"Matter-of-fact" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... into the house with Peggy Blackton did Aldous feel that he had descended firmly upon his feet once more into a matter-of-fact world. MacDonald was waiting with the horses, and Blackton was pointing over toward the steel workers, and was saying something about ten thousand pounds of black powder and dynamite and a mountain that had stood a million years and was going to be ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... most matter-of-fact coolness, "Nan came in long ago. I told her about it, and it seems she went to see Tira off her own bat, and ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... still more because of my fine physical condition, I was disposed toward a large charity. And yet I could not help wondering how some that I saw could walk among their roses and still look so glum and matter-of-fact. I felt as if I could kiss every ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... protested that she was going with him, but he patiently declined, kissing her in a matter-of-fact sort of way as he pulled on the old overcoat and the new gloves, and slamming the hall door behind him ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... no attention to the discussion concerning their fitness, of which indeed they did not know a great deal, but came together in a matter-of-fact way, precisely as they would have assembled to transact ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... the doctrine of Platonic love—an exquisitely refined intercourse, but much better adapted to the ideal inhabitants of his imaginary island of Atlantis than to the sturdy race, composed of rebellious flesh and blood, which populates the little matter-of-fact island ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... easily fill a book, of cases where men plodding along in a matter-of-fact way, were all at once aroused and as if awakening from a slumber they developed the possibilities within them and from that time on were different persons. You alone can decide when the turning point will come. It is a matter of choice whether we allow our diviner self to control ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... every way. Marion was such a dear girl, so sweet-tempered and light-hearted; just the temperament that Fred needed in a wife, to save him from becoming mentally heavy and stolid and too unemotional. Fred was so matter-of-fact! Her eagerness to have Marion come into the mining-claim scheme had not been altogether a friendly desire for companionship, as she pretended. Deep in the back of her mind was the matchmaker's belief that propinquity would prove a mighty factor in bringing ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... responded in a matter-of-fact tone. "I'll just crawl under it. What's giving me most trouble is the question of grub. They didn't leave you any too much, ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... astounding, so utterly incredible—and yet it was told so simply, and with such an utter lack of all straining after effect: the man made no attempt to impress me with the marvel of it all; his tone and manner were those of one who told of the most matter-of-fact, everyday occurrences. Besides, if he were not telling the truth, how could he possibly have come to know the name which had been given me by Lomalindela, the King of the Mashona?— for I was perfectly certain that ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... they are," she agreed, in a matter-of-fact tone. "You did not give me a chance last night to tell you how splendid you were in tackling that crazy mob. I witnessed it all, you know. Madame Obosky ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... 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
... be much cheaper and better to hire some skillful artist to do these things?" said Jill, taking refuge in matter-of-fact. ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... 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
... magistrate, landlord, and county gentleman. "They seem to think up here that a fellow has nothing to do but 'take the chair,'" he wrote. "I can tell you I'm pretty sick of it, and fancy that they will be before long. I'm an awkward customer when I'm bored—as I am now, damnably." She sent him matter-of-fact replies, and wrote ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... the world gone wild have looked into the face of death and smiled. Through all our bitter tears we knew how beautiful it was to die for that which our souls called sufficient. Like all true beauty this thing of dying was so simple, so matter-of-fact. The boy clothed in his splendid youth stood before us and laughed in his own jolly way,—went and was gone. Suddenly the world was full of the fragrance of sacrifice. We left our digging and burden-bearing; we turned from our scraping and twisting of things and words; ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... a quiet and matter-of-fact acceptance of her duties, placed her iron once more upon the chain, and bent herself to the task with well-accustomed effort of ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... seem disconnected, and he did as a matter of fact once publish it separately; yet it sets off (in the same sort of felicitous manner of which Shakespeare's clown-scenes and others are the capital examples in literature) both the slightly matter-of-fact details of the beatification of the valley and the various minute sketches of places and folk, and the almost superhuman goodness of Benassis, and his intensely and piteously human suffering and remorse. It is like the red cloak in a group; it lights, ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... for it, wasn't he?" answered Yeager in a matter-of-fact voice. He did not intend by an expression of sympathy to aid in any breakdown here. That could come later when they had put many miles ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... people twenty-five years ago, and I am sure every foreigner who came to England must have laughed at them. On the whole, I would say of German women in general what a Frenchwoman once said to me in the most matter-of-fact tone of Englishwomen, ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... Wartburg, as were the Teuton Sigurd and Dietrich. And if the Carolingian cycle survived, however much altered, I think it must have been thanks to the burghers and artizans of the Netherlands and of Provence, to whom the bluff, matter-of-fact heroism, the simple, gross, but not illegitimate amours of Carolingian heroes, were more satisfactory than any mystic quest of the Grail, any refined ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... marvelous things in one another's eyes," retorted Bess in a matter-of-fact way; "but I say again: Wouldn't it ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... discussing political problems with the sound common sense of peaceful, matter-of-fact citizens—agreeing on one point: that they would never be free. And Mont-Valerien thundered ceaselessly, demolishing the houses of the French with its cannon balls, grinding lives of men to powder, destroying many a dream, many a cherished hope, many ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... bedtime was sufficiently tedious, as both of us were naturally much preoccupied. My husband wrote a letter to mamma, telling her of our safe arrival, and of his intense happiness. After which he asked me if I would go to bed, in the most matter-of-fact way imaginable. I murmured an affirmative, scarcely knowing what to say. He rang for a candle, and told me he would follow shortly. It seemed like a dream to me. The maid showed me to a room containing a large four-post ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... This also contained paper. The third box held a quantity of counterfeits, the amount of which made even the matter-of-fact ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... reached him of Michael, nor had Margaret had any word of her lover through the Iretons. Freddy was comforting himself with the assurance that the war had satisfactorily driven him out of Margaret's mind. She seldom mentioned his name in her letters, which were as brief and matter-of-fact as his own. ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... 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 ...
— Different Girls • Various
... the fragments of the ruined cabinet, but was rewarded by no hollow ring. It was a most undutifully matter-of-fact and prosaic piece of furniture in its interior, however much it may have pleased the aesthetic sense outwardly. He gave it up after a time, and finished dressing. "Nothing in that but firewood," he announced to Jones, who had been watching ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... that afternoon to announce that the Boers meant to attack in force, the colonel, though always ready to doubt the information received and the possibility of the black spies' surmises being correct, felt that he was warranted in making every preparation; and this was set about in a calm, matter-of-fact way. ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... capable of comprehending the Duchess's great qualities. It was impossible less to resemble each other. The one adored grandeur even to the romantic and the chimerical, the other was entirely positive and matter-of-fact, and absorbed with her own interest, especially in those relating to her property. Alienated from the Fronde through the jealous hatred she bore towards her stepmother, who in turn liked her almost as little, ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... the young orator expected to be another moment of great interest really came as a matter-of-fact ending to a long and triumphant canvass. He had held victory in his hand until she was tamed. The election simply confirmed the universal prophecy. He was elected, and while the Democrats went wild with joy, Bradley slept quietly ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... her that she would, and that all these things would come some day. He sighed inwardly and wondered, not for the first time, where the link could possibly lie between the matter-of-fact mother and the strange child of fancy. There was nothing to do but attribute the phenomenon to Mister, the whimsical knight of the open road. The boarder asked what he should bring Kern from the party: he feared they wouldn't have writing-desks, ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... accounts of this renowned naval engagement. The first reports published in Europe were characterized by contradictions sufficient to confuse any reader. This variance was noted by the London Daily News in the following manner: "The sceptic who called history a matter-of-fact romance, should have lived in our day, when a naval action is fought off Cherbourg on a Sunday, and reported to the London and Paris newspapers on the Monday morning, no two reports agreeing in any single fact, except ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne
... tried to kill you," said Dawson in his most matter-of-fact tone. "I happened along just in time to joggle his arm. That, and your quick drop, did the ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... 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
... farmhouse was timely, for the unexpected appearance in their midst of one whom they looked upon as surely dead had stunned and bewildered the family to such an extent that it needed the presence of just such a matter-of-fact, self-possessed woman as Bell to bring things back to their original shape. It was wonderful how the city girl fitted into the vacant niches, seeing to everything which needed seeing to, and still finding time to steal away alone with Lieutenant Bob, who kept her in ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... repeated, in the most matter-of-fact tone, "I should say nothing, in your place. ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... up straight and made a slight gesture as if brushing something away, and thenceforward answered him in as matter-of-fact a way as he ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... visionary way of talking sometimes, Rose," replied Annette, as her friend ceased speaking. "All that may do for your transcendentalists, or whatever you call them; but it won't do when you come down to the practical matter-of-fact ...
— Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine • T. S. Arthur
... doctor protested in matter-of-fact tones, "to kill yourself, to put yourself in such a position for a man, who is no longer a man. For a man you cannot love," ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... half-an-hour gone, and here I am sending this letter after you, like a handkerchief you had forgotten. I have one or two things to say, quite matter-of-fact and simple things, but I cannot think of them sensibly for joy of the certainty that you love me. Of course I knew it all the time, but I couldn't be at ease until I had heard it from your own lips; and now I feel almost afraid of my great ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... purely unofficial opinion, I should not imagine that London is very much dissatisfied with this denouement. His Majesty's government are a hard-headed and matter-of-fact set of gentry who do not relish mysteries, least of all mysteries whose solution may be more ...
— He Walked Around the Horses • Henry Beam Piper
... speak. And nothing had happened, nothing: she had done her very best to listen amidst the bustle outside and around her ... and yet nothing, nothing! Meanwhile she had raised her head to breathe ... and the people were leaving and she had to go with them: it was finished! It had all been so matter-of-fact, just like the communion-practice of yesterday, when she had merely swallowed a morsel of bread. Her heart beat in perplexity and she feared that she had made an ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... a great many times, but it did not enlighten me at all as to his intentions about marrying Charlotte Benson. It was very matter-of-fact, but that Richard's letters always were. Evidently he had thought the same of it himself, as he read it over, and had added the postscript. But that did not seem very enthusiastic. Altogether I was not happy, waiting for ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... 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 them ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various
... 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 ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... presenting it to the Emperor Francis and King Frederick William, the Czar is said to have acted with an air of great mystery. The King of Prussia, a pious man, signed the treaty in seriousness; the Emperor of Austria, who possessed a matter-of-fact humour, said that if the paper related to doctrines of religion, he must refer it to his confessor, if to secrets of State, to Prince Metternich. What the confessor may have thought of the Czar's political evangel is not known: the ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... knew him well has described his character. "He was a youth of exemplary habits, of indomitable will and undoubted courage. He was not what is nowadays termed brilliant, but he was one of those untiring, matter-of-fact persons who would never give up an undertaking until he accomplished his object. He learned slowly, but what he got into his head he never forgot. He was not quick to decide, except when excited, and then, when he made up his mind to do a thing, he did it on short notice and ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... all right," said Holt, in his matter-of-fact voice. "And this really is she. She has come ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... fair hair, was a great contrast to Rosamund Cunliffe. She was exceedingly clever and fond of books. Most of her tastes lay, however, in a scientific direction. She was devoted to chemistry and mathematics, and could already work well in these two branches of science. She was intensely matter-of-fact, and in reality had nothing whatever in common ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... had been David and Jonathan from their little boy days, no less friends because they were so unlike; Marty, a quiet, brooding, knowledge-hungry youngster, and J.W. matter-of-fact, taking things as they came and asking few questions, but always the leader in games and mischief; each the other's ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... regions of thought where Venus, and Cupid, and Calliope, and other sister muses bask in filmy clouds of golden maze. Here she realized among her ideal heroes and heroines, life as she wished it to be. Perhaps this was why her inclinations were just a little skeptical when she viewed life in its matter-of-fact phases. ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... good, honest father, who had a plain matter-of-fact way of looking at matters. "Do not tell me of making live figures out of snow. Come, wife; this little stranger must not stay out in the bleak air a moment longer. We will bring her into the parlor; and you shall give her ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... killed, the possibility of the killing being doubted by some, because of the enchantment in my clothes. And yet it was nothing but an ordinary suit of fifteen-dollar slop-shops. Still, I was sane enough to notice this detail, to wit: many of the terms used in the most matter-of-fact way by this great assemblage of the first ladies and gentlemen in the land would have made a Comanche blush. Indelicacy is too mild a term to convey the idea. However, I had read "Tom Jones," and "Roderick Random," and other books of that kind, and knew that the highest and first ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the window, unfastened the shutters, 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 of things went on. Then I flung away ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... the window watching the moon fight its way amidst torn black clouds and flinging glittering doles upon the black and swollen waters. She put her hand on his shoulder as a man might have done and said in a matter-of-fact tone: ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... 