"Matter-of-fact" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Road, no possibility of the place being haunted crossed our minds. Indeed ghosts were the very last things we reckoned on, as neither of us had the slightest belief in them. Like the generality of solicitors, I am stodgy and unimaginative, whilst my wife is the most practical and matter-of-fact little woman you would meet in a day's march. Nor was there anything about the house that in any way suggested the superphysical. It was airy and light—no dark corners nor sinister staircases—and equipped throughout with all modern conveniences. We began our lease in June—the hottest ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... English-speaking worshippers, it is, perhaps, to be regretted that our revisers changed the wording of it in two or three places. The excision of "Lighten our darkness" must probably be attributed to the prosaic matter-of-fact temper which had possession of everybody and everything during the last quarter of ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... 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, and if I'm not down at half-past, Bulldog comes for me with a c-cane" ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... associated with eminent imbecility. Such men as Newton, Locke, and Bacon are not remembered and reverenced on account of their faith. By all but peddling narrow-thoughted bigots they are held in honour for their science, their matter-of-fact philosophy; not their puerile conceits about 'airy nothings,' to which half crazed supernaturalists have assigned 'a local habitation and a name.' Lord Bacon laid down principles so remote from pious, that no man can understand and philosophise in strict accordance ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... only matter-of-fact geographical and mythological information in William of Tours' History of the Crusades; for instance, in his description of the Bosphorus he does not waste a word over its beauty. But, as 'fruitful' and 'pleasant' are ever-recurring adjectives with him, one ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... 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 ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... provocation or haste, would have said that he hated Liberalism as he did Mammon, or Belial, or Moloch; that he "chose the milder fiend of Ekron as the true exponent and patron of Liberty, the God of Flies," still the matter-of-fact Glaswegians were minded to give the scoffer a wide berth. He was put up as an independent candidate in the three-cornered duel; and, as such candidates usually fare, he fared badly. The only wonder is that three hundred and nineteen students ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... 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 ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... from a chestnut that reached into the fog above them. He picked it slowly to pieces, drawing full draughts of air into his lungs. "Fifteen," he jerked out, "one time and another. 'Cumulated, you know." Pausing, he added, in a matter-of-fact voice, "What I've took would come to less'n ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 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 ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... them grew naturally out of their social system. The same may not appear to hold good at first sight with the other classes of literary men; yet it would be easy to discover the link connecting them all, and which was always traditional or matter-of-fact, if ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... of his life Buck had frequently refrained from anathema as a method of relief. Some situations were made vulgar and matter-of-fact by sulphurous ejaculation. It dulled the edge of rancor brutally, as a rock dulls ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... of them all, a picture-book illuminated in crude and joyous colors—bright reds, apple greens, golden oranges and yellows—and executed with genuine verve and fantasy. The Slavonic and Oriental legends and fairy tales are illustrated astonishingly, with a certain humor in the matter-of-fact notation of grotesque and miraculous events. The personages in the pictures are arrayed in bizarre and shimmering costumes, delightfully inaccurate; and if they represent kings and queens, are set in the midst of a fabulous pomp and glitter, and wear crowns ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... Winchester," suggested Red, in a matter-of-fact way, but he chuckled softly and listened ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... and more towards fiction, and away from newspaper articles. My dealings at this time brought me more closely into touch with magazines than with newspapers. I became more concerned with human emotions and character, but especially with emotions, than with those more abstract or again more matter-of-fact themes which had served me in the writing of ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... too much simplicity, the heathen too little of real delicacy, to indulge in the sublimities of modern love-making, at least as it is found in novels; and in the case before us both gentleman and lady will be thought, we consider, sadly matter-of-fact, or rather semi-barbarous, by the votaries of what is just now ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... 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 then he explained the situation. It ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... his normal self that afternoon—his matter-of-fact, imperceptive self—he would never have known how to answer Nan's half-desperate question, and the rose-garden might have witnessed a different ending to the scene. But Mother Mature was fighting on the side of this man-child of hers, whispering her age-old wisdom into his ears, and ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... to your father, tell him what we have found, and ask him to send the money right on," said Bob, in a matter-of-fact tone. ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... finished his story of the shooting. He had chewed gum with the slow, deliberate jaw of a cow meditating over her cud, and he had juggled the wheel of his machine and shifted his gears on hills and in sandy stretches with the same matter-of-fact deliberation. Sheriff O'Malley might be called one of the old school of rail-roosting, stick-whittling thinkers. He took his time, and he did not commit himself too impulsively to any cause. But he could act with surprising suddenness, and that made him always an ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... he think of it? Ambrose felt a little bit doubtful. Not that David wanted either courage or enterprise for such an undertaking, and if once started upon it he would be sure to carry it through with undaunted perseverance, but—he was so matter-of-fact. He would certainly say at once that it would be against rules, for he had a tiresome way of looking things straight in the face, instead of turning his eyes a little to one side when it was more convenient or pleasant to ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... rigid as marble thereby assuring the audience that she is in a "dead faint"—I say, that when we see all this performed by a travelling "star," and her truly eclectic Company, comprising a Diva, a Duenna, a Diner-out and a Devil, we are apt to look around at the placid Canadian or the matter-of-fact American audience and wonder if they understand the drift of the thing at all, the situations, the allusions, even in the slightest degree, forgetting that perhaps the most placid, most commonplace person ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... Rhoda, in such a sedate matter-of-fact tone despite her blush that DeWitt chuckled. He threw his arm across her shoulder and hugged her ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... scientific 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, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... that," returned John, "I guess it must run in the family somehow. I notice little things now and then that make me think my sister may not always be exactly a staid, matter-of-fact old lady owl." ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... that is the only promise that can galvanize them into activity, they stand idle, no matter how much humanity finds of misery and death in this decision. This statement is not a peroration to a declaration for Socialism. It seems a fair rendering of the matter-of-fact logic of the analysis. ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... men found them very pleasant to look into. To Charlie's intense satisfaction, he decided, after shaking hands with her at the door, that she had seemed just as anxious that he should come and see her again as she did that Narcisse should. Narcisse took the invitation in the most matter-of-fact manner, which created an impression in Charlie's mind that Narcisse, perhaps, after all, only cared for Jessie in a ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... delightful to my ears! "Then I am to come too," I thought to myself, but I prudently concealed from the company that I had ever had any misgivings on that point. However, the company did not concern themselves with my doubts and fears, for our two guests seemed much taken aback at this very matter-of-fact proposal of F——'s. "That won't do at all, my dear fellow," said the owner of the run; "I am going to England by the next mail steamer, which you know sails next week, and the reason I am literally giving away my property is that I don't want any suspense or bother. ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... excited or unreal about her companion's manner, she would not have thought twice about it; but her tranquillity and sweetness seemed to her very remarkable. Moreover, Fraulein Sonnenthal was strangely devoid of imagination; she was a matter-of-fact little person, not at all a likely subject for visions and delusions. Erica was perplexed. Once more there came to her that uncomfortable question: "Supposing ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... damage 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 no reports of personal injury in the Spokane area. However, communications with ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... the day. It is worth all the "great big books" upon the same subject, and, strange to say, has scarcely a spice of the leaven of party wickedness in its pages. The information is in a facete but earnest vein, and we cheerfully miss in its tone the dull preachment, the cold calculation, and matter-of-fact obstinacy of a work professing to be statistical. After a just censure upon the swarm of books on emigration, and their insufficiencies, (from which we are glad to perceive Mr. Gourlay's "really valuable and statistical account" ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... drove on, leaving them behind, he found himself possessed of the notion that the two men were strangely nervous and impatient. He decided, after he had gone a half mile farther that they had, as a matter-of-fact, acted in a very suspicious manner,—just as automobile thieves might be expected to act in the presence of an officer of the law. He made up his mind that if they were still there when he returned with his prisoner, he would yank 'em up ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... 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
