"Matter-of-course" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... One matter-of-course rule is that no fish of whatever kind shall be allowed to enter the kitchen unless it is perfectly fresh. To be sure of this see that the gills are bright and shining and the flesh firm, not readily separating ...
— Twenty-four Little French Dinners and How to Cook and Serve Them • Cora Moore
... was in deep shadow and very still, and the old white-haired lady the image of peace, for Harry there too the current ran strong. Though not great, she had known the great; if she had not done the things, she had seen them done; her talk revealed a matter-of-course knowledge of secrets, a natural intimacy with the inaccessible. It was like Harry to show no signs of being impressed; but very shrewd eyes were upon him, and his impassivity met with amused approval since it stopped short of inattention. She ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... stands considering, and chewing on his cigar. Then, he crosses room briskly and lowers the blind at each window. Opens valise and examines revolver. Places the revolver in his left hip pocket. Then, in a matter-of-course manner from his right hand pocket, he draws his automatic pistol. This, as though assured he would find loaded, he examines in a quick, perfunctory way, and replaces. He crosses left to desk, and taking from it ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... insist that the opinions do not really clash, but are in fact identical. You may call this a weakness if you choose, and it certainly involved Mr. Gladstone in much unfruitful and not very edifying exertion; but it is at any rate better than the front of brass that takes any change of opinion for matter-of-course expedient, as to which the least said will be soonest mended. And it is better still than the disastrous self-consciousness that makes a man persist in a foolish thing to-day, because he chanced to say or do a foolish ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... accompanies great sacrifices, and is thought to be very acceptable to the heavenly powers. Religion is not separated from life in China. There is no special class to take care of it; every one has to attend himself to those sacrifices which are incumbent on him; this is a natural, matter-of-course part of a man's duty. As there is no Bible, there is no religious instruction, and the doctrine is quite vague and undefined. The ritual, however, is fixed by tradition in every detail, and if a man attends to it he does his duty; religion is a set ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... was very much baffled by the cool matter-of-course manner of this reply, recovered his self-possession on his professional pursuits being referred to, and pointing towards Barnaby, shook his ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... he had nothing more to fear he said in a matter-of-course way, as if he had seen his ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... dropped them in a sudden shame that in that hour I was so little steadfast to things which were not of earth. I did not speak to Diccon, nor he to me. There seemed no need of speech. In the pandemonium to which the world had narrowed, the one familiar, matter-of-course thing was that he and I were to ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... home, as American royalty goes, the sole daughter, the sole child indeed of the house, a girl who had no idea of life except as a place in which to have a serenely good time, and teach everybody to do as she desired them to. Money was a commonplace matter-of-course article, neither to be particularly prized nor despised; it was convenient, of course, and must be an annoyance when one had to do without it; but of that, by practical experience, she knew nothing. Yet Ruth was by no means a "pink-and-white" girl without character; on the ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... that sort of thing'—as little Kitterbell said—'in less than no time;' and with the exception of Dumps nearly letting the child fall into the font when he handed it to the clergyman, the whole affair went off in the usual business-like and matter-of-course manner, and Dumps re-entered the Bank-gates at two o'clock with a heavy heart, and the painful conviction that he was regularly booked ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... no reply, and with her eyes upon the ground she remained for some moments thinking. The light and the matter-of-course way in which her companion spoke of the affections troubled her exceedingly, and very naively she asked herself if the company did not admit fornication ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... (Goodrich) and her enthusiastic admiration, which she had accepted as a matter-of-course, and given little beyond amiable tolerance in return. As she had told Clavering, she was not a woman's woman. She hoped Nelly had outgrown "gush." For some ten years after her marriage she had met her from time to time abroad, but she had not seen her for so long that she doubted if she would ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... to accept (or demand) the services of women in time of war, and this is particularly true of France, where women have always counted as units more than in any European state. Whether men have heretofore accepted these invaluable services with gratitude or as a matter-of-course is by the way. Never before in the world's history have fighting nations availed themselves of woman's co-operation in as wholesale a fashion as now; and perhaps it is the ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... with matter-of-course indifference, and looked up at him with the serenity of a nun; the young lieutenant was quick to perceive the change. He thought it wiser to follow suit, and they were at ease again, though ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... deep, and let down your nets for a draught.' Now there is nothing more remarkable in the whole narrative than the matter-of-course fashion in which our Lord takes the disposal of these men, and orders them about. It is not explicable unless we fall back upon what Luke does not tell us, but John does, in his Gospel, that this was by no means the first time that He had come across Peter and Andrew his brother, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the conclusions of law on which it is founded), may often settle the dispute between the parties; and therefore if improperly granted may do irreparable wrong. Yet there are many judges who assume a matter-of-course granting of a preliminary injunction to be the ordinary and proper judicial disposition of such cases; and there have undoubtedly been flagrant wrongs committed by judges in connection with labor disputes even within the last few years, although ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... spirit of the age, which proceeds by the rule of contraries altogether, and is now usually admitted as the solution of every thing in the way of paradox and impossibility. Or, perhaps, after all, it was only the Mummy's exceedingly natural and matter-of-course air that divested his words of the terrible. However this may be, the facts are clear, and no member of our party betrayed any very particular trepidation, or seemed to consider that any thing had ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... in again, shut the door, and resumed our seats. I was thinking how best to improve this advantage, if it might be called one, when he took up the conversation in such a matter-of-course way, so assuming that there could be no serious question of fact between us, that I felt myself placed in the ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... Iceland—tenth to thirteenth centuries. Its case is looked on by students of history as a spectacular anomaly, because it admitted none of these primary powers of government in its constituted authorities. And yet, for contrast with these matter-of-course preconceptions of these students of history, it is well to note that in the deliberations of those ancients who installed the Republic for the management of their joint concerns, any inclusion of such powers in its competency appears never to ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... spent looking about her. Her own breath was coming sharply, sobbing in her throat, but it was more from excitement than from the hazard and labor of the ride, for she had paid little attention to the trail, beyond giving the horse direction, trusting to the animal's wisdom, accepting the risks as a matter-of-course. It was the imminence of violence that had aroused her, the portent of a lawless deed that might result in tragedy. She had told Mrs. Levins that she was doing this thing for her sake, but she knew better. ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... to betray surprise, and he was not disappointed in the matter-of-course fashion in which ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... whatever their opinions and however little they liked him, the simplicity and the truth of a self-denying life of suffering—for he was never well—of zealous hard work, unstinted, unrecompensed; of unabated lofty hopes for the great interests of the Church and the University; of deep unpretending matter-of-course godliness and goodness—without "form or comeliness" to attract any but those who cared for them, for themselves alone. It is almost a sacred duty to those who remember one who cared nothing for his own name or fame to recall what is the truth—that no one did ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... not against the drudgery, which was part of the matter-of-course of living unless one "kept a girl"; she revolted against the living itself. It was all over for her. In proof that it was she ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... so tired that words were too much trouble to shape. He nodded dully. Pryor had been right about Hannibal. The big mule had not only taken his own passage across the Tennessee as a matter-of-course proceeding, but had shouldered and urged along three horses as he went. And twice since then Drew had taken him back and forth to bring in skittish ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... everyone quite in her old manner, and was rather glad that she was not fussed over, but taken quite as a matter-of-course. ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... this our mother died and our household was broken up. Penelope went to live with her aunt and I went West with Father. This was long ago, you know, when travelling and correspondence were not the easy, matter-of-course things they are now. After a few years I lost touch with my half-sister. I married out West and have lived there all my life. I never knew what had become of Penelope. But tonight, when I saw you come in in that waist made of ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... whose relations with her father she had begun to wonder. Was he very fond of this only child, and in this, as in all else, unlike her own father? He had spoken of her that afternoon several times, and had even praised her, but somewhat coldly, and with a practical matter-of-course air, almost as Mr. Lovel might have spoken of his daughter if constrained to talk ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Wolf confidence was never akin to foolhardiness; and if on leaving Troyon's he took the girl's hand without asking permission and quite as a matter-of-course, and drew it through his arm—it was his left arm that he so dedicated to gallantry; his right hand remained unhampered, and never far from ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... had been told to pay particular regard to the wishes of his charge, he at once agreed. Indeed, during the journey, Cormac (as we may here continue to call the girl) had expressed his wishes with such a quiet, matter-of-course air of authority that the officer in charge had come to the conclusion that the youth must be the son of some person of importance—perhaps even of King Hudibras himself. He therefore accorded him implicit ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... just in a state to listen to nature's talk; to the other she attended and replied with a patient longing to be left free that she might steady and quiet herself. Perhaps Mrs. Carleton's tact discovered this in the matter-of-course and uninterested manner of her rejoinders; for, as they entered the park-gates, she became silent, and the long drive from them to the house was made without ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Fort de Seviere was put under military rule. The half-moon to the right of the gate, with its small cannon, received a quota of men who strayed carelessly all day within reach of the low rampart; a guard lounged in the great gate, ready at a moment's notice to clang it shut, and seemingly matter-of-course precautions were taken throughout, for these Indians were as uncertain as the flickering north lights ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... to press his advantage, and treated the incident as the most matter-of-course affair in the world. He offered an arm to each lady, with the air of a well-bred gentleman who offers a necessary support; and each took it, because neither wished, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... have been attempted five, if not ten years, before it was. The absence of any note of resentment in their newspapers against our occupation has been quite marked since their preoccupation with the Canadian preachers and The Citizens. The people accept it in the most matter-of-course manner, and are already entirely absorbed once more in their own affairs, and even in their sports. British courage and independence have been no more than a myth for many years past—a bubble which your Majesty's triumphantly successful policy has ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... carefully to cleanse parts of the torn flesh as well as he could. Then he unbuckled a big belt that he wore, and opening a pouch on it drew out two or three needles and some strong white thread. Having threaded one of the needles he began now, in as matter-of-course a manner as though he were mending a shirt, to stitch up the whole great wound so as to draw its sides together. During the whole lengthy operation the black hound only moved her head twice, in a faint, undecided manner, and almost as though from an ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett,—and this is no off-hand complimentary letter that I shall write,—whatever else, no prompt matter-of-course recognition of your genius, and there a graceful and natural end of the thing. Since the day last week when I first read your poems, I quite laugh to remember how I have been turning and turning again in my mind what I should be able to tell you of their ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett |
