed the phrase, at bottom much of a John Bull; much of a blunt 'true born Englishman'. There was a stratum of common clay under the rock of marble. He was voraciously fond of good eating; and he had a great deal of that quality called humour, which gives an oiliness and a gloss to ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... quivering as she still was under the strain of her scene with Welby—so short, so veiled, and at bottom so tragic!—she showed herself glitteringly cheerful—almost gay—as she stood talking a few minutes with her father and Fenwick. The restless happiness in Fenwick's face and movements gave his visitors indeed so much pleasure that they found it hard to go; several ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... interwoven by, our own minds. Underlying the innumerable illusive appearances which we call the world is a reality, a being or force which is one. We and everything else are but manifestations, in time and space, of this one reality with which, however, each and every one of us is at bottom identical and whose sole attribute is unity. This force or will manifests itself in myriads of facets, so to say, in the universe, and these manifestations are not good, constitute, indeed, a sort of fall. Intelligence is not one of the primary attributes of this eternal will. ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... left the mark of English custom upon this otherwise peculiar and continental looking building. The leper window has been noticed above. The only other building at Witham which pretends to bear traces of Hugh's hand is the guest house, and this, as we have seen, may be at bottom the very house where ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson

... girl! she broke her neck down stairs at a christening. To be sure I shall never meet with her fellow! But never you mind that; I do not doubt that I shall find more in you upon further acquaintance. As coy and bashful as you seem, I dare say you are rogue enough at bottom. When I have touzled and rumpled you a little, we shall see. I am no chicken, miss, whatever you may think. I know what is what, and can see as far into a millstone as another. Ay, ay; you will come to. The fish will snap ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... dexterous, and yet I really think that there is at bottom nothing in it. But of this you are to judge, not from my assertion, but from the reason I shall endeavour ...
— Some Remains (hitherto unpublished) of Joseph Butler, LL.D. • Joseph Butler

... I was at bottom a good deal gratified with this result; and the next humour I fell into was one (I had near said) of gratitude to Prestongrange, who had saved me, in this violent, illegal manner, out of the midst of my dangers, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... this consideration, the tradesman oftentimes drowns, as I may call it, even within his depth—that is, he sinks when he has really the substance at bottom to keep him up—and this is all owing to an adventurous bold spirit in trade, joined with too great a gust of gain. Avarice is the ruin of many people besides tradesmen; and I might give the late South Sea calamity for an example in which the longest heads were most overreached, not so much ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... continuous although an alternating current of fifty cycles a second is used. The electric arc is spread into this disk flame by the repellent power of an electro-magnet the pointed pole of which is seen at bottom of the picture. Under this intense heat a part of the nitrogen and oxygen of the air combine to form oxides of nitrogen which when dissolved in water form the ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... hers; it was a fact that must be accepted like any other. Philip tried to reason with himself. He told himself that deep down in his heart was mortified pride; his passion had begun in wounded vanity, and it was this at bottom which caused now a great part of his wretchedness. He despised himself as much as he despised her. Then he made plans for the future, the same plans over and over again, interrupted by recollections of kisses on her soft pale cheek and by the sound of her voice with its trailing accent; he had a ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... to the time, the place, the character and temperament of the race. Thus in our times we can admire, under the same conditions of danger, emotion and anguish, the calmness of the English, the dash of the French, and that inertia of the Russians which is called tenacity. But at bottom there is always found the same man. It is this man that we see disposed of by the experts, by the masters, when they organize and discipline, when they order detailed combat methods and take general dispositions for action. ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq

... all have a common root, and proceed upon certain common principles. The faculties which produce them, the laws that govern them, and the end they are meant to serve, in short their source, method, and motive, are at bottom one and the same. Art, therefore, is properly and essentially one: accordingly I take care to use the phrase several forms of Art, and not several arts. This identity of life and law is perhaps most apparent in the well-known ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... judgment was, and how cool a prudence there was behind his apparent impulsiveness. The untiring activity of his mind turned every problem over and over until he had viewed it from every point and considered the probable consequences of each mode of solving it. At bottom of all lay the indomitable courage and will which were only stimulated by obstacles, and which stuck to the inexorable purpose of keeping the initiative and making each day bring him nearer to a successful ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... citizens, if they dared freely to express their opinions, would be found to favor the restoration of the city's ancient autonomy under the aegis of the League of Nations. The Italians of Flume are at bottom, beneath their excitable and mercurial temperaments, a shrewd business people who have the commercial future of their city at heart. And they are intelligent enough to realize that, unless there be established some stable form of government which will propitiate the Slav minority ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell

... which they had spent the afternoon in the fields, Clara had found he had nothing to urge upon her except the needs of his body. Still she felt there was something he wanted to say that had not been said. He was restless and dissatisfied with his life, and at bottom she felt that way about her own life. During the last three years she had often wondered why she had come to the school and what she was to gain by learning things out of books. The days and months went past and she ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson

... relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... we do not, when we say "petty," merely mean at bottom what is altogether different from our ordinary notions, formed by daily and general experience of life, ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden



Words linked to "At bottom" :   in spite of appearance, at heart, deep down



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