... 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 be difficult, perhaps, to ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... flushed crimson at a sudden remembrance of how that conversation had ended. She was immeasurably thankful to the doctor for looking in an opposite direction and continuing to talk in the most matter-of-fact manner. ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... civilization, who are at once all energy and all goodness. As large and stout as Lydia was 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 ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... has happened, and that something is History." To feel fully the difference between a formal, mechanical annalist and the revival of the past through poetic or artistic sympathy, it is only requisite to turn from some dry chronicle of political vicissitudes, duly registered by a dull, matter-of-fact, conscientious antiquary, to the fresh classical or colonial romance, of which such graceful and well-studied exemplars have been produced by Lockhart, Bulwer, D'Azeglio, Kingsley, Ware, Longfellow, and other bards and novelists. While the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... American to look into a Parisian theatre, and see the acting and hear the music. The chances are that, for the first time, he sees the interior of a theatre that does not have a hard, businesslike, matter-of-fact air. The auditors look comfortable and cozy, and quite at home, and do not, shoulder to shoulder and in solid lines, make a dead set at the play and the music. The theatre has warm hangings, warm colors, cozy boxes and stalls, and is in no ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... 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 ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... need of the shelter than I," said this extremely matter-of-fact young person, "for you had no waterproof, and I had. Come, if you have finished, shall we go up to the Top Pool?—I want you to have a cast over that, for it is an experience; and, though the sun is out, it won't much matter; ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... his finger in my eye an' beatin' his palm with his fist, an' spreadin' himself somethin' gorgeous. He never curbed his jubilization nor altered the heavy seriousness of his expression; but in the most matter-of-fact way in the world he backs over to the door-jamb an' begins to polish it up with his spinal column. If ya'll notice you'll find most o' the coats in that locality has curious little streaks up the back—but it ain't polite to ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... of miles. Such as he always became apart and lonely because of this companionship of silence and the unseen. More and more they withdrew themselves, unwittingly and painfully, from the understanding and companionship of the usual matter-of-fact, commonplace, sensible people—the settler, the emigrant, and the British man. Sinister they became, but with the helplessness of those in whom the under-spirit of life has been working, estranging them, even against their will, from the rest of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 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 ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... general terms that Confucius represented conservative forces, disapproved of the quarrelsome wars of his day, and wished in theory to restore the good old "rules of propriety"; but quite another thing to understand in a human, matter-of-fact sort of way what he really did in definite sets of circumstances, and what practical objects he had in view. The average European reader, not having specific facts and places under his eye, can only conceive from ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... process. In 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 ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... to strip out here," Monet said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "Just leave your clothes in a pile ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... said she was afraid she could not teach him anything, but if he would answer a few questions in matter-of-fact chemistry which had puzzled her she would be vastly obliged ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and felt a chill at this hard, cold statement. The girl could never work in a dance hall any more! And this was accepted as a calamity! Accustomed as he was to the frontier, this matter-of-fact acceptance of a dance-hall occupation as something desirable impressed him with its cynicism. Not that he doubted the virtue of many of those forlorn ones who gayly tripped their feet over rough boards, and drank tea or ginger ale and filled their pockets with bar checks to make a living ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... as if it had been the most matter-of-fact thing in the world, how he meant to go to the owners of the Ardente and get the first tidings of her there; how, if neither that nor any rumours he could catch in and about the docks, were satisfactory, he should hire a small steamer ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... seemed quite indignant when I suggested that he had been having an extra glass the night before, and I was obliged to pacify him by keeping as grave a countenance as possible during his story, which he certainly narrated in a very straight-forward and matter-of-fact way. ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... so?" said the matter-of-fact doctor. "Twilight is the commonest phenomenon of refraction with which we are acquainted, and sunrise and sunset are merely a mixture of refraction and reflection. There ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... and in a quiet matter-of-fact way, and with very little help from me, he selected the necessary articles; and an hour later I went on deck, saving a slight headache, very ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... places often experience emotion when viewing some particular scene, and memory seems to painfully struggle to bring into the field of consciousness the former connection between the scene and the individual. Many persons have testified to these occurrences, many of them being matter-of-fact, unimaginative people, who had never even heard of the doctrine of Reincarnation. Charles Dickens, in one of his books of foreign travel, tells of a bridge in Italy which produced a peculiar effect upon him. He says: "If I had been murdered there in some former life, I ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... might have done it. Van Horne never. Yet Beatty never could have built the C.P.R. His brain has no wizardry in it. He is a co-ordination of facts that knows not the meaning of magic. He is the most matter-of-fact man in any high executive position in Canada. The task he undertook was all cut out for him. Fate decreed that he should take it. He never dreamed of refusing. And what ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... 