"Matter-of-fact" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this, for then Mrs. Montague would know at once that she was Mona Montague; so she made no sign that she was any more interested in this little romance regarding Ray Palmer's love, than she would have been in that of any stranger. She even forced herself to ignore him altogether, and ask, in a matter-of-fact way: ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... relationship to his wife was prosaic, respectful. In his heart of hearts he occasionally thought of her as exceedingly unattractive. In a word Mrs. Tutt performed her wifely functions in a purely matter-of-fact way. Anything else would have seemed to her unseemly. She dressed in a manner that would have been regarded as conservative even on Beacon Hill. She had no intention of making an old fool of herself or of letting him be one either. When ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... wind,' captain! 'Only a capful of wind,'" said Ishmael, in a grave, matter-of-fact way, as he carefully assisted the ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... reported," the voice of newscaster said in matter-of-fact tones. "Seismologists at the University of California and Seattle University have placed the epicenter of the quake within fifty miles of Pullman, Washington. We repeat, there has been little damage and ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... common-sense view that the greatest problem in exercise for most of us is to get enough of the right kind. The greatest error in exercise is not to take enough, and the greatest danger in athletics is in giving them up. He writes in a direct matter-of-fact manner with an avoidance of medical terms, and a strong emphasis on the rational, all-around manner of living that is best calculated to bring a man to a ripe old age with little illness or consciousness of ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... greater—more apparent also, than it was, for example's sake. But I am a man not of fiction, but of fact, and consequently relate events, not as they precisely ought, but as they do, occasionally occur in lawyers' offices, and other unpoetical nooks and corners of this prosaic, matter-of-fact, working-day world. ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... turned away his eyes, but no one thought to interfere further with the assured little nurse. There was a splash of water, a little gasp from Lou, and then after a period which seemed interminable her matter-of-fact voice remarked: ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... She was stoutly built, but the expression on her countenance was undoubtedly cheerful. Nothing signified gloom about her except her heavy mourning. Her eyes, although shrewd and full of common sense, were also kindly; her lips were very firm; there was a matter-of-fact expression about ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... palace. He was adopted at once by the party, made much of, petted, and consoled for his fall from high estate by being placed in the seat of honour; and he caused great amusement to the assembled company by the matter-of-fact way in which he accepted his dignity and looked about with serious eyes, as if to say, "This is just ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... and the sound of his even, matter-of-fact tone, seemed to act like a tonic upon his late partner. He made no reference, ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... said, in a matter-of-fact tone, turning his eyes upon me, as he lifted his glass again, and emptied it. "How did you ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... the hand. The next hour I was oblivious of all external things, in the delightful excitement of our conversation. I even forgot Susan. Poor Susan! the trouble was, she was not intellectual; not at all imaginative; but a very plain, matter-of-fact person, with deep affections, and paramount instincts. During that memorable hour, she spoke not one word. When at length I observed her consciously, she was gazing at us with a look of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... city near by, he had outshone the country gallants at the party as he had outshone the cowboys that Ruth had seen since coming to the Flying W. His courtship had been gallant, too; he had quite captivated her, and after their engagement—which had been a rather matter-of-fact affair—she had not found it possible to refuse him permission to accompany her ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... insight into Moltke's elaboration of his style, which a translation would reveal better than original composition. In one respect these letters about Turkey were never equalled by Moltke. Henceforth, he turned absolutely matter-of-fact, a military writer par excellence. Even in his letters those nice bits of humor and incidental manifestations of a subtle and fine nature sense grow scarcer and scarcer. There are two essays—The Western Boundary, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... coast of Peru to return to Europe, might have been carried away with his disabled ship by the southern currents of the Pacific right to the shores of Australia, and his hypotheses were so ingenious and his deductions so subtle that even the matter-of-fact John Mangles, a difficult judge, and most unlikely to be led away by any flights ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... to the practical, material, matter-of-fact side of the American is his intense interest in the supernatural, the spiritualistic, the superstitious. Boston, of all places in the world, is, perhaps, the happiest hunting-ground for the spiritualist medium, the faith healer, and the mind curer. You will find there the most advanced ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... describe my sensations at this announcement—I felt the room swim and shake; and yet it was made in such a deliberate matter-of-fact tone, that it flashed across me for an instant that Arthur was joking, and together with it came a curiously dismal sense of unreality, that is well known to all those who have passed through any great strain or emotional crisis, as if, suddenly, ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... sittings were held for the transaction of all kinds of business and the discussion of the most varied subjects. It was impressive to see people from half the countries of the world rise from different corners of the hall and contribute their share to the discussion in the most matter-of-fact way. Day by day the congressists met in social functions, debates, lectures, and sectional groups (chemical, medical, legal, etc.) for the regulation of matters touching their special interests. Everything was done in Esperanto, and never ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... a practical age, and it is the practical value, the matter-of-fact contribution to our happiness and well-being by the work of any man, ancient or modern, which counts in these days ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... orphan, the mistress of a very large estate. No doubt she had been sought often in marriage, but never until lately had Lorania seriously thought of marrying. Sibyl said that she was too unsentimental to marry. Really she was too romantic. She had a longing to be loved, not in the quiet, matter-of-fact manner of her suitors, but with the passion of the poets. Therefore the presence of another skeleton in Mrs. Ellis's closet, because she knew about a certain handsome Italian marquis who at this period was conducting an impassioned wooing by mail. Margaret did not fancy the marquis. ...
— Different Girls • Various
... courage. Then she ran into the house quickly, laughing as she came. She took Henderson's arms away from his face and laid him back on the pillow, and she stooped over him and kissed his forehead in the most matter-of-fact way. ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... the time of salvation.—If we ask for the fulfilment, our eye is, in the first instance, attracted by Matt. [Pg 161] xi. 5, where, with an evident reference to the passage before us, the Lord gives to the question of John: "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another," the matter-of-fact answer, that the blind receive their sight, the deaf hear, the lame walk: comp. Matth. xv. 31: [Greek: hoste tous ochlous thaumasai blepontas kophous laloutas, kullous hugieis, cholous peripatountas kai tuphlous blepontas]; xxi. 14; [Greek: kai proselthon auto tuphloi kai choloi en ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... the moment. I liked to hear Mr. Dale talk, and without an affinity of ideas our intimacy must have died a natural death. But we found a common ground of sympathy in our revolt against the subserviency in modern life of romance to matter-of-fact considerations. He harped upon this string, and awoke a corresponding chord in my breast. His ideas were a correlation of the dreams of my girlhood. I felt that I was understood. There was such a thing as the love I had imagined; Mr. Dale had pondered over it, fathomed it, and could talk ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... aft to relieve their companions, the illusion has passed, and you go below to turn in, feeling uncomfortably sure that your pretty thoughts will appear foolish and commonplace enough when regarded in the matter-of-fact light of the ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... The Kid, in a matter-of-fact tone, "we'll be strikin' westward. I'm kind of anxious to see what's doin' ovah in New ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... imminent danger of his life, disregarded all semblance of danger. He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes in complete enjoyment of Hussein's cigarettes, which were really excellent, and said, in the even, matter-of-fact tones of one who discusses an ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... person whose occupation would necessitate going about considerably in boats, and whose fixed desire was to study fetish. So with a feeling of foreboding gloom I left London for Liverpool—none the more cheerful for the matter-of-fact manner in which the steamboat agents had informed me that they did not issue return tickets by the West African lines of steamers. I will not go into the details of that voyage here, much as I am given to discursiveness. They are more amusing than instructive, for on my first voyage out I ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... a mean relative to us (difference).' To which is added the following all-important qualification, 'determined by reason [Greek: logos], and as the judicious man [Greek: ho Phronimos] would determine.' Such is the doctrine of the Mean, which combines the practical matter-of-fact quality of moderation, recognized by all sages, with a high and abstract conception, starting from the Pythagorean remark quoted by Aristotle, 'the Infinite, or Indefinite, is evil, the Finite or the Definite is good,' and re-appearing in Plato as 'conformity to measure' [Greek: ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... in a matter-of-fact tone, without the least attempt to conceal what many boys would have been tempted to hide. Oscar noted this, and liked his new friend ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... in the world to hear that voice coming as if out of empty space, but the Sussex peasants are perhaps the most matter-of-fact people under the sun. Jaffers got up also and produced a pair of ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... is the vision of a garden of Eden from which the demon has been banished. And the Demon in question is the Private Ownership of the Means of Production. His name is less romantic than those of the wonted demons of legend and folklore. But it is at least suitable for the matter-of-fact age of machinery which he is supposed to haunt and on which he casts his evil spell. Let him be once exorcised and the ills of humanity are gone. And the exorcism, it appears, is of the simplest. Let this demon once feel the contact of state ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... answered the other, confidently; "and gets enormous sums of money for them." Whenever Zack found an opportunity of magnifying a friend's importance, he always rose grandly superior to mere matter-of-fact restraints, and seized the golden moment without an instant of hesitation or ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... Max, in a matter-of-fact tone; "we've got the whole day ahead of us, to prowl around, and see what the blessed old island looks like. And perhaps we might find out a few things before dark comes on again. As I said a while ago, one night's gone. I hope now ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... at Chi, not that the other boys did not know the games, but simply because this matter-of-fact boy was their natural leader ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... and spoke in quite a matter-of-fact way, but Anice suddenly lost her color. When, later, ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... As a matter-of-fact, he did not mince matters. Endowed with unbounded courage and an extraordinary command of language, when he got upon his feet he spoke his mind in a way that was good to hear. Moreover, he had the strong oratorical ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... was not of the stamp to doubt the truth and splendor of "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp," or "Cinderella," as surveyed from the stage-box, in his confiding infancy, any more than to believing in baubles when the time came to justly discriminate. Woe for the incredulous child, too matter-of-fact to be enlisted in the creations of fancy, and who tastes in infancy the chief bitterness of age—the incapability of surrendering life ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... neighbor, Olsen, in his kind and matter-of-fact way, making obligation seem slight, took charge of Kurt's affairs, and made the necessary and difficult decisions. Nothing must delay the harvesting and transporting of the wheat. The women folk arranged for the burial ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... argue that a conversation of facts would be as dull as a work on algebra, and that all she did was to put her poetry into practice. In these moods you might as well attempt to imprison a sunbeam as keep her to matter-of-fact; and the misery was, that gradually the number of detractors increased, who caught up these "effective" scraps, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... droller than to see her stand guard while he bathed in the common dish on the table, and fly furiously at the grosbeak, or any bird coming too near her precious idol, who meanwhile placidly proceeded with his bath in the most matter-of-fact manner, as though expecting to be protected. I have seen similar conduct in a wild pair: the female defending her nestlings against some fancied danger, scolding, flying around the intruder, and taking the whole care upon herself; while her spouse occupied the topmost ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... did the full horror of the thing dawn on Bard. The girl was no more excited than one of her Eastern cousins would have been over a game of bridge, and the man in the most matter-of-fact manner, was slipping another cartridge into the cylinder of the revolver, which he then restored to ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... as he filled and lighted the pipe, did it in the most matter-of-fact sort of way. Then he remarked to the head of the copy desk, in an ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... Englishman is not highly imaginative he is apt to be the most matter-of-fact of mortals. He is rarely imaginative, and seldom has an alert sense of humor. Yet England has produced the finest of humorists and the greatest of poets. The humor and imagination which are diffused ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... to propose and be accepted as eligible husbands. But in a rattling three-act farce as this is intended to be, any exaggeration is sufficiently probable as long only as it is thoroughly amusing; and, it be added, in such a piece, sentiment is as much out of place as would be plain matter-of-fact conduct or dialogue. To see Mr. PENLEY in the elderly Aunt's dress is to convulse the house without his uttering a word. To see him enjoying himself with the young ladies while threatened by their lovers, who cannot take ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various
... to help me, aren't you, Peter?" Jack went on, seriously. "You are going to hold up a finger of warning when I get off the course. I am to be practical, matter-of-fact; there's to be an end to ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... Father Jervis, "everything runs on those lines now. You see we're matter-of-fact, and it's really rather obvious, when you think of it, to dedicate the volor lines to the angels. We've been becoming more and more obvious for the last fifty years. . . . By the way, Monsignor, you must take care not ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... in a plain, simple, matter-of-fact way. You want to find a person whose name you don't know, whose face you can't recognize, and whose voice even is equally unknown. You can't give any clew to her at all. You don't know whether she lives in Quebec or in New York. You only know she ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... Plato's Republic blend of course with those of the Civitas Dei of Augustine. Only, though its top may one day "reach unto heaven," it by no means came down thence; but, as Plato conceives, arises out of the earth, out of the humblest natural wants. Grote was right.—There is a very shrewd matter-of-fact utilitarian among the dramatis personae which together make up the complex genius of Plato. Poiesei hos egomai ten polin hemetera chreia.—Society is produced by our physical necessities, our inequality in regard ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... be pleasant, in turning over these pages, to find written testimony to a number of points which I shall be apt to charge solely upon my imagination. I wonder whether Miss Blunt, in days to come, referring to the tables of her memory for some trivial matter-of-fact, some prosaic date or half-buried landmark, will also encounter this little secret of ours, as I may call it,—will decipher an old faint note to this effect, overlaid with the memoranda of intervening years. Of course she will. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... vocations allotted to the one sex are open to the other, and the Gy-ei arrogate to themselves a superiority in all those abstruse and mystical branches of reasoning, for which they say the Ana are unfitted by a duller sobriety of understanding, or the routine of their matter-of-fact occupations, just as young ladies in our own world constitute themselves authorities in the subtlest points of theological doctrine, for which few men, actively engaged in worldly business have sufficient learning or refinement of intellect. Whether owing to early training in gymnastic exercises, ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... make it seem so. The true ideal is not opposed to the real, nor is it any artificial heightening thereof, but lies in it, and blessed are the eyes that find it! It is the mens divinior which hides within the actual, transfiguring matter-of-fact into matter-of-meaning for him who has the gift of second-sight. In this sense Hogarth is often more truly ideal than Raphael, Shakespeare often more truly so than the Greeks. I think it is a more or less conscious perception of this ideality, as it is a more or less well-grounded ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... I see it?" asked the small, dark-eyed, dark-haired wife, with the little touch of nectarine bloom and a little powder also; and though she spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, there was a look of wistfulness in her eyes, a gleam of which Kitty ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... own. You will then have two series of accounts of the same picture proceeding from two sources. It will be well for the two who look at the picture to be of very different types, let us say, one imaginative, the other matter-of-fact. ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... a crude thing, a triumph of essentials over luxuries, Helen had never before hailed four walls and a roof with such heartfelt, if silent, thanksgiving. She sank exhausted on a rough bench, and watched the matter-of-fact Engadiners unpacking the stores and firewood carried in their rucksacks. Their businesslike air supplied the tonic she needed. Though the howling storm seemed to threaten the tiny refuge with destruction, these two men set to work, coolly and methodically, ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... eye could wish lying at his feet—resting on a famous battlement, that had withstood the ravages of love and war—he evolved his magic verse. Truly no scene could be more inspiring, no motive more sublime, for even we humble humdrum matter-of-fact Englishwomen felt almost inspired to tempt the poet's muse. But happily no—our friends are spared—the passion ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... quietly and in a matter-of-fact way. He himself had suffered torture in its most severe form. Possibly he thought there was a chance that I, too, might have ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... could not herself have taken part in these practices, but that availed her nothing; she could bring forward no witnesses on her behalf and was condemned to pay a fine, to stand in the pillory, and to undergo imprisonment for two years. The cases were dealt with in a matter-of-fact way which seems to bear further witness to the frequency of the offense, and with no effort to expend any specially vindictive harshness on this class of offenders. If there was the slightest doubt as to the facts, even though the balance of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... such another week as the one just over, I think it not impossible that before the arrival of the ensuing Sunday, he might have afforded a little employment to that ancient and gloomy functionary, a coroner, and his jury. At that time, however, inquests of this sort were matter-of-fact and melancholy affairs enough; which I doubt not would have been rather a dissuasive from suicide, in the estimation of one who might be supposed ambitious of the eclat of a modern inquest; where, indeed, such strange antics are ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... I to myself in my most matter-of-fact tone, "is a little cool sense. Be quiet now ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... 