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 ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... matter-of-fact question, but I instantly saw my mistake. What right had I to assume that Enriquez' attentions were any more genuine than her own easy indifference; and if I suspected that they were, was it fair in me to give my friend away to this heartless coquette? "You are not very gallant," she said, with ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... put in practice the terrible apparatus of degradation. Modern historians of chivalry have not failed to describe in detail all the rites of this solemn punishment, and we have presented to us a scene which is well calculated to excite the imagination of the most matter-of-fact, and to make the most ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... of reminiscences and the 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 ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... lived her life in a canyon. The burden upon her did not weigh heavily. She could not have an unhappy thought. She spoke of the village, of her Mormon companions, of daily happenings, of Stonebridge, of many things in a matter-of-fact way that showed how little they occupied her mind. She even spoke of sealed wives in a kind of dreamy abstraction. Something had possession of her, something as strong as the nature which had developed her, and in its power she, in her simplicity, was utterly unconscious, a watching and ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... never get over her wonder at their stolidity, their endless patience, their matter-of-fact way of carrying on life under a cataclysm. They went on with their spading in the fields, while shrapnel was pinging. They trotted up and down a road that was pock-marked with shell-holes. They hung out their washings where machine-gun bullets could aerate them. The fierce, early weeks ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... the matter-of-fact, business-like earnestness of his son. He felt quite as much interest in the action of the boys as they did to learn his opinion ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... What on earth are you poking up here for at this time of day?" was the matter-of-fact greeting. "You are to hurry up and come into our house and stay to dinner. Mother said you are allowed, so you needn't stop to ask permission; and, just think, the box that grandma sent from England has arrived, and it is full of all ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... routine and duty and the honorable tradition of his calling. Manifestly his present business is epic and the making of epic, if he knew it; yet not knowing it he grasps things, as the epic paladins always grasp them, by the matter-of-fact, not the heroic, handle. What better stories have the poets to tell than that of Captain Parslow, a Briton if ever there was one, who, refusing to surrender, saved his ship in a submarine attack at the cost of his own life? Mortally wounded as he stood on ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... 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 ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... inquests, and the dread machinery of the law started, with results not in foresight except by Heaven. Before he had fairly recovered, Nilo had the sedan out and the poles fixed to it, and in the most cheerful, matter-of-fact manner signed him to take up the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... insignificant and so undersized that it seemed impossible to imagine him a famous Englishman. His very voice, in its level, matter-of-fact tones, added to the suggestion ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... down the goblet, and gently wiping from his lips the beads of water freshly clinging there as to the valve of a coral-shell upon a reef, he turned upon the cosmopolitan, and, in a manner the most cool, self-possessed, and matter-of-fact possible, said: "I hold to the metempsychosis; and whoever I may be now, I feel that I was once the stoic Arrian, and have inklings of having been equally puzzled by a word in the current language of that former time, very probably answering to your ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... in a matter-of-fact way. I decided that he was mad. That was not surprising. We were all mad, in one way or another or at one time or another. It was the unusual form of madness that astonished me. I envied him his particular "kink." ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... be alone: there are always plenty of people to take into one's house. If you are lonely, why don't you get somebody to live with you, or you might be married," she added, in as purely matter-of-fact a tone, as she would have said, "you might take a journey," or "you might build on a wing ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... talked with him he told me of days passed with my heroes—Fremont, Carson, Ashley, Bill Williams, Jim Bridger, even the negro ruffian Beckwourth—all men of the border of whose deeds I had read. Auberry had trapped from the St. Mary's to the sources of the Red, and his tales, told in simple and matter-of-fact terms, set my very blood atingle. He was bound, as he informed me, for Laramie; always provided that the Sioux, now grown exceedingly restless over the many wagon-trains pushing up the Platte to all the swiftly-opening West, had not by this time swooped down ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... system of insuring numbers is at present practised to a fearful extent in this city, and as its votaries are mostly the ignorant and unthinking portion of the community, we proceed to give a plain matter-of-fact investigation of ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... few moods in which he himself is inclined to it." (It may be noted that Rowland had heard him a dozen times affirm the flat reverse of all this.) "If I had only been a painter—a little quiet, docile, matter-of-fact painter, like our friend Singleton—I should only have to open my Ariosto here to find a subject, to find color and attitudes, stuffs and composition; I should only have to look up from the page at that mouldy old fountain against the blue sky, at that cypress alley wandering away like ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... 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 ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... 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 poetic; but Generals in Washington may ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... on gray paint backgrounds. There was a very small airfield inside the barbed-wire fence about the post, and elaborate machine-shops, and rows and rows of barracks and a canteen and a USO theatre, and a post post-office. Everything seemed quite matter-of-fact. ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... which is known only as a woodcut, has a good deal in common with this description. The ninth and tenth of Sabellico's thirteen Elegies on the Mother of God contain a minute account of her triumph, richly adorned with allegories, and especially interesting from that matter-of-fact air which also characterizes the realistic painting ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... Kennedy, in the most matter-of-fact manner, as though he were discussing an ordinary campaign for social betterment. "How ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... on the wall, and came toward her with the confident air of one sure they must be friends. Mrs. Munger was dressed in a dark, firm woollen stuff, which communicated its colour, if not its material, to the matter-of-fact bonnet which she wore on her plainly dressed hair. In one of her hands, which were cased in driving gloves of somewhat insistent evidence, she carried a robust black silk sun-umbrella, and the effect of her dress otherwise might be summarised ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... suspected something like this. It's difficult to imagine Dick Blake's going into anything so sober and matter-of-fact as the paint business. Have you known ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... expression. "Men talking about him who——" He looked down sidewise at Dosia and closed his lips tightly. No man was more respectable than he,—respectability might be said to be his cult,—yet he lived in daily, matter-of-fact touch with a world of men wherein "ladies" were a thing apart. No man was ever kept from any sort of confidence by the fact of George Sutton's presence. His feeling for Barr and toleration of his shortcomings were partly due to the fact that George himself ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... compensation as may be desired. In other trades, professions, and lines of life, men are paid according to their work. Let it be so in the Church. Such will sooner or later be the edict of a utilitarian, reforming, matter-of-fact ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... accomplished squire would have been there, not figuratively but in his imposing person. Family explanations were admissible a century and a half ago; public declarations were sometimes a point of honour; bodily prostration was by no means exploded; matter-of-fact squires knelt like romantic knights; Sir Charles Grandison and Sir Roger de Coverley bent as low for their own purposes as fantastic gauze and ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... find this young man possessed of such natural gifts as would befit him for the exalted career of the sculptor, the actor, the artist, or the poet—any ideal calling; in fact, any calling but a practical, matter-of-fact vocation; though in poetry he would seem ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... "What a very matter-of-fact statement in favour of kings!" exclaimed Max Graub;—"Here is a child who does not care a button for a king as king; but she thinks he would be useful as a figure-head to dance to,— for idiotic Fashion, grouping ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... merits of an excellent dinner,—the important business of eating being occasionally interrupted by remarks upon the appearance of the corpse, his age, the disease of which he died, the probable division of his property, and the merits of the funeral discourse. This was done in such a business-like matter-of-fact manner, that my friend was astonished how the blood relations of the deceased could join ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... the other, the better world?" he asked, with a matter-of-fact surprise. "You must evoke for that task those ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... an amazing effect upon the conditions of factory industry in the trades where they work. So also, supporting and supported by the men of their own race, these Russian Jewish girls, many of them extremely young, are inspiring their fellow-workers and interpenetrating the somewhat matter-of-fact atmosphere of American trade unionism with their own militant determination and enthusiasm. With most, the strike has been their initiation into trade unionism, often the general strike in their own trade, the strike on a scale hitherto unparalleled in trades where either the whole or a ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... value of the study of the classics in a subjective point of view, nothing could possibly more thoroughly unfit a man for any immediate usefulness in this matter-of-fact world, or make him more completely a stranger in his own home, than the purely classical education which used recently to be given, and which, with some slight improvement, is believed to be still given by the universities of England. This proposition ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands
... it. Most of these displayed more zeal than mother-wit and discretion. Their Socialism was too abstract and scientific to be understood by rustics, and when they succeeded in making themselves intelligible they awakened in their hearers more suspicion than sympathy. The muzhik is a very matter-of-fact practical person, totally incapable of understanding what Americans call "hifalutin" tendencies in speech and conduct, and as he listened to the preaching of the new Gospel doubts and questionings spontaneously rose in his mind: "What do those young people, who betray their gentlefolk origin by ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... 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 ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... aristocrats of their calling, and to them that calling was as legitimate a business as is, to the roadside gypsy, the swapping of horses. The fore-parents of each had followed that same calling, and to the children it was commonplace and matter-of-fact. It held no adventure, no ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... g-good of 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, ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... more interesting a striking sketch of a banquet, containing portraits of undoubted authenticity, to the matter-of-fact announcements of the exploded letter-press—that "yesterday his Grace the Duke of Wellington entertained at dinner, at Apsley House, the Earls of Aberdeen and Liverpool, the Dukes of Richmond and Buccleuch, the Master of the Horse, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... go through 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 played by certain new performers ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... 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 the clairvoyant powers of one of us and the hypnotic powers of another. Miss Clifford, ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... said in a matter-of-fact tone, "a golden, transparent liquid. Very golden, like a warm-tinted Chablis. When water was added it became streaked and opalescent, with a kind of living quiver in it. I held it ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... an eventful one. At last I have acceded to the importunities of my friends, and have hastily sketched some of the striking incidents that go to make up my history. My life, so full of romance, may sound like a dream to the matter-of-fact reader, nevertheless everything I have written is strictly true; much has been omitted, but nothing has been exaggerated. In writing as I have done, I am well aware that I have invited criticism; but before the ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... 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 ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... Mrs. Siddons, who excelled equally in Hermione and Katherine, and threw such majesty of demeanor, such power, such picturesque effect, into both, could likewise feel and convey the infinite contrast between the ideal grace, the classical repose and imaginative charm thrown round Hermione, and the matter-of-fact, artless, prosaic nature of Katherine; between the poetical grandeur of the former, and the moral dignity of the latter,—then she certainly exceeded all that I could have imagined possible, even to her ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... been the first speaker on the tapes, and he'd given the serial and reference number in a cold, matter-of-fact voice. His face had been perfectly blank, and he looked just like the head of the FBI people were accustomed to seeing on their TV and newsreel screens. Malone wondered what had happened to him between the time the tapes had been made and the time ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... feelings, and the right enjoyment of life. Poetry expresses the inmost soul of man, and science can never take its place. Religion apart, what does the present age of science need more than poetry? What would benefit a hard-headed, matter-of-fact man of science like Professor Gazen if not the arts of the sublime and beautiful—if not a poetical ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... enough himself, and spoke in quite a matter-of-fact way, but Anice suddenly lost her color. When, later, she ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... activity, and disliked smoking; and was too matter-of-fact in her ideas, to conceive that these indulgences, merely from force of habit, might ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... This last matter-of-fact touch almost set Marjorie off again in hysterical laughter. Being eloped with by a gentleman who thoughtfully set towels and water outside her door was really too much. She pinned the tent together with a hatpin, slipped off some of her clothes—it did not seem ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... without it. The gout is pain—this is not pain; it is joy, bliss, heaven! When I am dead it must lie for ever on my breast as it lies now, or I shall never rest in my grave.' He had been talking about amulets in the most quiet and matter-of-fact way during that morning; but the I moment he produced this cross a strange change came over his face, something like the change that will come over a dull wood-fire when blown by the wind into a bright ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... saw nothing and heard nothing of the discrepancies which might mar the ancient story to far less ostentatiously matter-of-fact and mocking critics than the would-be barbarian from beyond the herring-pond. The piteous tragedy was enacted in all its terror and pathos to May. She forgot even to sigh for one of the original great open-air amphitheatres, with the cloudless blue sky of Greece overhead, which had been the fit ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... by the letter. She could have understood Ellen turning in horror and loathing from the partner of her guilt, but she could not understand this wary and matter-of-fact separation. What was her sister made of? "Harry would provide for me" ... would she really have accepted such a provision? Joanna's ears grew red. "I'll make her come home," she exclaimed savagely—"she'll have to come ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... all about the evidence at the inquest—and that was public property—she would certainly open her mind to him. Moreover, Steel knew the value of having a gossip like Mrs. Parry to aid him in gaining knowledge of the neighborhood. Finally, he saw that she was a shrewd, matter-of-fact old person, and for the sake of making his work easy it would be as well to conciliate her. He therefore sat down with a cheerful air, and prepared himself ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... tone of any letter depend 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 depend upon these ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... "What, dear?" indifferently enough, just in mechanical response to the matter-of-fact inflection of Rosalind's voice. Then she laid down her pen, smiled in a puzzled way up into her daughter's face, and added, "My ears must have played me a funny ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... not erroneous, only somehow its success is poor. You bear me witness that it fails. And it fails generally for very matter-of-fact reasons—most likely because one day we ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... and more 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 night ...
— Invasion • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... The matter-of-fact man who presided straightened his shoulders as though with relief at some sign of action; yet he did not relax his insistent gravity sufficiently to join the smile ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... and scandalized at an indifference which exceeded all they had yet encountered in the matter-of-fact Signori Inglesi. I saw one of them look quite relieved when, after quitting us, he had to listen to an excitable young Jewess endeavoring to express her raptures in the most execrable Italian. The physical effort it cost her was awful to witness, ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... against the door for a moment to gather 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
... "Make-believe frog!" echoed matter-of-fact Mrs. Grinnell. "Do you mean fraud? Well, he certainly ain't a fraud, Peace Greenfield! He's a big man. Everyone in the state knows him, pretty near. He is Dr. Campbell of the University. 'Tisn't every little girl that can have an adopted—Peace, I am afraid you ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... out men by what they do," replied Mr. Randolph in a matter-of-fact tone. "We have found blood the best in our business. You have made ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... 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 to them:—an inequality in three ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater |
