"Flatly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "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 ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... 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
... made into the interior, half frantic with the insolence of the servants at a certain inn. The proprietor was absent, and the waiter and the cook—not caring, perhaps, to be disturbed for a single traveller—had first refused flatly to admit him; and afterwards, when he had obtained entrance, treated him to the worst of food, intimating at the same time it was better than he was used to, and plainly giving him to understand that on the very slightest provocation they were prepared ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... took him to her heart—didn't she? And all the servants, from butler to scullery maid, voted him the jolliest, cheeriest boy that ever came to Hampshire. Why, Mrs. Osman, the cook, with a temper like tinder from too much heat, refused flatly to let Caesar make toffee in her kitchen. But just then a barrel-organ turned up, and before she could open her mouth, Caesar was dancing a polka with her; and after that he could make toffee, or hay, or anything else, wherever and ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... difficult to perform, or disagreeable to Human Nature, there is Room to suspect, that such a Set of People lay claim to a Title, that does not belong to them. When Ministers of the Gospel take Pains to undermine it themselves, and flatly deny the Strictness of Behaviour, and Severity of Manners, that are so manifestly inculcated in every Part of it, I don't wonder, that Men of Sincerity, who can read, should refuse to give Credit to every Thing that is said by such Ministers. It is easier to speak with Contempt of ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... centre of Germany remained. Stein, at the Congress of Vienna, once more proposed to restore the title and the long-vanished powers of the Emperor; but he found no inclination on the part of Metternich to promote his schemes for German unity, while some of the minor princes flatly refused to abandon any fraction of their sovereignty over their own subjects. The difficulties in the way of establishing a Federal State were great, perhaps insuperable; the statesmen anxious for it few in number; the interests opposed to it all but universal. ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... summary of these two notable books, it may be said that Mr. Ghent is alarmed, (though he does not flatly say so), at the too great social restfulness in the community, which is permitting the capitalists to form the new society to their liking; and that Mr. Brooks is alarmed, (and he flatly says so), at the social unrest which threatens the modified individualism ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... outstanding facts of Chinese history since the overthrow of the Manchus ten years ago and it has manifested itself in intermittent civil war. Yet there are two other statements which are equally true, although they flatly contradict each other and the one just made. One statement is that so far as the people of China are concerned there is no real division on geographical lines, but only the common division occurring everywhere between conservatives and progressives. The other is that instead ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... comparison with Wagner's Tristan, even though Isolde be both fourteen stone and forty, as she often is in Germany. Indeed, it needed no Wagner to convince the public of this. The voluptuous sentimentality of Gounod's Faust and Bizet's Carmen has captured the common playgoer; and there is, flatly, no future now for any drama without music except the drama of thought. The attempt to produce a genus of opera without music (and this absurdity is what our fashionable theatres have been driving at for a long time without knowing it) is far ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... she flatly refused to accompany us here," I allowed, "but perhaps she has some explanation more or less silly and serviceable; meantime, I defy you to tell me she isn't a beauty, and I implore you to say nothing about its being only skin-deep. ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... got back in her own fashion. And so, as often as he changed to go from one hall to the other, he found her whom he sought in either place. By this time the king was tormented by great wonder at what was no mere likeness, but the very same face in both places. For it seemed flatly impossible that different people should look exactly and undistinguishably alike. At last, when the revel broke up, he courteously escorted his daughter and Erik as far as their room, as the manner is at weddings, and went ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... familiarly to breakfast, the constraint and consternation of the Bilkins family could not have been greater. How was the astounding intelligence to be broken to Margaret? Her explosive Irish nature made the task one of extreme delicacy. Mrs. Bilkins flatly declared herself incapable of undertaking it. Mr. Bilkins, with many misgivings as to his fitness, assumed the duty; for it would never do to have the news sprung suddenly upon Margaret by ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... and to urge him to draw off. She felt that it was only fair to act so toward one who had been unselfishly generous to her. But now that the time for speaking had come, she found herself unable to speak. Only by flatly refusing to have anything to do with his project could she prevail upon him. To say less than that she had completely and finally changed her mind would sound, and would be, insincere. And that she could not say. She felt how noble it ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... space—I've never been able to reach them. But every one else seems to have a knack—well, somebody must cook. You tell me Annalise won't. Perhaps she really can't. Anyhow I cannot mention it to her, because it would be too horrible to have her flatly refusing to do something I told her to do and yet not be able to send her away. But somebody must cook, and I'm going out to get the somebody. Hush"—she put up her hand as he opened his mouth to speak—"I know it's raining. I know I'll get ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... understand 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
... past prowesses, and took a rosy view of the youth and energy which still beat in their vigorous pulses. They would begin, perhaps, by extolling each other: Puffin, when informed that his friend would be fifty-four next birthday, flatly refused (without offence) to believe it, and, indeed, he was quite right in so doing, because the Major was in reality fifty-six. In turn, Major Flint would say that his friend had the figure of a boy of twenty, which caused Puffin presently to feel a little cramped and ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... prepared for flight; and, sending forward commissioners to prepare the fleet at Ostia for his reception, he tampered with such officers of the army as were at hand, to prevail upon them to accompany his retreat. But all showed themselves indisposed to such schemes, and some flatly refused. Upon which he turned to other counsels; sometimes meditating a flight to the King of Parthia, or even to throw himself on the mercy of Galba; sometimes inclining rather to the plan of venturing into the forum in mourning apparel, begging ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... be teached," protested Mandy, doggedly. "Hast Jones says I's too smart anyhow. Men don't like women knowin' too much—it skeers 'em. I's good enough for my old man, and I ain't a-tryin' to get nobody else's," Mandy wound up flatly. ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... Testament, without striving to refute, or even apparently to disbelieve, their authority, but advising the clergy to treat them as a dead letter. The other posthumous treatise was, "On the State of the Dead and the Reviving," which shadows forth a scheme of Deism, inasmuch as Burnet here flatly contradicts the usual ideas of "hell torments" or "hell fire," while asserting the necessity of those "who have not been as good in this life as they ought to be" undergoing a probationary purification before ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... every description of plowing, should be near enough together to move the whole, leaving no hard places between them. The usual "cut and cover" system, to get over a large area in a day, is miserable economy. The more evenly and flatly land can be turned over in plowing, the better it will be; it retards the growth of weeds, and secures a better action upon substances plowed under. An exception to deep plowing is in breaking up the original prairies of the West: they have to be broken with ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... expedition to Dawsbergen in search of his wayward lady-love. Tullis, who liked the gay young nobleman despite the reputation he had managed to live down, was willing that he should be the one to lead the troops, but Colonel Quinnox flatly refused to consider it. ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... related personally to Mr. Pepys. Information being given to the House that they had received an account from a person of quality, that he saw an Altar with a Crucifix upon it, in the house of Mr. Pepys; Mr. Pepys, standing up in his place, did heartily and flatly deny that he ever had any Altar or Crucifix, or the image or picture of any Saint whatsoever in his house, from the top to the bottom of it; and the Members being called upon to name the person that ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... "Flatly refuse to mind, do you? Well, I'll give you one lesson you won't forget!" the man reached over and gripped Bob by his shirt collar. Struggling violently, he was pulled over ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... case, a very peculiar case," the Justice announced, as he began his verdict. "The evidence of the two parties is flatly contradictory. There are no witnesses outside the two principals. Each claims the other committed the assault, and I have no legal way of determining the truth. But I have my private opinion, Mr. Witberg, and I would recommend that henceforth you keep off of Mr. Watson's premises and keep away ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... no doubt that his own client had just as little English as the keeper. He repeated that he hoped the court would not convict his respectable client on the evidence of these fellows, more especially as they flatly contradicted each other in one material point, one saying that words had passed between the farmer and himself, and the other that no words at all had passed, and were unable to corroborate their testimony by anything visible or tangible. ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... said Davy flatly. "Catch me! I have to do things I don't want to now 'cause you and Marilla'll send me to bed if I don't. But when I grow up you can't do that, and there'll be nobody to tell me not to do things. Won't I have the time! Say, Anne, Milty Boulter says his mother says ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Forrest's conduct worse than incomprehensible. What business had he to tell a girl his heart was buried in the past and pay her all lover-like attentions in the present? "He hasn't," said Miss Allison, promptly and flatly. "He has simply been kind and friendly. He would have been discourteous, un-American, had he done anything less." It wasn't he who told her he never had cared or would care for any one after Miss Hosmer; Kate Lenox told her that, and so did other girls here. When, then, did Mr. Forrest inform ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... not an ultimate fact, but an emanation from self-love, through the association of ideas, it has been fancied that these writers dispute the existence of disinterested benevolence or sympathy. Now, the selfish system, in its literal import, is flatly inconsistent with obvious facts, but this is not the system contended for by the writers in question. Still, this distortion has been laid hold of by the opponents of utility, and maintained to be a necessary part of that ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... the middle of the forenoon Lloyd gave her a stimulating enema of whiskey and water, following it about an hour later by a hundredth grain of atropia. She braided the little girl's hair in two long plaits so that her head would rest squarely and flatly upon the pillow. Hattie herself was now ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... two centuries, have succeeded in overthrowing a doctrine as old as the human mind, closely interknit with the entire texture of opinions, authority, politics, and religion, and establishing a theory flatly contradicted by the universal dictates of experience and common sense, and true only to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... seeing that I must sleep somewhere, I got over the feeling as best I might, and returned to the cavern to get my blanket, which had been brought up from the boat with the other things. There I met Job, who, having been inducted to a similar apartment, had flatly declined to stop in it, saying that the look of the place gave him the horrors, and that he might as well be dead and buried in his grandfather's brick grave at once, and expressed his determination of sleeping with me ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... confidence he had entered into with Brennan not to reveal any part of the mayor's view of Gibson and his suspicion that the commissioner was the tool of "Gink" Cummings. The mayor, however, had publicly taken his stand of "sitting tight," as Brennan had suggested, and had flatly ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... which I dared not absolutely lay claim to; or those who might think more justly of me must have received such an equivocal answer as an indirect avowal. I therefore considered myself entitled, like an accused person put upon trial, to refuse giving my own evidence to my own conviction, and flatly to deny all that could not be proved against me. At the same time I usually qualified my denial by stating that, had I been the Author of these works, I would have felt myself quite entitled to protect my secret by refusing my own evidence, when it was asked for to accomplish ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... stuffing, but get sixpence worth of good, unbleached cotton cloth and have it sewed into bag shape. Stuff the bag with fine browse, dry grass or leaves, settle it well together and fasten the open end by turning it flatly back and using two or three pins, You can empty it if you like when going over a carry, and it makes a good pillow ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... allow the tool to soak after the desired forging heat has been reached. Do not heat the tool further back than is necessary to shape the tool, but give the tool sufficient heat. See that the back of the tool is flatly dressed to provide proper support under the nose ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... such plain terms, that we have in many cases offered to take the book back, rather than be annoyed with the ridicule which has time after time been showered upon it. In fact, it was only on Sunday last that we were under the mortification of having our own opinion of its merits flatly contradicted by a gentleman who told us that he considered it 'no better ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... of the mesas and the unpatented hills, there is more sky than any place in the world. It does not sit flatly on the rim of earth, but begins somewhere out in the space in which the earth is poised, hollows more, and is full of clean winey winds. There are some odors, too, that get into the blood. There is the spring smell of ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... the silver bugle from his lips while the strain echoed flatly from the opposite, wooded hill. That hill was the Isle of Hope, a small island of a single eminence lying half a mile off the mainland, and ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... flatly contradicts the biological argument he uses earlier in the chapter. Biology knows nothing of States; ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... said flatly I couldn't have tea, nor anything, and that nobody could have anything at all for an hour and a half, as there would be no restaurant-car till Elkhart, and Elkhart was quite ninety miles off. He added that an engine ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... was there ever seen such villany, So neatly plotted, and so well perform'd? Both held in hand, [100] and flatly both beguil'd? ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe
... Harrington could not obtain even the show of justice in a public trial. He was kept five months an untried prisoner in the Tower, only sheltered from daily brutalities by bribe to the lieutenant. When his habeas corpus had been moved for, it was at first flatly refused; and when it had been granted, Harrington was smuggled away from the Tower between one and two o'clock in the morning, and carried on board a ship that took him to closer imprisonment on St. Nicholas Island, opposite ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... the village, the next day, they sent a message to Lord Lindsay, and in a week's time, he came after his son. He was a very grand gentleman; his dress was all velvet and satin, and blazing with jewels. How the villagers stared. They had flatly refused to believe that this last little stranger was the first one, and had made great fun of Margary and her mother for being so credulous. But they had not minded. They had given their guest a little pallet stuffed with down, and a pillow stuffed with ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... whatever he saith to be in reason suspicious, as discovering him void of conscience and discretion; for he that flatly against the rules of duty and reason will swear vainly, what can engage him to speak truly? He that is so loose in so clear and so considerable a point of obedience to God, how can he be supposed staunch in regard to any other? "It being," as Aristotle hath it, "the part of the same men to ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... 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 ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... where I found the overseers were sitting at a table, covered with bank-tokens and other silver for distribution. They received me politely, and, on learning my wish to view the interior, directed the matron to accompany me. The manners and countenances of these overseers flatly contradicted the prejudices which are usually entertained against persons filling the office; and it gratified me to hear several of the poor, whose characteristic is said to be discontent, exclaim, "God bless 'em, ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... 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 ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... The Christmas Day of 1758 witnessed a singular scene at the dinner table of David Garrick. Dr. Johnson, then in full vigour of his mind, and with the all-dreaded weapons of his dialectics kept burnished by daily use, was flatly contradicted by a fellow-guest some twenty years his junior, and, what is more, submitted to it without a murmur. One of the diners, Arthur Murphy, was so struck by this occurrence, unique in his long ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... go away, get out of the city for his convalescence, and Siward flatly declined, demanding that Plank permit him to do his share in the fight against ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... for some hours, but when their conductors wished again to resume their journey, the three pirates flatly refused to depart, saying that they were well off where they were, and would go no further—at least for that day. It was intimated to them that the king of that country would suffer no stranger to dwell there unless he had first seen him and granted his permission. However, ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... an eye to profit, had already built a picket fence around his starry visitor and was charging admission. He also flatly refused to permit the chipping off of specimens or even the touching of the object. His attitude was severely criticized, but he stubbornly clung to the theory that possession ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... raised platform in one corner, and at a favorable moment I examined the bag. It had not been tampered with, but I noticed a string turning out through a chink between the logs. I found it came from a thick layer of straw under my bed, and had been tied to the end of a flatly coiled lasso. Leaving the thing as it was, I went outside and carelessly chased the hounds round the cabin. The string stretched along the logs to another chink, where it returned into the cabin at a point near where Frank slept. No great power of deduction was necessary to acquaint ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... on the part of the Imperial Government, which had up till now flatly refused to grant any measure of self-government to Natal, may at first seem rather odd, but on examination it will be found to be quite in accordance with the recently developed South African policy of Mr. Gladstone's Government. There is little doubt that it is an article of faith among the ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... the proud highlanders before him, and appealed to them in the name of Almighty God to join him in a war for liberty. But all this eloquence was wasted. His appeal struck no responsive chord. The people flatly refused to give him their assistance. He had, therefore, but one course left. With no further hope of keeping his whereabouts unknown, he hastened with all speed from the town, and fled over the ice-bound hills of the west, to seek a last asylum ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... 