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In point of fact   /ɪn pɔɪnt əv fækt/   Listen
In point of fact

adverb
1.
In reality or actuality.  Synonyms: as a matter of fact, in fact.  "Painters who are in fact anything but unsophisticated" , "As a matter of fact, he is several inches taller than his father"






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"In point of fact" Quotes from Famous Books



... exterior of the town suggested a new world, its social and intellectual atmosphere intensified the impression. "Leipzig is the place for me," says Frosch in the Auerbach Cellar Scene in Faust; "it is a little Paris, and gives its folks a finish."[17] The prevailing tone of Leipzig society was, in point of fact, deliberately imitated from the pattern set to Europe by the Court of France. In contrast to the old-fashioned formality of Frankfort, the Leipziger aimed at a graceful insouciance in social intercourse and light, ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... had firmly resolved in justice to herself, in fairness to any possible husband, to renounce that crown of woman's existence. It was the only atonement she could make. Well, at least her loving care of these dear little boys, who were in point of fact motherless, would in some degree expiate her evil deed, and would keep her heart ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... the Slav provinces, has in each case gained sympathy in Great Britain, but the cause of Irish nationality has received far other treatment. That charity should begin at home may be a counsel of perfection, but in point of fact one rarely sees it applied. Sympathy for the poor relation at one's door is a rare thing indeed. Increasing prosperity makes nations, as it makes men, more intolerant of growing adversity, and the poor man is apt to get more kicks than half-pence from the rich kinsmen under ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... say when I am in a condition of pleading my own cause. The bare apprehension that I shall show the world that I have been guilty of no crime renders me criminal among these men; and they hold themselves ready, being unable to reply either in point of fact or in point of reason, to drown my voice in the confusion ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke

... Boero was not to elucidate a romance in royal life, but to prove that Charles II. had, for many years, been sincerely inclined to the Catholic creed, though thwarted by his often expressed disinclination to 'go on his travels again.' In point of fact, the religion of Charles II. might probably be stated in a celebrated figure of Pascal's. Let it be granted that reason can discover nothing as to the existence of any ground for religion. Let it be granted that we cannot know whether there is a God or not. Yet either there is, or there is ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang

... least so much of it as our senses have been operated upon by, we have conceptions clear, vivid, and distinct; but when Dr. Clarke tells us of an intelligent Being, not part but creator of that universe, we can form no clear, vivid, distinct, or, in point of fact, any conception of such a Being. When he explains that it is infinite and omnipresent, like poor Paddy's famed ale, the explanation 'thickens as it clears;' for being ourselves finite, and necessarily present on one ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell

... manual of worship with which as English-speaking Christians we are ourselves the most familiar, the Book of Common Prayer, and allow it to fall naturally apart, as a bunch of flowers would do if the string were cut, we discover that in point of fact we have, as in the case of the Bible, many books in one. We have scarcely turned the title-page, for instance, before we come upon a ritual of daily worship, an order for Morning Prayer and an order for Evening Prayer, consisting in the main of Psalms, Scripture Lessons, Antiphonal Versicles, ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... In point of fact the provision was construed by the Department to include all voluntary selections: lands, says the circular of the General Land Office of July 8, 1838, "which settlers have selected with a view of building thereon a village ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews

... thirst; and there is little risk in advancing, that whatever superinduces an unnatural indulgence in the use of liquids is itself, and without farther question, injurious, even if the liquids resorted to are of the most innocent description; but, in point of fact, the cigar-smoker will usually appease his thirst by means of liquors in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various

... little body into her arms, and forgot everything but the child's pain. George was rushed off for William King, and Mrs. Richie and the two women hung over the boy with tears and tender words and entreaties "not to cry"! David, in point of fact, stopped crying long before they did; but, of course, he cried again, poor little monkey! during the setting of the tiny bone, though William King was as gentle and determined as was necessary, ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... Mrs. Saunders, though all her life a resident of a large city, was not very well-acquainted with the abject poor. In point of fact, Dirk Colson had had no extra clothing for his mother to make clean. But Mrs. Saunders, full of the motherly thought, yet finding no trace of a shirt in the bundle of rags that Dirk had brought with him, went down one day into the depths of an old trunk, and brought to light and mended and washed ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden

... each little sheet by itself, for if they had had a larger frame so as to print an entire folio sheet—then we should have found in the finished book that the water-mark would recur once in each sixteen pages. In point of fact, however, it only recurs irregularly in the first, fifth, and tenth gathering. This could not have occurred unless the sheets used ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion

... that the death of the Czar would herald in a triumphant peace; but in point of fact, peace was not signed until the March of 1856. Its terms satisfied the diplomatists both of France and England; they would probably have been less complacent could they have foreseen the day when this hard-won treaty would be torn up by the Power they seemed ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... at random. the world, even the religious world, is governed by law. Character is governed by law. Happiness is governed by law. The Christian experiences are governed by law. Men, forgetting this, expect Rest, Joy, Peace, Faith to drop into their souls from the air like snow or rain. But in point of fact they do not do so; and if they did, they would no less have their origin in previous activities and be controlled by natural laws. Rain and snow do drop from the air, but not without a long previous history. They are the mature effects of former causes. Equally so are Rest and Peace and Joy. They, ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond

... In point of fact, the slab which covers Lawrence Washington is in the chancel of the church, by the side of the monuments of the Spencer family. These are all in admirable preservation, with full-length effigies, busts, or other sculptural work, and exhibit ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... much they deem their own. Besides, from analogy of race, he is, perhaps, better appreciated in France than in his own country; for few English do understand what true justice he rendered himself when he said,—that, in point of fact, his character was far too lenient, the greatest proof of his muse's discontent being ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... "You will in point of fact hardly find a religious leader of any kind in whose life there is no record of automatisms. I speak not merely of savage priests and prophets, whose followers regard automatic utterance and action as ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... In point of fact, three minutes had not elapsed when the men made their appearance. There were four of them now. All were tall, dressed in long, brown coats, with round hats, and huge cudgels in their hands. Their ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... was this humor? In point of fact, what is humor? We must be able to answer the latter question before we may venture to classify the ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... king of the Lombards, and lord of all Italy, except the Venetian Islands and the southern extremity of Calabria, which remained subject to the Greeks. The German king and the Pope were now, in point of fact, dominant in the West. A woman, Irene, who had put out the eyes of her son that she herself might reign, sat on the throne at Constantinople. This was a fair pretext for throwing off the Byzantine rule, which afforded no protection ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... useless—in fact, worse than useless—to the British arms. It only provided winter quarters to an army which would have been more comfortable and secure in New York; and it held them beleaguered at a remote point when their services were greatly needed to aid Burgoyne and save his army from capture. In point of fact, Philadelphia did take Howe; and Washington kept him out of the way and fully employed until Burgoyne had fallen, and by his fall had paved the way to the French alliance and to the ruin of the ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... dance and frolic with the sunbeams and murmur to the birds, light-hearted forever, will yet bear sands of gold, if they flow from auriferous hills, so any bubble and purl of laughter, proceeding from a wise and wealthy soul, will bear a noble significance. In point of fact, some of the merriest books in the world are among the most richly freighted. And as airy and mirthful books may be substantial and serious, so it is an effect very similar to that of noble and significant mirth that is produced upon us by the grandest pieces of serious writing. Thus, he who ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... may be used alone, the noun being understood. Custom has limited in some measure the use of these abridged titles to classes or collective bodies, and the adjective takes the same form that the noun itself would have had; but, in point of fact, it would be just as good English to say "a heavy" as "the heavies" and they all become unintelligible when we lose sight of the noun to which they belong. If A.E.B. should assert that a glass of "cold without," because, by those accustomed to indulge in such potations, it was understood to mean ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various

... music, quite as surely as his wildest successor, Schumann, and he wrote as he felt at the time. He lost nothing in being deaf. His inner tonal sense was as acute as ever, and had been trained as the tonal sense of few composers ever was. In point of fact the compositions of the later period are as sweet as those of any former period whatever. The last sonata for the pianoforte is one of the most advanced compositions that exist for the instrument. It is a tone poem which will outlast most other things that Beethoven wrote for ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews

... dressed with great freshness she wears her smart attire with an undisguised appearance of saving it—very much as if it were lent her for the occasion. Edward Rosier, it would seem, would have been just the man to note these defects; and in point of fact there was not a quality of this young lady, of any sort, that he had not noted. Only he called her qualities by names of his own—some of which indeed were happy enough. "No, she's unique—she's absolutely unique," he used to say to himself; and ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James

... sallow face. He leaned back comfortably in his chair, and half closing his eyes as in dreamy reminiscence, said, slowly: "Your reply, Mr. Hotchkiss, reminds me of—er—sing'lar circumstances that —er—occurred, in point of fact—at the St. Charles Hotel, New Orleans. Pinkey Hornblower—personal friend—invited Senator Doolittle to join him in social glass. Received, sing'larly enough, reply similar to yours. 'Don't drink nor smoke?' said Pinkey. 'Gad, sir, you must be mighty sweet on the ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... wondering in a puzzled way what was the ultimatum that a man should impose upon a woman. What, in point of fact, was the force that could be brought to bear upon the case? In primitive days the matter would have been easily enough settled, but in modern times moral force is the only lever, and although most women, he admitted, were very easily influenced by moral force, it struck ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan

... is killed. Father Brown immediately concludes that the priest is guilty of the murder because, had he been unprepared, he would have started and looked round at the scream and the crash of the victim falling. But a man absorbed in prayer on, let us say, a tenth floor, is, in point of fact, quite unlikely to hear a crash in the basement, or a scream even nearer to him. But the most astonishing thing about The Eye of Apollo is the staging. In order to provide the essentials, Mr. Chesterton ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... grants to the State's police power has been previously pointed out. That purely private contracts should be in any stronger situation in this respect would obviously be anomalous in the extreme. In point of fact, the ability of private parties to curtail governmental authority by the easy devise of contracting with one another is, with an exception to be noted, even less than that of the State to tie its own hands by contracting away its own powers. So, when it was contended in an early ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... a prospective mother are in point of fact equally inert so far as their influence upon development is concerned, no matter whether they occur during the earlier or later part of pregnancy. There is never any anatomical means by which maternal impressions could be conveyed to the embryo. Such an influence would have to ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons

... the Government of this country to continue the present disposition of Church property in Ireland. It appears not too much to assume that our imperial legislature has been qualified to take, and has taken in point of fact, a sounder view of religious truth than the majority of the people of Ireland in their destitute and uninstructed state. We believe, accordingly, that that which we place before them is, whether they know it or not, calculated to be beneficial to them; and ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... stagnant calm in a line almost vertical, had pierced the morning mists, and now swam emancipated in a heaven of exquisite blue. Below us, by some trick of eyesight, the country had grown concave, its horizons curving up like the rim of a shallow bowl—a bowl heaped, in point of fact, with sea-fog, but to our eyes with a froth delicate and dazzling as a whipped syllabub of snow. Upon it the travelling shadow of the balloon became no shadow but a stain: an amethyst (you might call ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... in. At which crisis it wants no little skill and practice in a man to steer his partner deftly and without collisions through the intricate melee. It can be done, though, to a degree hardly credible till practically tested, the really greatest difficulties being, in point of fact, rather to start and stop than to avoid bumpings when once fairly underweight; but ladies suffer sufficiently from dizzy or clumsy partners to make them often, in a crowd, prefer to give their "rounds" to a man whose steering is good, rather than to one whose ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... literary rope-dancer). Other critics, who do like him, but who have limited their study to a certain portion of his books, compare him to a worker in gold, who carefully chases or embosses dainty processions of fauns and maenads. He is, in point of fact, something more estimable than a literary rope- dancer, something more serious than a working jeweller in rhymes. He calls himself un raffine; but he is not, like many persons who are proud of that title, un indifferent in matters of human fortune. His earlier poems, of ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... yet he assumed the supreme control of the struggle and directed it absolutely from start to finish. He was of the heroic mould, and he wisely planned his campaign tours to accomplish the best result. In point of fact, he had won his fight after stumping the country, and lost it by his stay in New York on his way home. He knew how to sway multitudes, and none could approach him in that important feature of a conflict; but he was not trained to consider ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... and economic problems. That is a matter upon which I cannot now dwell, and which has been sufficiently emphasised by many eminent writers. If modern orators confined themselves to urging that the old economists exaggerated their claims to scientific accuracy, and were, in point of fact, guilty of many logical errors and hasty generalisations, I, at least, could fully agree with them. But the general impression seems to be, that because the old arguments were faulty, all argument is irrelevant: that because ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen

... accustomed and which it was not my habit to rectify unless the matter seemed important. But how had I known that this man's name was Margovan? It certainly is not a name that one would apply to a man at random, with a probability that it would be right. In point of fact, the name was as strange to me as ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... India had indeed become by this time the rule of several disjointed chiefs over several disjointed provinces, subject in point of fact to no common head. Thus, in 1450, Delhi, with a small territory around it, was held by the {28} representative of the Saiyid family. Within fourteen miles of the capital, Ahmad Khan ruled independently in Mewat. Sambhal, or the province now known as Rohilkhand, ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson

... the travellers of the last century, the man who above all things shines in accuracy, and in point of fact his description of the cataract is the best we have up to the present time. Bourgade la Dardye tells us that not far above the cataract the Parana expands into a lake almost five miles in breadth, and from the lake the river issues in two great ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... force your way in," he remarked cheerfully. "I forgot to tell him that you were coming to-day. I told him you would be here yesterday, but yesterday isn't to-day to that Indian. I wasn't sure you would get here at all, in point of fact, for I didn't know whether that old fool I talked to in your office would send you or some one else. If anyone else had been sent, he would have never got by Joe, I can tell you. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various

... knew who had been to Siberia and returned, told me that he himself had been a witness of how the very most hardened criminals remembered the old general, though, in point of fact, he could never, of course, have distributed more than a few pence to each member of a party. Their recollection of him was not sentimental or particularly devoted. Some wretch, for instance, who had been a murderer—cutting the throat of ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... the part of the speaker, or a conviction that all her utterances are replete with intrinsic interest, it is difficult to determine. Certain it is that Lady Louisa practically addressed the table, the attendant men-servants, all creation in point of fact, as well as her two immediate neighbours. Like her father she was large and handsome. But her expression lacked his amiability, her attitude his pleasing self-distrust. In age she was about six-and-thirty ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... Baldacchino, or canopy of state, draped with scarlet cloth, and fringed with gold embroidery; the scarlet indicating that the palace is inhabited by a cardinal. Green would be appropriate to a prince. In point of fact, the Palazzo Barberini is inhabited by a cardinal, a prince, and a duke, all belonging to the Barberini family, and each having his separate portion of the palace, while their servants have a common territory and meeting-ground ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... possesses no less than three penal colonies. It will not be contended that New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land, and Norfolk Island, were established either with economically trading or political objects; that, in point of fact, they were established in any other sense than as metropolitan prisons, for the safe keeping, punishment, and moral reclamation and reform of those quasi incorrigible offenders, those criminal pests, by which the health of society was distempered, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... that Motherhood Have Social Support.—In point of fact, all the demands for new freedom in respect to motherhood rest primarily upon the recognition by society-at-large of a claim upon it, financial as well as spiritual, for the benefit of all who are allowed to be mothers, in right of their own fitness for the function. And this recognition ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... born on Staten Island, on June 9, 1782, he was a very young Loyalist indeed at the time of his arrival in Blue-nose Land, being, in point of fact, less than sixteen ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher

... to accomplish much more in all the arts and sciences than the men who, by their own particular kinds of work and the practice of it, have brought each a single subject to the highest perfection. But this is in point of fact not realized. ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... apotheosis of oneself; with each friend, although we could not distinguish it in words from any other, we have at least one special reputation to preserve: and it is thus that we run, when mortified, to our friend or the woman that we love, not to hear ourselves called better, but to be better men in point of fact. We seek this society to flatter ourselves with our own good conduct. And hence any falsehood in the relation, any incomplete or perverted understanding, will spoil even the pleasure of these visits. Thus says Thoreau again: "Only lovers know the value of truth." And yet again: "They ask ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... rare. Reasoning from the analogous wounds of the liver, tracks scoring the surface of these organs might be much more to be feared than clean perforations. The elasticity of the lung tissue, however, must make such lesions rare. In point of fact, there is no reason why a perforation by a bullet of small calibre should be much more feared than a puncture from an exploring trocar, and the danger of the two wounds is probably very nearly ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins

... seemed to think that something turned upon the date (May, 1898) at which these articles were promulgated. In point of fact they were a mere reissue of articles drawn by the well-known jurist Francis Lieber, and, after revision by a military board, issued in April, ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland

... downhill. Oates' foot worse. He has rare pluck and must know that he can never get through. He asked Wilson if he had a chance this morning, and of course Bill had to say he didn't know. In point of fact he has none. Apart from him, if he went under now, I doubt whether we could get through. With great care we might have a dog's chance, but no more. The weather conditions are awful, and our gear gets steadily more icy and ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... name given to a State in which the sovereign power is vested in one or more elected by the community, and held answerable to it though in point of fact, both in Rome and the Republic of Venice the community was not free to elect any one outside of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... sit easy to the cares and obligations of life. They are not much given to care and anxiety as regards their own affairs, and it is not to be expected that they should be more anxious about other people's. In point of fact, this is the constitution of somewhat easy virtue: it is not distinguished by a severe, rigid attention to the obligations and the punctualities of life. We should not be justified in calling such persons selfish; still less should we call them cold-hearted: ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... or seen of Jephthah, or of Captain Venn's troop. The garrison within Bristol was small and unenterprising, and in point of fact the war was over. News travelled slowly, but Stead picked up scraps at Bristol, by which he understood that things looked very bad for the King. Moreover, Sir George Elmwood died of his wounds; poor old Lady ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge

... In point of fact, Poker Flat was "after somebody." It had lately suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and a prominent citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of virtuous reaction, quite as lawless and ungovernable as any of the acts that had provoked ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... pleasure, sometimes living in one part of the area within the fort, and sometimes in another. On the present occasion, he had made a halt near the centre; and there he was found by his subordinate, who was admitted to his presence without any delay or dancing attendance in an ante-chamber. In point of fact, there was very little difference in the quality of the accommodations allowed to the officers and those allowed to the men, the former being ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... take the good news at the hands of this little maiden, and listened to the words that fell from her lips. If I got lost in New York, I should be willing to ask anybody which way to go, even if it were only a shoeblack; and, in point of fact, a boy's word in such a case is often better than a man's. It is the way I want, not the person ...
— Men of the Bible • Dwight Moody

... myself, though a young man,—being still on the right side of forty,—have reaped the richest harvest from my labours in the classic shades. Twenty years ago, young gentlemen, I, like you, left my ancestral estates to sip at the Pierian spring. In point of fact, I attended the institution founded by Thomas Jefferson, the father of the American democracy—yes, sir." He put his cigar back in his mouth and added, "Yes, sir, you are certainly taking a wise and, I may say, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... of an inoffensive and amiable man? It was impossible it could be merely owing to Redgauntlet's mistaking Darsie for a spy; for though that was the solution which Fairford had offered to the provost, he well knew that, in point of fact, he himself had been warned by his singular visitor of some danger to which his friend was exposed, before such suspicion could have been entertained; and the injunctions received by Latimer from ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... growth of the church and to the spread of its influence was the spirit of division within itself. Theoretically, all believers, the world over, were one body, or church, but in point of fact there were many churches, and in some particulars they were quite sharply opposed to each other. This evil was in full force in that age, but there were signs in the air that it was not to remain forever a stumbling-block to the faith of ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan

... folks don't move in. Week after week passes without visible change till we hear no more of haste, but owner and neighbors grow impatient, and can't for their lives see why that house wa'n't done weeks and weeks ago! In point of fact, when it appeared almost wholly built, it was hardly begun. The work thus far had been of the sort that can be quickly executed, much of it done by machinery. Even after the plastering is dry, the floors ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner

... pay their debts in this way; and the law gives them an option, since a failure to pay "in kind," or "in work," merely incurs the forfeiture of paying what the particular thing is worth, in money. In point of fact, money has always been received for these "day's works," and at a ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... with the Tourtes in Plates V. and VI., will make clear a very significant fact. Dodd's work—fine as it is—is distinctly earlier in spirit than that of his great French rival. Yet they were contemporaries—in point of fact Dodd was a ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George

... her disappointment and the utter nullity of her husband, who, thanks to his smiles, his handsome dress, and his manners, passed for a man of importance. People said that Severine was so jealous of him that she prevented him from going out in the evening, while in point of fact Phileas was bathing the roses and lilies of his skin ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... was neither tall nor short, she was exactly of average height, another reason for calling her Myrtle, a plant which likewise is neither large nor small. In point of fact, Esther was not a beauty in the real sense of the word. The beholder was bewitched by her grace and her charm, and that in spite of her somewhat sallow, myrtle-like complexion. (67) More than this, her enchanting grace was not the grace of youth, ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... from eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness. Now, however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any creature's skin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness, yet in point of fact these are no arguments against such a presumption; because you cannot raise any other dense enveloping layer from the whale's body but that same blubber; and the outermost enveloping layer of any animal, if reasonably dense, what can that be but the skin? True, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... did not stop to dispute about it, though, in point of fact, his nose was not flat, so at least in that respect he did not resemble the duck ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty

... a structural and repairing nature are also required in the village where the feast is to be held. The emone, the true chiefs emone, of the village is repaired or pulled down and entirely rebuilt; or, if that village does not possess such an emone, one is erected in it. In point of fact the usual practice is, I was informed, to build a new emone, the occasion of an intended feast being the usually recognised time for the doing of this. [68] The houses of the village are put into repair. The people of the other villages of the same community build ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson

... in the literature of sentimentalism, as, for example, in his contemporary, Langhorne's Country Justice. The Deserted Village was in point of fact an imaginative idyll,—the supreme idyll of English poetry; but Goldsmith insisted that it was a realistic record of actual conditions. Yet he could never have observed such an English village, either ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... bed. A private room was a luxury neither possessed nor desired by most persons of any degree, and only enjoyed by Tibble in consideration of his great value to his master, his peculiar tastes, and the injuries he had received. In point of fact, his fall had been owing to a hasty blow, given in a passion by the master himself when a young man. Dismay and repentance had made Giles Headley a cooler and more self-controlled man ever since, and even if Tibble had not ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... come sooner or later, and now we're not ready. Ah, well, we must all do what we can. Begad, I'm glad to see you, my boy, thundering glad. It's a bit lonely here sometimes for the little woman, you know; but she never complains." (In point of fact, she even contrived to laugh, and take her father's arm affectionately in her's.) "And besides, there are many things I want to have a talk with you about, Ronald—many things. ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux

... represents the sun,[814] and if the fires at the regularly recurring celebrations were formerly produced in the same way, it might be regarded as a confirmation of the view that they were originally sun-charms. In point of fact there is, as Kuhn has indicated,[815] some evidence to shew that the midsummer fire was originally thus produced. We have seen that many Hungarian swineherds make fire on Midsummer Eve by rotating a wheel round a wooden axle wrapt in hemp, and that they drive their pigs through the fire ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... and velvet texture of the complexion, the Sieur Birotteau, perfumer, favorably known in this metropolis and abroad, has discovered a Paste and a Lotion justly hailed as marvellous by the fashion and elegance of Paris. In point of fact, this Paste and this Lotion possess amazing properties which act upon the skin without prematurely wrinkling it,—the inevitable result of drugs thoughtlessly employed, and sold in these days by ignorance and cupidity. This discovery rests ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... In point of fact, Sweeney saw some one disappear into a wash as he reached the fence. The rider held up the lamb, jabbered a sentence of broncho Spanish at the spot where the man had been, put down his bleating burden, and cantered back to his own side of ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... disposal to be employed to the best advantage for the cause. He will get out of it. He talked of the Government, said it was a great error to suppose it was inclined to movement principles, and that in point of fact there was very little difference, except on Church matters, between Sir Robert Peel and himself, that there never was so good a House of Commons for the Government, that in all this mess—for mess it was—the Tories could not succeed in getting up a feeling or a ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... than this; but I merely used to say 'All right, sir, I will keep an ear to the camp,' and he on his part never considered it necessary to ask where the game which appeared on the table came from. But in point of fact, I never went very far, and my servant always had instructions which way to send for me if I was wanted; while, as to the Dacoits, I did not believe in their having the impudence to come in broad daylight within a mile ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... language about the liberality of parliament in conceding free institutions. During the whole of that interval they are condemned to hear all the miserable jargon about fitting them for the privileges thus conferred; while, in point of fact, every year and every month during which they are retained under the administration of a despotic government, renders them less fit for free institutions. 'No consideration of money ought to induce parliament to sever the connection between any one of the colonies ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... must have it out, something is to be published of great moment,(11) and three or four great people are to see there are no mistakes in point of fact: and 'tis so troublesome to send it among them, and get their corrections, that I am weary as a dog. I dined to-day with the printer, and was there all the afternoon; and it plagues me, and there's an end, and ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... expressed, in point of fact, a serious truth, was, I take it, undeniable. The sufficient practical answer was, that change was inevitable. To refuse to adapt the constitutional machinery to the altered political forces was not to hinder their growth, but to make a revolution necessary. When, accordingly, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... last, the propositions submitted by the Peace Conference. I offer them not with a belief that they will be accepted or sustained at all. I should be glad to see even that step taken by the party who are to have, and who, in point of fact, do have possession of this Government. I offer them for the purpose of obtaining a vote upon them. I offer them, stating frankly that I shall not vote for them. I offer them with the conviction that there is between the Representatives on the other side of the Chamber, and those on the southern ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... war of four years' duration has decided the Unionist theory of our government to be the one under which the Nation is to be governed. Whether or not, in point of fact, the Nation was older than the States, and the constitution not a compact, but an indissoluble Union, will always remain a question to be discussed. The dispute turns upon a point that does not admit of final determination. We can only theorize. To maintain the view that the ...
— Government and Administration of the United States • Westel W. Willoughby and William F. Willoughby

... proof-sheets of an anonymous letter Pope had prepared for the forthcoming issue of that publication, wherein he sprightlily told how Budgell had poisoned Dr. Tindal, after forging his will. For even if Budgell had not in point of fact been guilty of these particular peccadilloes, he had quite certainly committed the crime of speaking lightly of Mr. Pope, as "a little envious animal," some seven years ago; and it was for this grave indiscretion that Pope was dexterously goading the man ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... in such a way that a cry for a reduction of rents will soon become inevitable, and that the Cheap Money Scheme has created a class of debtors, who, in conceivable circumstances, might be able to apply effectual political pressure for the reduction of their interest. In point of fact they do not share the Progressist idea, that much can be done by legislation to ameliorate the condition of the masses of the population, nor do they see that in a country like New Zealand, where ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... such a distinction and separation in the house of God. It is, however, but justice to Dr. Patton to observe that the case is not singular, the peculiar celebrity of his "Negro Pew" arising entirely from the imbecile and somewhat profane apology volunteered by Mr. Page. In point of fact, Dr. Patton and his people, as I ascertained in conversation with him on the subject, are rather in advance of their neighbours in kind feeling ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies

... exists necessarily: all that she contains, necessarily conspires to perpetuate her active existence. This is the decided opinion of PLATO, when he says, "matter and necessity are the same thing; this necessity is the mother of the world." In point of fact, we cannot go beyond this aphorism, MATTER ACTS, BECAUSE IT EXISTS; AND EXISTS, TO ACT. If it be enquired how, or for why, matter exists? We answer, we know not: but reasoning by analogy, of what we do ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach

... bulldog jaw shot out from under a fat beak of a nose. And over the broad expanse of countenance was spread a smile so sweet, so deep, so high that it gave the impression of obscuring the form of features entirely. In point of fact it was a thick and impenetrable veil that the Senator had for long hung before his face from behind which to view the world at large. And through his mouth, as through a rent in the smile, he was wont to pour out a volume of voice as musical ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess

... family-privacy. It was not, in fact, to sit in the parlor or at the table, in themselves considered, that was the thing aimed at by New-England girls,—these were valued only as signs that they were deemed worthy of respect and consideration, and, where freely conceded, were often in point of fact declined. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... hear of them in a purely polytheistic worship; we shall be far from regarding them as familiar to the popular mind, and we shall never be led so far astray as to adduce them in evidence of a monotheism in either technical sense of that word. In point of fact they were not applied to any particular god even in the most enlightened nations, but were terms of laudation and magniloquence used by the priests and devotees of every several god to do him honor. They prove something in regard to a consciousness of divinity hedging us about, but nothing ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton

... simple. It consists in walking about through the woods, or paddling along a stream, until you meet a bear; then you try to shoot him. This would seem to be, as the Rev. Mr. Leslie called his book against the deists of the eighteenth century, "A Short and Easie Method." But in point of fact there are two principal difficulties. The first is that you never find the bear when and where you are looking for him. The second is that the bear sometimes finds you when—but you shall see how it ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke

... retort that upon the noble Lord. He says that Sir Alexander Burnes—of whom he spoke throughout in the most contemptuous manner—an eminent political agent at the Court of Dost Mahommed, was beguiled by the treachery of that Asiatic ruler; that he took everything for truth which he heard, and that, in point of fact, he was utterly unfit for the position which he held at Cabul. But although the noble Lord had these despatches before him, and knew all the feelings of Sir Alexander Burnes, he still continued Sir Alexander Burnes there. He was there two years after these despatches ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... far as I am concerned (I speak to both of you now), believe me the case stands thus. If I were to say that I am not affected by regret for Scipio, I must leave the philosophers to justify my conduct, but in point of fact I should be telling a lie. Affected of course I am by the loss of a friend as I think there will never be again, such as I can fearlessly say there never was before. But I stand in no need of medicine. I can find my own consolation, and ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... not hold out till nine; I thought I had better hear my fate at once, and as I was walking across the field—you know, at the back of Mrs. Heald's—I met her half way. She had a letter in her hand, which she said she was going to leave at Mrs. Heald's for me—She admitted that the letter was in point of fact a refusal, and when I questioned her she admitted that she was obliged to refuse me because she had half promised Charlie. We went for a walk on the beach; we sat on the beach and watched the sunset, and I told her all. I spoke to her about the past, how we ...
— Spring Days • George Moore

... these confiscations, and who in some countries appropriated them all, have accorded to the Inquisition that continual good-will and help which was the condition of its prosperity, without what Lea calls "the stimulant of pillage?" We may very well doubt it.... That is why, in point of fact, their zeal for the faith languished whenever pecuniary gain was not forthcoming. "In our days," writes the Inquisitor Eymeric rather gloomily, "there are no more rich heretics, so that princes, not seeing much money in prospect, will not put themselves to any expense; it is a pity ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... concerned, the Evangelists gave the same view of Christ and His work; and to have quoted first one and then another by name would have been mischievous, as indicating differences when the testimony of all that could be called memoirs was, in point of fact, one and ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler

... prelacy might yet be recognized as the national form of Church government. Her death dissipated these dreams, and as George I., her successor, was antipathetic to the clergy, it happened that Jacobitism and episcopalianism came to be regarded in the shire as identical, though in point of fact the non-jurors as a body never countenanced rebellion. The earl of Mar raised the standard of revolt in Braemar (6th of September 1715); a fortnight later James was proclaimed at Aberdeen cross; the Pretender landed at Peterhead on the 22nd of December, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... appreciating analogical conceptions; the peculiar history and jurisprudence of the people must have tended powerfully in the same direction. Accordingly, as might have been expected from the circumstances of the nation, it appears in point of fact on the whole face of the Scriptures, that as the institutes of the commonwealth were symbolical, the language of the people was figurative. They were at home in metaphor. It was their vernacular. The sudden ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... seriously of this another time," said Sylvie, casting a glance upon him which she supposed to be full of love, though, in point of fact, it was a good deal like that of an ogress. Her cold, blue lips of a violet tinge drew back from the yellow teeth, and she ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... advantageous than egress through the common door. The Bee could attend to his release as soon as he was hatched, instead of postponing it until after the emancipation of those who come before him; he would thus escape long waits, which too often prove fatal. In point of fact, it is no uncommon thing to find bramble-stalks in which several Osmiae have died in their cells, because the upper storeys were not vacated in time. Yes, there would be a precious advantage in that lateral opening, which would not ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... inferior and subordinate to natural—that the Scriptures must be criticised like any other book, and no part of them be accepted as a revelation from God which does not harmonise with the eternal and immutable reason of things; that, in point of fact, the Old Testament is a tissue of fables and folly, and the New Testament has much alloy mingled with the gold which it contains; that Jesus Christ is not co-equal with the one God, and that his death can in no sense be regarded as an atonement for ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... replied I. "The sentry of talk challenges the approaching skirmishers of sleep. The thong of narrative drives off the dogs of tedium. Tell on." And in point of fact I was now too credulous to be anything but astounded.... ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... of the combining imagination, we chose to assume the first or simple conception to be as clear in the absence as in the presence of the object of it. This, I suppose, is in point of fact never the case, nor is an approximation to such distinctness of conception always a characteristic of the imaginative mind. Many persons have thorough and felicitous power of drawing from memory, yet never originate a ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin

... an incident occurred in the simple uneventful life the girl was leading, which might have had no importance in the life of any other young woman, but which, in point of fact, did no doubt exercise over Veronique's ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... the time, become irksome to me; and perhaps a couple of hours will pass before I care for steady work again: on the other hand, if I eat as lightly, or perhaps take a heartier lunch, but drink water only, I sit down as disposed for work after as before the meal. In point of fact, a very weak glass of whisky-and-water has as bad an influence on the disposition for work as a meal unwisely heavy would have. It is the same in the evening. If I take a light supper, with water only, I can work (and this, ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade

... ships, and brigs, and gun-boats. Glass of Madeira with you, doctor?" wiping his thin lips with a corner of the damask table-cloth as he spoke; "and they have tampered, too, with my old friends the custom-house people. Take away the tureen, Babette—and, in point of fact, I shouldn't be the least surprised to see a swarm of those navy gentlemen off the reef here at any moment. A sharp knife, Babette, for these teal—a duck should be cut, not torn. Try that Moselle, Don Ignacio; I know your fancy for light wines. This was given me by a Captain—'pon my soul, I ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... his desire to throw them off was clear to the world; but they were too strong, and too well fastened, to be got rid of easily. He feared that all the Unionists of the Border States would be lost, if he should adopt the views of the Emancipationists; and the fear was natural, though in point of fact his course had no good effect in those States, beyond that of conciliating a portion of the Kentuckians. North Carolina, under the old system the most moderate of the Slave States, was as far gone ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various

... work of showing that sensations from their very nature could never become the instruments of Knowledge. We propose rather to turn to the principal ideas of the external world which are the common equipment of the Mind in order to ascertain whether in point of fact they are derived ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip

... six-shooters. Moving in a little group rather apart from these than mingling with them, talking and drinking more among themselves, were men from the Falling Wall—men professedly "ranching" on the upper waters of the Horse, the Turkey and Crazy Woman creeks, tributaries of the Falling Wall river—in point of fact, rustlers between whom and the big cattlemen of the range there always existed a deadly enmity ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... already about concluded that the intention of the criminal was not robbery," stated he. "And now, if we make up our minds that the bayonet belonged to Hume—that the assassin, in point of fact, came here without a weapon—it must be that he did not ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre

... free to act or not to act, is anything but a criminal, if he goes ahead notwithstanding and does the deed. If I send a bullet into a man's head doubting whether or not he be dead, I commit murder by that act, and it matters not at all in point of fact whether said person were really dead or not before I made sure. In the matter, therefore, which concerns us here, doubt will not make killing justifiable. The law is: when in ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... a device for burning tobacco and blowing the smoke into the wool of the sheep and lambs, called a "fumigator." It was said to be even more destructive to the parasites than the bath of poke and tobacco juices. In point of fact, we found it quite efficacious, also less sloppy and disagreeable to use; but it rendered us even more sick, so ill in fact, that we were fully a day in recovering from the effects. None save a well-seasoned old smoker of tobacco can use the ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... its manifold train, circling round it, and stretching into the future for many a century, in the politics, history, art, &c., of the New World, in point of fact the main thing, the actual murder, transpired with the quiet and simplicity of any commonest occurrence—the bursting of a bud or pod in the growth of vegetation, for instance. Through the general ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... be calm, be calm! I forbid your going to Moulins or rushing off in pursuit of the fugitive. It is more judicious and safer to await her return in your own house, by your fireside. In point of fact, what has taken place? You refused to receive that ridiculous and ill-natured old maid; your wife has gone to join her. You should have expected as much. Family ties are very strong in the heart of such an extremely youthful ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet

... error—for error it is, and an enormous one, too—will be quickly dissipated. In the first place, the political struggle of today is only the continuation of a conflict which has lasted seven hundred years, and in point of fact we have a right to be proud that after so many trials there still remains to us anything of our national inheritance. We find ourselves indeed on the battlefield somewhat seriously bruised, but we can console ourselves with the thought ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... itself that it has a movement which no people in the historical heaven have either executed before or will execute after it. We have in point of fact shared in the restoration epoch of modern nations without ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx

... Sessions, the light with difficulty penetrating the dusty panes of the windows. On the so-called Bench sits the Bench so-called; in point of fact there are half-a-dozen ripe aldermen sitting on chairs, in the midst of which is an arm-chair, and in it Mr. Augustus Jones, the Recorder ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various

... United States or any law thereof, or this respondent's oath of office; and he respectfully, but earnestly. insists that not only was it issued by him in the performance of what he believed to be an imperative official duty, but in the performance of what this honorable court will consider was.in point of fact. an imperative official duty. And he denies that any and all substantive matters, in the said first article contained, in manner and form as the same are therein stated and set forth, do, by law, constitute a high misdemeanor in office, within the true intent and meaning ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross



Words linked to "In point of fact" :   as a matter of fact



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