"Matter-of-fact" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at another box. This also contained paper. The third box held a quantity of counterfeits, the amount of which made even the matter-of-fact detective gasp. ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... story and a famous one. The lawyer found his own answer uncomfortably simple when it was taken up in such a matter-of-fact way. It was suddenly up to him to act on his own advice. He tried to hedge by raising a new question: "Love my neighbor? Certainly. But who is my neighbor?" Who is within the cordon of fraternal fellowship with me? All men of my people and religion? Or only the ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... course, he's not a goose. I've no doubt he's a very clever man. But you're so matter-of-fact, archdeacon, when it suits your purpose, that one can't trust oneself to any facon de parler. I've no doubt Mr Arabin is a very valuable man—at Oxford, and that he'll be a good vicar at St Ewold. All I mean is, that having passed one evening with him, I don't find him to be absolutely ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... have no story to tell that would interest you. My life has been cast upon very hum-drum matter-of-fact lines, and I can recall no startling incident. In my native town there is a shop-keeper who, when he is out of any article called for, tells his customers to wait a moment while he sends the boy over to the warehouse,—the 'warehouse' being the larger and more prosperous establishment of a rival ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... the plain matter-of-fact story of Belgian life under German rule. Many more people will be tempted to praise the glory of our soldiers. But, if the incidents of conquered Belgium's life are not recorded in good time, they might escape notice. People might forget that, ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... already nearly forty years. The somewhat romantic notions entertained by Wenlock and his younger fellow passengers were rather rudely dissipated on their arrival. The work of settling he soon found was a plain matter-of-fact business, requiring constant and persevering labour. Some of the settlers remained at the town, others proceeded farther up the river to a spot near the confluence of the two rivers Schuylkill and Delaware. Wenlock, however, resolved to wait the arrival of Colonel Markham, ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston
... and for that reason expecting, that if he was made aedile before his praetorship, he would then show them magnificent hunting-shows and combats between Libyan wild beasts, chose other praetors, on purpose to force him into the aedileship. The vanity of this pretext is sufficiently disproved by matter-of-fact. For the year following, partly by flatteries to the people, and partly by money, he got himself elected praetor. Accordingly, once while he was in office, on his angrily telling Caesar that he should make ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... better. I knew my heart craved one word, however matter-of-fact, that would rekindle the hope that ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... about minerals," Billy said with matter-of-fact seriousness, "so that when I'm grown I can find the metals for us to make ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... flush passed, giving place to a feeling of horrified wonder. For Sophie was not in the least embarrassed—she spoke in the most matter-of-fact tone. And this from a child of thirteen, who did not ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... themselves we see that the first three lines are rather fine, but the fourth line is clumsy and matter-of-fact compared with the others. In the second stanza "lowly thatched cottage" may be a poetic description, but the home longing is not confined to people who have lived in thatched cottages. Tame singing birds are interesting, but home stands for higher and holier things. All he asks for ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... absorbing task for a psychologist to trace the various stages by which an impossibility was changed into a reality. Wyatt's coolness and matter-of-fact determination were his chief weapons. His popularity and reputation for lawlessness helped him. A conversation which he had with Neville-Smith, a day-boy, is typical of the way in which he forced his point of view on ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... decided that it was just a day-dream between sleeping and waking over the pages of an old book; yet when next day and the day after the invisible singer was in the orchard again, I could not be satisfied with such mere matter-of-fact explanation. ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... pretentious effort that had placed him in the horrifying predicament in which he now found himself—with the corpse of what was apparently a human being in his workshop and no available explanation that could possibly be acceptable to a matter-of-fact and ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of the Atlantic Bridge Company gasped. This was the boldest, the coldest work he had ever experienced. Many times he had witnessed public officials like Sir Thomas Drummond approach this delicate point, but never with such composure, such matter-of-fact certainty and lack of moral scruple. Evidently, however, this Englishman had come to trade and wanted a direct answer. There was no false pose, no romance here. But Jackson Wylie, Sr., was too shrewd a business man ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... clouds of chilly fire that made the ruddy west seem tame. My midday lassitude was going, my blood was running warmer again. And as the twilight and that filmy brightness replaced the dusty sunlight and robbed this unfamiliar place of all its matter-of-fact queerness, its sense of aimless materialism, romance returned to me, and passion, and my thoughts of honor and revenge. I remember that change of mood as occurring very vividly on this occasion, but I fancy that less distinctly I had felt this before ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... a perfectly matter-of-fact tone, "I've found you now, and you've got to be sensible. It's true I've had a stroke of luck, but that might fall away at any moment. I've typing waiting for you, or I can get you a post at the New York Theatre. You'd better first do my typing. I'll have it in your rooms to-morrow ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... how they were going to spend their holidays. It was surprising to me that these boys who were so ordinary during term-time should lead such adventurous lives in the holidays, and I felt a little envious of their good fortune. They talked of visiting the theatre and foreign travel in a matter-of-fact way that made me think that perhaps after all my home-life was incomplete. I had never been out of England, and my dramatic knowledge was limited to pantomimes, for which these enthusiastic students of musical ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... and it was brought about in a manner so singular and unexpected that I must leave the explanation of the matter to the psychological student, it being altogether beyond the comprehension of such a simple, matter-of-fact, unlearned seaman as myself. ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... my regiment, sir," replied Somers, giving the military salute; which excess of politeness, however, was lost on the matter-of-fact captain. ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... vain to pierce the meaning of these cryptic words. Presently the doctor said, "Perfectly normal?" more as a statement than a question, and Miss Wheaton answered in a matter-of-fact voice, "Oh, absolutely." ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... expenditure of vital energy; nothing is wasted in expression, style, spread-eagleism; everything is instinctively kept as near to the practical heart of the matter as possible. He is—to the eye of an artist—distressingly matter-of-fact, a tempting mark for satire. And yet he is in truth an idealist, though it is his nature to snub, disguise, and mock his own inherent optimism. To admit enthusiasms is "bad form" if he is a "gentleman"; "swank" ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... had all announced the fact that the detail of police would that day be withdrawn from the scene of the murder in Christie Place. With them it had been a mere matter-of-fact news item, but with the evening sheets it was different. They had had time to digest the matter, and their view of the order was one of surprise. Two or three allowed this feeling to expand itself into headlines of some size; a few also commented ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... are creatures of impulse are not creatures of despair. Suicide, I suspect, is very often the outcome of mere mental weariness—not an act of savage energy but the final symptom of complete collapse. The quiet, matter-of-fact attentions of a ship's stewardess, who did not seem aware of other human agonies than sea-sickness, who talked of the probable weather of the passage—it would be a rough night, she thought—and who insisted ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... your mother a hump," returned the plain-spoken and matter-of-fact hunter. "Nobody shud never go to promise wot they can't perform. I've lived, off an' on, nigh forty years now, and I've obsarved them wot promises most always does least; so if you'll take the advice of an oldish hunter, you'll give it ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... native city, where he died July 15, 1890. Early in life, Keller threw aside all conventional beliefs, and his religion henceforth was a deep love of and a joyous faith in all life. Although Keller was in many respects decidedly matter-of-fact, a calm objective observer with a strong leaning toward utilitarian ideals—he had all the homely virtues of his ancestry—he nevertheless delighted in a myth-creating fancy. Thus Keller is very much akin to his countryman Arnold Bcklin, whom the German world ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... return of Ware and Sylvia did not disturb them. It seemed, however, that Ware was a famous story-teller, and when he had lighted a fresh cigar he recounted a number of adventures, speaking in his habitual, dry, matter-of-fact tone, and with curious unexpected turns of phrase. Conversation in Indiana seems to drift into story-telling inevitably. John Ware once read a paper before the Indianapolis Literary Club to prove that this Hoosier trait was derived from the South. He drew a species of ellipsoid of which the Ohio ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... use of the term "Geographical Distribution." As I said, there is another aspect, and a much more important one, and that is, the relations of the various animals to one another. The horse is a very well-defined matter-of-fact sort of animal, and we are all pretty familiar with its structure. I dare say it may have struck you, that it resembles very much no other member of the animal kingdom, except perhaps the zebra or the ass. But let me ask you to look along these diagrams. Here is ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... little in being particular in an affair of such delicacy. Some writers wake their heroines at dead of night, drag them, half drest, out of a third story chamber window, lead them through a thousand perils by flood, fire, and field, till the mere matter-of-fact, common sense reader is convinced that the poor girls had neither a dry thread nor a clean one upon their persons; and no "change of raiment" so much as hinted at. I scorn so ungallant an action as to compel my heroine to make a voyage nearly ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... is given shortly here, was taken down from his lips, but it is impossible to reproduce the man's quaint phraseology. He spoke in an indifferent way, and detailed all the circumstances in a most matter-of-fact manner and without the faintest trace ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... Jean, in the matter-of-fact tone of a practical young lady; 'mewed up in these dismal castles, we shall never get princely husbands like our sisters. I might be Queen of Beauty, I doubt me whether ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not appear surprised at that demand—the Medic of a Free Trading spacer was never surprised at anything. He had his surfeit of shocks during his first years of service and after that accepted any occurrence, no matter how weird, as matter-of-fact. In addition Tau's hobby was "magic," the hidden knowledge possessed and used by witch doctors and medicine men on alien worlds. He had a library of recordings, odd scraps of information, of certified results of certain very peculiar experiments. Now and then he wrote ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... a cold, matter-of-fact voice, as of things about which she was no longer able to suffer. "So, there I was—on the street," she went on. "You have always had money, a comfortable home, education, friends to help you—all that. You can't imagine ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair
... just cleared the table and poured out our coffee when a woman came in to say, in a matter-of-fact tone, that there was hard fighting going on across the valley. She added calmly, as she dipped our plates into a tub, that an obus had just fallen a mile or two off, and that if we liked we could see ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... region, as hard as iron, and which will doubtless last quite as long as Southey's works retain any vitality in English literature. It is not a monument fit for a poet. There is nothing airy or graceful about it,—and, indeed, there cannot he many men so solid and matter-of-fact as to deserve a tomb like that. Wordsworth's grave is much better, with only a simple headstone, and the grass growing over his mortality, which, for a thousand years, at least, it never can over ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... many a real charm to counter-balance these lost illusions. He that really knows it, like an ardent lover with his mistress' imperfections, would have no difference; even the Guadalquivir, so matter-of-fact, really so prosaic, has an unimagined attractiveness; the crowded shipping, the hurrying porters, add to that sensation of vivacity which is of Seville the most fascinating characteristic. And Seville is an epitome of Andalusia, with its life and ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... The professions at which I felt I had the latent power to excel, were I but given a chance, were in a sphere far above us, and to mention my feelings and ambitions to my matter-of-fact practical mother would bring upon me worse ridicule than I was already forced to endure day ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... then: make me happy," said Vince to another sun-browned lad whom he had just encountered among the furze and heather—all gold and purple in the sunny islet where they dwelt—and in the most matter-of-fact way he took off his jacket; and then began a more difficult task, which made him appear like some peculiar animal struggling out of its skin: for he proceeded to drag off the tight blue worsted ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... Some matter-of-fact traditions concerning the author were furnished, a few years since, by a son of the farmer, who was sixteen years of age at the time Goldsmith resided with his father. Though he had engaged to board with the family, his meals were generally sent to him in his room, in which he passed the most ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... whispered, "I don't like you a bit. Really and truly I don't.... Now, now, no more.... Maoni can hear you, I'm sure. The idea of your going away for two days—two whole days—and marching calmly up to me and telling me of it in such a rude, matter-of-fact manner. You are unkind.... Don't.... I don't like you, Harvey... I'll tell father that you went away and left me for two whole days—to go fishing and pig-shooting, and poor Mr. Atkins had to look after me, and... ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... tact should be applied. He soothed the outraged mother and tranquillised the ecstatic daughter, and then in a matter-of-fact voice asked: "And what about the date? Do let's ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... theories as to the origin of language, which, for shortness, may be defined as the poetic and the matter-of-fact. The former (of which M. Ernest Renan is one of the most eloquent advocates) supposes a primitive race or races endowed with faculties of cognition and expression so perfect and so intimately responsive one to the other, that the name of a thing came ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... This matter-of-fact reply silenced Lucy. She would have asked, perhaps, why did I have all this money? being in a questioning frame of mind; but she knew that he would answer shortly because her father made it, and this was not any more satisfactory. So she only looked at him with ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... age of idols for China as well as for India; and the old Chinese house, once empty, swept and garnished by Confucianism, was now filled with a mob of unclean spirits each worse than the first. With more courageous logic than the more matter-of-fact Chinese, the Tibetan erected his prayer-mills[29] and let the winds of heaven and the flowing waters continually multiply his prayers and holy syllables. And these inventions were duly imported into Japan, and even now are ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... politician and a courtier, a man of the world, a mathematician engaged in the soberest details of the science, he has given to the world, in the simplest and most natural language, a series of speculations upon the great mystery of being: detailed, matter-of-fact narratives of revelations from the spiritual world, which at once appall us by their boldness, and excite our wonder at their extraordinary method, logical accuracy, and perfect consistency. These remarkable speculations—the workings ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... thought about it," she went on in her serious monotone. I don't think she even noticed my exasperated silence. "It is of no use for Allan to come and preach his wordly wisdom to me; we do not measure things by the same standard, he and I. You are better, Esther, but your hard matter-of-fact reasoning shocks me sometimes." ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... war lost half 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 ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... how he did things. He set out to find a wife in the same matter-of-fact manner. He met many women; but Lucia Fennell was the only one who set his pulse beating a little faster. He felt it a shame that he should be so weak. They were at a dinner-party at the country home of ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... drowsy rhythm. What more delightful than to yield yourself entirely to the present mood and wander off somewhere, aimless except to see and feel? The trim soberness of the dusty road with its gray windings and vistas of sand-ruts becomes less matter-of-fact at length, and so you leave it to itself, and seek a path that leads to the heart of Nature and far from ways of men. Down grassy slopes and over little hillocks that pique your curiosity by shutting out the view of ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... came she made that statement to them in a plain matter-of-fact way, and just as if the thought never entered her mind that any one could doubt it after she had given her word that it was true. The men were evidently amazed and impressed to hear her say such a thing in such a sure and confident way, for prophecies boldly uttered never ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... own fertile and beautiful lands; but so it was. Perhaps the general German folk, with their speculative, easygoing, almost sentimental tendencies, needed this hard nucleus of Prussianism—and its matter-of-fact, organizing type of ability—to ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... had expected, and waited for, this message, and now it had come, she was almost afraid to read it. There were only a few words, cold and formal, the usual matter-of-fact, businesslike phraseology of ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... come here, where I know I am not welcome, upon business," he said in a calm, matter-of-fact voice. "I am tired of this place, and I think it is time that we attained the object of our journey here, namely, to find the hidden gold. That, as we all know, can only be done in a certain way, through ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... you fellows to ask how I'm getting on with Bully," and Nestie's eyes lit up with fun, for he'd a nice little sense of humour, and never could resist the temptation of letting it play upon our slow-witted, matter-of-fact intellects. "And I declare you seem to know all about what h-happens. I'll j-just tell you something about it, but it'll make you creepy," and then all the circle gathered in round Nestie. "I have to rise at five in the morning, and if I'm not down at half-past, Bulldog ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... alike everywhere. The English kiss that his sister Jenny had given him when he left home had said the same thing to him that the Vrouw van Gend's Dutch kiss said to Peter. Ludwig had taken his share of the farewell in the most matter-of-fact manner possible, and though he loved his sister well, had winced a little at her making such a child of him as to put an extra kiss "for mother" ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... you expect?" he answered in a matter-of-fact tone, "when you spend all your time in a cold, black church full of bones and ghosts? Wait till I get you away from there, wait till we're over in God's country, living in a nice little house out in Orange, N. J., ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... observations; and—what was the question that broke the silence—the exact time or the day of the month? anyhow, it was spoken without the least awkwardness; in the most matter-of-fact way in the world; and then Jacob began to unbutton his clothes and sat naked, save for his shirt, intending, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... the finish, if it can be, showing, in their wear, as little of dust, soiling, and fly dirt as possible. There is no poetry about common housekeeping. Cooking, house-cleaning, washing, scrubbing, sweeping, are altogether matter-of-fact duties, and usually considered work, not recreation; and these should all be made easy of performance, and as seldom to be done as possible; although the first item always was, and always will be, and the last item should be, an every-day vocation for somebody; and the manner of ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... murders her in the act, that her nobler and purer self may be preserved. Such a crime might be committed in a momentary aberration, or even intense excitement, of feeling. It is characterized here by a matter-of-fact simplicity, which is its sign of madness. The distinction, however, is subtle; and we can easily guess why this and its companion poem did not retain their title. A madness which is fit for dramatic treatment is not sufficiently ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... (or action) to the place he did, he refused to see that the action he prized was more valuable through the thought it developed; consequently he reduced all actions to the same level, and prided himself upon stripping a deed of all its marvellousness or majesty. He did uncommon things in such a matter-of-fact way that he made them common by the performance. The faint spiritual double which I found lurking behind his steel and iron he either solidified with his metallic touch or pertinaciously denied ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... is rested," said 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 ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... thick bushes which concealed the gulf below, and as they approached these bushes the rain abruptly ceased, and the clouds began to break and drift away in the sky. "Two of you seize the girl and throw her over," said Tourmaline in a calm, matter-of-fact way, "and two others must throw the boy over. It may take four, perhaps, to lift ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... all come about in the most natural and matter-of-fact way. Mira had persisted for full an hour in her determination not to dance, but again and again had Willett and Sanders implored,—Willett with eyes as eloquent as his tongue. "None of these other ladies had yet really learned the step. Everybody longed to see it. Everybody ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... differently when he said: "'I'd rather be a kitten and cry, Mew!' than write the best poetry in the world on condition of laying aside common-sense in the ordinary transactions and business of the world."[17] "He thought," said Lockhart, "that to spend some fair portion of every day in any matter-of-fact occupation is good for the higher faculties themselves in the upshot."[18] Whether or not we consider this the ideal theory of life for a poet, we find it reasonable to suppose that a critic will be the better ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... of a diligence could be heard a league away along the highroad. The two longest sides of the square, separated by an avenue of lindens, were built in the simple style which expresses so well the peaceful and matter-of-fact life of the bourgeoisie. No signs of commerce were to be seen; on the other hand, the luxurious porte-cocheres of the rich were few, and those few turned seldom on their hinges, excepting that of Monsieur Martener, a physician, whose profession obliged him to keep a cabriolet, and to use ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... tapers a spire, or plants a pleasure-ground. Nay, is not this very 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
... corroboration of this one event very often served to puzzle me afterwards, when I listened to stories in which the major seemed a second Munchausen, but might, like in this of the duel, have been among the truest and most matter-of-fact of historians. May the reader be not less embarrassed than myself, is my sincere, if not ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... directly," Harriet said, in a matter-of-fact voice. "Get at your Spanish, Nina, and I'll be with ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... it aloud, for the vague pepper-and-salt took on familiar lines suddenly, and the matter-of-fact little features scattered so indistinguishably, as it were, though the boyishly round face became obviously one with the much-photographed trader-prince; it was Absolom Vail, ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... then seventy-five years old, and since 1862 accustomed to undisputed power, demurred to the wish of the Emperor that the other ministers should have access to him directly, and not as heretofore only through the chancellor. It is said too that the matter-of-fact and somewhat cynical Bismarck, had but scanty respect for the mystical view of his grandfather as a saint, that the Emperor everywhere proclaimed. In 1896, the 20th of February, in speaking of his grandfather, he refers to him as: "The Emperor William, that personality ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... ant, a sensual ant, an ant capable of any one of the seven deadly sins, or even of a small venial sin, is unimaginable. Equally unimaginable, of course, a romantic ant, an ideological ant, a poetical ant, or an ant inclined to metaphysical speculations. No human mind could attain to the absolute matter-of-fact quality of the ant-mind;—no human being, as now constituted, could cultivate a mental habit so impeccably practical as that of the ant. But this superlatively practical mind is incapable of moral error. It would ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... specific are the chapters from Mr. Ralph D. Paine and Mr. Burton J. Hendrick. In "Bound Coastwise" Mr. Paine has treated, with knowledge, sympathy, and imagination, an important phase of our commercial life. As an example of narrative-exposition, matter-of-fact yet touched with the romance of those who "go down to the sea in ships," the excerpt is thoroughly admirable. Mr. Hendrick, in entertaining and profitable wise, tells the story of what he considers "probably ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... on the business men of the city of Boston and the legislature of the State of Massachusetts was the most remarkable phenomenon of the kind ever witnessed in that frugal and matter-of-fact community, for he had only to announce that he wanted for his museum or department in the University a donation or an appropriation, to obtain either, so absolutely recognized was his unselfish devotion ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... you fail in, Alice?" she asked, in the most matter-of-fact tone she could assume. She knew that here in public was ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... 