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 or to gain the admiration ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... common weal; and in their desire to teach other people what they knew, they did not spare themselves. She understood that it was possible to love such a life, despite its dangers; and with a sigh she looked back to bygone days in which her past dragged along flatly and monotonously, a thin, black thread. Imperceptibly she grew conscious of her usefulness in this new life—a consciousness that gave her poise and assurance. She had never before felt herself necessary to anybody. When she had lived with her husband, she knew that if ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... been cleared out and destroyed. The trunks and limbs of trees have been whitewashed. No one can walk among these trees or between the trees and the plant without being seen in silhouette.... I say flatly that I know nothing that is so potential for good defense as good illumination and at the same time so ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... Cossacks, had been dismissed by the Provisional Government for his complicity in the Kornilov affair. He flatly refused to resign, and surrounded by three immense Cossack armies lay at Novotcherkask, plotting and menacing. So great was his power that the Government was forced to ignore his insubordination. More than that, ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... Duke of Marlborough's battles, and before his death 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," ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... any real attempt to start upon their undoubtedly difficult task. Everywhere the feeling seemed to be that the prosecution of his schemes was an impossibility. The road was altogether in the clouds. Trent was flatly told that the labour they required was absolutely unprocurable. Fortunately Trent knew the country, and he was a man of resource. From the moment when he had appeared upon the spot, things had begun to right themselves. He had found Oom Sam established as ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... members of the royal family, or to some public man of universal renown. Never before, I believe, did this newspaper avow to the world that its editor had a name; and the editor himself usually affected to conceal his professional character. Former editors, in fact, would flatly deny their connection with the paper, and made a great secret of a fact which ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... say the facts on which you reason are universally admitted: a gratis dictum which I flatly deny.-vol. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... with me," replied the baron. "Eustace is but a page, and as Manners rightly enough pointed out, his word would count for little in such a circumstance. But apart from all such considerations, I flatly tell you, Sir Henry, that I don't for a minute think him guilty. ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... week after his memorable first day upon the survey, he had rushed to Brent's room each morning at dawn to get the party started; and Brent had good-naturedly submitted. But now the engineer suddenly balked, flatly refusing to take him out again. Miss Liz arose in her wrath, but he told her that he would not risk another day of starvation should this fanatic choose to throw the lunch away—and it was too much work going every day, anyhow. But, the fact of the matter was, Dale had become ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... the cost of feeding, or some other specific item, but that he does not pay the whole cost, including wages for the manager is proven by two facts: First, every large broiler plant yet started has either failed flatly or shifted its main line to other things; second, egg farmers would be only too glad to buy pullets at the price for which they sell the cockerels—a confession that it costs more to produce broilers than ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... is. I strove to get him to appoint you. He flatly refused to do so. I could get no reason from him. So I concluded that he fears you would outshine him in the work that the committee contemplates doing. Your speech was masterly. I am not given to flattery. I say candidly that it was the ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... 1920, he was flatly accused of having been an absentee from Canada during the war, employed by the Rockefeller interests and so "entangled in the octopus" that as leader of the Liberal party he would become a menace to Canada. It was the old bogey of continentalism in a new setting, ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... a very great deal worse than nothing. To be sure Joel's presence reaessured her, he looked so competent, and spoke so confidently yet still so mysteriously. On his second visit, however, the lady pretty flatly intimated she was losing confidence in his assertions. She did not believe her brother had left Ellen ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and I flatly refused to descend into the depths below, although the verger with a lighted candle stood ready to conduct us into a subterranean chapel, which was, at one time, connected with the chateau. We had seen quite enough of underground places for one day, ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... had such scruples about using the severity of law to people of such station as well-to-do farmers, &c.: they would allow a great deal of resistance, and endeavor to mollify the rebels into obedience. A young farmer flatly refused to pay under an order of affiliation made upon him by Godfrey Higgins. He was duly warned; and persisted: he shortly found himself in gaol. He went there sure to conquer the Justice, and ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... contained a chapter on Fighting Fitzgerald, of whom the author writes: "That Mr. Fitzgerald (unlike his countrymen generally) was totally devoid of generosity, no one who ever knew him will doubt.'' In another chapter on the same person the author flatly contradicts his own judgment: "In summing up the catalogue of his vices, however, we ought not to shut our eyes upon his virtues; of the latter, he certainly possessed that one for which his countrymen have always been so famous, generosity.'' The scissors- and-paste ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... still in the king's hands, as seized by William Rufus on Anselm's departure. Henry demanded that Anselm should do homage for this fief, as would any baron of the king, and receive it from his hand. To the astonishment of every one, Anselm flatly refused. In answer to inquiries, he explained the position of the pope on the subject of lay investiture, declared that he must stand by that position, and that if Henry also would not obey the pope, he must leave England again. Here was a sharp ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... 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
... points—which served us again and again for furious quarrels—the fool was quite obstinate. He would not budge from our first encampment—that is to say, out of sight of Santa's grave; and he flatly refused to fit new planks to the ruinated boat which now lay, a thing of ribs, high and dry as we had hauled her close underneath the fern-brake beside the cascade. Again and again I pointed out to him ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... considering himself fit to be a soldier of the war-lord, had disobeyed orders; he had shown himself a mutineer, a deserter, a traitor; he had lost his patriotism and loyalty; he had dishonored the flag; he had trampled under foot all the gods that he had worshiped now for many years. He had flatly broken the only code of morals that he knew—he was a coward, a hypocrite, a mere civilian, masquerading in the uniform of an officer! Sam buried his face in his hands and the tears trickled down through his fingers. Then he sprang up and walked to and fro for a long time. At last he ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... her husband had not slept well. They heard noises from one end of the night to the other, and they were most unusual noises at that. The maids had flatly refused to sleep in the servants' wing, fully a block away, so they were given the next best suite of rooms on the floor, quite cutting off every chance the Brownes may have had for choice of apartments. Pong howled all night long, but his howls were as nothing compared to ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... origin of societies, the family, the tribe, the nation, with the attendant expanded ideas of rights and duties; the common weal, the bond of union; rising from the family dinner-table to the sacrificial rites of the national gods; drew parallels with trades' unions and benefit clubs, and told them flatly they would not be Christians till they were communicants." No doubt this will seem to most sensible people extravagant enough, even without the quotations from "Wordsworth, Tennyson, and even Pope" with which his addresses were enlivened; but I must confess ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... that a curse is on it still for man's sake: but a notion which is contrary to plain fact; for if we till the ground, it does NOT bring forth thorns and thistles to us, as the Scripture says it was to do for Adam, but wholesome food, and rich returns for our labour: and which in the next place is flatly contrary to Scripture: for we read in Genesis viii. 21, how the Lord said, 'I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake;' and the Psalms always speak of this earth, and of all created things, as if there was no curse at all on them; saying that 'all things serve God, and ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... the last. We fancy we know a character; we form a 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 interests and sympathies. Bourgonef had charmed me intellectually; morally ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... inch in the warp, but this is coarse when compared with a piece of linen cloth found in Memphis, which had 540 threads to the inch of the warp. How fine must these threads have been! In quoting this extract from Wilkinson to an old weaver, he flatly said it was impossible, as no reed could be made so fine. However, there would be more threads than one in the split, and by adopting this we can make cloth in our day having between 400 and 500 in the inch. However, the ancient cloths are much finer in the warp than woof, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... through their country unless we gave them a steer for the privilege. Now as we were following the regular government trail which was a free public highway, it did not strike us as justifiable to pay our way, accordingly our boss flatly refused to give the Indians a steer, remarking that we needed all the cattle we had and proposed to keep them, but he would not mind giving them something much warmer if they interfered with us. This ultimatum of our boss ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... of it," she said, "is just this—my mother won't tell me what that man came about! She flatly refuses to tell me anything! She will only say that it was business of her own. She won't trust me with it, you see!—her own daughter! What business can that man have with her?—or she with him? Eldrick & Pascoe are not our ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... awful, but I suppose I must have been telling just such a tale, but to whom I can not, for the life of me, think. See now, all this comes of telling the family secrets. That Mrs. Par-dell is a dangerous woman! I refused flatly to have her make bird-claws out of my finger-nails. This is her revenge! I am powerless! But it was not a slander, it was all the truth; just as true as gospel. That's the reason she is in such a rage. But she is coming; this house won't hold us ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... replied Lakor. "It will open nothing other than the way to a quick death for us all. He had to make some answer when Matai Shang asked him flatly what he should do when he came to the Temple of the Sun, and so he made his answer quickly from his imagination—I would wager a hekkador's diadem that he could not now ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... topographical details.... He does not make a single mistake,' in the topography of three hundred and twenty places! A scrupulously truthful gentleman, endowed with an amazing memory, and a master of his native language, flatly contradicts the version of a Spanish priest, who also appears to ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... answered Major Mason flatly. "I looked over the course, and it was just as clear on one side as it was ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... Vincennes the troops became mutinous, and at last flatly refused longer to obey orders, and marched home as a disorderly mob, to the disgrace of themselves and their leader. Nevertheless the expedition had really accomplished something, for it overawed the Wabash and Illinois Indians, and effectively put a stop to any ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... 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
... fixed upon him the eye of the flirt who knows her man. She was of the dark-eyed English type; her eyes were very large and full, and her smooth black hair was drawn flatly backward, and fastened in a knot just under her dashing fur cap. She wore a fur sack, and she was equipped against the cold as exquisitely as her Southern sisters defend themselves from the summer. Bits of warm color, in ribbon and scarf, ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... with her? I doat on her to distraction; nor have I any cause to complain of, more than this obstinacy in her temper; whatever she asserts, she will maintain against all the reason and conviction in the world. Pray give me your advice.—First, says Paul, I will give my opinion, which is, flatly, that you are in the wrong; for, supposing she is in the wrong, was the subject of your contention any ways material? What signified it whether you was married in a red or a yellow waistcoat? for that was your dispute. Now, suppose she was mistaken; ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... that sometimes their style uncouth appears, And their harsh numbers rudely hurt our ears; Or that full flatly flows the languid line, He, who owns this, has Jove's ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... services of the Sealyham as a custodian had failed ignominiously. In the first place, unless fastened, he had flatly declined to stay with either of the cars. The expedient of closing one of these altogether and leaving Nobby within had proved quite as unsatisfactory and more humiliating. Had we been able to eradicate from the dog's mind the conviction that he was being wrongfully ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... give anything like modelling, and it is not best suited to figure design except where it is quite flatly treated. An instance of its use in figure work occurs on Illustration 79. It is effective when quite naively and simply used in cross lines which do not appear to take any account of the forms ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... Gage—an appeal, rather—to the effect that Morgan had sent to him for such a man, and that Gage had transmitted the appeal to Hallowell. Hallowell thought he knew Harlan, and he was convinced that if he told Harlan flatly that Morgan wanted to employ him for that definite purpose, Harlan ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... consternation, on going on board, Captain Lake, though almost himself at death's door from fever, flatly refused to give him a single thing. By his language and behaviour he showed himself to be a greater savage than the ignorant blacks among whom Lander had been travelling. Lander in vain expostulated with ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... him after reading that lawyer's letter and when she hears what I believe to be the truth about that heroic episode the other night,—why, she ought to get what's coming to her, that's all I have to say," said Mr. Gilfillan flatly. "I've discovered one thing, Mr. Webster. If a woman makes up her mind to marry a man, hell-fire and brimstone can't stop her. The older I get and the more I see of women, the more I am convinced that vice is its own reward. I guess we'd better stroll ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... presidents began to be designated bishops, an attempt was made to settle their order of succession, [331:1] the result was by no means satisfactory. Some of the earliest writers who touch incidentally upon the question are inconsistent with themselves; [331:2] whilst they flatly contradict each other. [331:3] In fact, to this day, what is called the episcopal succession in the ancient Church of Rome is an historical riddle. At first no one individual seems to have acted for life as the president, or moderator, of the presbytery; but as it was well known that, ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... caused no small measure of annoyance that fishermen were ordered to wear tricolour cockades on their caps. They had no special ill-feeling against tricolour cockades, but they did not care about them. Jean-Marie flatly refused to have one pinned on, and being admonished somewhat severely by one of the Paris officials, he became obstinate about the whole thing and threw the cockade violently on the ground and spat upon it, not from any sentiment of anti-republicanism, but just from a ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... so that it may be driven into the ground. At the other extremity, in the middle of the board and about two inches from the edge, a hole one half an inch in diameter and three quarters of an inch in height, should be made; two auger holes, one directly above the other with the sides flatly trimmed, will answer perfectly. The arrow should next be constructed. This should be made of seasoned oak or ash, two feet in length, perfectly straight, smooth and round, and one third of an inch in [Page 24] diameter. ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... almost amounted to wonder. Etta was always surprising her. There was a whole gamut of feeling, an octave of callow, half-formed girlish instincts, of which Etta seemed to be deprived. If she had ever had them, no trace was left of their whilom presence. At first Maggie had flatly refused to come to Russia. When Paul pressed her to do so, she accepted with a sort of wonder. There was something which she ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... a British colony, but from the first has adopted a policy toward the native entirely different from that of Cape Colony. Politically shrewd, she does not flatly deny the right of the native to vote, but by carefully worded legal phraseology so limits the voting class that, in effect, her policy is "No votes for natives." Under date of August 24, 1865, appears ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... I don't think any of my friends here are either—though two or three of them have acted like it today," the masculine-looking girl stated flatly. "You've made it very plain that any one of us here, except the Sprague man, could have stolen Hugo's gun and silencer.... ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... 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 asserted it was murder." ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... window and, if they refused to take them in that way, then she was to throw the mustard seed at them; but on no account to go outside the house. One day when her husband was away a jugi came begging; the bonga girl offered him alms through the window but the jugi flatly refused to take them; he insisted on her coming out of the house and giving them. Then she threw the mustard seed at him and he turned into ashes. By superior magic however he at once recovered his own form and again insisted on her coming ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... him so many little "nice things" for the alleviation of his sufferings, and exhibited altogether such nervous anxiety about his recovery, that worthy Mrs Craw was quite overwhelmed, and said, in the fulness of her heart, that she never did see a kinder friend, or one who more flatly gave the lie-direct to his looks, which, she was bound ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... Luke also affirmeth the same, saying flatly that he shall not be forgiuen. Beholde, therefore, how well they interprete ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various
... contravene; controvert, give denial to, gainsay, negative, shake the head. disown, disaffirm, disclaim, disavow; recant &c 607; revoke &c (abrogate) 756. dispute; impugn, traverse, rebut, join issue upon; bring in question, call in question &c. (doubt) 485; give (one) the lie in his throat. deny flatly, deny peremptorily, deny emphatically, deny absolutely, deny wholly, deny entirely; give the lie to, belie. repudiate &c 610; set aside, ignore &c 460; rebut &c. (confute) 479; qualify &c 469; refuse &c 764. recuse[Law]. Adj. denying &c.v.; denied &c.v.; contradictory; negative, negatory; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... Igorot of the pueblo can make themselves understood in Spanish about the commonest things around them. I fail to detect any occupation, method, or device of the Igorot which the Spaniards' influence improved; and the Igorot flatly deny any such influence. ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... fixed notions as to how life should be lived, he seldom looked out upon the larger world, and obstinately refused to take any thoughtful notice of the general tendency of public opinion in all countries concerning religion and morality. All that he was unable to explain, he flatly denied,—and his prejudices were as violent as his hatred of contradiction was keen. The saintly life and noble deeds of Felix Bonpre had reached him from time to time through various rumours repeated by different priests and dignitaries of the Church, who had ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... flatly. "If there's any trouble brewing, Hawkins, consider me back in New York. What ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... out flatly on the cool, damp, moon-bathed path. His hot tongue lapped feverishly at the wet grass. He felt the persistent impact of the rifle's breath against him, and now there was a wave of pain. The full moon was fading into black mental clouds as he feebly attempted ...
— Strange Alliance • Bryce Walton
... in dismay. "In other words, it will be put flatly up to me; I'll either have to quit my attacks on Stone, or be directly responsible for your losing your valuable ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... this is flatly opposite To what I most devoutly wish, my marriage, For with what face shall I accost my father? D'ye ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... about him," Lydia told him flatly. "I was thinking about Nita. I didn't want any scandal on her, and I knew what the police and the newspapers would say if they found out Mr. Sprague had been staying all ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin |
