"Flatly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "He flatly refused to give it to us, and said we had no right to unlock his drawers. He was so angry that he even declared it was lucky for us he was too weak to rise from his bed. I answered civilly that our duty obliged us to examine the drawer, and that if he still declined to produce the key, he would ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... 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. He will ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... it thus 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
... that, but I knew he was making fun of me. I understood what Ned meant; for he said flatly, "You've ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... was told flatly and calmly, as though there were nothing at all remarkable about the fact, that Leider had penetrated so deeply into the chemical secrets of Orcon that he was able to control the coming of day and night. Finally ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... frequently reprobated by historians. Foremost of its opposers, and eminent in example, stands the virtuous and firm Archbishop Abbot, who, being at Croydon the day it was ordered to be read in churches, flatly forbade it to be read there; which the King was pleased to wink at, notwithstanding the daily endeavours that were used to irritate the King against him. The Book of Sports is not, however, without its apologists among modern writers. The following are ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... that all our knowledge is founded upon experience; and he holds that no experience can give us knowledge that is necessary and universal. We know things as they are revealed to us in our experience; but who can guarantee that we may not have new experiences of a quite different kind, and which flatly contradict the notions which we have so far attained of what is possible and impossible, true ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... had been compelled to sell Peveril Manor to liquidate his gambling debts. He left nothing for Rhoda beyond his exquisite wardrobe and jewellery, a service of gold plate, and a number of unpaid bills, which Madam flatly refused to take upon herself, and defied the unhappy tradesmen to impose upon Rhoda. She did, however, keep the plate and jewels; and by way of a sop to Cerberus, allowed the "beggarly craftsmen," whom she so heartily despised, to sell and divide ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... and flatly to stifle the innate striving toward artistic creation, is to become (as with Wycherley and Sheridan) a man who waives, however laughingly, his sole apology for existence. The proceeding is paltry enough, in all conscience; and yet, upon the other side, there ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... the growing reluctance on the part of railway servants to take tips from holiday-makers, it appears that they are merely following the example set by the higher officials. We have positive information that only a week or so since Sir ERIC GEDDES flatly refused to take a tip from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... insurmountable obstacles in the way of it; and what is more important than all, they are evidently by no means CERTAIN that SHE may not, at some future period, consent to it; or they would, for her sake as well as their own, let you know as much flatly, and put an end ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... not far away 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 at mental range ...
— Stop Look and Dig • George O. Smith
... his engagement raised a little tempest in the pool. The stricter sect, not without reason, were scandalized. They held to their creed, and the bare mention of Esther Dudley's name called warm protests from their ranks. They flatly said that it would be impossible for Mr. Hazard to make them believe his own doctrine to be sound, if he could wish to enter into such a connection. None but a free-thinker could associate with the set of free-thinkers, ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... had by this time taken too fearful a shape for even the Captain to compel them to a blindfold oath; the first man he called flatly refused to answer, until he should hear the nature of the service that was required. This was echoed by the remainder, who, taking courage from the firmness of this person, declared generally that, until they first knew the business they ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... Narragansets and others within a region of two hundred miles of them, were "tawnie by the sunne and their annoyntings, yet they were born white." [Footnote: Roger Williams's Key, 52.] Thus the authorities flatly contradict the statement of black Indians existing in North Carolina, and a difference of color between the people of the two sections claimed to have been ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... to the Lords of Trade, "to bring the inhabitants to a compliance, or rid the province of such perfidious subjects."[273] First, in answer to the summons of the Council, the deputies from Annapolis appeared, declaring that they had always been faithful to the British Crown, but flatly refusing the oath. They were told that, far from having been faithful subjects, they had always secretly aided the Indians, and that many of them had been in arms against the English; that the French were threatening the province; and that its affairs had reached a crisis when its inhabitants ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... flatly," returned Levy, "that, as Mr. Egerton's agent, I would allow no proceedings that might vitiate the election, but that I would undertake the management of these men myself; and I am going into the town in order to do so. I have also persuaded the leading Committee ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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
... surprised, and, despite their view of him as the bringer of ill, were disposed to accede. 'Though I suppose,' said Mrs. Millborne to him, 'it will end in Mr. Cope's asking you flatly about the past, and your being compelled to tell him; which may dash all my hopes for Frances. She gets more and more like you every day, particularly when she is in a bad temper. People will see you together, and notice it; and I don't know what ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... 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 ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... accuse me of encouraging a person whom I flatly refused yesterday morning? If Mr. Smithson likes my society as a friend, must I needs deny him my friendship, ask Lady Kirkbank to shut her door against him? Mr. Smithson is very pleasant as an acquaintance; and although ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... 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 part very ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... and sat on the blanket. Hasjelti rubbed the invalid with the horn of a mountain sheep held in the left hand, and in the right hand a piece of hide, about 10 inches long and 4 wide, from between the eyes of the sheep. The hide was held flatly against the palm of the hand, and in this way the god rubbed the breast of the invalid, while he rubbed his back with the horn, occasionally alternating his hands. Hostjoghon put the invalid through the same manipulation. ...
— Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis and Mythical Sand Painting of the - Navajo Indians • James Stevenson
... our reason sleeping when we trusted 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 it, and what he can, he will. And then the impunity of his defiance— Oh! what a proclamation ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... 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. The most ad- vanced ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... next I chided him. Then I told him flatly that I stood in need of no wet-nursing. After that I did not see him when I came out of the club. Quite by accident, a week or so later, I discovered that he still saw me home, lurking across the street among the shadows of the mango-trees. ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... himself to be in the communion of the Church of Rome. He acknowledged the deceased Mr. Nisbet to have been extraordinarily kind and charitable to him, even to as great a degree as if he had been his own child, but as to the murder, he flatly denied his committing it, or his having any knowledge of its being committed; and though he was strongly pressed as to the nature of those circumstances on which the jury had found him guilty, and which were ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... thoosands to tell, if I like, but I'm no' gaun to tell ye a thing,' replied Liz flatly; but her candour did not even make Teen wince. She was used to it in the old days, and ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... 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? You promise me ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... one in the water, which is their true life, and where they are in their element; the other upon land, where they can only crawl; for their paws, which are but half developed, are destined to perform the office of fins, and the hinder ones are extended flatly behind them, and act like a fish's tail. They are divided into two families, the seal and the walrus. The first feed on fish, and have the same internal organization as the Carnivora, as well as the ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... all these considerations the fact that Mr. Llewelyn Davies, the warmth of whose philanthropy is beyond question, and in whose competency and fairness I, for one, place implicit reliance, flatly denies the boasted success of the Salvation Army in its professed mission, I have arrived at the conclusion that, as at present advised, I cannot be the instrument of carrying out ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... CRAVEN. There I flatly contradict you and stand up for Jo. I'd no more have behaved as you do when I was a young man than I'd have cheated at cards. I ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... venture. The statesmen of the period were against any such schemes. A deputation of the Friends of Colonization waited upon the Duke of Wellington to urge that New Zealand should be acquired and settled. The Duke, under the advice of the Church Missionary Society, flatly refused to think of such a thing. It was then that he made the historically noteworthy observation that, even supposing New Zealand were as valuable as the deputation made out, Great Britain had already colonies enough. When one reflects what the British Colonial Empire was then, and what it ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... 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 Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... parched and weary land. But 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 ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... they claimed that I ought to pay the men extra, although their services had been included in the price. I took this for one of the tricks by which the natives try to get the better of a good-natured foreigner, and refused flatly, whereupon the whole crowd sat down in front of the house and waited in defiant silence. I left them there for half an hour, during which they whispered and deliberated in rather an uncomfortable way. I finally told them that I would not pay any more, and that they had better go away at ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... access port door and locked the patented fasteners with a few turns of his screw driver. "We're done," he said flatly. "Come on down." ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... With this copy of the Kicker in hand Hollis rose from his desk, told Potter he was going out, and proceeded to visit some of the merchants whose advertisements appeared in the paper, hoping that their bravery still abided with them. He made a good solicitor. Some of the merchants flatly refused, saying they did not care to risk Dunlavey's anger. Others demurred, confidentially announcing that they had never considered the paper seriously and that there was really no good in advertising ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Vigilance Committee is implored to send all the Fugitives there—"Farmers and Mechanics wanted"—"No living in Canada for Negroes," as argued by "Masters," flatly ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Marley. As she returned the letter to the satchel she became aware that the train was at a standstill and not before a station. Indeed, there was not a building in sight: only a dreary waste of sunburnt prairie-grass extended flatly to the glare of the burning horizon. She looked about wonderingly, vaguely aware that they must already ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... been committed in abandoning, sacrificing, and deluding them. This is their own language even to the Ambassador, who wishes them to enter upon this negotiation directly with the French Minister, and in that case promises them complete success; this they flatly refuse. He said to me and to them too, that he thought you would make no difficulty in taking it upon yourself, but that your colleagues would probably oppose it. They replied, that, not seeing any reason why any opposition should be made to the joint adoption of the measure by the three belligerents, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... been," corrected the Governor. "In the present instance he seems to have fallen below standard. He has declined to reconsider his decision in the case of the discharged men. What's worse, he has flatly refused to see the committee appointed ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... else, seemed changed to Dosia, at the same time being also flatly, unchangeably natural. She had longed—oh, how she had longed!—to be back here. Even while loving and working in her so-called home, she had felt that this was her real home, although here her cruelest blows had fallen on her; even while bleeding with the wrench of ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... appointed, Roberts went to the inn where the Bishop lodged, and was invited to dine with him. After dinner was over, the prelate told him that he must go to church, and leave off holding conventicles at his house, of which great complaint was made. This he flatly refused to do; and the Bishop, losing patience, ordered the constable to be sent for. Roberts told him that if, after coming to his house under the guise of friendship, he should betray him and send him to prison, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... but 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, ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... father's 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
... both overwhelmed and gasping for breath, I refused flatly to ask anything more, whereon she ceased ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... displeasure with and disdain of Tryon by sitting half turned and conversing with Druro, who was obliged to lean forward uncomfortably to answer her remarks. But she soon tired of this, for the strong wind caused by the car cutting through the air tore her flatly arranged hair from its appointed place and blew it over her eyes in thin black strings. This enraged her, as the dishevelment of a carefully arranged coiffure always enrages a fashionable woman. She loathed wind ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... small mustache, much darker than the usual Chinese type, owing to his heritage of Siamese blood. Many people say he has no Siamese blood at all, but it is always like that in China: whatever any one tells you is always flatly contradicted by ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... white mid-rib, 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, ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... probably have terminated the conversation there and then by flatly forbidding the subject, had not her conscious weakness of position allured her to palter and argue ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... sent word that she had not finished her music-lesson, and that he desired her to return and do so. I directed her to obey the summons, and she flatly refused; giving as her only reason that ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... They were published, together with those of Duke, in an octavo volume, in 1717. The editor, whoever he was, professes to have taken great care to procure and insert all of his lordship's poems that are truly genuine. The truth of this assertion is flatly denied by the author of an account of Mr. John Pomfret, prefixed to his Remains; who asserts, that the Prospect of Death was written by that person, many years after lord Roscommon's decease; as also, that the paraphrase of the Prayer of Jeremy was written by a gentleman of the ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... in a transversal position the explanation of the long grappling-irons thrown out to a distance? We will not be too certain, for here is the Four-spotted Clythra, who would flatly contradict us. The male has fore-legs of modest dimensions, in conformity with the usual rules; he places himself crosswise like the others and nevertheless achieves his ends without hindrance. He finds it enough to ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... insisted on the existing law against lawlessness. But 'Boycotting' is not lawlessness. Lynch-law against oppressive landlords or their agents cannot be put down by intensifying national hatred.... Has the Coercion been wisely directed and reasonably guarded from abuse? I am sorry to say, flatly and plainly, No; and that Mr. Gladstone himself, as well as Mr. Forster, seems to have gone more and more to the wrong as the Bill moved on.... Mr. Forster's tone has been simply ferocious, out of Parliament as well as in, and Mr. Gladstone has borrowed a spice of ferocity.... To imprison (for ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... emerged from it victoriously. He flatly refused to move from the carriage in which he sat. The guard, the station-master, a ticket-collector, and four porters gathered round the door and argued with him. Meldon argued fluently with them. In the end they took his name and address, threatening ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... third responded. Then followed the flatly shrill note of a police whistle, and I noted a column of black vapor rising beyond the wall, mounting straight to heaven as the smoke ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... taken and suspected to be a gentleman's son of Mexico that was run away from his father. So I, being arrested and brought before the justices, there was a great hurly-burly about the matter, every man charging me that I was the son of such a man, dwelling in Mexico, which I flatly denied, affirming that I knew not the man; yet would they not believe me, but urged still upon me that I was he that they sought for, and so I was conveyed away to prison. And as I was thus going to prison, to the further increase of my grief, it chanced that at that very instant there was ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt
... excited, he arrived once more at the office,—and when Puma, who had just entered, had listened in sullen consternation to his story, he received another amazing and most unpleasant shock. For Puma told him flatly that the tenancy of the Red Flag Club suited him; that no lease could be broken, except by mutual consent of partners; and that he, Skidder, had had no business to go to Sondheim with any such threat of eviction unless he had first consulted ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... he thinks she may have had, although she had a valvular affection of the heart which had existed for some time. But the fact that the cause of her death was officially attested by the family physician as due to her long fast contradicts flatly the position taken by the self-constituted healer, who made the following statement ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... Montpensier had flatly refused the Duc de Savoie, because Madame de Savoie, daughter of Henri IV., was still living, ruling her estate like a woman of authority; and therefore, to this stepmother, a king's daughter, Mademoiselle had to give ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... 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 ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... is 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 ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... it, it was not made for you, it is beneath you; you ought, by all means, to leave it, before its injurious influence begins to affect your faculties, and before you become settled, as they say, in the ways of your profession, were it possible that such a thing could ever happen, which I flatly deny. You are unhappy; you have not yet entered upon the path which Nature has marked out for you. But, faint-hearted soul, is that a cause for despondency? Ought you to feel discouraged? Struggle, morbleu, struggle persistently, and you ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... Miki began exploring along the foot of the slope, and for a scant hundred yards Neewa humoured him by following, but beyond that point he flatly refused to go. In the fourth month of his exciting young life Neewa was satisfied that Nature had given him birth that he might have the endless pleasure of filling his stomach. For him, eating was the one and only excuse for existing. In the next few months he had a big job on his hands ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... for a moment. "Look here, Latimer," I went on. "What is it you want me to do? I'll help you in any way I can. When I made my bargain with McMurtrie I hadn't a notion what his real game was. I don't in the least want to buy my freedom by selling England to Germany. The only thing I flatly and utterly refuse to do is to serve out the rest of my sentence. If it's bound to come out who I am, you must give me your word I shall have a reasonable warning. I don't much mind dying—especially ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... going," Caleb stated flatly. "We'll keep him away from them." And under his breath he added something which Sarah had never heard him ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... should be forgotten and the holy oil alone remembered! Yet Louis probably used that mediaeval notion as a shield against his brother's dictation. The tough Bonaparte nature brooked not the idea of mere lieutenancy. He declined to obey orders from the brother whom he secretly detested. He flatly refused to be transferred from the Hague to Madrid, or to put in force the burdensome decrees ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... harder as he felt my mother trying to unfold them, while his head hung listless, and his eyes were closed as though he were sleeping sweetly. It is needless to detail the agony of shame that followed. My mother begged my father to box his ears, which my father flatly refused to do. Then she boxed them herself, and there followed a scene, and a day or two of disgrace ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... Navy Department. The nearest approach to this is the report of the body of experts—ship-builders, and ship-captains, experts in ship's materials, and the like—whom Mr. Roach invited to examine the "Dolphin." The report of these gentlemen flatly contradicts Mr. Whitney's board on points which are matters of fact, and not of opinion, and therefore throws the burden of proof upon Mr. Whitney himself. Until some equally unpolitical and unofficial body refutes it, the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... But the words flatly refuse to come now. I make six false starts, bite all my best finger-nails, screw my hair into a wilderness of cork-screws and give it up. No doubt a real Lady Writer could write on, unruffled and unhearing, while the iceman squashed the cucumbers, and the roast burned to a frazzle, and the Spalpeens ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... much humor, he had a sensitive dreaminess of nature, strongly poetic in feeling, whence resulted a large appreciation of the subtler classes of poetry; of which he was an acute and sympathizing critic. As part of this temperament, he had a strong bent toward mysticism,—in one essay he says flatly that "mysticism is true,"—which gave him a rare insight into the religious nature and some obscure problems of religious history; though he was too cool, scientific, and humorous ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... distinct conception of it; for years that conception remains unmodified, and suddenly the strain of some emergency, of the incidental stimulus of new circumstances, reveals qualities not simply unexpected, but flatly contradictory of our previous conception. We judge of a man by the angle he subtends to our eye—only thus CAN we judge of him; and this angle depends on the relation his qualities and circumstances bear to our ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... 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 really thinking it wrong. As a child would take a worthless ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... at her oddly for quite a space. Finally, he said flatly, "Oh, it's a wonderland for sure, more amazing than you tombed folk could ever imagine. A veritable fairyland." And he quickly went ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... could be as humble when you choose rich apparel (which I flatly deny), yet you could not be as beneficent, as plenteous in good works. Therefore every shilling that you needlessly spend on your apparel is in effect stolen from the poor! For what end do you want these ornaments? To please God? No!—but to please your own fancy ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... seventy-five, who knows Chamonix better than Camberwell; evidently a good old lady, with the 'Christian Treasury'tossing about on the table. She puts 'John' down, and holds her own opinions, and flatly contradicts him; and he receives all her opinions with a soft reverence and gentleness that is ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... He spoke of the impending declaration of war—there is generally some such thing—as if he had been at the War Office that morning in confidential converse with the chief officials; but this was more than Squire Havenant could endure, and he flatly contradicted the physician on the strength of his morning's correspondence. Mr. Havenant always talked of his letters as if they contained all the law and the prophets. His correspondents were high in office, unimpeachable authorities, men who ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... who was one of a number of claimants who had all equally good rights, owed his accession to a voluntary preference on the part of the nation, which might be regarded as a sort of election. These were ideas of unlimited range, and flatly contradicted those which James had formed on the rights of birth and inheritance. He felt himself outraged by their expression in ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... dimensions, length and breadth, reserving thickness and its representation, for sculpture. This robs painting of the quality of natural aspect, except under the single effect of absolutely direct lighting and ignores its development beyond the flatly colored representations of the ancient Egyptians, our American Indians and the Japanese, a development inaugurated by the Greeks and since adhered to ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... conceived those gardens of the Babylonish Queen. So that I quite remember my bitter disappointment (the first germ, doubtless, of a general scepticism about Gods and Men) when a cut in an indiscreet Handbook of Antiquities displayed these flowery places as resting flatly on a housetop, and no more hanging, in any intelligible sense, than ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... not glance. Take no notice. She took no notice while he read by rote a solfa fable for her, plappering flatly: ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... than up sidled the lady who sometimes over-estimates her duties as chaperon. She wanted to know about Dordrecht and John of Brabant and the siege, and the inundation that set the town upon an island; nor would she be discouraged when I told her flatly that I knew nothing about it, and advised ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... 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 ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... do with it," Colonel Handrosan stated flatly. "He and his wife were in their apartment, packing to move out, when it started. Somebody called him and told him about the fighting at the stadium, and he went there at once to talk his students into dispersing. By that time, the situation was completely out of hand; he ...
— Ministry of Disturbance • Henry Beam Piper
... Sound steamers are to be furnished with billiard tables for the amusement of passengers between New York and Boston. This report, however, is flatly contradicted, and we have neither charity nor chalk for the man who would make a statement so groundless. ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... oath: I never saw that so my thoughts did please; And yet content displeased I see them wroth To love so much and cannot have their ease. I told my thoughts, my sovereign made a pause, Disposed to grant, but willing to delay; They then repined, for that they knew no cause, And swore they wished she flatly would say nay. Thus hath my love, my thoughts with treason filled, And 'gainst my sovereign taught them to repine. So thus my treason all my thoughts hath killed, And made fair Licia say she is not mine. But thoughts too rash my heart doth now repent; And as you ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... treasury as all his other tricks put together. But the truth of it was, it was a feeble show, a scanty, pitiful show; and only the gross truculence of Trotter and the venomous litheness of the Signor withheld the average yokel from saying so flatly. ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... thus: "Are you a clergyman?" And those who fail to say flatly, "No," are not allowed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... wants at least to be able to see her husband; she enters the service of the courtesan, and there suffers a moral martyrdom. Opheltes is ruined, and, in words which Greene nearly copied, "Phoemonoe not brooking the cumbersome haunt of so beggerly a guest, with outragious tearms flatly forbad him her house." Alcippe makes herself known, and all ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... his physician, I must advise him. The family physician has pronounced it due to natural causes, the uremic coma of latent kidney trouble. Some of the newspapers, I think the Star among them, have hinted at suicide. And then there are others, who have flatly ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... not exercise naval command,—that an order authorizing him to do so was invalid,—that to entitle him to such command he must be put into military commission by being attached to a ship in commission. He therefore flatly declined to obey Moutray's orders, refusing to admit his claim to be considered a commodore, or entitled to military obedience, unless he produced a commission. This he held to when Moutray gave him a written order to put himself under ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... to the Traveller's remark that the mourner had been a merciful master to the dead ass. "Alas!" the latter says, "I thought so when he was alive, but now that he is dead I think otherwise. I fear the weight of myself and my afflictions have been too much for him." And the scene ends flatly enough with the scrap of morality: "'Shame on the world!' said I to myself. 'Did we love each other as this poor soul loved his ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... resolved to relieve it the next morning. Meanwhile Phrynichus, the Athenian commander, had received precise intelligence of the fleet from Leros, and when his colleagues expressed a wish to keep the sea and fight it out, flatly refused either to stay himself or to let them or any one else do so if he could help it. Where they could hereafter contend, after full and undisturbed preparation, with an exact knowledge of the number of the enemy's fleet and of the force which they could oppose ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... to meridian, turned all the sky to heated brass. One seemed to see as well as feel this heat, and Griffiths sought vain relief by gazing shoreward. The white beach was a searing ache to his eyeballs. The palm trees, absolutely still, outlined flatly against the unrefreshing green of the packed jungle, seemed so much cardboard scenery. The little black boys, playing naked in the dazzle of sand and sun, were an affront and a hurt to the sun-sick man. He felt a sort of relief when one, running, tripped and ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... his shipboard superiors and obeying them. Hawkes probably knew best. In any case, he was dependent on the older man right now, and did not want to anger him unnecessarily. Hawkes was wealthy; it might take money to build a hyperdrive ship, when the time came. Alan was flatly cold-blooded about it, and the concept surprised and amused him when he realized just how single-minded he had become since ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... a tremendous argument 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 leaving ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... and with the resplendent licence of the period which continued still upon tolerable terms with nature under the compromise of decorous 'Oh-fie!' flatly declared the thing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the colonel. "Indeed, my dear child, you never did anything to offend me.—Nay, I have acted the part of a friend to you in the whole affair. I maintained your cause with my brother as long as decency would permit; I could not flatly contradict him, though, indeed, I scarce believed him. But what could I do? If I had not fought with you, I must have been obliged to have fought with him; however, I hope what is done will be sufficient, and that matters may be discomodated without your ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... deceitful, they naturally suspected us of being the same, and would not come alongside, or render up possession of the jollyboat and the three wounded seamen whom she carried, until we on our part had released Oahika. And this I flatly refused to do, feeling that, as likely as not, they would play us some scurvy trick as soon as they had recovered possession of the man who, I now very strongly suspected, was the paramount chief of the island, or, if not ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... impossible of explanation as due to instinct, Mr. Burroughs may reply: "Your instances are easily explained by the simple law of association." To this I reply, first, then why did you deny rudimentary reason to animals? and why did you state flatly that "instinct suffices for the animals"? And, second, with great reluctance and with overwhelming humility, because of my youth, I suggest that you do not know exactly what you do mean by that phrase "the simple law of association." Your trouble, I repeat, is with definitions. ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... to the point of making himself an ass. He was not on the crest of popularity, anyway. Previously, in order to give Doloria more freedom, Tommy and I decided to sleep on deck and use Gates's quarters for a dressing room. But when this proposition was also opened to the professor he flatly refused to join with us. The truth of the matter was that he had determined upon a plan—singularly popular among pedagogues—of watchful waiting; he had made up his mind that Doloria and I should not see each other again except ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... quiet reply 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, ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... probably unique. It ought to be a better one, seeing the trouble I took to make my obstinate mount stand still; but he seemed to regard the camera as an infernal machine destined for his destruction, and flatly refused to pose nicely for his portrait. He was far too neck-strong to make a pleasant mount for a lady. Kickers, as I have already said, should never be taken into ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... canting old hypocrite. She would go away straight to India, and marry Gerry—he would be glad enough to have her—see how constant the dear good boy had been! Not a week passed but she got a letter. She asked her mother flatly what could she want to marry again for at her time of life? And such a withered old sow-thistle as that! Sub-dean, indeed! She would sub-dean him! In fact, there were words, and the words almost went the length of taking the form known as "language" par excellence. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... appear to have hidden anything, so went off rather flatly. But an exemplary lady named Wilcocks, who had stowed away gold and silver in a pickle-pot in a clock-case, a canister-full of treasure in a hole under her stairs, and a quantity of money in an old rat-trap, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... 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 chickenhearted toadeating arselicking, ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... rushing frantically through the crowd. 'Hold on! hold on!' repeated some of the bystanders, while the men at the ropes delayed for a minute. This threw the captain into a frightful rage; for some of his friends had come down to see him off, and having his orders contradicted so flatly was too much for him. However, the delay was sufficient. I took a race and a good leap; the ropes were cast off; the steam-tug gave a puff, and we started. Suddenly the captain walks up to me: 'Where did you come from, you scamp, and what do ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... absolutely and flatly refused to be parted from her charge, and the curious party of three set sail for England in ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... chaplain summoned now, and do you go and fetch the lady. The half of all my land I will give her as her dower if she will comply with my desire." Then they bade the chaplain come, in accordance with the Count's command, and the dame they brought there, too, and made her marry him perforce; for she flatly refused to give consent. But in spite of all, the Count married her in accordance with his wish. And when he had married her, the constable at once had the tables set in the palace, and had the food prepared; for already it was ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... yes, and off we went to the chapel, where we found Agon looking as sulky as any High Priest possibly could, and no wonder. It appeared that he and Nyleptha had a slight difference of opinion about the coming ceremony. He had flatly refused to celebrate it, or to allow any of his priests to do so, whereupon Nyleptha became very angry and told him that she, as Queen, was head of the Church, and meant to be obeyed. Indeed, she played the part of a Zu-Vendi Henry the Eighth to perfection, and insisted that, if she wanted to ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... Indeed, Dunlop flatly refused to go away without Anne. He would not yield to coaxing and he scorned threats. His wishes finally prevailed and it was decided that Anne should go with them to spend the week-end and return to town ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... was told to lie down in there he flatly refused, and followed his master aft once more, the little sailor having run before them in answer to the mate's shout; and Mark saw him directly afterward hauling away at a rope with some more so as to raise the main-yard, which was not quite ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... felt 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 and satisfaction ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... that their favourite oratorical attitude—which they inevitably assumed when asked to pose themselves quite naturally—was not really overwhelmingly effective, while royalties who perforce condescended to attend his studio—since he flatly declined to paint them in their palaces—found that he was inclined to overlook the matter of their royal blood and to portray them as though they ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... against the overtures of Brouillan was a passage in his letter reminding them that, by the Treaty of Ryswick, the New England people had no right to fish within sight of the Acadian coast. This they flatly denied, saying that the New England people had fished there time out of mind, and that if Brouillan should molest them, they would treat it ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... point where an excited woman must go mad or cry. Anne cried. She sat flatly down on a ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... "Mr. O'Neill," said Hannah flatly after what seemed an interminable interval of digging, "you've dug a hole big enough to bury yourself. Mr. Craig's money couldn't be no further down than that. Myself I think you'd better let it go until morning. It's snowin' ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... one of his schoolmates put the question to him flatly: "In case of war, on which side will you fight?" Hamilton answered, "On ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... catching at his expressions and drawing the discourse from things to words, flatly affirms that Parmenides in one word destroys the existence of all things by supposing ENS (or that which is) to be one. But, on the contrary, he takes away neither the one nor the other part of Nature; but rendering to each of them what belongs to it and is convenient for it, he places ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... conversation, said, "Bonaparte, some ladies have advised me to have a necklace made of antique stones, and I came to ask you to urge M. Denon to select only very handsome ones." The Emperor burst out laughing, and refused flatly at first; but just then the grand marshal of the palace arrived, and the Emperor informed him of this request of the Empress, asking his opinion. M. le due de Frioul thought it very reasonable, and joined his entreaties to those of the Empress. "It is an ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... the son of a lord a hundred guineas to speak for him, and ten more to pledge his sacred honour for his honesty, but gave Counsellor P . . . one-and-twenty shillings to defend him, who so frightened the principal evidence, a plain honest farming man, that he flatly contradicted what he had first said, and at last acknowledged himself to be all the rogues in the world, and, amongst other things, a perjured villain. Old Fulcher, before he left the town with his son,—and here it will be well to ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... had my leg bandaged, how and with what I neither knew nor cared. And it was evident that unless they chose to leave me in camp where I was they would have to abandon all thought of pursuing Masai for the present. Even Brown saw the force of that, and he was the first to refuse flatly to leave me there. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... pointed out the aforesaid old woman, towards whom Genestas went; taking care at the same time to keep a tight hold on his horse, lest the children who were already running about under his hoofs should be hurt. He repeated his request, with which the housewife flatly refused to comply. She would not, she said, disturb the cream on the pans full of milk from which butter was to be made. The officer overcame this objection by undertaking to repay her amply for the ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... many other persons. The Socialist or revolutionary groups and press had made preparations for a monster demonstration on May first. Walls were placarded with incendiary appeals and their press was full of calls to arms. Monsieur Briand [the Prime Minister] flatly refused to allow the demonstration, and gave orders accordingly to Monsieur Lepine [the Chief of Police]. For the first time since present influences have governed France, certainly in fifteen years, the police and the troops were authorized to use their arms in self-defence. ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... 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
... Coleman had preached and printed such doctrine as I was, in my conscience, fully persuaded was contrary to the covenant of the three kingdoms, and destructive (if it were put in practice) to the reformation of religion, he having also flatly and publicly imputed to the Commissioners from the church of Scotland a great part of the fault of hindering union in the Assembly here, I thought myself obliged in duty, and in the trust which I bear, to give ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... dealers, even the very carriers along the road, the higglers, and other persons who call at a farm on petty business, gave him clearly to know in their own coarse way that they despised him. They flatly contradicted him, and bore him down with loud tongues. He stood it all meekly, without showing any spirit; but, on the other hand, without resentment, for he never said ill of any man ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... Francis de Bard, of Lombard Street. The loss of the wife might have been borne, but the wife took with her, at the Italian's solicitation, a box of her husband's plate. The husband demanding first his wife and then his plate, was flatly refused both. The injured man tried the case at the Guildhall, but was foiled by the intriguing foreigner, who then had the incomparable rascality to arrest the poor ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... expeditious method. Two of the Justices, however, rejected this line of reasoning and held the act to be void under the commerce clause.[618] But it was not until 1885 that the Court, in deciding Gloucester Ferry Company v. Pennsylvania,[619] stated flatly that "Commerce among the States * * * includes the transportation of persons,"[620] and hence was not taxable by the States, a proposition which is still good law.[621] Four years earlier it had been held that ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin |
