"Offhand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the vision of the soul, the greater is the task and the more gigantic the creative power which such a task may develop. It has been said that, in this scene, Goethe revealed leanings towards Catholicism. I do not pretend to deny it offhand, but I must insist on these leanings being understood in the sense of my premises. Goethe took from tradition those elements which were able to materialise his spiritual life and gave them a new interpretation. We are justified in believing ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... with dreaming that which the wicked man does in actual life. I am therefore of the opinion that it is best to accord freedom to dreams. Whether any reality is to be attributed to the unconscious wishes, and in what sense, I am not prepared to say offhand. Reality must naturally be denied to all transition—and intermediate thoughts. If we had before us the unconscious wishes, brought to their last and truest expression, we should still do well to remember that more than one single form of existence must be ascribed to the psychic reality. Action ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... was an old lady who had difficulty in walking," the seine-maker went on in the same offhand manner, "and maybe she stumbled and fell when Glory Goldie ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... with conducting, besides his own symphony, the Oberon Overture and a Mozart concerto. These performances were interesting; a personality like his is so curious that it is quite amusing to find it coming out in the works he conducts. But how Mozart's features took on an offhand and impatient air; and how the rhythms were accentuated at the expense of the melodic grace. In this case, however, Strauss was dealing with a concerto, where a certain liberty of interpretation is allowed. But Mahler, who was less discreet, ventured upon conducting the whole of the Beethoven concert. ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... whenever its terms involve a contradiction. And the ground of this is the sheer impossibility of bringing the terms together in thought. That a circle may be square, or that parallel lines may enclose a space, are propositions the truth of which may be denied offhand. The ground of this is that the conception of squareness and circularity, of straight lines and an enclosed space are mutually destructive, they cancel each other. And so far as Atheism may be said to involve the ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... not mainly inspired by a spirit of contradiction, and he was afraid of inciting her, by resistance, to say something she would be unable to retract. "I don't think you've given the matter sufficient thought," he said at last. "It can't be decided offhand." ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... in anticipation; unexpectedly &c 508. suddenly &c (instantaneously) 113; before one can say 'Jack Robinson', at short notice, extempore; on the spur of the moment, on the spur of the occasion [Bacon]; at once; on the spot, on the instant; at sight; offhand, out of hand; a' vue d'oeil [Fr.]; straight, straightway, straightforth^; forthwith, incontinently, summarily, immediately, briefly, shortly, quickly, speedily, apace, before the ink is dry, almost immediately, presently at the first opportunity, in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... grow up alike unspoiled in morals by the universal envy of comrades, and unspoiled in teeth by the parental sugar-plums. People of older growth attach childish importance to the trade one plies. Nobs and nabobs (at least on the stage) disinherit daughters offhand for marrying grocers, and groan over sons who take to high art. The smug and prudent citizen shudders at the career of the filibuster, while the adventurer would commit suicide rather than achieve a modest livelihood in tape and needles. The mother of Sainte Beuve was sorely ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... waited. And then round the bushes came the tall form of Alexander Roddice, striding romantically like a Meredith hero who remembers Disraeli. He was cordial with everybody, he was at once a host, with an easy, offhand hospitality that he had learned for Hermione's friends. He had just come down from London, from the House. At once the atmosphere of the House of Commons made itself felt over the lawn: the Home Secretary had said ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... care, and discretion, but I do not think that my efforts on all these together equaled those which I then put forth to avoid stopping at Hartford. At last my father asked me, rather severely, why I cared so much about going to New Haven, and I framed an answer offhand to meet the case, saying that Yale had an infinitely finer library than Trinity. Thereupon he said, "My boy, if you will go to Trinity College I will give you the best private library in the United States.'' I said, "No, I am going to New Haven; I started for New Haven, and ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... it's very embarrassing not to be able to remember offhand how large your family is, but mine seems to vary from day to day, like the stock market. I should like to keep it at about par. When a woman has more than a hundred children, she can't give them the individual attention they ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... the contrast between this splendid structure, on which the costliest material is lavished and wrought in the most advanced style of Oriental art, and the soil on which it rises, in the wilderness amongst the native Hebrew nomad tribes, who are represented as having got it ready offhand, and without external help. The incompatibility has long been noticed, and gave rise to doubts as early as the time of Voltaire. These may, however, be left to themselves; suffice it that Hebrew tradition, even from the time of the judges and the first kings, for which the Mosaic ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... native land, the scandals of the court and the cloister, the petty struggle for the primacy of Wales, and the great tragedy of the fall of the Angevin Empire - is all alike dealt with in the bold, dashing, offhand style of a modern newspaper or magazine article. His first important work, the 'Topography of Ireland,' is, with due allowance for the difference between the tastes of the twelfth century and those of the nineteenth, just such a series of sketches as ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... colonel's instructions to the letter. He had played many rounds on the links and had gotten to a certain degree of friendship with Jean Forette. He had even formed a liking for Bruce Garrigan, who, offhand, informed him that the amount of India ink used in tattooing sailors during the past year was less by fifteen hundred ounces than the total output of radium salts for 1916, while the wheat crop of Minnesota for the same period was 66,255 ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... cottage, Scott found enjoyment in composing poems based upon some of the legends and superstitions with which he had become familiar in his jaunts among ruined castles and scenes in the Highlands. Some of these verses, shown in an offhand manner to James Ballantyne, who was the head of a printing establishment in Kelso, met with such favorable recognition that Scott was encouraged to lay bare to his friend a plan that had been forming in his mind for publishing a great collection of Scotch ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... retorted the mate. However, the argument was settled offhand by Ben Boltrope, who had clambered up to a higher ledge of rock from whence he could see further out to seaward over the fog, which hung low on the water and did not extend to the upper regions ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... Suddenly and offhand he was hurried into a most momentous decision. Towards the end of June 1505, when several Church festivals fall together, he paid a visit to his home at Mansfeld, in quest, very possibly, of rest and comfort to his mind. Returning ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... straight, Jim." Holland's pudgy face was sober, his eyes serious. "You started out by thinking Jean was showing paranoid tendencies, and offhand I'm inclined to agree with you. Overnight you changed your mind and began thinking that maybe, just maybe, she might be right. Honestly, don't you suspect your own reasons ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Wesley Barefoot
... del Toboso named, I was struck with surprise and amazement, for it occurred to me at once that these pamphlets contained the history of Don Quixote. With this idea I pressed him to read the beginning, and doing so, turning the Arabic offhand into Castilian, he told me it meant, "History of Don Quixote of La Mancha, written by Cide Hamete Benengeli, an Arab historian." It required great caution to hide the joy I felt when the title of the book reached my ears, and snatching it from the silk mercer, I bought all the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... these styles develop by proximity—the nearest to French being Netherlandish. The next, as a result of immediate intercourse, Italian. Then German, Spanish, and the rest, as intercourse gave opportunity. It is not always an easy matter to say offhand whether a MS. is French or Flemish. In the earlier days it is not easy to say whether it be French or English, or even whether French or Italian. But ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... and began to dress as quickly as I could; but the more I thought of it, the more I felt that I hadn't been fairly treated, to be disposed of in such an offhand way. After all, I am eighteen; and a person ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... one must know who has ever considered the subject deeply and with a sense of responsibility towards the country, is one of the most profound and difficult questions that can be brought before the house. It is all very well to treat it in an easy, offhand manner; but how are you to reconcile the case of North Cheshire, of North Durham, of West Kent, and many other counties, where you find four or six great towns, with a population, perhaps, of 100,000, returning six members to this house, while the rest of the population of the county, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... degree or in a different manner. And it is the same with democracies, even in their "purest" and simplest forms, as well as in their most complicated forms. We cannot fairly talk of despotisms or of democracies as though they were absolutely distinct types of government to be contrasted offhand with each other or with other types. All depends for each despotism and each democracy and each other form of government on the given interests, their relations, and their methods of interaction. The interest groups create the government and work through ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... directors had been studying Bryce on ultra vires, and he went round to the Bar library to take advice from his friends there. Sir Charles Paul and Mr. Hill said offhand: But you agreed to pay, how can you get out of it? To this Mr. Tremearne (the director in question) replied: Yes, but it was an extortion, the Municipality is the creature of a statute, they have only statutory powers, and are not entitled to charge what is not ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey
... left, and crawled up through the tall dripping grass to a new position behind a little bush. Cautiously raising my head, I found I could see plainly the sable's head and part of his shoulders. My position was cramped and out of balance for offhand shooting; but I did my best, and heard the loud plunk of the hit. The sable made off at a fast though rather awkward gallop, wheeled for an instant a hundred yards farther on, received another bullet in the shoulder, and disappeared over the brow of the hill. ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... there was no need. If there were any of the directors who did not borrow money on the stock, Mr. Hurd could not think of them offhand. Once more he walked to the window, and this time he looked long and thoughtfully out over ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... hadn't been able to think offhand of an objection; not one which he wanted to voice. He couldn't admit outright that the prospect was dismaying to his young pride. That he was afraid of the ridicule which certainly it would bring down ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... musical comedy, Mr. Crossley would not have risen—not because he was snobbish, but because, being a sensitive, high-strung person, he instinctively adopted the manner that would put the person before him at ease. He glanced at Mildred, rose, and thrust back forthwith the slangy, offhand personality that was perhaps the most natural—or was it merely the most used?—of his many personalities. It was Crossley the man of the world, the man of the artistic world, who delighted Mildred with a courteous bow and offer of a chair, as ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... cohesion when they were no longer fighting units, and when the motives of conquest and defence were no longer in operation, is a question on which I should not like to dogmatize either way. Certainly we have no right to assume offhand that the unifying process which has given the nations the mass cohesion and efficiency they require for holding their own against enemy States would still remain in full power when there were no longer any enemy ...
— Progress and History • Various
... to enter appearances, which meant that they would dispute the action. Then the other side had to make an affidavit verifying their claim. Then a Master had to pronounce whether the action should be treated offhand, or whether he would listen to what they had to say about it. He decided to listen to what was to be said. Then each side claimed to see the other's documents, 'discovery' they called it, as if the documents ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... too difficult to attempt thus offhand, even though reassured that none had ever been dropped. And should one really miss its way to her mouth and fall off the pitchfork thing to land in her lap? Well, the Dress was far too beautiful and too precious ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... real scholars, who have professed to keep up their Greek after leaving the universities, if they have re-read Homer in Greek, and almost all have confessed that they had not. They read him in Pope and Cowper. Let them read him offhand, and fluently, continuously, as they do Marmion, or the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and I cannot but think they will be struck with the Homeric resemblance in the poems of Sir Walter Scott. Both great poets had, too, the same relish for natural ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... one answer such propositions as these offhand? I tried, however, to get at the gist of the sentence, and, as the silence continued, I said with some hesitation: "But it is impossible, surely, to approach the work of writing, say a philosophy, without some apprehension of the end ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... the gate, slowly, so as to get time to think. The question surprised me and I was not prepared to give, offhand, ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... to have a husband. His elation over all that was implied by her consulting him on so personal a matter, was almost lost in his feeling of annoyance. This made it plain that he must lose no time, but marry her offhand. What with her penchant for orphans and for foolish investments, she would make ducks and drakes of her fortune unless a man peremptorily took ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... confusion, I consider it a remarkable piece of luck to have found you. There's Master Karl, too," cried he, as Karl sprang forward with a shout of delight. "Now we have half the firm assembled, and we might begin offhand to play at counting-house work; but you seem to have a different way of amusing yourselves here." Then turning to Lenore, he continued, "I have already presented myself to the baron, and heard from your lady mother where to ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... it would be," said she, offhand and careless, just as if two thousand a year, more or less, mattered very little ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... as you might say, flummoxed. "Now," I said to him, "where did you get it—that's the point?" He took his time to answer, and then he said: "Well, Mr Gilman," he said, "you know me; I am an honourable man. I can't tell you offhand, but I am above the board." He's foreign, you know, in his expressions. "Yes," I said, "that's all very well," I said, "but here I've got a stolen note and you've got the value for it. Now I tell you," I said, "what I'm going to do; I'm going straight with ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... much ef you put it on the scales," explained His Honour painstakingly. "I mean pounds sterlin'—English money. Near ez I kin figger offhand, it comes in our money to somewheres between thirty-five and forty thousand dollars—nearer forty than thirty-five. And it's all yours, ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... 's I could say, right offhand, what trail yuh mean," he parried. "Every canyon 's got a trail that runs up a ways, and there's canyons all through the mountains; they all lead up to water, or feed, or something like that, and then quit, most gen'rally; jest peter ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... occurred to her that she ought to tell him something of the new situation. But now their time was running out, she would have to be concise, and what wife could ever say abruptly and offhand that frequent fact, "Oh, by the by, my husband is jealous of you"? Then she had an impulse to tell him simply, without any explanation at all, that for a time he must not meet her. And while she gathered herself together for that, his preoccupations ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... is enough of them to make an intelligible picture. I wonder how he would have related it himself. He has confided so much in me that at times it seems as though he must come in presently and tell the story in his own words, in his careless yet feeling voice, with his offhand manner, a little puzzled, a little bothered, a little hurt, but now and then by a word or a phrase giving one of these glimpses of his very own self that were never any good for purposes of orientation. It's difficult to believe he will never ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... here is where we come again to the real heart of all of these questions which so many of us feel able to solve offhand. What difference should you make between me and another? If it is right for the North to free all these slaves without paying for them, why should there be anything in my favor, over any one of my neighbors? And, most of all, why should you ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... buttons, a blue jacket with bigger brass buttons, and a blue cap with a brass button on either side—each brass button, on coat, cap, and vest, having an anchor of, (apparently), burnished gold in the centre of it. He had clear blue eyes, brown curly hair, and an easy, offhand swagger, which last was the result of a sea-faring life and example; but he had a kindly and happy, rather than a boastful or self-satisfied, expression of face, as he bowled along with his hands in his pockets, kicking all the stones out of his way, and whistling ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... wayfarers, as they were, without formality or delay. At this court a great variety of cases came up, such as disputes as to debts, failure to perform contracts of sale or purchase, false measurements, theft, assault, defamation, and misdemeanors of all kinds. Sometimes the court decided offhand, sometimes compurgation was allowed immediately or on the next day, sometimes juries were formed and gave decisions. The law which the court of pie-powder administered was often referred to as the "law merchant," a somewhat less rigid system than the common ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... Monica with a smile, "but one can't do these things offhand—that is worse than doing nothing. I'll tell you what to do NOW. Why not go and stay with Aunt Anne? She would like to see you, I know, and I have always thought it rather lazy of you not to go there—she is rather a remarkable woman, and it's a pretty country. Have ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... would come over to my bungalow in a friendly way; he would "just drop in," as he used to say, in his pleasant offhand fashion, and he would irrigate himself with my brandy and soda, amid genial smiles and a brandishing of his long cheroot, playfully indicating his recognition of a stimulant with which he had been ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... interesting. I really believe you have half a mind to give me your case. Sir, I know enough, I hope, to defend an innocent man; but I can't promise, offhand, to save him, even from ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... to find that we are of some account in the world,' says Mr Desmond, in his offhand Irish way; 'but if you please, Miss O'Regan, we are as hungry as hounds, and as thirsty as hippopotami, and I'm sure you'll say a good word to get us ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... homological resemblances of animals as being due to heredity, their differences as due to adaptation,[383] but he did not adopt Haeckel's crude and shallow definition of these terms. For Gegenbaur heredity was a convenient expression for the fact of transmission, and was not explained offhand as the mere mechanical result of a certain material structure handed down from germ to germ. Adaptation he defined in a way which took the fullest account of function, and was as far as possible removed from Haeckel's definition of it ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... "Offhand, I'd say today was your day to be cautious, quiet and respectful to your betters, namely me. However," she added in a conciliatory tone, "since you put it on a Budget Control basis, I'll ask the Cow to give you a real, mathematicked-out, planets and ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... the 5.30 from Larne Harbour, or that the 7.30 from Galashiels was stopping that month at Shankend. He knew all the connections; he knew all the restaurant trains; and, if you mentioned the 6.15 to Little Buxton, he could tell you offhand whether it was a Saturdays ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... the old man rage on without interruption. When he saw his opportunity he said offhand: "Too bad to spoil ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... earth in a good-sized field. Woods horizoned the field on three of its edges and a sunken road bounded it on the fourth. She measured, I should say at an offhand guess, seventy-five feet from tip to tip lengthwise, and she was perhaps twenty feet in diameter through her middle. She was a bright yellow in color—a varnished, oily-looking yellow—and in ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... task to lay out a suburb in so far as its exterior appointments are concerned, the rub comes in the getting of citizens. A Standard Oil magnate can build a city if he is willing to spend the money, but all the powers of heaven and earth combined cannot manufacture offhand a citizenship. In an emergency of this nature most land improvement companies would have issued pretty little pamphlets, gotten up in exquisite taste, full of beautiful pictures and bubbling over with enthusiastic text, all based ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... himself at this insolent and offhand definition. He was astonished and hurt at the tone of his friend. However, presently, he resolved to go through ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... not impose on me! no, you shan't drive me to that! give the plans here! give me the surveyor's plans, the Judas's plans here!" "But what is your claim, then?" "Oh, you think I'm a fool! Indeed! do you suppose I am going to lay bare my claim to you offhand? No, let me have the plans here—that's what I want!" And he himself is banging his fist on the plans all the time. Then he mortally offended Marfa Dmitrievna. She shrieks out, "How dare you asperse my reputation?" "Your reputation," says he; "I shouldn't like my chestnut ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... remarkable achievement if he had planned to do so and had learned up his speech; but the fact was that he was compelled to speak offhand on the spur of the moment. He describes the situation in a letter of February 6, 1894, to Professor ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... bye, Mrs. Turpin,' said Rawcliffe in an offhand way, as he glanced at the bill, 'how much exactly do I ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... any offhand solution for so vast a problem, he suggests two points in conclusion. One, that in considering the matter we should proceed from the known to the unknown, and take warning from the results of either extreme in self-government or the government ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... savouring vivacity. She never seemed tired or bored. She was, in one hackneyed word, attractive. And Vaness, the connoisseur, was quite obviously attracted. Of men who professionally admire beauty one can never tell offhand whether they definitely design to add a pretty woman to their collection, or whether their dalliance is just matter of habit. But he stood and sat about her, he drove and rode, listened to music, and played cards with her; he did all but dance with her, and even at times trembled on the brink of ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... the Yankees," Benjamin Franklin. No student of Franklin's life fails to be impressed by its happy casualness, its cheerful flavor of the rogue-romance. Gil Blas himself never drifted into and out of an adventure with a more offhand and imperturbable adroitness. Franklin went through life with the joyous inventiveness of the amateur. He had the amateur's enthusiasm, coupled with a clairvoyant penetration into technical problems such as few amateurs have possessed. With all of his wonderful patience towards other ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... with a responsible position. Still," he continued, surveying himself critically, "I might make a more favourable impression if I had that 'well-groomed' look the papers lay so much stress on nowadays, and I could mention in a careless, offhand way something ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... that it shall be turned to some good work. If I do not return, it will rest on your conscience that before you make your confession, you shall see it well placed for a charity. You'll have to find the charity, I can't say what it should be offhand now, but come with me. I must tell some man living my secret, and you're the only one. Besides—I trust you. Surely ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... existence,—the very name having been taken some years after. This is another instance of the literary perils to which imaginative authors may be subject; for litera scripta manet, especially if in printer's ink, and, for aught I know, that offhand word might be held a continuous libel. For all else, by way of notice, the stories speak for themselves; as, Covetousness was the text for "The Crock of Gold," while Concealment and False Witness are severally ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... days such a drug is renown, We've "Immortals" as rife as M.P.s about town; And not a Blue's rout but can offhand supply Some invalid bard who's insured "not to die." Still let England but once try our authors, she'll find How fast they'll leave even these Immortals behind; And how truly the toils of Alcides were light, Compared with his ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... management of the affairs of the world, obliges one to consider possible ramifications of every great enterprise. Rhodes wanted simply to sweep away all obstacles without giving the slightest thought to the consequences likely to follow on so offhand a manner ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... would be useful to Porto Rico, then give them that. But, in any case, the starting-point should be the needs of Porto Rico herself, intelligently studied and conscientiously met—not the blacksmith's offhand attempt to fit on her head, like a rusty iron pot, an old system made for other needs, other industries, a ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... evening came again she awaited his coming with a new anxiety, and when he arrived her heart felt heavy. He greeted her as though nothing was amiss, and began chatting in an offhand manner, as if to prevent any question from her. He even joked and told stories, but with a seeming effort and not in accord with his feelings. Liddy watched him quietly, feeling sure he was acting a part and for a purpose. The more he tried to dissemble, ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... excellent common sense, but it is not poetry; and it is not necessary to hunt through Johnson's bulky volumes for the information, since any moralist can give us offhand the same doctrine. As for his Rambler essays, once so successful, though we marvel at the big words, the carefully balanced sentences, the classical allusions, one might as well try to get interested in an old-fashioned, three-hour sermon. We read a ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... Mr. Snow interestedly. And then he added very casually, in the most offhand manner—he said it more to an orange orchard through which they were passing than he said it to Linda—"I have very grave doubts about that. I think there must be some slight complication that will have ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... For though Sally, as we have seen, had taken him into her confidence the day after her mother's wedding—and, indeed, had talked over the matter many times with him since—the actual truth was far too strange to suggest itself offhand, as it would have been doing had the doctor connected the fact that Sally's mother went out to India to be married with this meeting of two lovers at a simmering railway-station, name not known. The idea of the impossible per se is probably the one a finite intelligence most readily ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... It may be said offhand that even the complete appearance of depth such as the stereoscope offers would be in no way contradictory to the idea of moving pictures. Then the photoplay would give the same plastic impression which the real stage offers. All ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... response to this. How many boys or men, even, can tell offhand the number at the ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... is a college training? We who have had it seldom hear the question raised; we might be a little nonplussed to answer it offhand. A certain amount of meditation has brought me to this as the pithiest reply which I myself can give: The best claim that a college education can possibly make on your respect, the best thing it can aspire to accomplish for you, is this: that it should help you to know a good man when you ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... down on the northern edge of the southern range of the North American malaria belt; and when I was growing up, if one seemed intellectually torpid or became filled with an overpowering bodily languor, the indisposition always was diagnosed offhand as a touch of malaria. Accordingly, the victim, taking his own advice or another's, jolted his liver with calomel until the poor thing flinched every time a strange pill was seen approaching it, and then he rounded out the course of treatment with all the quinine the traffic would stand. Recalling ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... flatten himself along it, hoping to make himself invisible in that way—and not quite succeeding. You could see his wee little ears sticking up. You couldn't see his nose, but you knew where it was. Then the hunter, despising a "rest" for his rifle, stood up and took offhand aim at the limb and sent a bullet into it immediately under the squirrel's nose, and down tumbled the animal, unwounded, but unconscious; the dogs gave him a shake and he was dead. Sometimes when the distance was great and the wind not accurately allowed for, the ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... say offhand, Cap, that there never was such a thing as a witch. Well, right here are the figgers to show that between 1482 and 1784 more than three hundred thousand wimmen were put to death in Europe for bein' witches. There's the facts under 'Witches' in your ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... room she had a sense that he was upstairs, a physical sense of his person in the same building. Every second she expected him to come through the door, and when he came it was a shock to her. But he was often short and offhand with her. He gave her his directions in an official manner, keeping her at bay. With what wits she had left she listened to him. She dared not misunderstand or fail to remember, but it was a cruelty ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... In his heart he blamed Rhodes that the prisoner had not been let escape during the absence of the girl, and also resented the offhand manner of the young American concerning the duty of ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... taken leave very cheerfully; that was certain. As much could not be said for his principal. Dolly had privately asked her father to send her down the money for the servants' wages; and Mr. Copley had given an offhand promise; but Dolly saw that same want of the usual ready ease in his manner, and was not surprised when days passed and the money did not come. The question recurred, what was she to do? She wrote to remind her father; and she took a fixed resolve that she would buy ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... echoed the considering JONES. "Well, I should say——But, stay; I am not entitled to give a professional opinion until to-morrow morning! Still, offhand I may observe, that such an illegal death would savour of positive suicide; but it would not matter very much, as under existing circumstances suicide in some form or other seems to me ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... sight of that arm, thin and white, D'Herouville felt all his ire ooze from his pores. He could not measure swords with this old man, who stood near enough to his grave without being sent into it offhand. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... is, that when once a group of sacred books has been evolved—even though the group really be a great library of most dissimilar works, ranging in matter from the hundredth Psalm to the Song of Songs, and in manner from the sublimity of Isaiah to the offhand story-telling of Jonah—all come to be thought one inseparable mass of interpenetrating parts; every statement in each fitting exactly and miraculously into each statement in every other; and each and every one, and all together, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... state of affairs for some time simply because the woman did the essential work in her offhand, slapdash style, and left him unmolested to his brooding as long as he did not interfere with her ideas of domestic economy. But his impatience and the sense of being wronged were producing a feeling akin to desperation. Every week there was less and less to sell from the dairy; ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... Shippers' Association, and told their committee that he would give them a better railroad bill than they were asking. His practice was to commit to memory a bill that he was about to introduce and then go into his committee-room, when it was full of loafers, and pretend to dictate it offhand to the stenographer, section by section without pausing. It was an impressive performance, and gained Handy the reputation of being brainy. But we at home who knew Handy were not impressed; and, in our office, we knew that he was the same ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... Bird, at all events. Offhand I would say that a huge cavern had been washed in the earth and the ground had ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... affair was a spectacle got up to extract money from a fool like you. It is as mechanical as a penny in the slot. Instead of relieving distress you have simply helped to perpetuate an infamous system. You ought to know that you can't do good in that offhand way.' The heart gives pennies in the street. The brain runs the Charity Organisation Society. Of course, to give pennies in the street is much less trouble than to run the C.O.S. As a method of producing a quick, inexpensive, and pleasing effect on one's egotism ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... 'Laverick Wells' was in great feather—it had never known such times. Every house, every lodging, every hole and corner was full, and the great hotels, which more resemble Lancashire cotton-mills than English hostelries, were sending away applicants in the most offhand, indifferent way. ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... and finally achieving our intention—this is action, this is effectuation in the only shape in which, by a pure experience-philosophy, the whereabouts of it anywhere can be discussed. Here is creation in its first intention, here is causality at work.[1] To treat this offhand as the ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... slip it into her pocket, or send it to her with some eggs or something. But Mother—it was so like her!—the first time Cousin Parnelia happened to come to the house, Mother picked up the deed from her desk and said offhand, 'Oh, Parnelia, we bought the little Garens house for you,' and handed her the paper, and went to talking about ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... between the fingers, showing it is not attached to the deep structures, and when it is so moved it is not tender or sore. Any little lump which ulcerates located on the genitals must be regarded with suspicion. Boys and men should not be satisfied with any offhand statement that, "it is nothing." It may be a chancre, and it may be exceedingly serious if ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... voice seemed to suggest du Croisier's name in this predicament. He had seen du Croisier on his knees to the aristocracy, and of the man's real disposition he was entirely ignorant. So to du Croisier he wrote a very offhand letter, informing him that he had drawn a bill of exchange on him for ten thousand francs, adding that the amount would be repaid on receipt of the letter either by M. Chesnel or by Mlle. Armande d'Esgrignon. Then he indited two touching epistles—one ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... admitted that he had done wrong—that he ought to have consulted him, and have made him privy to his answer, but that he had attached so little importance to the proposal, and had considered it so totally out of the question, that he had replied offhand. ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... I had seen several of the men snip the head from a rattlesnake with a single offhand shot—yes, they all carried their weapons easily and wontedly. But the target of an immobile can lacked in stimulation to concord of nerve ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... you don't get me." She went to the mirror and patted her hair, then curled on the bed, with an offhand "Won't you sit down?" and smoked elaborately, blowing the blue tendrils toward the ceiling as she continued: "Of course you don't get it. You're a nice sensible clerk who've had enough real work to do to keep ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... etc., had been so expensive: he did not care, for he hated to speak of money matters, yet he could not but mention the fact. When the money began to arrive he did not resent it by any means, as he was to buy a blood horse with it—no less. His letters have a jolly, bullying, but offhand and jerky tone, and they are very short. He gives Murray advice on publishing and is willing to advise the Government how ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... so snaky and wriggling. So, from my trident—or was it a Triton they used to stand on?—I announce that you and your Augustus are worrying yourselves gray-headed over an idiotically simple problem. Now, I disposed of it offhand when ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... Barton,' he said, stammering, speaking like one in a dream, 'you take me by surprise. I did not expect this; you certainly are too kind. In proposing this marriage to me, you do me an honour I did not anticipate, but you know it is difficult offhand, for I am bound to say . . . at least I am not prepared to say that I am in love with your daughter. . . . She is, of course, very beautiful, and no one admires her more ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... to me. The case was very rare where I was misrepresented, and then it was either unintentional or to brighten a story or to exaggerate a fact. I recall one interview in respect to courts of arbitration and the universal labor question. My opinions were expressed offhand, and, although not taken down at the time by the interviewer, my words uttered during a half hour's interview were quoted with great exactness. I know this is not the common opinion in respect to the interviewer, and in some cases gross misrepresentations ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... course, ridicule this offhand dismissing in a few sentences of the largest of world problems. Each one of several propositions which I have advanced breaks rudely ground where angels might fear to tread; each one ought to be put forth cautiously with much preamble ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... it up and turned her over for the day's inquest to an old hand at tricks and traps and deceptive plausibilities—Beaupere, a doctor of theology. Now notice the form of this sleek strategist's first remark—flung out in an easy, offhand way that would have thrown any unwatchful person ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... Watts, and the brother-in-law each took a cigar with that careless yet deferential manner which always distinguishes the treatee from the treator; and then the box was protruded in an offhand way toward Harry Covare, the personal clerk of the Registrar; but this young man declined, saying that he preferred cigarettes, a package of which he drew from his pocket. He had very often seen that cigar-box with a Havana brand, which he himself had brought from the other ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... difficult question, Paddy. The pictures are so agreeable, and the good people so infernally disagreeable and mischievous, that I really cant undertake to say offhand which I ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... began to think about it, he knew that the thirty-mile stretch between Pinnacle and Lund had become too tame for him, too monotonous. He knew in the dark every twist in the road, every sharp turn, and he could tell you offhand what every sharp turn had cost him in the past month, either in repairs to his own car or to the car that had unluckily met him without warning. For Casey, I must tell you, habitually forgot all about that earsplitting klaxon at his left elbow. He was always in too much of a hurry to ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... are evidently written in code, and I can't translate it offhand. But I'll make another attempt at it. And here's one from a person who signs himself Walter Simpson, but the writing is ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... Calvin's the man who has most influence in the committee, and it occurred to me that it would be a good thing if you'd put Mrs. Fenton up to taking my part with Calvin. You see," he continued, in an offhand manner, "artists don't get any show nowadays unless they keep their eyes open, and I mean to be wide awake. I'm ready to do a good turn, too, for anybody that helps me. John told me the other day that you and he had had a row, ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... hour call meant they seemed all to be in high good-humor and amused at their own adventure. One of them, a scoutmaster as Pee-wee knew, was particularly offhand and jovial and seemed to fill the room with his breezy talk. Peter Piper stared like one transfixed; they were scouts, the kind he had read about, the kind that were on the cover of the handbook! He backed into a corner so as not to get ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... introduced to special friends, in cantonments and Lahore, including the Deputy Commissioner's wife and good-looking eldest daughter; the best dancer in the station and an extra special friend, he gathered from Lance's best offhand manner. ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... hour and a half, trying to suggest some alternative that didn't look so silly. Kindly get the facts well into your head, will you? The man must pursue Mary's affection either there or here, mustn't he? He can't do it there because his wife won't let him. In order to do it here, one would say offhand that Mary would have to be here, and since her mother declines to bring her, it does look to me as if the job would have to be done by somebody else. However, if my logic is wrong, kindly let ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... to go further than this and to give offhand a definition of humor, or of that elusive quality, a sense of humor, he might find himself confronted with a difficulty. Yet certain things about it would be patent at the outset: Women haven't it; Englishmen haven't it; it is the chiefest of the virtues, for tho a man speak with ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... morning Whitey restrained his impatience until breakfast-time, then strolled down to the bunk house, wearing the boots. Several of the men were there, just finishing the meal, and rolling their after-breakfast cigarettes. Whitey sat down, sort of offhand and careless-like, and to his pained surprise, no one noticed the boots. Then he crossed his legs and leaned back, with his hands clasped behind his head—and Buck ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... supposed that in the darkness the Comanches below would grasp the situation offhand, and, before they could do so, Dinah scurried over the peak of the roof to the scuttle, which of course was still open, and descended. In her haste, she stepped upon the back of the chair, which tripped over, ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... serving himself in some secret way in return. Still, considering the magnitude of the interests involved, and the position of affairs, we orators must make it our business to look a little farther than you who judge offhand; especially as we, your advisers, are responsible, while you, our audience, are not so. For if those who gave the advice, and those who took it, suffered equally, you would judge more calmly; as it is, you visit the disasters ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... decided to dislike the young clergyman beside him. He was tall and athletic-looking, but with a slight stoop, that impressed the reporter as a physical assumption of humility which the handsome face, with its faintly sneering lines and bold eyes, contradicted. But he acknowledged Brander's offhand "How d'ye do?" in a properly deferential manner, and listened respectfully to a ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... of those smaller mines, Mr. Potash," he explained, "which sometimes get to be phenomenal profit-makers. Of course, I can't tell you offhand what the value of the stock is, but I'll make inquiries at once. The inside market at present is very strong, as ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... offhand fashion as he took off his overcoat. "Hello, Jeff! Thought I'd look you up. Got settled in your diggings, eh?" Before his host could answer he rattled on: "Just ran in for a moment. Had the devil ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... change in the position of the soldier's head when aiming, the exercise should not be held with the sight adjusted for the longer ranges until the men have been practiced with the sights as the latter would generally be employed for offhand firing. ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... came up toward the gloomy corner, there was a shout of bantering laughter from those whom, offhand, I should have called Aunt Lou, Cousin Becky, Brother Bob, and Milly Snagg, and we saw that the automaton had just dispatched his opponent—the fifth member of the party, a well-bronzed countryman, with a shaved neck and prominent ears. The mechanical eye had drawn down its brown lid in ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... passing event—death for him had no sting, nor the grave a victory. He prepared for his passing, looking after every detail, as he had planned trips to Europe. Jauntily, jokingly, bravely, tremendously busy, keenly alive to beauty and friendship, deciding great issues offhand, facing friend or foe, the moments of relaxation chinked in with religious emotion and a glowing love for humanity—so he ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... in an offhand way, "that the Germans have taken the lead in historical inquiries, and they laugh at results which are got by groping about in woods with a pocket-compass while they have made good roads. When I was with Mr. Casaubon I saw ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... what had they exactly in their several individual minds, when they delivered their utterances? These are manifestly questions of historical fact, and one does not see how the answer to them can decide offhand the still further question: of what use should such a volume, with its manner of coming into existence so defined, be to us as a guide to life and a revelation? To answer this other question we must have already in our mind some ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... offhand, what would be the most acceptable way of showing your great kindness and generosity, but I should certainly recommend you to put yourself ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... question is not so easily settled. Putting aside the flippancy of the passage, it involves something very like a petitio principii to ask offhand: "Does the man mean a living union of heart to Christ, a spiritual fellowship or converse with the Father, when he talks of the union of the believer with God—participation in the Divine nature?" For first, what we want to know is, the meaning ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... been commonly thought of, and referred to by writers on the history of the West, as a "wilderness"; and offhand, one might suppose that the settlers were obliged literally to hew their way through densely grown vegetation to the spots which they selected for their homes. In point of fact, there were great areas of upland—not alone in the prairie country of northern Indiana and Illinois, but in the ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... and should be able to form very exact ideas of just what he wants, and the doing so is, in my opinion, one of the most important requisites for satisfactory tomato growing. I also believe that it is as impossible for a man to answer offhand the question, "What is the best variety of tomato?" as for a wise physician to answer the question, "What is ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... as I kin, exactly, offhand," he replied, "there bein' so many of them from time to time. He was always doin' things one way and another. He give to everybody around here that asked him, and to a good many that didn't. I remember once"—and a smile gave evidence ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... memory, or offhand—Bonaparte never admitted any one to such secrets—instead of the proclamation he had dictated to Bourrienne two days ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... the little man, with a deprecatory glance, "w'en a man in ragged clo'se orders people here about as if 'e was the commander-in-chief o' the British Army, an' flings yellow boys about as if 'e was chancellor o' the checkers, an orders sassengers offhand for all 'ands, 'e may be a gentleman—wery likely 'e is,—but 'e ain't a redooced one, such as slopes into lodgin'-'ouse kitchens. W'atever little game may 'ave brought you 'ere, sir, it ain't poverty—an' nobody will be fool enough in ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... act of God to keep her goin', but He does it offhand an' casual, same as He makes three-year-old steers ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... husband and wife, but respectively brother and sister of Dave's father and mother. Uncle Moses' name was Wardle, Aunt M'riar's that of a deceased or vanished husband. But Sapps Court was never prepared to say offhand what this name was, and "Aunt M'riar" was universal. So indeed was "Uncle Mo"; but, as No. 7 had been spoken of as "Wardle's" since his brother took the lower half of the house for himself and his first wife, with ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... wasn't botherin' me," was the offhand answer. "I was on'y wonderin' where you would find a ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... whether I could remove the property in the time limit set. I informed the gentlemen that I could make my bid considerably higher if I was granted more time in which to remove the debris. President Francis asked me how much more I could bid, and I told him I could not state offhand. The conditions as to the removal of the wreckage in the specified time, namely, three months, were somewhat prohibitive, as it would be impossible to fulfill the requirements without an enormous expense. It would be ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... he must be as much as a week old," hazarded Adam, in an offhand tone. "They are never born with teeth, are they, unless they are going to be Richard the ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... for me to examine the thermometer, and note the direction of the wind. Trial of the Creedmoor method, therefore, had to be abandoned; and I bitterly regretted that I had not read more accounts of offhand shooting. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... system of his own, sometimes using Latin words and making the changes which regularly would have occurred, and when words failed, making signs, and in extreme cases drawing pictures of what he wanted. This versatility with the pencil, for many of his offhand sketches had humorous touches that almost carried them into the cartoon class, interested officers and passengers, so that the young student had the freedom of the ship and a voyage far ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... Farrell must be very rich," I said. "I wonder," I asked, "if I could sell him an automobile?" The moment I spoke I noticed that the manner of Miss Briggs toward Me perceptibly softened. Perhaps, from my buying offhand a fifty-dollar book she had thought me one of the rich, and had begun to suspect I was keeping her waiting on me only because I found her extremely easy to look at. Many times before, in a similar manner, other youths must have imposed upon her, and perhaps, ...
— The Log of The "Jolly Polly" • Richard Harding Davis
... locality. Thus in wounds of different parts of the hairy scalp, so little variation exists in the relative density and structure of the skin, that, in spite of the want of external support at the aperture of exit, it is often difficult to discriminate offhand the two apertures, if neither bone nor brain debris occupies that ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... and swum struggling for his life;—as what man like him ever failed to have to do? It seems to me a heedless notion, our common one, that he sat like a bird on the bough; and sang forth, free and offhand, never knowing the troubles of other men. Not so; with no man is it so. How could a man travel forward from rustic deer-poaching to such tragedy-writing, and not fall-in with sorrows by the way? Or, still better, how could a man delineate a Hamlet, a Coriolanus, a Macbeth, so many suffering ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle |