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 ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... two intently, breathing constrainedly the while, and grasping a jutting point of rock with his hand as he stood. He now said, in a genial and matter-of-fact voice, "Well, Master Frank, I shall have an account to settle with you when you and my niece have got ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... cloudland of imagination. It reflects and gives sensuous images of truth; but it is only the Philistine or the blockhead who can seriously ask, is it true? Some such position seems to be really conceivable as an ultimate compromise. Put aside the prosaic insistence upon literal matter-of-fact truth, and we may all agree to use the same symbolism, and interpret it as we please. This seems to me to be actually the view of many thoughtful people, though for obvious reasons it is not often explicitly stated. One reason is, of course, the consciousness that the great mass of mankind requires ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... 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, four or five officers of the garrison ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... 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 form convulsed by sobs. Lydia had a nervous attack caused by anxiety, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... second her heart stood still, and she was glad the increasing gloom disguised her face. By a great effort she replied, in a cool, matter-of-fact tone: "I do not understand your question. Mr. Fleet was here this afternoon, and gave some finishing touches to my studio. I do not think I shall need ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... better," he argued, "to approach it gradually like this instead of arriving in a matter-of-fact way by train." It was still raining hard, and I had grave doubts about the splendour we were enjoying so much in anticipation, but I did not throw all cold water on his scheme, especially as much of it was planned for my benefit. Art would be the richer, although we, ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... money I took this morning, Doane," he said in matter-of-fact tones. "I came here to turn it ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... without mending matters much. Gatty ran about, hot and panting, searching for a cool hole, while she declared that the ship was a great pie, which the sun had undertaken to bake, and that we were all the unfortunate pigeons destined to be stewed therein. "Then," said the matter-of-fact little Winny, "we must put all our feet together, and stick them up in the middle." One day, when we happened to be in that indescribable state—a sort of half consciousness of what was passing around—scarcely knowing whether we were dreaming or waking, we heard a ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... 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 wants ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for assurance and ingenuity, defied even the powers of Mr. Puff in the Critic: for who but himself would have thought of summoning up a ghost from the grave to bear witness in favor of a halting body of divinity? There is a matter-of-fact, business-like style in the whole account of the transaction, which bespeaks ineffable powers of self-possession. The narrative is drawn up "by a gentleman, a Justice of Peace at Maidstone, in Kent, a ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... Is such minute matter-of-fact copying a virtue in the novelist? or is it not rather a defect arising out of a misunderstanding of the principles of his art? In our opinion the business of the novelist, even when he chooses an historical subject, is ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... your sweetheart makin' love behind the willow," Mrs. Wentz said in a matter-of-fact voice. "I don't see why you need hide to do it. We folks out here like to see the young people sparkin'. Your young man is a fine-appearin' chap. I felt certain you was sweethearts, for all you allowed you'd known him only a few days. Lize Davis said ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... Barbara would say, boldly. And we did covet, and we did grieve. And although we did not mean to have "hard thoughts," we felt that Aunt Roderick was hard; and that Uncle Roderick and Uncle John were hatefully matter-of-fact and of-course about the "business." And that paper might be somewhere, yet. We did not believe that Grandfather Holabird had "changed his mind and burned it up." He had not had much mind to change, within those last six months. ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... "transcendentalism" in this plain, straightforward Address. The facts are collected and related with the patience and sobriety which became the writer as one of the Dryasdusts of our very diligent, very useful, very matter-of-fact, and for the most part judiciously unimaginative Massachusetts Historical Society. It looks unlike anything else Emerson ever wrote, in being provided with abundant foot-notes and an appendix. One would almost as soon have expected to see Emerson equipped with a ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... before. Sylva's screaming had been broadcast with the weird hoots and whistles the United Nations believed to be the language of inter-planetary invaders. The United Nations believed them dead. Now a watch was being kept on the rocket-ship, to be sure, but it was becoming a matter-of-fact sort of vigilance, pending the arrival of the rest of the Fighting Force and the cracking of the dome of force by the scientists who worked on it ...
— Invasion • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... example—the force of bad example," said Colin so gravely that Beata, who was perhaps a little matter-of-fact, would have answered him gravely had she not seen a little twinkle in his eyes, which put ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... succeeding generation, and carry as much weight to-day as they did when the Han dynasty made them the standard of human wisdom. They were especially adapted to the Chinese intellect, which although shrewd and ingenious is phlegmatic, unspeculative, matter-of-fact, and unspiritual. Moreover, as we have said, it was to the interest of rulers to support his doctrines, from the constant exhortations to loyalty which Confucius enjoined. And yet there is in his precepts a democratic influence also, since ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... go quickly to the row of shelves at one side of the room, take down a labelled bottle, remove the stopper, and pour some of its contents into a graduated glass. To this she added a portion of the contents of another bottle, taking them down, replacing stoppers, and proceeding in the most matter-of-fact, businesslike way, as if accustomed to the task, and returning to try and trickle a little fluid between the patient's lip, supplementing it by bathing ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... finely scolded by my sister. No, it is only a family party. Under the Empire, madame, we all devoted ourselves to dancing. At that great epoch of our national life they thought as much of a fine dancer as they did of a good soldier. Nowadays the country is so matter-of-fact." ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... a psalmist is a poet, and misunderstand his spirit by treating his words as matter-of-fact prose. His imagination is at work, and our sympathetic imagination must be at work too, if we would enter into his meaning. Death a shepherd—what a grim and bold inversion of a familiar metaphor! If this psalm is, as is probable, of a comparatively late date, then ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... amusing. It was impossible that an intelligent, 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 and the ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... gives it a distinctive charm. This quality is the hint of—not necessarily the supernatural, but rather the weird; it is a recognition and a vague presentation of the many strong influences that are not explainable by our philosophy of life. It is the intrusion into our matter-of-fact lives of the uncanny element, which the novice so grossly misuses in his tales of premonitory dreams and visions, and of most unghostly ghosts. "It is not enough to catch a ghost white-handed and to hale him into the full glare of the electric light. A brutal misuse of ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... in a matter-of-fact tone, but his eyes were shining and he was breathing rapidly. Menard looked at him for a moment without a word, then he stepped to the door of a back room and looked in. Three flickering candles stood on a ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... scalp wound which does not seem serious," said she in an attempt to be matter-of-fact, "and his left collar bone ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... and pulled up the blinds. A single star shone yet in the gray sky. I stood looking at it for a few minutes, then lit a cigarette, and turned round. Victoria was on the sofa still; she was crying in a quiet matter-of-fact way, not passionately, but with a rather methodical air. She glanced at me for a moment, but said nothing. Neither did I speak. I leaned against the wall and smoked my cigarette. For five minutes, I should suppose, this state ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... for stranger, because everybody else has fathers, dead, alive or drunk," said Charlotte, in the same matter-of-fact tone that Mikey had used, and he in no way seemed to feel her remark personally derogatory to ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... we collaborate?" said Henley in his most matter-of-fact way, as Big Ben gave voice to the midnight hour. "Everybody does it nowadays. Two heads may be really better than one, although I seldom believe in the truth of accepted sayings. Your head is a deuced good one, Andrew; but—now don't get angry—you are too excitable and too ...
— The Collaborators - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... he fancied the hum of bees Were bullets buzzing among the trees. But all such fanciful thoughts as these Were strange to a practical man like Burns, Who minded only his own concerns, Troubled no more by fancies fine Than one of his calm-eyed, long-tailed kine,— Quite old-fashioned and matter-of-fact, Slow to argue, but quick to act. That was the reason, as some folks say, He fought so well on that ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... in a careless, matter-of-fact manner, and as he talked he was leading the way up the short beach, toward the northernmost edge of the mangrove swamp. Claire could not well take further offence at a service which apparently had ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... think you ought to come here so much, Grace." Elfreda's matter-of-fact tones roused Grace from the somber reverie which had obsessed her as she stood in the center of the living-room, her absent gaze on a painting which Tom had especially fancied. It represented a young man in the dress of a cavalier and a beautiful girl in a simple high-waisted gown ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... even, perhaps, in any part of New England. And if the traveller be of a fanciful turn, he will associate the place with the idea of some deserted country, resettled by a new race of men; and even if he be a mere matter-of-fact man, he cannot fail to perceive that the town must have been originally tenanted under a division of lands and an order of things quite different from those now existing. And either of these suppositions would ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... sympathetic hand, if his lively imagination and passion for the beautiful had been put through a proper educational course, he might have used the latent creative power with which nature had endowed him and taken a high place among artists, writers or composers. As it was, his machinelike, matter-of-fact training and his own self-conscious anxiety not to be different from the average good sportsman had made him conform admirably to type. He was a fine specimen of the eager, naive, quick-witted, clean-minded young American, free from "side," devoid of mannerisms, determined to make the utmost ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... simple fishermen of Templeton had been inclined to believe in miracles, the strange reappearance of the missing Martha at this particular time must have savoured of something of the sort. But being matter-of-fact folk, they contented themselves with lounging round the boat as she lay once more on the beach, staring at her, and wondering between their whiffs what the solicitors ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... mattress, fasten the under things on with tapes, and have a blanket, sheet, and coverlet to button at the side. He would have to confide in his housekeeper, I said; and after some squabbling he agreed to that. (Afterwards it was quite delightful to see the beautifully matter-of-fact way with which the good lady took all these amazing inversions.) He could have a library ladder in his room, and all his meals could be laid on the top of his bookcase. We also hit on an ingenious device by which he could get to the floor whenever he wanted, ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... to Hattie from some feeling that she was mixed up in this thing. Hattie closed her Algebra, keeping her finger in the place, while she took the paper and looked at it. She did not seem impressed or otherwise, but read it aloud in a matter-of-fact tone: ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... often that train that left us, and she ain't got a bit of sense, or she wouldn't," answered the Blue Bunch for me, in a matter-of-fact ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... words in a matter-of-fact voice, without a tremor. She foresaw their effect in bringing him to himself In his next words his tone had already softened slightly ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... substantially that which had been told to Murray, and it was told with a matter-of-fact indifference, and made light of, in the strong tones of John Kars, on whom danger seemed to have so little effect. As Mrs. Mowbray listened she realized something of the strength of this man. The purpose in him. The absolute reliance with which he dealt with ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... must have met with kindness, or she would not be sorry to leave," she said cheerfully. "Now, Mrs. Dawson, we shall have her back with us almost at once, so it behoves us to set about getting everything ready for her," she went on, in her sensible, matter-of-fact way, for she felt that the best thing for both of them was to keep them busy ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... that. Of course if you are killed you won't have occasion for it," said Miles, in a matter-of-fact tone. ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... these words to Silverthorn. Then he gave his thick frame a slight shake, as if to get rid of the disagreeable feelings I had excited, and turned toward his friend. On the instant there came into his unmoved eyes and his matter-of-fact countenance a look of sentiment so incongruous as to be almost laughable. "I wish I could have done it, Thorny," ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... of nerve, both of them. Neither flinched. Rochester's question had been asked in an absolutely matter-of-fact tone, and Saton's reply was entirely casual. Yet he knew very well that it was only since the coming of the great judge that Rochester had suddenly realized that amongst the guests staying in his house, there was one who might have been any ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... for a few moments, and then beginning to be more imbued with his cousin's coolness and matter-of-fact way of treating his position, he exclaimed, "I can't think as clearly as you do, Dean. I want to see what's best, and all that I can come to is that I must go for help. If you dare hold on there till I come back with the others, and ropes ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... 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 ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... its interest in Washington. A regiment marching down Broadway was something to see, but the same regiment in Pennsylvania Avenue looked mean and matter-of-fact. A General in the field, or riding uncovered through Boston or Baltimore, or even lounging at the bar of the Continental or the Astor House or the Tremont, was invested with an atmosphere half heroic, half poetic; but Generals in Washington may be counted by pairs, and I used to sit at dinner with ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... have to endorse that," he remarked in a matter-of-fact tone. "Your name at the back will do instead of ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... It was a 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 occasional and ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... 