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 lives. The men who are slow or inefficient in finding ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... know as we got a kettle or anythin' else," said Dick, laughing at Ed's bedraggled appearance and matter-of-fact manner. "We better go back an' see. I hitched th' trackin' line to a rock, but I don't know's ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... hard-headed, matter-of-fact, common-sense being, what would you suggest for a poor devil who is sick and tired of everything and most of ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... my arrival at the Roosevelt, for nearly three weeks, my days were spent in complete idleness. I would catch a fleeting glimpse of Commander Peary, but not once in all of that time did he speak a word to me. Then he spoke to me in the most ordinary matter-of-fact way, and ordered me to get to work. Not a word about the North Pole or anything connected with it; simply, "There is enough wood left, and I would like to have you make a couple of sledges and mend the broken ones. I hope you are feeling ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... the strangest thing 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 handcuffs. Then ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things he said were absurd in contrast. The things her father ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... of talking plain, matter-of-fact English about a thing has a value that we are growing to appreciate more and more every day. It is only too easy for an undercurrent of ill to make headway under cover of a false name, a false silence, or misleading speech. The fact that ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... tenderness of a woman Mr. Polk put his arm about the little fellow in quick contrition, knowing that it had been too much for this habitant of the quiet woods, and said in a most matter-of-fact way: "Now, son, for home and bed," and in a few minutes more the boy was snugly tucked in bed in Mr. Polk's comfortable bachelor quarters, and the next morning when he woke he was a new boy inwardly as well ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... 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 of imagination, was ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... said, "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
... 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
... 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 ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... old woman, as if suddenly recollecting that she had been too matter-of-fact in the way of dealing with us, went to her cauldron, and poking up the fire, began to mutter various cabalistic words, at the same time stirring its contents with ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... substantial and successful men—he who had been for all the years of his life at their command, subservient to their demands for labor—their underling? Only one thing kept him from dodging the whole issue and remaining at home—the colonel's matter-of-fact assumption that Jim had become master of the situation. How could he flee, when this old soldier was fighting so valiantly for him in the trenches? So Jim went to ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... fool according to his folly," especially if he was prying or spiteful. I was reckless of the gossip which was circulated about me; and, when I might easily have set it right, did not deign to do so. Also I used irony in conversation, when matter-of-fact-men would ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... see fit. Of course, it might be wiser not to have the two announcements come together; there will be the usual talk; Nina and my mother prostrated; and so on, and perhaps—but you must use your own judgment there. I may seem a little matter-of-fact about this, Miss Field, but I am hoping you understand. You have impressed me as a woman of unusual intelligence and sagacity; I am making you an unsentimental business offer. I need you in my life and I offer you certain ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... This sounded discouraging to a 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 did not ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... appropriately term it. But this offence I am inclined to think infinitely too light a one to draw upon him the grievous punishment which has been so many years inflicted on him. One of our neighbours, Rochfort, a very matter-of-fact sort of man, not at all given to the marvellous, asserts, that he witnessed by accident what he is sure was the first meeting of the Pair after the man's arrival in this quarter. It was late in the evening; Rochfort was standing, he says, in the shadow of a gateway ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... stricken tones striving to be cheerful, she could not find pardon for the wrong that had not been done to herself. She dreaded telling Robert that no one was coming whom he need avoid, though without dwelling on the tone of the refusal. To her surprise, he heard her short, matter-of-fact communication without any token of anger or of grief, made no remark, and if he changed countenance at all, it was to put on an air of gloomy satisfaction, as though another weight even in the most undesirable scale were preferable to any remnant of balancing, and ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a strange, 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 business of life." ...
— Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine • T. S. Arthur
... humor and quick perception of the ludicrous he was somewhat deficient, and he was too passionately in earnest and too matter-of-fact about everything ever to attempt a joke, practical or otherwise. Life to him was always a serious drama, calling for tireless vigilance; and he watched all the details of its gradual unfolding with constant anxiety and care, in so ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... The calm, matter-of-fact way in which Mr. Walters acted caused the boys to feel more comfortable in mind, and they made no protest when he assisted them to the state-room where there was yet water enough to show what ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... 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
... sorry to go myself," he said to his daughter, "and you, though the most affectionate of daughters, will console yourself after a while. Why should I, who am so old, be romantic? You may, who are still a young creature." This he said, not meaning all he said, for the lady whom he addressed was a matter-of-fact little person, with very little romance ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... course," was the answer, in a matter-of-fact tone, which caused Mrs. Gould to make another effort to repress ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... fell to his side. Something in Kate's calm, matter-of-fact speech reached his shrewder self. He perceived here no mean antagonist. "You need not take the trouble, madam. I am guarding her. They ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... the other, in a simple, matter-of-fact tone. "Hucks might wait on the nabobs all right, but they won't tol'rate a blind woman a minute, I'm sure. An' Hucks 'd ruther be with me in the poor-house than to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... so different, she thought; she might have flung herself on the mercy of people who would have been suspicious and frigid, or of others who would have treated her with familiarity and curious questioning. These people were pleasantly matter-of-fact; glad to help, but plainly anxious to show her that they considered her affairs none of their business. There was a little catch in her throat as ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... directly," Harriet said, in a matter-of-fact voice. "Get at your Spanish, Nina, and I'll be with you in ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... called—to give a brief, bald, matter-of-fact statement of what he knew. He had gone to see Mr. Multenius on a business affair—he was making enquiries about a stolen article which was believed to have been pledged in the Edgware Road district. He told how Lauriston ran into him as he entered the shop; what Lauriston ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... position, with one of the most beautiful panoramas 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
... Welkie"—Necker fixed his eyes on the floor and spoke slowly—"that the government in this case seems to be represented by a man of picturesque speech, a man with imagination. I can only handle facts, and in a matter-of-fact way. I ask you to consider this: you have a boy, and there is Miss Welkie, a lovely, cultured woman, and"—he jerked his head suddenly up—"but what's the use? Here's a contract, needing only your signature, and here's a check, needing only my signature. I said two thousand ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... had disappeared the winter before, he had noticed that little Thayer had a blue Sunday suit and little Elizabeth Cady Stanton had appeared wrapped in a blue baby coat. But that only shows how these matter-of-fact people are fooled. For though the little Wards were caparisoned in blue, and though the general's blue overcoat did disappear about that time, the general and Lucy Ward have no recollection of shivering home that night, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... ornamented with paint and rough carving; for the Swedish settlers had been there 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, who had gone ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston
... "you'd find it a pretty tough and matter-of-fact idea, if you had it stuck through your gizzard, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... 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 folk say, He fought so well on that ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... so much more. You can help spiritually. You can help to shape things, give form and thought and poignancy to the most matter-of-fact existence; show people how to think and live and appreciate beauty. What does it matter if some of them jeer at you, or trample on your work? What matters is that those for whom your message is intended will know ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... improvement. I am told, however, that he really grieves at the growing spirit of trade, as destroying the charm of life. He considers every new shorthand mode of doing things, as an inroad of snug sordid method; and thinks that this will soon become a mere matter-of-fact world, where life will be reduced to a mathematical calculation of conveniences, and every thing will be done ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... relations between the sexes are too matter-of-fact to permit of any refinement of feeling about them, and it is not surprising that illegitimacy has been very common in the village. But once a man and a woman are married, they settle down into a sober pair of comrades, and instead of the looseness which might be looked for ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... home, he suddenly broke the moody silence by asking Miss Walton, "How do you reconcile the scene at the church door, so matter-of-fact, cheery, and earthly, with the terrible pictures suggested by the sermon? If such things are before us, it seems to me that bright, sunny days like these ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... conceived and written from the standpoint of the artist, and the artist alone, who never takes account of ethics, but uses right and wrong indifferently as colours of his palette. "The Decay of Lying" seemed to the ordinary, matter-of-fact Englishman a cynical plea in defence of mendacity. To the majority of readers, "Pen, Pencil and Poison" was hardly more than a shameful attempt to condone cold-blooded murder. The very articles which grounded his fame as a writer, helped to ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... lies as if in a slumber that has lasted for a century and a half—at the head of the bay. The Indians named the place Souwassett, and the Puritans, in their usual matter-of-fact manner, called it Drowned Meadow. Its present name was adopted about forty years ago, probably in a patriotic mood, and also in the belief that the name it then bore was too unqualified and likely to give rise to unwarrantable prejudices. That there ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... drummer is always called in country towns, a person of experience and knowledge of the world, as well as being not infrequently shrouded in mystery? As she pondered on the card, wondering if she dared put it in her pocket, he said in a matter-of-fact way, again extending the wallet: "Don't hesitate, take the deck, may come handy, father like to keep goods in stock some time. That's my regular; carry a side line too, perfumes and an A1 hair restorer. Got all my samples at Oaklands depot. You mind stopping ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... expression fastens with peculiar eagerness upon the visible and tangible world about us and seeks to convey that zest in words. Our poets not only do not scorn the earth to lose themselves in the sky; they are positive friends of the matter-of-fact, and that not in spite of poetry, but for poetry's sake; and Pegasus flies more freely because 'things' are 'in the saddle' along with ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... 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 ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... moment, and in the most matter-of-fact manner, presented himself her red squirrel friend, arriving from nobody knew where; and bringing not only himself but a little basket in which appeared—precisely—biscuits and strawberries. Silently all this presented itself. Wych Hazel's cheeks rivalled ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... punishment. BEACH made his proposal in matter-of-fact way, anticipating general concurrence. But CHANNING objected; GEORGE TREVELYAN did not approve the suggestion; while the SQUIRE OF MALWOOD eagerly seized BEACH's maladroit phrase about "the other side," and made great play with it. Probably BEACH might have disregarded this action from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various
... me," remarked the professor, in the easiest and most matter-of-fact tone imaginable. And, so saying, he took the pistol ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... the adventure? Fidele" (by which term we cover the identity of his wife)—"Fidele will laugh in my face sometimes, crying, 'Not thou, little cabbage, nor yet thy faithful, was it that dived through half the world and came up breathless! No, no—I cannot believe it. We folk, so matter-of-fact and so comical. It was of Hansel and Gretel we had been reading hand-in-hand, till we fell asleep in the twilight and fancied this thing.' And then she will trill like a bird at the thought of how solemn Herr Grabenstock, of the Hotel du Mont Blanc, ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... persuaded that the first must be hers. But they both ended in the same place. She felt tears coming into her eyes, but she kept them down, and went on reading in a steady monotonous voice, as if the meaning was nothing to her; she asked the children questions in a dry, grave, matter-of-fact way, as if she had not the slightest interest in them or in the subject, though her heart was full of affection to the dullest and roughest among them, and when she went away, her nod, and "well, good morning," ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... 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
... agreed in a matter-of-fact voice. 'Now, Henrietta. Get a piece of paper and a pencil, Sophia, ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... vain were dinners given in her honor and receptions at which she reigned supreme. None of her other experiments had resulted in an engagement—an immunity which she now humbly attributed to the watchful Jimmie—and she was dismayed at the determined and matter-of-fact way in which she was called upon to fulfil her promise. "If only Jimmie were at home!" she realized, "he would save me." This was when the happy day was yet a great way off. "If only Jimmie would come home," she wailed as the weeks grew to months, and even the comfort of his letters failed ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... Spanish mule when he chose, and, besides, there was reason in what he said. Two were better than one both for speed in travel and for fighting if the need came, and though I had more woodcraft than he, he had ten times my wisdom. There was something about his matter-of-fact tone which took the enterprise out of the land of impossibilities into a more sober realm. I even began to dream ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... 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 ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... 