"Real thing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up and glanced over it as I sat there; but, you know, Mag, the heavy-weight plays never appealed to me. I don't go in for the tragic—perhaps I saw too much of the real thing ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... before us is this," he said, "to get into touch with Robert Redmayne, or his ghost. There are two sorts of ghost, Mark; the real thing—in which you don't believe and concerning which I hold a watching brief; and the manufactured article. Now the manufactured article can be quite as useful to the bulls as ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... similar guise. The results in either case vary as the method employed. Mrs. Gamp, the outcome of a single observation, is a type certainly, but exaggerated and "founded on fact" rather than true to life. "The Suburbanite" (see p. 24), though an equally imaginary portrait, is the real thing—the absolute personification of a ...
— Frank Reynolds, R.I. • A.E. Johnson
... man I seem. My health will not be good for the next few weeks, I'm sure of that. But I'll be a model workman, neat and conscientious with just a suspicion of dash where dash is needed. He knows the real thing when he sees it, and there's not a fellow living more alive to shams. I won't be a sham. I'll ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... I came in upon a very happy little scene. It might be only pretence, but it looked uncommonly like the real thing." ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... Mountains to undisguised mirth. And how could we others explain that he, with his undeniably John-Bull-like breadth of shoulder and ruddy face, was not a fair sample of the British aristocrat? Was he not an Honourable and the son of a Baron and the "real thing" in every way? I have no doubt that there still live in the prairie towns of North Dakota and in the recesses of the mountains of Montana hundreds of men and women, grown old now, who through all the mists of the years still remember that lamentable figure; and to them, ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... necessity for awakening any one on that train was over. Three or four musket shots rang out, our train was off the rail, and after a crash or two came to a sudden stop, and then a babel arose, while the train was surrounded by armed men. It was laughable. It seemed like an opera bouffe, the real thing, this motley array of brigands, all trying to maintain under difficulties the grave ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... her gratitude in her eyes, in a slight quiver of the lips, in an unsteadiness of tone as she said, "You're the real thing, Freddie." ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... setting them down on paper, he works, I suppose, exactly as he would work from nature, only copying the remembered image in his mind, instead of the real thing. He is, therefore, still nothing more than a copyist. There is no exercise of imagination in ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... Truth, &c.] Some authors have mistaken truth for a real thing, when it is nothing but a right method of putting those notions or images of things (in the understanding of man) into the same and order that their originals hold in nature, and therefore Aristotle says Unumquodque sicut habet secundum esse, ita se habet secundum veritatem. Met. ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... mother sighs after the tinsel and toys that she knows others have bought with corrupt cash, where the conversation at the meal-table steadily, though often unconsciously, lifts up and lauds those who are out after the "real thing," the eager ears about that board drink it in and childish hearts resolve what they will do when they have a chance. Where no voice speaks for high things, where no tide of indignation against wrong sweeps into language, where the children never feel that the parents have great moral ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... purpose is fraternal, patriotic and convivial. It will be most exclusive and very secret." He explained the working scheme and then added anxiously: "Now, Beekstein, you see the position of First Grand Hot Tamale will be the real thing. He will be, so to speak, Valedictorian of the Kennedy and certainly ought to be elected secretary of the house next year. Now, Beekstein, what we got you here for is this. What do you think of Gumbo ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... company of the tattered, one—if he not in his single self two or three—of the unbound, the paper-covered dozen on the shelf; and when Chad had written, five years ago, after a sojourn then already prolonged to six months, that he had decided to go in for economy and the real thing, Strether's fancy had quite fondly accompanied him in this migration, which was to convey him, as they somewhat confusedly learned at Woollett, across the bridges and up the Montagne Sainte-Genevieve. This was the region—Chad ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... clanging of trolleys, the incessant popping of torpedoes, the jingle of street-organs, the bawling of megaphone men and the loud murmur of increasing crowds. He leaned back, smoking his cigar, patting the dog, and stirring the coffee that steamed in their chipped cups. "It's the real thing, you know," he explained; and Charity hastily revised her previous conception of ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... me what they said." So Nettie took her in and showed her the precious letter with the enclosed order for a dollar, which made it seem a very real thing. ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard
... talk of hanging the 'Abolitionists' along with them. They want them to dangle at the other end of the same rope. It is easy, however, to perceive that the hanging of the secessionists is not the emphatic thing—with many not even the real thing, but only an ebullition of vexation at them for having spoiled the old Democratic trade—a figurative hanging—often, indeed, only a rhetorical tub thrown out prudentially to the popular whale, who might not be ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... falling back a pace or two to form the better judgment of his work; "as near the real thing as sixpenn'orth of halfpence is to sixpence. What a pity that the whole front of the house opens at once! If there was only a staircase in it now, and regular doors to the rooms to go in at! But that's the worst of my calling, I'm always deluding ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... Pierre Philibert captured a glance of hers which might not have been intended for him, but which Amelie suffered him to intercept and hide away among the secret treasures of his heart. A glance of true affection—brief, it may be, as a flash of lightning—becomes, when caught by the eyes of love, a real thing, fixed and imperishable forever. A tender smile, a fond word of love's creation, contains a universe of light and life and immortality,—small things, and of little value to others, but to him or ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... be sure, that was an uncommon diversion. The real thing is just about to begin, and this is the way of it. According to the guide, La Hera is in a cave ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... in belauding, the plain people may make now and again, in time they come unfailingly to a hearty appreciation of work that is honest, genuine, and broad in its appeal; and when once they have laid hold of the real thing they hold fast ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... very nature of his mental organs man can never grasp reality. It is always the sensation, never the real thing, he feels. The metaphysicians are right. We can never know the actual world outside of ourselves. We are imprisoned in a dream cage; the globe itself is a cage of echoes. Science, instead of contradicting religion, has but affirmed its truths. Matter ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... to be more distant, his motions had a very natural appearance; so much so that Dick and Jack began to feel that had they seen him without being prepared, they would certainly have had a shot at him, believing him to be the real thing. ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... informed that he was the proprietor of the great establishment in which they were invited and honored guests. His patrons were of course pleased to see these old chiefs, as they knew they were the "REAL thing," and several of them were known to the public, either as being friendly or cruel to the whites. After one or two appearances on the stage, Barnum took them in carriages and visited the Mayor of New York in the Governor's room at the City Hall. Here the Mayor made ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... every lad was his own judge. There were, as it happened, only three pinto horses in the entire saddle stock, and these three were the last left of the entire bunch. Now a little boy or girl, and many an older person, thinks that a spotted horse is the real thing, but practical cattle men know that this freak of color in range-bred horses is the result of in-and-in breeding, with consequent physical and mental deterioration. It was my good fortune that morning to get a good mount of horses,—three sorrels, two grays, two coyotes, ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... that by the state of her heart. I don't suppose for a moment it's the real thing. She wouldn't be alive if it was. And you don't die of false angina. It's all nerves, though it hurts ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... race. Read to children of tender years, the same day, the story of Jimmy and a Greek myth, or an episode from the "Odyssey," or any genuine bit of human nature and life; and ask the children next day which they wish to hear again. Almost all of them will call for the repetition of the real thing, the verity of which they recognize, and which has appealed to their imaginations. But this is not all. If the subject is a Greek myth, they speedily come to comprehend its meaning, and by the aid of the teacher to trace its development ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the real thing," explained Junior. "When we get the scheme father laid out going, before we start fishing, you and I will take a net and come to this creek and catch a bucketful of right bait, and then we'll have man's sport, for sure. ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... laughed at me because I did not know the real thing from paste. I said I did, and, to prove it, mentioned ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... where cacti and greasewood served as shield, and slightly below them they saw, against the low purple hills, clouds of dust making the picture like a vision and not a real thing, a line of armed horsemen as outpost guards, and men with roped arms stumbling along on foot slashed at occasionally with a reata to hasten their pace. Women and girls were there, cowed and drooping, with torn garments and bare feet. Forty prisoners in all Kit counted of those within range, ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the real thing. It had been different with Francis Sales: with him there had been no necessity for pride, but her love for Charles must be wrapped round with reserve and kept holy; and at once, with her unfailing ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... thus, by universal agreement, definitely non-aesthetic. I enjoy the cast of the great Venus very nearly as much as the original,—but who cares for casts of the Aztec gods, or of the prehistoric carvings of the reindeer period? Who wants an imitation scarabaeus? To have the real thing, to see it, to touch it, to know that it has had real experiences that would fill me with wonder and with awe, "to love it for the danger it has passed,"—to feel that I myself am through it actually linked with its mysterious history,—that ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... was perilously near an embrace— so colorable an imitation of the real thing that Winter, entering at that instant, could make no distinction, and was secretly amazed at these strenuous methods of consoling the lady— Theydon lifted the receiver, and heard as one in a trance the telephone ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... Sykes came in to report to me I was wearin' a plug hat on the back o' my head an' sportin' a white vest an' a red necktie, so I looked enough like the real thing to make it easy for him to act his part. He came in an' blurted out, right while we was boostin' up a jack-pot. "That'll do, me good man," sez I, "wait until this hand is played." Bill, he took off his hat an' stood humble until Artie had ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... afterwards, Hans, you will make report to me of how the battle went and of what honour my son has won therein. Moreover, know this, Hans, that though while you live in the world you seem to see many other things, they are but dreams, since in all the world there is but one real thing, and its name is Love, which if it be but strong enough, the stars themselves must obey, for it is the king of every one of them, and all who dwell in them worship it day and night under many names for ever and ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... knew that the real thing behind their nervousness was their ghastly doubt about what the night was bringing to Naida. But none of them spoke of Naida. So sickening were the possibilities that Kirby would not permit conjecture to occupy even his mind when, at length, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... first need that appealed to her was a rug. She picked out one. It's Oriental, and a beauty: cost one hundred dollars if a cent. Next, in her mind's eye, she noticed the bare windows—curtains were required, of course. So she selected them. They're the real thing and two pairs—another hundred, I'll wager. Following came three or four big leather chairs—nothing better in town. I can fancy old Harry's heart sinking by this time; but he didn't say a word—yet. ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... all at the infinity of streets branching off in all directions. Dingy Clerkenwell and Aldersgate Street were gilded with a plentiful and radiant deposit of that precious metal of which healthy youth has such an infinite store—actual metal, not the "delusive ray" by any means, for it is the most real thing in existence, more real than the bullion forks and spoons which we buy later on, when we feel we can afford them, and far more real than the silver tea-service with which, still later, we are presented amidst cheers by our admiring friends ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... with a sudden mastery which made her flinch in spite of herself. "No," he said, "I've only a make-believe at present. Not very satisfying of course; but better than nothing. There is always the hope that she may some day turn into the real thing to comfort me." ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... aloud, "is the greatest thing in the world. There is no door it will not unlock, no problem it will not solve. It is, after all, the only real thing in ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... matters, child as I was, my father placed gold and silver in my keeping, and whatever I spent was to be accounted for. In this way money was not to be an imaginary thing for me, but a real thing, and I was not to lose the control of myself because I had my pocket full of sovereigns. This was a very original scheme in its application to so young a child, but it perfectly succeeded, and I never ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... the world; while incarnated man, as represented in the wrestling youths, is struggling for that which he did not produce, and which only death can reap. The poppy reveals the secret of the illusions of Nature's master-showman. All earthly things are unreal to the spirit, which is the only real thing. Man's effort to hoard and save the things of this world IS INJUSTICE TO OTHERS. The struggle is eternal, and no matter how careful or cunning man is to monopolize either power, truth or wealth, swift-footed time will readjust ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... Berlin doubtful, Vienna and Petersburg impossible to conquer, but London would hold out everything that she could wish for. Only, it must be the very best of London, not the part of its society that anyone can struggle and push and pay to get into, but the real thing. She was "quite finished" with Vincent Cricklander, too, at this period; to see him play polo no longer gave her any thrill. So one morning at their lunch, on a rare occasion when they chanced to be alone, she told him so, and asked him practically ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... The only real thing I did was to hurry as though every moment were my last, as though the world, which now seems so rich in everything, held only one prize which might be seized upon before I arrived. Since then I have tried to recall, like ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... exceptions, I hope," he said. "Love, like everything else that is great, is very, very rare. We call the disposition to usurp and absorb another person by that name, but woe betide him or her who is the object of such a sentiment. Yet happily, the real thing is to be found now and again. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... smile so frank and friendly that it quite astonished the other. "And I'm not going to let you go, either," he pursued. "You need me and I need you. I'm not fool enough to suppose that the imitation can ever continue to be as good as the real thing. We'll make it a fifty thousand guarantee, if you say so. And, as for your editorial policy—well, I'll take a chance on your seeing reason. After all, there's plenty of earth to prance on without always treading on people's toes.... Well, don't decide now. Take your time to it." He rose and ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... firmer became the notion that, to him, instead of to this imitation of the real thing, rightfully belonged these insignia of a vanishing fraternity. He considered ways and means, rejecting one after another. He vaguely laid plans to wait until the fellow went to his quarters for the night, and then break in ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... hated. He might marry Lucia then, and be welcome. After all, he was a finer fellow for the pretty girl than Gasparo Carnesecchi, with his claw fingers and his vinegar salad. That was only a farce, that proposal about the lawyer—the real thing was to get rid of Paolo. There could be no healthy liberty of thought in the house while this fellow was sneaking in and out at all hours. Tumble Paolo into a quiet grave—into the river with a sackful of old castings at his neck—there would be peace then, and freedom. Marzio ground his ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... paler. The patterns are rather complicated, and at the present day there are no recognizable representations of real objects; yet there seems no doubt that at one time all the designs represented some real thing. They are carefully adapted to the body, and accentuate its structure. The women who do the tattooing are well paid, so that only the wealthy can afford to have their wives and daughters tattooed all over; and naturally a tattooed woman brings a higher ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... to put another cold cloth on the boy's head. Neither one of them knew I was on earth. I hardly knew it myself. For the first time in my life I was seeing the real thing and the wonder of it almost ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... be quite sure that it will reappear; and every time that it recurs the dreamer reasons in this way: "I have had before now in a dream the illusion of flying or floating, but this time it is the real thing. It has certainly proved to me that we may free ourselves from the law of gravitation." Now, if you wake abruptly from this dream, you can analyze it without difficulty, if you undertake it immediately. ...
— Dreams • Henri Bergson
... the boys are downright mad with old Mother Twiney because the old woman could not tell whether it was really smallpox or not; but, as I said, you could not expect an ignorant woman to know a disease of that sort, and we had better have a scare that ended in smoke than let the real thing gain ground without our taking any steps to stamp it out," said the man, and then he turned off short between two heaps of smoking ruins, and the doctor led Rocky, snuffing and snorting, past the smouldering fire to the cool shadow of ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... dream feeling was upon her again, and she could not believe that all this was really happening. The monotonous voice of the man who was marrying them sounded a long way off. The Beggar Man's hand in hers was the only real thing in life, and she clung to it with the desperate feeling that without it she would collapse and fall off the edge of ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... that had gone before was merely preparatory, a blood-warming, so to say; the real thing now took place. He stood up on his hind legs and shot into the air, alighting on his four feet as if to pierce the earth. He whirled like a howling dervish, grunting, snorting—unseeing, and almost unseen ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... The real thing is to be systematic and exact in our charities. Slovenliness or carelessness in such things is worse than a bad habit—it's a sin. Now, how are you? A trifle queer in the legs, eh? Things in the room look a bit hazy? That's all right. Effect of an active boy ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... the genuine Russian note of reality, and a rude strength much too great for its owner's control. He has never written a successful long novel, and his plays have no coherence; but, after all, the man has the real thing—vitality. ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... the Progressive ticket lifted Johnson from a local to a national importance. The whole country was the audience which leaped at his words. It was a revolution in tittle, a taste, a sample of what the real thing would be, with its breaking of restraints, its making of the mob a perfect instrument to play upon, its unleashing of passion to which to give tongue. Johnson has felt its wild stimulation and like a man who has used drugs the habit ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... staff of experts; not self-styled experts, but the real thing—big men in the automobile business representing all the important motor factories in the United States. Some of these experts inspect the broken down machines and pieces of machines in the salvage grounds, and report whether ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... W.E.A. was a practical body, which went in for practical adventure. Dowdy, schoolmarmish, extension-lectureish, it might be and doubtless was. But a real thing, with guts in it, really doing something; and after all, you can't be incendiarising the political and economic constitution all your time. In your times off you can do something useful, something which shows results, and for which such an ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... poor Barons in the streets. There was a time in my life when I could have had a foreign title, but I found it ridiculous, and so refused it. But in England, in spite of your amusing radicalism the real thing still counts. It is a valid asset—a tangible security for one's money—from a business point of view. And Americans or foreigners like myself and my niece, for instance, are securing substantial property and equal return, when we bring large fortunes in our marriage settlements ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... it is the potent action which is real. It alone can be directly represented by the activity of Thought. The mere obstruction of activity is not a real thing, hence the unreal character of Sensation. Yet the obstruction being an obstruction of the real action of Nature is, if not real, at least actual and immediate. Nay, its presence in our Experience, however mutable and unstable ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip
... foreseeing a battle the photographer hastily retired into the background to let us fight it out. "It would be such fun. I should love it. You know, I've always vowed to be married at Gretna Green, if at all. And this would be next best to the real thing." ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... on the window-seat of his friend's room in Holworthy Hall, that day, and said he was going to try to help the cause of better government in New York, Mr. Thayer looked at him and wondered if he were "the real thing." Thirty-nine years later Mr. Thayer looked back over the career of his college mate, and knew that he had talked that day with one of the great men of our Republic, with one who, as another of his college friends says, was never a "politician" in the bad sense, but was ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... in his blows at the gentleman, who had to be hopping. Only, the worse the gentleman caught it, the friendlier his countenance became. That was the wonder, and that gave them the key. But it was deliciously near to the real thing. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... need something—is it that, then? Is it a real thing? Do people fight for it like that? For this imperious Voice is agonising for something and the drum is the ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... the purpose of this abrupt change in the conversation, nodded in agreement. "The call of the East," he replied, "is a very real thing. Only one who has heard it can understand and appreciate ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... hadn't gone home so early that spring," sighed Wyman. "I'd like to have seen that little affair. It must have been the real thing in romance." ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... And remember that when you proudly stand before them, the eyes not only of your own country, but of nearly all the others, are upon you! Good-bye, Georgey. I heard the major hint something about whiskey. They say that old pirate, Kingfisher Culpepper, had a stock of the real thing from Robertson County laid in his shebang on the Marsh just before he died. Pity we aren't on terms with them, for the cubs cannot drink it, and might be induced to sell. Shouldn't wonder, by the way, ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... But the real thing that tortured him most was the fact that he wanted her, her, her. She had been his, his woman. No other woman in this broad earth could take ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... of the picture. There is nothing in these early formulae to disturb the contemplation of the emotional appeal of pure form and colour. To those who approach a picture with the idea that the representation of nature, the "making it look like the real thing," is the sole object of painting, how strange must be the appearance ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... quotient in my sums, where the same figure came, always the same, running on and on. I used to wonder what was my soul, and I fancied that it was a pale, blue flaming oblate, somewhere near my back and in the middle of my body—such was my boyish guess of what they told me was a real thing. I had pondered on that compass of the skies by which the wild fowl guide themselves. I had wondered, as a child, how far the mountains ran. As I had grown older I had read the law, read of the birth of civilization, pondered on laws ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... Abdulka was surprised again; he called on Allah. And he told his—daughter, I suppose—such a pretty creature, only with an eye like a jackal's—to bring a wine-skin. And I began to get to work on it. "But your sabre," said he, "isn't genuine; here, take the real thing. And now we are pledged friends." But you've lost your ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... toast gets cold. It's no good if the toast gets cold. They don't understand tea as a meal at these places," he said to Maud, as the mourner withdrew. "You have to go to the country to appreciate the real thing. I remember we lay off Lyme Regis down Devonshire way, for a few days, and I went and had tea at a farmhouse there. It was quite amazing! Thick Devonshire cream and home-made jam and cakes of every kind. This sort of thing here is just a farce. ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... from his rendezvous with McGivney, thrilling with a new and wonderful idea. You couldn't have got him to give up his job now. This sleuthing business was the real thing! ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... he mean to speak ill of Christmas—to stab it? We look again. No—it is that Christmas without roast Turkeys and Mince pies will be very bad. The "bare name"—that is what he will none of. But on the contrary the real thing he will have, with Roasts and bakes, and—possibly—Cordial Liquor to "Comfort up" the day. What a good word that "Comfort up" is. ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... in many ways by the Indian philosophy; but the special doctrine of Plato made ideas the most permanent of all things. Visible things are only fleeting shadows, which soon pass away; only ideas remain. The universal concept, or notion, is the only real thing. Thus the perfect globe is the concept held in the mind; the marble, ball, or sphere of material is only an imperfect representation of the same. The horse is a type to which all individual horses tend to conform; they pass away, but the type remains. His ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... real thing,' said Jim, his eyes brightening as he gazed at them. 'I'd like to have that dark bay colt with the star. My word, what a forehand he's got; and what quarters, too. If he can't gallop I'll never say I know a horse from ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... to it. More than once, even in my time, hopes have run high, but only to fall again. Some have even cried 'Eureka' to the public; but the moment others looked at their discovery and compared it with the real thing, ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... to Nature's heart," said Bill, unexpectedly. "You hitch a big hollow needle onto an electric light current. When she gets hot enough you punch a hole with her in the bottom of the bottle. Then you throw the switch and let the needle cool off. When she's cool you pour out the real thing for your own use—mebbe. Then you stick in your forty-cent-a-gallon squirrel poison. Heat up your needle again. Draw her out very slow so the glass will close up behind her. Simple, neat, effective, honest ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... point now, anyway. Godwin Markham, money-lender, of Conduit Street, is the same person as Gabriel Chestermarke, banker, of Scarnham. That's flat! And now that we've got to know that much, how much nearer am I to finding out the real thing that ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... or green cheese as it was called originally, shows the several phases most cheeses have gone through, from their simple, honest beginnings to commercialization, and sometimes back to the real thing. ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... over the real thing on the actual stage of life. What are the 'Shadows of London' on the stage to the shadows of London or Chicago as they really exist? Why don't we get excited over ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... you very much," said Angela. And she thought: "What an extraordinary-looking man. But how handsome! He might be dressed for a play—only, somehow, he doesn't look like an actor. Whatever he is, he's the real thing." ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... his mother, paint and go out as he liked, and live happy ever after. That was his programme as far as doing things went. But he was proud within himself, measuring people against himself, and placing them, inexorably. And he thought that PERHAPS he might also make a painter, the real thing. But that he ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... sympathy! Undefinable, untranslatable, and yet the most real thing and the greatest power in human life! How strangely our souls leap out to some other soul without our choosing or knowing the why. The man or woman who has this subtle gift of sympathy and magnetism of soul possesses the most precious ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... roughs was crying. 'We want our money back!' But that was a wicked story," added Mr. Sorber, earnestly. "We was giving them a big show for their money. We had a sacred cow, a white elephant, and a Wild Man of Borneo that you couldn't have told from the real thing—he was dumb, poor fellow, and so the sounds he made when they prodded him sounded just as wild ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... year I didn't write a word. I had the courage to wait for the real thing, nobody pestering me to be a "genius"! Some day you may read that first book. People said I had re-discovered the virtue of humility. ...
— Read-Aloud Plays • Horace Holley
... vice. The revolt, driven under ground and exacerbated, produces debauchery veiled by hypocrisy, an overwhelming demand for licentious theatrical entertainments which no censorship can stem, and, worst of all, a confusion of virtue with the mere morality that steals its name until the real thing is loathed because the imposture is loathsome. Literary traditions spring up in which the libertine and profligate—Tom Jones and Charles Surface are the heroes, and decorous, law-abiding persons—Blifil and Joseph Surface—are the villains ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... Telegraph." Not a man present had an opinion of his own; or, if he had an opinion, ventured to express it; or, if he knew nothing of the subject, was honest enough to say so. One enormous Sham, and everybody in a conspiracy to take it for the real thing: that is an accurate description of the state of political feeling among the representative men at Mr. Farnaby's dinner. I am not judging rashly by one example only; I have been taken to clubs and public festivals, only to hear over and over again ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... whatever occasion it be begun, whether by a word carried home to the heart by the finger of God, or by some sharp and crossing dispensation, fear of approaching death, some heinous out-breaking, or the like, it is a real thing, a heart-reaching conviction, not general and notional, but particular, plain, and pinching, affecting the heart with fear and terror, making the soul seriously and really to mind this matter, to be taken up with the thoughts of it, and anxiously and earnestly to cry out, ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... Croyden. "In the cuss line, you two are the real thing. Why didn't you open up sooner?—you shouldn't hide such proficiency from ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... real thing; God bless you, Tom," I exclaimed. "But I doubt if I've the right to take advantage of your goodness. I'm not sure that I oughtn't to signal those fellows to take you off ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... him. Never. I was carried away. Never! Never! I remember with wonder the sort of dogged fierceness I displayed. I had the illusion of having got the spectre by the throat at last. Indeed the whole real thing has left behind the detailed and amazing impression of a dream. Why should she fear? She knew him to be strong, true, wise, brave. He was all that. Certainly. He was more. He was great—invincible—and the world did not want him, it had ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... pulling off his short, thick jacket. "Get busy at that 'mix' of yours. Put plenty of the real thing in and don't be sparing with the tasties. Off with your coat and hat, Mister Gaston. Make yourself comfortable. To folks as is already up, what's ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... natural earthwork which their labours had created. She saw black forms rise stealthily from the long, rank grass, a flight of quivering spears, the horrid battle-cry of the natives rang in her ears. The whole drama of the man's great past rose up before her eyes, made a living and real thing by his simple but vigorous language. That he effaced himself from it went for nothing; she saw him there perhaps more clearly than anything else, the central and domineering figure, a man of brains and nerve who, with his life in his hands, faced with equal immovability a herculean task and ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... through the winter months. They's something softening and enriching about that there Children of the Abbey; and Scottish Chiefs has got some mighty high work in it, too. I tells Lahoma that I guess them two books is just about as near the real thing out in the big world as you can get. David Copperfield is sort of slow; I've went with people that knowed a powerful sight more than them characters in David. I used to drift about with a bunch of fellows ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... beauty is a real thing in this school. The playground is full of bonny corners with flowers and bushes. The school writing books are bound in artistic wallpaper by the children, and hand-made frames enclose reproductions of ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... a bad habit, especially when you're in war. The dream is sure to be better than the real thing. You won't be dancing again in Charleston for a long time, nor will I. All those beautiful girls you were dreaming about but couldn't name will be without partners until we're a lot older than we ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... had brought him back to life. He suspected that in the dark silence some real thing was approaching. A little mouse appeared to be moving down the corridor. The shoes placed outside one of the doors were moved with a slight creaking. Ferragut had the vague impression of air that is displaced by the slow advance ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... was no Hall of Song. At last I allowed myself to be persuaded not to postpone the first performance any longer, and I decided to use the Hall of Karl the Great out of Oberon, originally suggested to me by Luttichau, instead of the real thing. Considering the importance I attached to practical effect, this entailed a great sacrifice of my personal feelings. And true enough, when the curtain rose for the second act, the reappearance of this throne-room, which the public had seen so often, added considerably ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... surface and air out the boat?" asked Jack. "Our air apparatus is all right, of course, but I like the real thing better. We can drop down ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... both of them, gloomily, from the fireplace. Aunt Clare, handsome, aristocratic, perfectly well fitted to pour out tea in any society, but useless, useless, useless when it came to the real thing; Uncle Garrett and his eyeglass, trying to make the most of a situation in which he had most obviously failed—no, they were no good either of them, and three weeks ago they had seemed the ultimate standard by which his own life was to be ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... of the bunk house Injun approached. It will be remembered by those who have read of Injun that he was very fond of pink pajamas. As garments, pink pajamas seemed to Injun to be the real thing. It had been hard to convince him that they were not proper for everyday wear, but when he was half convinced of this fact, he had done the next best thing, and taken to a very pink shirt. This, tucked in a large pair of ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... agreed that, owing to the change of locality and climate, the "Peres Chartreux" now made there is not equal to the old Chartreuse. There are a number of people in Grenoble who make imitation Chartreuse, but it is not so good as the real thing. ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... fronds it laughs and mocks at the people who are crying and making great lamentations over his deserted tabernacle. "There he sits, wondering at them and ridiculing them. 'What are they crying for?' he says; 'whom are they sorry for? Here am I.' For they think that the real thing is the soul, and that it has gone away from the body just as a man throws off his clothes and leaves them, and the clothes lie by themselves with nothing in them."[582] This estimate of the comparative value of soul and body is translated from the words of a New Hebridean ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... too; for about Friday afternoon we ran into some weather that was the real thing. It had been cloudy most of the mornin', with the wind makin' up, and around three o'clock there was whitecaps as far as you could see. Nothin' monotonous or reg'lar about the motion of the Agnes then. She'd lift up on one ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... Irish brogue which everybody admitted was singularly "like the real thing," Mr. Binks had risen in public estimation, and his name was put down on ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... know about our being so far apart," was the deprecatory protest. "You're just a little bit long on theory, that's all, son. When it comes down to the real thing—practical politics, as some folks call it—somebody has to head the stampede and turn it. And if we don't do it this coming fall, the other ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... beautiful when beheld in upper air. But on gazing downward, there they were, the same even to the minutest particular, yet arrayed in ideal beauty which satisfied the spirit incomparably more than the actual scene. I am half convinced that the reflection is indeed the reality, the real thing which Nature imperfectly images to our grosser sense. At any rate the disembodied shadow ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... Ta-kap-si-ka-pi has ever forgotten it. Major Eastman of the old army, who was quite an artist, attempted to depict the scene on canvas, and while he made an excellent picture which would please the eye of anyone who had not seen the real thing, he found it impossible to convey an adequate idea of its best points. The picture, I think, is now either in the rooms of the Wisconsin Historical Society, or in the Cochran gallery ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... is our last word. We must, by setting aside the mechanical theory, free ourselves from a too narrow conception of the constitution of matter. And this liberation will be to us a great advantage which we shall soon reap. We shall avoid the error of believing that mechanics is the only real thing and that all that cannot be explained by mechanics must be incomprehensible. We shall then gain more liberty of mind for understanding what the union of the soul ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... on all of you, one after another, and each has told me your story, just enough of it for me to piece it together. Kitty is suffering from a form of vertigo, an insanity, kleptomania, the real thing. As for you, Mr. Drummond, you were in league with the alleged husband—your own ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... as to have a maximum of time to kill more. And with the bayonet, do not let it be imagined for a moment that the work is easy. Bayonet fighting requires perfect condition, a fair share of strength, and a quick eye. Mistakes, when a man comes to the real thing, are not likely to occur twice, and there are many things which a man must learn who aspires to become ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... from such a father as he is—and from the mother who gave you all he left her to give. What are towels and tablecloths—I don't know what it is brides bring!—beside such things as these? Won't you give me the real thing, and let me furnish the ones that don't count? Dear, if you could know the pleasure there is for me in the very thought of buying ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... the formulae we invent, and are bound to invent, for them. They give us pleasure not by confirming us, but by surprising us. It seems to me absurd, then, to regard Walpole's air of indifference as the only real thing about him and to question his raptures. From his first travels among the Alps with Gray down to his senile letters to Hannah More about the French Revolution, we see him as a man almost hysterical in the intensity of his sensations, ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... that the Colonel had decided to land and practice an attack. He knew that at any moment his Regiment might be thrown into action, and as the long journey was found to have a stiffening effect on one's limbs he decided on some small practice manoeuvres before the actual and real thing took place. ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... cheese factory," said I, when we had left the church. "Now, I'll show you the real thing, and then you shall have lunch. It won't be conventional, but I think ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... property will revert to me eventually, but, remembering what is in our blood, I dare not trust myself to drag out a life of idleness or monotonous drudgery, waiting for the future here. The curse is a very real thing—and it would not be fair to you. Now I can save enough from the wreck to start us without positive hardship over seas, and George has written offering me a small share in his Australian cattle-run. You shall want for nothing, Millicent, ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... MACGILL'S new book that you have not probably read or said for yourself of the previous volumes. For my own part, if the War is to be written about at all (a question concerning which I preserve an open mind), I say let it be, as here, the real thing, and the hotter and stronger the better. There is rough humour in these sketches of soldier types, and just enough story to thread them together; but it is the fighting that counts. Certain chapters, for example ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various
... clutching at his heart. The next morning he carried the locket down into the valley, found its owner and—forgot to restore it. It became an excuse for further descents. Meanwhile, the theories were wooed with a certain coldness. In front of them stood perpetually the one real thing which had surged up through the quiet of his life, and, lover-like, he justified its presence to himself, by seeing in Kate Alden's frank face the incarnation of the ideal patterns of his books. The visits to Grindelwald grew more frequent and more prolonged. The climax, however, ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... I don't know about that, son," his father responded doubtfully. "Young persons of three are not considered old enough to play with the real thing. Won't make ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... yours wouldn't be so wonderful. It's the wind of the spirit that blows them into beautiful shapes for you, I suppose. To let that go, for it's immaterial—you think I might have a job? I? That I might do a real thing for anybody ever? If you only knew me. If you only could see the mountains of whipped cream and Maraschino cherries, the cliffs of French clothes and automobiles, the morasses of afternoon teas and dances and calls and luxury in general that lie between me and any usefulness. It's the ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... us all winter) was half forgotten, that the spring brought me this excellent news, earlier than I had dared to expect it—the news that sounds to a recruit half as good as active service. We were going to march and go off right away westward over half a dozen horizons, till we could see the real thing at Chalons, and with this ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... I says. 'This Rainbow is the best ever. He can beat any brush-topper now racin' if the handicapper don't overload him. He's been coppin' where they race your eyeballs off. He's been makin' good against the real thing. He's a thoroughbred! If he turns in one of these here parlor races fur gents, with a bunch of hunters, they won't know which way ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... and Birkwall went on: "I thought you were faking the name last night; but I didn't want to give you away. It was the real thing, wasn't ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... hate it, and lose it gladly. The only real thing in it is the soul, with its courage, patience, devotion. And nothing outward ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... that baby laugh! It was echoed From the benches with a ring, And the roughest customer there sprang up With, "Boys, it's the real thing." The ring was jammed in a minute, Not a man that did not strive For a "shot at holding the baby,"— ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... to care, the question vaguely nagged him. He should try to remember. There was more than dreams and the whispering voice. There was—what? If he had one real thing to cling to, to put his feet on and climb back from— ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... better. Be truthful, and then nothing can be too big, nothing should be too small, so long as it is here, and there! Apart from the question of literature, apart from the question of art, reflect the real thing with true observation and with sincere feeling for what it is and what it represents, and that is art and literature in a modern play. If you inculcate an idea in your play, so much the better for your play and for ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch
... Cave, feeling that the suspicions of his family about the crystal were allayed, began to take it to and fro with him in order that, as occasion arose in the daytime or night, he might comfort himself with what was fast becoming the most real thing in ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... going to preside at a similar meeting at Liverpool on the 26th of next month, and on my way home I may be obliged to preside at another at Birmingham. I will send you papers, if the reports be at all like the real thing. ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... the title, but the substantial and real thing. If I'd only the half of it, I'd give up ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... morning. But, alas! the revulsion does not stop with the overthrow of the palaces which had been reared without labor; it is not satisfied with the dissipation of mere fancies and dreams; but, being itself a most real thing, it carries with it many a stately structure, which the toil, the economy, the self-denial of years had hardly raised. Extraneous causes,—a short crop,—a reduced tariff,—a peculiar mania of enterprise,—may ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... a little boy, or it wasn't the real thing. And to get no valentine was a dreadful—dreadful thing. And even the timidest of the sheep began to cast eyes ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... that this came out of a costumer's?" Ryder swung her swiftly out in the fox trot before the crowd invaded the floor. "If Andy McLean could hear you! Why this, this is the real thing, the Scots-wha-hae-wi'-Wallace-bled stuff." ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... promise to Doris, police help, of course, was out of the question. No, he must go back alone. But this time there would be no semi-ignominious departure. He would either bring Doris away, or he would remain there with her. And if Shaw wanted trouble, he'd get it, and it would be the real thing. ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... and I wish you had had more confidence in me and come to me with that letter before you sent it. As for the 'expenses' of your Party—it is yours, dear, entirely—they are slight and my contribution to the general happiness. The only real thing that does matter, that will be most difficult to set straight is—your suspicion of old Ephraim. It was that I believe which angered Mrs. Calvert, far more than the money loss, although she is exact enough ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... him amongst us. Accordingly he soon arrived, knocked over the porter on his road to the reading-room; he seized every man's hand as he passed him—wrung it almost frantically, and kept ejaculating, "Why, now here's something like a murder!—this is the real thing—this is genuine—this is what you can approve, can recommend to a friend: this—says every man, on reflection—this is the thing that ought to be!" Then, looking at particular friends, he said—"Why, Jack, how are you? Why, Tom, how are you? Bless me, you look ten years younger than ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... Schiel and their friends, disgorged us at Cape Town. Our anxiety as to whether the war was over was soon allayed, and we gaily marched, a perspiring company, to Maitland Camp. Here amid sand and flies we began to conceive what the real thing would be like. An extract or two from letters written while at that salubrious spot may serve to give an ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... scattered conflict, estimated men by the manner in which they went at what he had set them to do, and he surveyed them with favor when they crowded close to the edge of his rostrum, dwelling with particular interest on the faces which especially revealed that they had been up against the real thing in the way of a fight. Behind and around the gladiators who had won to the porch pressed the cordon of ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... and awakening, but this, "the real thing," as Amarilly appraised it, bore her into a land of enchantment. She was blind and deaf to everything except the scenes enacted on the stage. Only once was her passionate attention distracted, and that was when Pete in passing gave her an emphatic nudge and a ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... help me perhaps to be more like a gentleman said Mr Salteena getting rarther hot I am quite alright as they say but I would like to be the real thing can it be done he ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford |