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 ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... seeing it, I was conscious that all this was taking place around us, and then I heard Sergeant Corney say to the general, in a matter-of-fact tone: ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... controversialist skilled only in the use of the rapier and compelled at times to enter the lists with those who wielded the bludgeon, a subtle humourist who must 'carry on' with the prosaic and matter-of-fact, a lover of his own fireside who must of necessity be socially advertised with the vulgar, his spirit dwelt apart from the busy world in which ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... motives to dominate him to the exclusion of the other. Absolutism has long since ceased to speak slightingly of physical science, and of the world of perception. It is conceded that motions must be known in the mechanical way, and matters of fact in the matter-of-fact way. Furthermore, the prestige which science enjoyed in the nineteenth century, and the prestige which the empirical and secular world of action has enjoyed to a degree that has steadily increased since the Renaissance, have convinced the absolutist ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... your majesty, seems to me fanciful in the extreme; but I am a plain matter-of-fact man, and do not see visions and ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... to him at all and also in greater degree than that in which they really do: whereas the Reserved man, on the contrary, denies those which really belong to him or else depreciates them, while the mean character being a Plain-matter-of-fact person is Truthful in life and word, admitting the existence of what does really belong to him and making it neither greater ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... and all that I held—including your own self—have I relinquished. It is perhaps fitting. Haply I am punished for having wed you before I had wooed you." Again his tone changed, it grew more cold, more matter-of-fact. "I rode this way a little while ago a hunted man, my only hope to reach home and collect what moneys and valuables I could carry, and make for the coast to find a vessel bound for Holland. I have been engaged, as you know, in stirring up rebellion ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... in the hut discussing various matters. At last John crawled to the door and looked out. He was rather a matter-of-fact boy in his way, and there seemed no special excitement in his voice as he remarked: "Well, Rob, ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... enter into competition with him, so went back a first and second time to Maury when the man would not let him come aboard, whereupon Maury brought the ship to with two or three shots and Jimmy made a third attempt, and forced the Frenchman to show his papers. He tells it in such a matter-of-fact way! No extravagance, no idea of having been in a dangerous situation, he a boy of eighteen, on a French ship in spite of the Captain's rage. What a jolly life it must be! Now dashing in storms and danger, now floating in ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... in a matter-of-fact way, "it's a very pleasant expression, isn't it? But it doesn't mean anything in particular. ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... his own business more strictly than the dove. On the ground, where he came for corn, he seemed to see no other bird, and paid not the slightest heed to me in my window, but went about his own affairs in the most matter-of-fact way. Yet I cannot agree with the common opinion, which has made his name a synonym for all that is meek and gentle. He has a will of his own, and a "mild but firm" way of securing it. Sometimes, when all were busy at the corn, one of my Quaker-clad guests would take a notion, for ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... pretended to be, helpless in the wind that was blowing her down the deck as she clung to the rail, and, quietly taking her by the arm, he pulled her back to the door, where he held her until she was safely inside. This was all done in a perfectly matter-of-fact manner, and she might as well have been a steamer rug that was in danger of being blown overboard. Then before she had time to thank him, the door was blown shut, and he had resumed his solitary walk ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... afternoon, a real homesickness for his mother. He saw her, ample and comfortable and sane, so busy with the comforts of the body that she seemed to ignore the soul, and yet bringing healing with her every matter-of-fact movement. ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... not much fun in teasing Kitty, she was too matter-of-fact, so King turned his attentions to Marjorie, and with apparent innocence kicked out his foot just in time for her to stumble over it. This led to a general scrimmage, in which two Maynards, two sofa-pillows, and a footstool became very much tangled up, and Mr. Maynard ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... well," Tom said, in the dull matter-of-fact way that he had, "only I get mixed up ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... had to tell his story—from the time, that is, when his adoptive father and mother died. He told it in such a simple matter-of-fact way, yet with such quaint remarks, from their very simplicity difficult to understand, that, if the old lady, for all her trying, was not able quite to believe his tale, it was because she doubted whether the boy was not one of God's ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... upon the occasion that calls it forth, upon the person writing it and upon the person for whom it is intended. Whether it should be easy or formal in style, plain or ornate, light or serious, gay or grave, sentimental or matter-of-fact ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... and matter-of-fact query was variously received. Mrs. Dunn frowned and flushed. Malcolm frowned, also. Steve nodded emphatic approval. As for Caroline, she gazed at her ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... no word to answer this and could but harp again upon all the promise of his fine resolution. When the matter-of-fact official came to find him, Lois was close in his embrace and there were tears ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... will," answered Nick, with a hundred per cent, more confidence than he felt. A confidence somewhat increased, however, by last evening's success. "Do I begin at the neck or the waist?" he inquired in his most matter-of-fact voice, as if he were about to cord a box, or nail up ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... 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 ...
— Invasion • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... singular in one so young. It led you to suspect that the short seventeen years of her life had robbed her of all the anticipation and eagerness that is accustomed to pulse in strong young blood, and filled her with experiences that compelled her to accept existence in a half bored and wholly matter-of-fact way. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... through an essentially savage childhood of ogres and fairies, bows and arrows, sugar-plums and barbaric nursery tales, as well as a romantic boyhood of mediaeval chivalry and adventure, before they steady down into that crowning glory of our race, the solid, sober, matter-of-fact, commercial British Philistine. Hence the coco-nut in its unstripped state is roughly triangular in form, its angles answering to the separate three fruits of simpler palms; and it has three pits or weak places in the shell, through ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... Mediumship a department of Spiritualism capable of plain, matter-of-fact investigation, which could be conducted in writing and demanding no special powers of observation, the duty of investigation devolved mainly upon the ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... and the rest, headed by their captain, advanced aft, compelling, as he did so, all the seamen and passengers he met to give up their arms. The best way I can express our sensations is to say that we all felt very small; at least I did, I know. The pirates set about the business in such a quiet, matter-of-fact sort of way, that I cannot say I was in any way alarmed as to the result of the affair. Having disarmed everybody fore and aft, the pirates proceeded to get what they wanted. The mate—at least, so I supposed the man called Antonio to be—pulled out a huge pocket-book, and in the ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... in his mind as to the sincerity of Nevins. It is clear that this strange man, who, in a matter-of-fact way, asserts that he holds the power of a great convention in his grasp, could have used it for base ends; he could have chosen a man of less ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... have seemed comic communicated in that matter-of-fact tone, but somehow it struck me as tragic. That this vain, self-contained, and reticent man should confess to the frailty of humanity to a man he disliked was the measure of ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... head was cut off—it tries to get at the place with its right foot. You now cut off its right foot: the headless body deliberates, and after a while tries to do with its left foot what it can no longer do with its right. Plain matter-of-fact people will draw their own inference. They will not be seduced from the superficial view of the matter. They will say that the headless body can still, to some extent, feel, think, and act, and if so, that it must ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... see, good-naturedly ascribes the danger to mere carelessness, in bringing the torch too near to the hedge, or tossing it away at daybreak. But Varro, a more matter-of-fact observer, does not disguise the plain truth, that these disasters were often the product of pure malicious frolic. For instance, in recommending a certain kind of quickset fence, he insists upon it, as one of its advantages, that it will not readily ignite under the torch of the mischievous wayfarer: ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... request," rejoined Lady Blakeney in a more quiet, more matter-of-fact tone of voice. "You must represent me, here, when I am gone: explain as casually and as naturally as you can, that I have gone to join my husband on his yacht for a few days. Lucie, my maid, is devoted and a tower of secrecy; she will stand ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... there is none like him." A man of very little education, whom I met a day or two after in the stage-coach, observed to me: "Bright is far the more eloquent of the two, but Cobden is more felt, just because his speeches are so plain, so merely matter-of-fact and to the point." ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli |
