"Matter-of-fact" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... practical, matter-of-fact man, guiltless of any acquaintance with principles, and brought up in the ways of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... is not erroneous, only somehow its success is poor. You bear me witness that it fails. And it fails generally for very matter-of-fact reasons—most likely because one day ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... from his mouth, and knocked the ashes out of it against the arm of his chair, while he seemed to be considering the question. Then, as if he had formed a definite determination, he leaned forward and addressed his wife in a forcedly matter-of-fact tone. ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... a little gesture of contempt. "We argue from different standpoints," he said. "I am a plain, matter-of-fact, cold-blooded business man. There is no love ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... to be a man who has formed a habit, an intimate personal habit of not being cheated. Everything he does is full of this habit. The sinful man, as he is usually called, is a man who is off in his facts, a man who does not know what he really wants even for himself. In a matter-of-fact civilization like ours, he cannot hope to keep up. If a man can be cheated, even by himself—of course other people can cheat him and everybody can take advantage of him. He naturally grows more incompetent every day he lives. The men who are slow or inefficient in finding out what they ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... is described by the happy epithet which Anthony Wood applies to him, "Voluminous Prynne." His great characteristic is opposed to that axiom of Hesiod so often quoted, that "half is better than the whole;" a secret which the matter-of-fact men rarely discover. Wanting judgment, and the tact of good sense, these detailers have no power of selection from their stores, to make one prominent fact represent the hundred minuter ones that may follow it. Voluminously feeble, they ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... who are at once all energy and all goodness. As large and stout as Lydia was slender, she would rather have borne her to her bed in her vigorous arms than to have abandoned her in the troubled state in which she had surprised her. Not less practical and, as her compatriots say, as matter-of-fact as she was charitable, she began to question her friend on the symptoms which had preceded that attack, when with astonishment she saw that altered face contract, tears gushing from the closed eyes, and the fragile ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Intoxicated by the novelty of yielding to Satan, I gave him a free hand and the result was months of debauchery and self-disgust. The underworld women I met, the humdrum filth of their life, and their matter-of-fact, business-like attitude toward it never ceased to shock and repel me. I never left a creature of this kind without abominating her and myself, yet I would soon, sometimes during the very same evening, call on her again or on some ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... persons who do the same work and are situated in the same way in the world who are very different in their manner; one is light-hearted and happy, the other heavy and sad. If you can find out the truth, it will result that the sad one is matter-of-fact, and has no imagination—he can only think of his work and what concerns him personally; but the merry one would surprise you if you could read his thoughts—if you could know the distances they have passed over, and what a vast difference there is between ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... Hardy explained in a perfectly matter-of-fact way, free from apprehension or excitement; he listened in respectful silence to Judge Ware's protests against violence and threats of instant departure; and even humored Kitty's curiosity by admitting that Mr. Johnson, who was apparently out of his head when he shot the sheep, had ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... there was no longer any doubt. He faced it with the most matter-of-fact self-possession of which he was capable. Some-thing was waiting for his surrender. He figured it, sitting quietly back in the reading-room, listening to the Debate, watching the faces around him, as the tracing of some one who was dearly loved. There was nothing stranger ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... bestow them and an insulting and injurious attitude toward strangers who have dogs of their own, and toward other dogs. In any considerable town of the realm not a day passes but the public newsman relates in the most matter-of-fact and unsympathetic way to his circle of listless auditors painful instances of human beings, mostly women and children, bitten and mangled by ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... stamped in gold on a whole set of elegant volumes! It was marvellous that she should have turned the page containing just that poem! It was equally marvellous that she should have discovered the works of Victor Hugo in the matter-of-fact office of Mr. Cannon! But was it? Was he not half-French, and were not these books precisely a corroboration of what her mother had told her? Mr. Cannon's origin at once assumed for her the strange seductive hues of romance; ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... be obtained from the same words. It is to be noticed that for these two series a different intonation, a different musical (pitch) accent appears from that which is found in the same words when employed to make a matter-of-fact statement. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... alive," said she, in a cool, matter-of-fact tone. "It is so ordained. I know. Come, we are wasting time. I have much to do between now and nightfall. Bright and early to-morrow morning my daughter ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... Lahore has lately been the scene of a tragedy, or rather succession of tragedies, in which "kings, queens, and knaves," were disposed of in a style less resembling any thing recorded in matter-of-fact history than the last scene in the immortal drama of Tom Thumb—a resemblance increased by the revival, in several instances, of personages whose deaths had been reported in the last batch of murders. It appears that the Maharajah, Shere Singh, had at length become jealous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... is always hooking fellows, but you see she don't get married," said matter-of-fact Harry. "It won't come to any thing, now, I'll bet. Everybody said she was engaged to Danforth, but ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Dolly was as matter-of-fact as possible when she came out from under her veil again; and declared she should not go to a hotel in Dresden, but ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... looked steadily into his face for a moment and then her eyes filled with tears. She reached out both hands and took him by the shoulders. "Well, you're going to hear them this time, my dear," she said. As she moved away, she added in a more matter-of-fact tone, "Just as soon as we can work them up, in a few days perhaps. ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... plain matter-of-fact woman, was the first person to be questioned. She explained to us how she had given her patient his last dose of medicine at half-past eleven, just after Miss Mivart had wished her good-night and retired to her room. Previously ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... interest to the “classical scholar,” I had cast aside their associations like an old Greek grammar, and turned my face to the “shining Orient,” forgetful of old Greece and all the pure wealth she left to this matter-of-fact-ridden world. But it happened to me one day to mount the high grounds overhanging the streets of Pera. I sated my eyes with the pomps of the city and its crowded waters, and then I looked over where Scutari ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... palms holding a quantity of nuts. He evidently saw that the welcome was most enthusiastic on the part of all. With the utmost gravity he shambled across the floor and deposited the nuts on the table and took his usual place in the most matter-of-fact way, and commenced on the nuts as though it was part of ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... alone. He found Mademoiselle de Cressy in charge of the tea-table and the conversation. Like many Frenchwomen, she had a high-pitched voice; she also had definite opinions on matter-of-fact subjects. Now when you have come to talk gossamer with an attractive and sympathetic woman, it is irritating to have to discuss Tariff Reform and the position of the working classes in Germany with somebody else, especially when ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... not exist without it. The gout is pain—this is not pain; it is joy, bliss, heaven! When I am dead it must lie for ever on my breast as it lies now, or I shall never rest in my grave.' He had been talking about amulets in the most quiet and matter-of-fact way during that morning; but the I moment he produced this cross a strange change came over his face, something like the change that will come over a dull wood-fire when blown by the wind into ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... said something in a rather cheerful, matter-of-fact voice to Miss Brabazon, and Bubbles turned round sharply: "I'm afraid we ought to have complete silence—even silence ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... there was no adequate consciousness and recognition of the essentials of man's nature in the older, oriental art, so there is no pathos, no humanity in the more special sense, but a kind of hardness and cruelty rather, in those oft-repeated, long, matter-of-fact processions, on the [265] marbles of Nineveh, of slave-like soldiers on their way to battle mechanically, or of captives on their way to slavery or death, for the satisfaction of the Great King. These Greek marbles, on the contrary, with that figure ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... front door, and stood for some time wiping his boots on the mat The little house was ominously still, and a faint feeling, only partially due to the lapse of time since breakfast, manifested itself behind his waistcoat. He coughed—a matter-of-fact cough—and, with an attempt to hum a tune, hung his hat on the ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... his satisfaction in Violet's pleasure set her at ease to enter into all the wonders and beauties; but he did not know one plant from another, and referred all her inquiries to his sister, who answered them in a cold matter-of-fact way that discouraged her from continuing them, and reduced her to listening to the explanations elicited by Jane Gardner, until a new-comer met them, thus greeted by Arthur—'Ah! here is the authority! Good morning, Harrison. Mrs. Martindale ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there above her. She had not realized before that she knew how to tease anybody, least of all the demigod who had rescued her from the shadows of the reception-halls at home. But his kissing her had done something to her—it always seemed to, she reflected—and his matter-of-fact explanation of it had exasperated her to the point of ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... nostrils dilating as he sniffed the air about him. Then, with the swiftness and agility of a cat, he leaped far outward upon a swaying branch, sprang upward through the darkness, caught another, swung himself upon it and then to one still higher. What could have so suddenly transformed his matter-of-fact ascent of the giant bole to the swift and wary action of his detour among the branches? You or I could have seen nothing-not even the little platform that an instant before had been just above him and which now was immediately below—but as he swung above it we should have heard ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... she agreed, in a matter-of-fact tone. "You did not give me a chance last night to tell you how splendid you were in tackling that crazy mob. I witnessed it all, you know. ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... of the trade; but as the trader generally had a big lot of produce for the ship, matters always ended amicably. He—or rather his wife, Tariro—was too good a trader to have an open rupture with, and the wordy warfare always resulted in the trader saying, in his matter-of-fact way, "Well, I suppose it's right enough. You only rob me wanst in twelve months, and I rob the natives here every day of my life. Give me in a case of gin, an' I'll send ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... responded in a matter-of-fact tone. "I'll just crawl under it. What's giving me most trouble is the question of grub. They didn't leave you any too much, ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... old woman, as if suddenly recollecting that she had been too matter-of-fact in the way of dealing with us, went to her cauldron, and poking up the fire, began to mutter various cabalistic words, at the same time stirring its contents with ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... character of the heroine, Natalya, the quiet, sober, matter-of-fact girl, who at the bottom is an enthusiastic and heroic nature. She is but a child fresh to all impressions of life, and as yet undeveloped. To have used the searching, analytical method in painting her would have spoiled this beautiful creation. Turgenev ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... me in and take away the key," she said, vanishing past me into the darkness, and I thought I detected a tone of relief in her brisk, matter-of-fact voice. ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... of the head in the morning, jerk of the head at night. When I was happy over a new dress or a new hat you never noticed it—until the bill came in. You were always matter-of-fact, absolutely confident I was yours, ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... first broached this, was that she ought to make some demonstration of astonishment or wrath: but when she looked into his steady, examining eyes, so free from the illusion of or interest in demonstrations of any kind, she realized how useless it would be. He was so utterly matter-of-fact in what seemed to her quite private and secret affairs—very shameless. She had never been able to understand quite how he could take the subtleties of life as he did, anyhow. Certain things which she always fancied should be hushed up he spoke of with the ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... strangers prying into my concerns, if I were in their place. And yet, as you say, we are such close neighbors, and one would like to be kind to the poor things, for they must be lonely, settling in a strange new place. I'll tell you what, Archie," as his face fell at this matter-of-fact speech: "it is Thursday, and they will be sure to be at church on Sunday; we shall see them there, and that will be an excuse for us to call on Monday. We can say then that we are neighbors, and that we would not wait until they were all in order. We can offer to send them things from ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... frequented the tea-tables spread in pleasant shades and shelters, and ate buns and bread-and-butter, like their fellow-subjects, but their dark liquid eyes roamed over the blue and gold and pink of the English complexions with an effect of mystery irreconcilable forever with the matter-of-fact mind behind their bland masks. We called them Burmese, Eurasians, Hindoos, Malays, and fatigued ourselves with guessing at them so that we were faint for the tea from which they kept us at the crowded tables ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... Pretender was not an easy matter even in Ida's eyes. It was one thing to have a pet grievance and see herself as a heroine, righting her dear injured brother's wrongs, and another to reproach two of the quietest most matter-of-fact people in the world with the atrocious frauds of which only a wicked ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... much interest to the public to know how I feel over my loss, but if each one would, for a moment, suppose the case their own and then reflect upon what the feeling must be. Let them attempt to write a cold, matter-of-fact statement of the events, to detail them simply as they took place, without giving expression to sentiments of sorrow, I think that, at least, ninety-nine out of every hundred would fail, and the one who could succeed would appear, in my mind, a person without heart or feeling, ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney
... thought. The girl shivered. She felt terror mounting to her heart, and the matter-of-fact attitudes of the others in the great laboratory did not ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... Perched on convenient rails, we had the whole scene before us. The auctioneer rather hoarse and quite matter-of-fact; the ponies wildly rushing about the first enclosure, were with difficulty separated into pairs to be driven in the sale section; when fairly hemmed in through the open gate, they dashed and made a sort of circus circuit, with mane and tail erect, in a style ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... lot—an animal whose size, breadth of chest, and slender limbs gave him an air of actual elegance. All the boys envied Bob his mount; but none of them complained. Frank secured a solid animal, that had a matter-of-fact expression, and looked as though he had no nonsense in him. Clive chose one that had a slight shade of melancholy in his face, as though he had known sorrow. David's donkey was a shaggy, hard-headed, dogged-looking animal, that seemed bent on having his own way. Uncle Moses' mount was rather eccentric. ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... task is all of exciting adventure, since their whole existence is spent in scenes of peril and privation. Consequently the narration is a tale of thrilling accidents, and hair-breadth escapes, which, though simple matter-of-fact to them, appears a startling romance to those unacquainted with the lives led by those men, who, with the sky for a roof, and their rifles to supply them with food and clothing, call no man lord or master, and are as free as the ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... way you did it. Mary Alice was beginning to see that a fairy wand which can turn a pumpkin into a gold coach is not exceeded in possibilities by a fairy mind which can turn any ordinary, commonplace, matter-of-fact thing into a ...
— Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story • Clara E. Laughlin
... book, of cases where men plodding along in a matter-of-fact way, were all at once aroused and as if awakening from a slumber they developed the possibilities within them and from that time on were different persons. You alone can decide when the turning point will come. It is a matter ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... leaving his friend, after a delightful visit, he gave him a cordial invitation to attend his concert that evening. But the matter-of-fact, prosaic Ericsson declined, pleading pressure of work, and saying that he had no time ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... Spanish seamen lost no time in complying, and had the unique experience of surrendering to their own flag. Then, scorning all aid, Nevis took them out to his ship, and in the most matter-of-fact manner reported the adventure to his ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... serious monotone. I don't think she even noticed my exasperated silence. "It is of no use for Allan to come and preach his wordly wisdom to me; we do not measure things by the same standard, he and I. You are better, Esther, but your hard matter-of-fact reasoning shocks me sometimes." ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... less conscientious men in natural science, in history, and in theology to an over-eager confidence in probable conjecture and a loose grip upon the facts of experience. It is not too much to say that in many quarters the age of materialism was the least matter-of-fact age conceivable, and the age of science the age which showed least of ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... the Mediterranean coast, except from Beirut to Alexandretta or on the Silician plain or in the Gulf of Saloniki, do you have so provoking a contrast of nearby but unattainable snow with sizzling heat. This may not be always true. The day of the aeroplane, as a common and matter-of-fact ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... faintest warning, that I might have saved myself! If I had never come to Hynds House at all, but had lived my busy, matter-of-fact, quiet life! Yet the idea of never having seen him, never having loved him, was more cruel than the cruellest suffering that loving entailed. It was harder even than the thought that Alicia and I cared for the same man, who perhaps cared for neither ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... her utmost to hide the secret of this tree's existence, as if a hard, matter-of-fact place ought to be ashamed of a sentimentality of the kind. It pretended to be a very worldly town, and tried to keep us in the neighborhood of its cathedral, where the caffe and shops are, and where, in the evening, ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... air, made my body stir a little in the chair. He fixed me with lowering eyes. "Don't you believe me?" he cried. "I swear! . . . Confound it! You got me here to talk, and . . . You must! . . . You said you would believe." "Of course I do," I protested, in a matter-of-fact tone which produced a calming effect. "Forgive me," he said. "Of course I wouldn't have talked to you about all this if you had not been a gentleman. I ought to have known . . . I am—I am—a gentleman too . . ." "Yes, yes," I said hastily. He was looking me squarely ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... divine why all this new world of being should fancy to unroll itself, an endless panorama of pansophical mysteries, before my eyes. I do not appreciate it in the least. Philip Bailey's "Mystic" is more comprehensible to me. This is a practical, matter-of-fact world; I know it is. Sophie Percival, my sister, is the wife of Aaron Wilton, country-clergyman in Redleaf,—nothing more; and I thought of my untasted cup of tea, in which lay condensed all the fragrance ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... at Chi, not that the other boys did not know the games, but simply because this matter-of-fact boy was their natural leader in ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... spirit and by that of the Holy One," and he flung himself forward on to his knees, took my hand and kissed it. Then he rose and said in a matter-of-fact tone, "If the Baas can give me two blankets, I shall thank him, also five shillings to buy some tobacco and a new knife. Where are the Baas's guns? I must go to oil them. I beg that the Baas will take with him that little rifle which is named ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... extra fine, her heart pumped so hard she had to sit down; if, passing her lonely bed of a morning, he shook her great toe to wake her, she blushed, and turned her face to the wall in placid happiness. She was so credulous and matter-of-fact that if Jean had told her she must die on the spot, she would have said "Think of that!" or "Je te crais," and died. If in the vague dusk of her brain the thought glimmered that she was ballast for Jean on sea and anchor on ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... with a broad laugh, which made me still more doubt his nation, "are such matter-of-fact people, that you require substance in every thing. But what are the troops of France? Brave fellows enough, but not one of them has ever seen a shot fired in his life; even the few battalions which we had in America saw nothing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... he inevitably contrasted with the dry, matter-of-fact reserve of his greeting at the great house, which loomed all the greater in the darkness. Unsatisfactory, from many points of view, as these evenings were, they served to keep whetted Hodder's curiosity as to the life of this extraordinary man. All of its ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... no question. Mr. Barradine would pay a very large sum of money to avoid the threatened disgrace. And—in the midst of her acute apprehension and distress—the plain matter-of-fact idea presented itself: that if Dale were not rendered irresponsible by jealous ire, one might hope that he would eventually fall in with Mr. Barradine's views—that he ought, for everybody's sake, to take his damages, more damages than he would ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... Pauline shuddered at the matter-of-fact way in which Rocco and the man on the other side drew their heavy pistols from their hip pockets and ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... were rather a pleasure to me than otherwise. They settled right down to the heart-softening business in such matter-of-fact fashion that their hearts must have lost contour before the voyage was half over. Polly dismissed them from her mind with a sigh of satisfaction, and I then hoped that she would find some time to devote to me, but I was disappointed. She ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... say, I might not stand there gawking. Once, by a demure sideways glance, she betrayed knowledge of my presence. Her own transaction was all matter-of-fact, as if engaging passage to Benton of Wyoming Territory contained no novelty for her. Could she by any chance live there—a woman dressed like she was, as much a la mode as if she walked Broadway in New York? Omaha itself had astonished me with the display ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... which is given shortly here, was taken down from his lips, but it is impossible to reproduce the man's quaint phraseology. He spoke in an indifferent way, and detailed all the circumstances in a most matter-of-fact manner and without the faintest ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... school, led me across the line which completed the circuit of the globe, and where I was greeted by the cheers of my boys and girls. I at once reported to Mr. Edison, whose manner of greeting my return was as characteristic of the man as his summary and matter-of-fact manner of my dispatch. His little catechism of curious inquiry was embraced in four small and intensely Anglo-Saxon words—with his usual pleasant smile he extended his hand and said: 'Did you get it?' This was surely a summing of a year's exploration ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... taste—no play for his genius: that was his original grievance at the bar, but his present occupations are less congenial to his taste than law ever was. His brother-secretary, Mr. Shaw, is a mere matter-of-fact man, who is particularly unsuited to him—an objector to every thing new, a curtailer and contemner of all eloquence: poor Temple is uneasy and discontented; he would give up his situation to-morrow but that he cannot quit Lord Oldborough. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... wished to explain to you what I meant by the use of the term "Geographical Distribution." As I said, there is another aspect, and a much more important one, and that is, the relations of the various animals to one another. The horse is a very well-defined matter-of-fact sort of animal, and we are all pretty familiar with its structure. I dare say it may have struck you, that it resembles very much no other member of the animal kingdom, except perhaps the zebra or the ass. But let me ask you to look along these ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... The matter-of-fact man who presided straightened his shoulders as though with relief at some sign of action; yet he did not relax his insistent gravity sufficiently to join the smile ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... any signs of a chicken house on the place when you first came?" asked Maria, in a matter-of-fact tone, as if its location was the only ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... was sufficiently tedious, as both of us were naturally much preoccupied. My husband wrote a letter to mamma, telling her of our safe arrival, and of his intense happiness. After which he asked me if I would go to bed, in the most matter-of-fact way imaginable. I murmured an affirmative, scarcely knowing what to say. He rang for a candle, and told me he would follow shortly. It seemed like a dream to me. The maid showed me to a room containing a large ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... the Blue Boar. The idea, however, of his own joint performance with Mr Elsworthy not only tickled the Curate, but gave him a half-ashamed sense of the aspect in which he might himself appear to the eyes of matter-of-fact people who differed with him. The joke had a slight sting, which brought his laughter to an end. He went up through the lighted street to the inn, wishing the dinner over, and himself on his way back again to call at Mr Wodehouse's. For, to tell the truth, by this time he had almost ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... capitulated at your bidding, and all that I held—including your own self—have I relinquished. It is perhaps fitting. Haply I am punished for having wed you before I had wooed you." Again his tone changed, it grew more cold, more matter-of-fact. "I rode this way a little while ago a hunted man, my only hope to reach home and collect what moneys and valuables I could carry, and make for the coast to find a vessel bound for Holland. I have been engaged, as you know, in stirring ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... that was public property—she would certainly open her mind to him. Moreover, Steel knew the value of having a gossip like Mrs. Parry to aid him in gaining knowledge of the neighborhood. Finally, he saw that she was a shrewd, matter-of-fact old person, and for the sake of making his work easy it would be as well to conciliate her. He therefore sat down with a cheerful air, and prepared himself ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... himself wondering if there ever had been such a war and thought that it must be a lie like everything else in the life of Windy McPherson. For years he had wondered why some sensible solid person like Valmore or Wildman did not rise, and in a matter-of-fact way tell the world that no such thing as the Civil War had ever been fought, that it was merely a figment in the minds of pompous old men demanding unearned glory of their fellows. Now hurrying along the street with burning cheeks, he decided that after ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... deck was in charge of Mr Adams, the second mate—a plain, steady-going, matter-of-fact sort of man, with none of that buoyant spirit and keen sense of humour which characterised hid senior shipmate McCarthy, although he was a thorough sailor to the backbone, and believed the human race to be divided into two classes, those who were seamen ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... passed out again through the thick archway on to the terrace he heard, in an incredibly matter-of-fact ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... the Edgewood station one bright day in August. He declined the offer of a drive, and soon found himself on the well-remembered road to Pleasant River. He had not trodden that dusty thoroughfare for many a year, and every tree and shrub and rock had a message for him, though he was a plain, matter-of-fact maker of pumps. There was no old home to revisit, for his stepmother had died long ago, and Jennie had conscientiously removed the family wreath from the glass case and woven some of the departed lady's hair into the funereal ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... point I'd better mention," Lisle resumed in a matter-of-fact tone. "I'm not going to follow the route of the first expedition from the beginning. I've thought of a shorter and easier one; we'll strike the other by the big portage ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... corrupted; it is the goodness of instinct, not of struggle and aspiration; it happens to belong to this or that person, just as his hair happens to be black or brown. Everything in the surroundings and the action is to the last degree matter-of-fact, commonplace, inevitable; there are no picturesque coincidences, no providential interferences, no desperate victories over fate; the tale, like the world of the materialist, moves onward from a predetermined beginning ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... greatest error in exercise is not to take enough, and the greatest danger in athletics is in giving them up. The Chapter heads are illuminating. Errors in Exercise—Exercise and the Heart—Muscle Maketh Man—The Danger of Stopping Athletics—Exercise that Rests. It is written in a direct matter-of-fact manner with an avoidance of medical terms, and a strong emphasis on the rational, all-round manner of living that is best calculated to bring a man to a ripe old age with little illness or consciousness of ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... folly, I confess, but I often lamented they were not such; the travelling for thousands of miles, without meeting any nobler trace of the ages that are passed, than a mass of rotten leaves, or a fragment of fallen rock, produces a heavy, earthly matter-of-fact effect upon the imagination, which can hardly be described, and for which the greatest beauty of scenery can furnish only an ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... together the old brushes with which John Graham had done so much good, if unappreciated, work. Meanwhile the old man was alone in the chamber of death. He had no nerves, no fine sensibilities, and little natural affection to make the moment trying to him. He entered the room in a perfectly matter-of-fact manner, set the lamp on the washhand-stand, and approached the bed. As he stood there, looking on the face, calm, restful, beautiful in its last sleep, a wave of memory, unbidden and unwelcome, swept over his selfish and hardened ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... Revolution of 1848 saved the English middle-class. The Socialistic pronunciamentos of the victorious French workmen frightened the small middle-class of England and disorganised the narrower, but more matter-of-fact movement of the English working-class. At the very moment when Chartism was bound to assert itself in its full strength, it collapsed internally, before even it collapsed externally on the 10th of April, 1848. The action of the working-class was thrust into the background. The ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... her plain, matter-of-fact face, a short face undistinguished by any special characteristic, yet once seen it could not be forgotten, so implicit was it of her practical mind and a ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... Siddons, who excelled equally in Hermione and Katherine, and threw such majesty of demeanor, such power, such picturesque effect, into both, could likewise feel and convey the infinite contrast between the ideal grace, the classical repose and imaginative charm thrown round Hermione, and the matter-of-fact, artless, prosaic nature of Katherine; between the poetical grandeur of the former, and the moral dignity of the latter,—then she certainly exceeded all that I could have imagined possible, even to ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... Koshare had retired to this secluded spot, and the first day of fasting was nearly over when Shotaye called once more at the home of Say. The latter guessed the object of her coming and felt afraid. Without preamble, in a sober, matter-of-fact way, the cave-woman stated that the time had come for a decisive step; and with this she placed three bunches of owl's feathers on the floor. In vain Say Koitza protested, affirming that her health ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... the growing spirit of trade, as destroying the charm of life. He considers every new shorthand mode of doing things, as an inroad of snug sordid method; and thinks that this will soon become a mere matter-of-fact world, where life will be reduced to a mathematical calculation of conveniences, and every thing will ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... capful of wind,' captain! 'Only a capful of wind,'" said Ishmael, in a grave, matter-of-fact way, as he carefully ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... the girl wielded—quite without being conscious of it; he granted her that grace—was too potent. It was dangerous, and he knew it. Even imaginative and very unpractical people can be in some things surprisingly matter-of-fact, and Ste. Marie was matter-of-fact about this. The girl had made a mysterious and unprecedented appeal to him at his very first sight of her, long before, and ever since that time she had continued, intermittently at least, to haunt his dreams. Now he was in the very house ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... the plain matter-of-fact story of Belgian life under German rule. Many more people will be tempted to praise the glory of our soldiers. But, if the incidents of conquered Belgium's life are not recorded in good time, they might escape notice. People might forget that, besides the 150,000 to ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... as a kind of sleep and the closing of the eyes was the distinctive sign of the latter condition the open eyes were not unnaturally regarded as clear evidence of wakefulness and life. In fact, to a matter-of-fact people the restoration of the eyes to the mummy or statue was equivalent ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... an absorbing task for a psychologist to trace the various stages by which an impossibility was changed into a reality. Wyatt's coolness and matter-of-fact determination were his chief weapons. His popularity and reputation for lawlessness helped him. A conversation which he had with Neville-Smith, a day-boy, is typical of the way in which he forced his point of view ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... sleep; so, after an hour or two had passed, she rose, lit a candle, threw on a wrap, and descended the broad staircase, intent upon a queer and enthralling Spanish book—the story of a mad knight and his comic, matter-of-fact attendant, which was a favourite ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... well-educated young man, suddenly transported from the New, to the Old World, should not find a great deal to say; and Harry told his adventures very agreeably. His letters to Elinor were almost as straight-forward and matter-of-fact, as they might have been if she had already become his wife. His brother's health was improving; so much so, that they were talking of leaving Mrs. Hazlehurst, and her children, in Paris, while Harry ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... descend far lower as he followed the radiant vision,—the image of his own mind rather than an external reality,—the ideal, which, whether in fame or in love, beckoned him onward. The calm, even, and wholly matter-of-fact appreciation of his wife's estimable traits can now be seen in the light of his after career, and its doubtful augury descried; for to idealize was an essential attribute of his temperament. Her failure, even in the heyday of courtship, to arouse in him any extravagance of emotion, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... little perceptible change in the American officer and soldier, now that the work was about actually to begin. A little more soberness was apparent. Everyone was still simple, natural, matter-of-fact. But that night, doubtless, each man dreamed his dream. The West Point stripling saw in his empty shoulder-straps a single bar, as the man above him saw two tiny bars where he had been so proud of one. The Captain led a battalion, the Major charged at the head of a thousand strong; the Colonel plucked ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... thoughtlessly. That deep-seated objection to the intrusion of even the most loved male at certain times is common, I think, to all women. Women are capable of putting love aside, like a rich dress, and donning the peignoir of matter-of-fact dailiness, in a way which is an eternal enigma to men.... Then I saw, in a sudden flash, that I had renounced my individual existence, that I had forfeited my habits and rules, and privacies, that I was a man's woman. And the passionate lover ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... had disappeared into the house with Peggy Blackton did Aldous feel that he had descended firmly upon his feet once more into a matter-of-fact world. MacDonald was waiting with the horses, and Blackton was pointing over toward the steel workers, and was saying something about ten thousand pounds of black powder and dynamite and a mountain that had stood a million years and was going to be ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... "That is all of that import." Strickland once more felt astonishment. Glenfernie's tone was quiet, almost matter-of-fact. The blood had ebbed from his face; he sat there collected, a great quiet on the heels of storm. It was impossible not to admire the power that could with such swiftness exercise control. Strickland hesitated. He wished to speak, but did ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... Hecwelder;" "Transactions of the American Philosophical Society," v. I; Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia," pp. 135-190. What is said by Jefferson is of especial weight, on account of the personal merit of the writer, of his peculiar position, and of the matter-of-fact age ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... colouring of face and head was delicious, and there was nothing slip-shod about the modelling, either. All bright and clear and significant. She made him think of a perfectly cut jewel. It was rather odd that it should have been possible to hit off anything so definite, so almost matter-of-fact, in a ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... conductor calls. The car stops. As the child robbers step out (the little girl, clutched in the old grandfather's arms) 'mid the frantic cries of the mother and the execrations of the passengers, two middle-aged gentlemen of fine matter-of-fact presence, entered. I at once met their questioning faces with a hurried statement of facts, and the need of some intelligent, humane gentleman to aid the young mother in the recovery of her little girl. Having spoken together aside, the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... she made that statement to them in a plain matter-of-fact way, and just as if the thought never entered her mind that any one could doubt it after she had given her word that it was true. The men were evidently amazed and impressed to hear her say such a thing in such ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain |