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 upon ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... always difficult to give explanations, and (to such a matter-of-fact person as Miss Burd) it seemed particularly silly to have to confess that they had come out ghost-hunting, and had mistaken her for a spirit. She emptied the vials of her ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... that her heart ached at times, and in spite of all resolution her fingers would once in a while stray to the chords of "Ben Bolt." She tried, and fairly succeeded in answering his letters in a cool, matter-of-fact way. Occasionally when he referred to his heart hunger, and how hard he was studying in hopes that she might think better of him, she wished that he had no purse-proud and haughty mother to stand between him and a poor girl, and her next letter ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... thereof and declaring that from and "after the third day of July next, all power and authority of the Government of Wisconsin, in and over the Territory hereby constituted shall cease." On reading this section one is almost startled by the matter-of-fact way in which a body of legislators seem to have made a Constitution and established a ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh
... every rule relating to the physical forces, theory must present to the mind at the same time the share which the moral powers will have in it, if it would not be led to categorical propositions, at one time too timid and contracted, at another too dogmatical and wide. Even the most matter-of-fact theories have, without knowing it, strayed over into this moral kingdom; for, as an example, the effects of a victory cannot in any way be explained without taking into consideration the moral impressions. And therefore the most of the subjects which we shall go through in ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... interfusion of gifts, this universality of uses, in itself the bond of beauty which girdles the world like a cestus? If poetry were only rhyme, and art only painting, to what an outer darkness of matter-of-fact should we be condemning ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... not long in coming to them, and the matter-of-fact world had to be faced once more. The young man produced his card, and said a few words to the conductor, mentioning the name of his uncle, who, by the way, happened to be a director of the road; and ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... 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 ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... are not so fatal, but they are innutritious, and clog the soul with unwholesome vapors of all kinds. No doubt they too help to weaken the moral fibre, and make their readers indifferent to "plodding perseverance and plain industry," and to "matter-of-fact poverty and commonplace distress." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... in the rear, reaching for some botanical curiosity, on the other side of a wet ditch, or they would certainly have put a stop to this conversation, which was not very profitable to any of the parties concerned. Dora was rather a matter-of-fact little person, and a very good implement for teazing with, as she did not at all suspect the use made of her, until a sudden thought striking her, she stopped short, saying very decidedly, 'We will not ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... casual seeker after new impressions, the Philistine in Bohemia. There was nothing but pleasure in the slight manifestation of surprise which preceded his frank greeting of Lightmark, a greeting thoroughly English in its matter-of-fact want of demonstrativeness, and the avoidance of anything likely to attract the attention ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... being whom all had declared to be the counterpart of her brother, as well in personal attraction as in singleness of nature. With all his affected levity, and notwithstanding his early initiation into fashionable life—that matter-of-fact life which strikes at the existence of our earlier and dearer illusions—there was a dash of romance in the character of the young baronet which tended much to increase the pleasure he always took in the warm descriptions of his friend. The very circumstance of her being personally unknown to him, ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... quoting these lines to a lady, and being rather taken aback by her remark, 'They are very beautiful, but I don't, think they are true.' We really had forgot for the moment the straightforward, matter-of-fact sense of which they are capable, and were not adverting to the possibility of their being understood to mean that—nothing but love-crosses are going, and that no tolerable amount of comfort or happiness is to be found ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... and driven homeward in a state of great mental satisfaction. He considered that it was a happy moment for him when he had thought of asking Riley's advice about a tutor for Tom. Mr. Stelling's eyes were so wide open, and he talked in such an off-hand, matter-of-fact way, answering every difficult, slow remark of Mr. Tulliver's with, "I see, my good sir, I see"; "To be sure, to be sure"; "You want your son to be a man who will make his way in the world,"—that Mr. Tulliver was delighted to ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot |