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, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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 temperament ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... in silence. He looked at her once or twice, but her face was stern and rigid, and she would not give him even one glance. At the door she gave him her hand, with a matter-of-fact "I will say good-night now," and disappeared into her room, where she threw herself on the bed and sobbed bitterly; for the truth was that she was very, very fond of him. She, too, had built her little castles in the air as to what she would say and do when ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... known this young woman only a few hours, and yet he knew that with her he could not adopt the easy, matter-of-fact intimacy that had answered with the other women he had known. In fact, the desire to look upon her in this light never entered his mind. Instead, he was filled with a deep admiration for her—an admiration in which ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... deep bay window, but that next morning, while standing on a mounting block before the door with one foot in the stirrup, the virgin monarch had then and there boxed and cuffed an unlucky page for some neglect of duty. The matter-of-fact and doubtful folks, of whom there were a few among the Maypole customers, as unluckily there always are in every little community, were inclined to look upon this tradition as rather apocryphal; but, whenever the landlord of that ancient hostelry appealed to the mounting block itself ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... going to see the bishop. There was a glamour in the name. To be a bishop! His mother had sometimes suggested the Church, or at least politics as a career for him, if poetry should fail. But this one was so matter-of-fact and unpretentious in his clothing, his opinions. A broken-down matrimonial agent, Don Francesco had called him. Mr. Heard was not his idea of a shepherd of souls; he was only a colonial, anyhow. A grey type of man—nothing purple about him, nothing ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... no adequate consciousness and recognition of the essentials of man's nature in the older, oriental art, so there is no pathos, no humanity in the more special sense, but a kind of hardness and cruelty rather, in those oft-repeated, long, matter-of-fact processions, on the [265] marbles of Nineveh, of slave-like soldiers on their way to battle mechanically, or of captives on their way to slavery or death, for the satisfaction of the Great King. These ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... return. The arrangement was certainly a charming one; we should have a wedding in the Hagen! There was no nonsense about our young Braut. She told me the little story at supper on the night of her arrival in the most matter-of-fact way possible, drank her two glasses of red wine, and went off serenely to bed with a dainty lisping ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... asked him if he saw aught.' One might have expected an answer with a little more gratitude in it, with a little more wonder in it, with a little more emotion in it. Instead of these it is almost surly, or at any rate strangely reticent-a matter-of-fact answer to the question, and there an end. As our Revised Version reads it better: 'I see men, for I behold them as trees walking.' Curiously accurate! A dim glimmer had come into the eye, but there is not yet distinctness of outline nor sense of magnitude, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... in that grave and matter-of-fact way of his: "Now certainly I can see how your vocation may seem, in a manner of speaking, a poor investment; but, after all, your business is none of my business, so I shall not presume to criticize it. Instead, let us avoid these lofty generalities, and to you tell me when ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... girl who has been brought up in a simple way by very sensible parents." Her matter-of-fact tone made John Westley feel a little foolish. "She's a dear, sunny child and I hope she will be ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... gypsies of the cities, they were the 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 ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... 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 ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... English; Saxon English; household words V. call a spade "a spade"; plunge in medias res; come to the point. Adj. plain, simple; unornamented, unadorned, unvarnished; homely, homespun; neat; severe, chaste, pure, Saxon; commonplace, matter-of-fact, natural, prosaic. dry, unvaried,monotonous &c. 575. Adv. in plain terms, in plain words, in plain English, in plain ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... event which may fitly be called a revolution of race. The volume, however, is a solid and sensible one. Dr. Vaughan is not a brilliant writer; but brilliancy is not always the best quality in an historian, for it as often leaves readers dazzled as taught. A decidedly matter-of-fact turn of mind prevents his being a theorist, so that he does not formulate characters and events in accordance with some fixed preconception. His learning seems sometimes limited by what was accessible to him at the least ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... understand these reserved, matter-of-fact people!" she said to herself. Because my stepfather does not talk sentiment, I have fancied him hard and worldly; and yet he has proved himself as capable of doing a noble action as if he were the ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... he was in the encampment of the enemy did not have any effect on Dick's nerves at all. He was a brave and matter-of-fact youth, and felt the boldest plan was the safest, and so he was enabled to act with as much sang froid as if he were really an adherent of the king and sincere in his desire to ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... Doubtless there are persons so lacking in personal adaptability that success in this kind of work would be for them impossible. The wooden, mechanical, matter-of-fact and unresponsive personality is as much out of place in the psychological clinic as the traditional bull in the china shop. It would make an interesting study for some one to investigate, by exact methods, the influence on test results of the personality of different ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... with coffee, have they?" said matter-of-fact Janey; "but the fact is he is not a gentleman; why should you mind? What does it matter what a person like that says or does? You said so yourself, he is not a bit a gentleman. I wonder what Cousin Anne and ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant |
