"Off-hand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and uncertain steps. It seemed to be the realization of his imaginings of Chicago. It subdued him into absolute clownishness; and the porter who rushed toward him and took his valise from his hands, classified him off-hand as another one of those country fellows who must be watched and prevented from blowing out the gas. Bradley signed his name on the book without any flourishes, and without writing the "Honorable" before his name, as most of ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... His frank, off-hand manner won my confidence. I told him my whole story, without any reserve; and he laughed uproariously when I told him how I had pitched my ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... Nerbia, Espartafilardo del Bosque, who bears for device on his shield an asparagus plant with a motto in Castilian that says, Rastrea mi suerte." And so he went on naming a number of knights of one squadron or the other out of his imagination, and to all he assigned off-hand their arms, colours, devices, and mottoes, carried away by the illusions of his unheard-of craze; and without a pause, he continued, "People of divers nations compose this squadron in front; here are those that drink of the sweet waters of the famous Xanthus, those ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... is a question that requires time; a body can't answer every question right off-hand. But it does do good. I am satisfied ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Englishman; and it was natural with our hero to be frank and free with all, whether above him or below him in condition. The temperaments to be brought into subjection were not as rude and intractable as those of the Anglo-Saxon, and the off-hand, dashing character of Raoul was admirably adapted to win both the admiration and the affections of his people. They now thronged about him without hesitation or reserve, each man anxious to make his good wishes ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... wordy sarmon that Parson Grant gave us to-night, said Remarkable. The church ministers be commonly smart sarmonizers, but they write down their idees, which is a great privilege. I dont think that, by nater, they are as tonguey speakers, for an off-hand discourse, as the ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... they were its oldest possessors. Their language, their physique, their creed, their art, all point to a wholly different origin from the Aryans. I am not going, in a brief essay like this, to settle dogmatically, off-hand, the vexed question of the origin and affinities of the Etruscan type; more nonsense, I suppose, has been talked and written upon that occult subject by learned men than even learned men have ever poured forth ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... single-handed. I found myself very much of a hero whether I would or not. The girls were full of little shudderings over the dangers of our journey. And I thought it would be ungallant not to take my cue from the ladies. My mishap of yesterday, told in an off-hand way, produced a deep sensation. It was Othello over again, with no less than three Desdemonas and a sprinkling of sympathetic senators in the background. Never were the canoes more flattered, or flattered ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... never hesitated about offering to a lady after a three days' acquaintance, or in asking a gentleman to take him a horse in over-night, with whom he might chance to come in contact in the hunting-field. And he did it all in such a cool, off-hand, matter-of-course sort of way, that people who would have stared with astonishment if anybody else had hinted at such a proposal, really seemed to come into the humour and spirit of the thing, and to look upon it rather as a matter of course than otherwise. Then his dexterity in getting ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... all took leave in character;—Molloy, with an eager business reference to the order of the day for Saturday,—"Give me your address at Widrington; I'll post you everything to-night, so that you may have it all under your eye"—Casey, with the off-hand patronage of the man who would not for the world have his benevolence mistaken for servility,—and Wilkins with as gruff a nod and as limp a shake of the hand as possible. It might perhaps have ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... seriousness setting off the sparkling comments on affairs. Henderson's talk had the notable flavor of direct contact with life, and very little of the speculative and reflective tone of Morgan's, who was always generalizing and theorizing about it. He had just come from the West, and his off-hand sketches of men had a special cynicism, not in the least condemnatory, mere good-natured acceptance, and in contrast to Morgan's moralizing and rather pitying cynicism. It struck me that he did not believe in his fellows as much as Morgan did; but I fancied that Margaret only saw in his ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... been played far enough, he suddenly showed himself one evening at Mrs. Follingsbee's, and apologized in an off-hand manner to Lillie, when reminded of passing her in the park, that really he wasn't thinking of meeting her, and didn't recognize her, she was so altered; it had been so many years since they had met, &c. All in a tone of cool and heartless civility, ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... his intimate friend Carl Maria von Weber, who had died little more than two years before. Lichtenstein's connection with Weber was probably the cause of his disagreement with Spontini, alluded to by Chopin. The latter relates in an off-hand way that he was introduced to and exchanged a few words with the editor of the Berliner Musikzeitung, without mentioning that this was Marx. The great theorist had of course then still to ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... off-hand; an' of coorse, if we agree to-night, I think our best plan is to have ourselves called on Sunday. An' I'll tell you what, avourneen—be the holy vestments, if I was to be 'called' to fifty on the same Sunday, ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... persecuted, I will look on. I have come to such a decisive determination, that neither king nor living man shall change my mind. If Athos were here, he would do as I have done. Therefore, instead of going, in cold blood, up to M. Fouquet, and arresting him off-hand and shutting him up altogether, I will try and conduct myself like a man who understands what good manners are. People will talk about it, of course; but they shall talk well of it, I am determined." And D'Artagnan, drawing by a gesture ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... irreconcilable with the visibility of mountainous elevations, and permanent surface-markings. To Mr. Lowell these were so distinct and unchanging as to furnish data for a chart of the Cytherean globe, and the peculiar arrangement of divergent shading exhibited in it cannot off-hand be set down as unreal, in view of Perrotin's earlier discernment of analogous linear traces. Gruithuisen's "snow-caps,"[876] however—it is safe to say—do not exist as such; although shining regions near the poles form a well-attested trait of ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... said "How d'ye do, Mr. Bows," in a loud cheery voice on perceiving that gentleman, and saluted him in a dashing off-hand manner, yet you could have seen a blush upon Arthur's face (answered by Fanny, whose cheek straightway threw out a similar fluttering red signal); and after Bows and Arthur had shaken hands, and the former had ironically accepted ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... leaning back in his chair, and bursting into a hearty laugh at my mother's serious face, "I'm sure, my dear, I could not tell you the date off-hand myself at the present moment, not if I were even going to be hanged in default! Jack knows, though, I'd wager, when the glorious battle of Trafalgar was fought; and that concerns a British sailor boy more, I think, than any other event in the whole ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... said the Duchess, "and you two had better take advantage of the occasion." This plan, however, was considered as being too rapid and rash. Marriage is a very serious affair, and many things would require arrangement. A lady with the wealth which belonged to Madame Goesler cannot bestow herself off-hand as may a curate's daughter, let her be ever so willing to give her money as well as herself. It was impossible that a day should be fixed quite at once; but the Duchess was allowed to understand that the affair might be mentioned. ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... usually tries to be off-hand, waggish, and brisk—a cross between a street peddler and a circus clown, with a hint of the forced mirth of the after-dinner speaker. Occasionally the jokes are good and the answers from the audience show the ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... was staggered: the case looked ugly, as Archie said. And there was a veil of reticence, of secrecy, about Dredge, that always kept his conduct in a half-light of uncertainty. Of some men one would have said off-hand: "It's impossible!" But one couldn't affirm ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... not allow us to have a general orgie the next night. She was now aware of our summer house doings—only of late begun, as she supposed—for my story had been too plausibly off-hand not to deceive her, especially as she had felt convinced by all that occurred on our first fucking that she had had the delightful pleasure of taking my maidenhead. She was quite satisfied on that head. But she now suspected that what ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... that there was apparently no common era adopted by the Mayas; each province may have selected its own; and it is quite erroneous to condemn the annals off-hand for inaccuracy because they ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various
... openness hid, I saw, great shrewdness and intelligence—an admirable man for Vaudreuil's purpose, as admirable for mine. I knew well that if I had tried to bribe him he would have scouted me, or if I had made a motion for escape he would have shot me off-hand. But a lady—that appealed to him; and that she was the Seigneur ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... favourites. Moreover, she was very modern and unsentimental, and disliked what she called 'schoolgirl gush.' She had been the subject of violent admirations before, and knew how soon they were apt to cool down. She was perfectly nice to Merle, but a little off-hand, and never showed her any preference. This line of treatment rather aggravated Merle's symptoms instead of curbing ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... unworthy of her. But he was wrong. Much too high-spirited and too happy in her temperament and surroundings to brood over her lover's late negligence, she was perhaps too vain to believe that she had lost her hold upon his heart. At any rate, she liked him too well to give him up in this off-hand fashion without making an effort to discover the reason ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... compelled to think that a pique at having his secret sprung upon her had moved her to give way to Phillotson's probable representations, that the best course to prove how unfounded were the suspicions of the school authorities would be to marry him off-hand, as in fulfilment of an ordinary engagement. Sue had, in fact, been placed in an ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... as off-hand as usual, unless Mrs. Marvin should say that she must not remain at Glenmore, when she would throw pride to the winds, and plead, yes, even beg to continue as a pupil of the school. She turned and looked at Elf, still ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... admirable is the suddenness, brevity, and force of this scene! And it is as artful and dramatic as off-hand; for this Amazon, Bradamante, is the future heroine of the warlike part of the poem, and the beauty from whose marriage with Ruggiero is to spring the house of Este. Nor without her appearance at this moment, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... o' meight; but there is a cheer theer, sich as it is; see yo; tak' that." When she found that I wished to know something of her condition—although this was already well known to the gentleman who accompanied me—she began to tell her story in a simple, off-hand way. "Aw've had nine childer," said she; "we'n buried six, an' we'n three alive, an' aw expect another every day." In one corner there was a rickety little low bedstead. There was no bedding upon it but ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... or to mix with caulking pitch. He told us he bought the stuff from one of the American whalers that were fishing in the bay last summer, and he offered to sell us a bucket at such a ridiculously low price that Astor bought one off-hand." ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... of setting up quadrupeds in a natural and life-like manner is of so recent a date that few, if any, of the manuals on taxidermy do more than glance at it. True, they nearly all give directions, in an off-hand way, as to the skinning of mammals; but their instructions are so vague and meagre that, though confessing that the subject is no easy one to write upon, I yet feel that we may, perhaps, improve, in point of detail, on what has ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... me the chance—just said off-hand you wouldn't go anywhere. Yes, the engine's running like a daisy, and the sidecar's on, and Egbert's fussing to be off. If you really change your mind and ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... I did not want a vessel to come with the idea of any protection being required, but that a man-of-war coming with the intention of supporting the Mission, and giving help, and not coming to treat the natives in an off-hand manner, might do good. I did not speak coldly; but really I fear what mischief even a few wildish fellows might do on shore among such people as those of the ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pictures, when they had the glory of their pristine idea directly before their minds' eye,— that idea which inevitably became overlaid with their own handling of it in the finished painting. No doubt the painters themselves had often a happiness in these rude, off-hand sketches, which they never felt again in the same work, and which resulted in disappointment, after they had done their best. To an artist, the collection must be most deeply interesting: to myself, it was merely curious, ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a rather rough-appearing personage and dressed like a Western farmer or miner, rather coarsely handsome, and with an easy, off-hand manner that was quite attractive, and he might have been thirty ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... gospels he is rather timid of doing this to the Pharisees and to the nation at large. I find him uniformly to claim, sometimes in tone, sometimes in distinct words, that we will sit at his feet as little children and learn of him. I find him ready to answer off-hand, all difficult questions, critical and lawyer-like, as well as moral. True, it is no tenet of mine that intellectual and literary attainment is essential in an individual person to high spiritual eminence. True, in another book I have elaborately maintained the contrary. Yet in that book ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... swiftly—as the brain always acts when confronted by a perplexing riddle. No matter how swiftly he pursued this riddle, he could not bring it to a halt. Why had Ruth married him? A penniless outcast, for she must have known he was that. Why had she married him, off-hand, like that? She did not love him, or he knew nothing of love signs. Had she too been flying from something and had accepted this method of escape? But what frying-pan could be ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... alarmed, and knowing beforehand that no one in the house would answer her questions, she turned to M. de Brevan. In the most off-hand manner he assured her that he knew nothing about it, but promised to inquire, and to ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... Judgment. But Clement VII. was not a man to be put off with words; he supervised the work in person, and Buonarroti was obliged to pass continually from the chisel to the pencil and from the pen to the mallet. The Last Judgment! Moses! these are two works of little importance and easy to do off-hand! And yet he had to. His Holiness would ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... of it, then, it would seem that we, as compared with men of Glacial times, have decidedly 'progressed'. But it is not so easy to say off-hand in ...
— Progress and History • Various
... strannger, I'll lick you now, off-hand, if you don't put Miss for a handle to the gal's name. She's Miss Lucy. Don't I know her, and han't I seen her, and isn't it I, Chub Williams, as they calls me, that loves the ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... their wings, and the off-hand way in which they spurned, abandoned and disappeared from an island that held him tight, made Hazel feel very small. His thoughts took the form of satire. "Lords of the creation, are we? We sink in water; in air we ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... fine morning, when his mother and father were about to start for the Crystal Palace, Frank, who had been sitting on his thumbs and thinking very deeply, jumped up all of a sudden and said, (he tried to speak in an off-hand manner); "I suppose you couldn't say to a minute, could you, when ...
— Sugar and Spice • James Johnson
... both ends meet by any means equal to her sister's in keeping up appearances, and avoiding detrimentals. The two sisters met occasionally, but Lady Delmar was so compassionate and patronising that Annaple's spirit recoiled in off-hand levity and rattle, and neither regretted the occupation that prevented them from ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bushes, but she took no notice of it, for she felt it was sure to be her lover, coming to have a talk with her; and now that she was so possessed with the thought of a fairy lover, she had ceased to care for poor Tom, and was extremely cool and off-hand with him. ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... him; ingenious, ingenuous D'Arget was always a favorite with Friedrich: despatch D'Arget to him. D'Arget is despatched; with reasons, with remonstrances, with considerations. D'Arget's Narrative is given: an ingenuous off-hand Piece;—poor little crevice, through which there is still to be had, singularly clear, and credible in every point, a direct glimpse of Friedrich's own thoughts, in that many-sounding Dresden,—so loud, that week, with ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... three chief advantages: greater wealth, greater safety, and greater variety of experience. Whether, in spite of this, there is a real—that is, a moral—advance is a question impossible to answer off-hand, because wealth, safety, and variety are not absolute goods, and their value is great or small according to the further values they may help to secure. This is obvious in the case of riches. But safety also is only ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... follow Nick Vernon about the island, for everyone liked Nick, who was quiet, humorous, modest and withal very resourceful and skilful. He had a kind of a contained air, as if he knew more than he gave out, in contrast to Scout Harris who gave out more than he knew. A bantering, off-hand way he had, as if all the things he did (and he could do many) were done just to kill time. Skilful though he was, he did not take himself too seriously. Everything he did ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... a deal too good for him—the provoking man!" said Grace, in her off-hand way, drawing her arm within that of Mrs. Markland, to whom she was strongly attached. "And that's ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... hypothesis. O no—for wasn't she saying all the time that such thoughts of the future were improper, and wasn't Gabriel far too poor a man to speak sentiment to her? Yet he might have just hinted about that old love of his, and asked, in a playful off-hand way, if he might speak of it. It would have seemed pretty and sweet, if no more; and then she would have shown how kind and inoffensive a woman's "No" can sometimes be. But to give such cool advice—the very advice she had asked for—it ruffled ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... her. Her lips were warm and comforting. Maggie, who had, when she was shy, something of the off-hand manner of a ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... Superintendent shifted a ward of State, the proceedings would be endless. The only appeal, we think, should be one to have a child discharged from the care of the Superintendent. Serious complaints of ill treatment could be aired in this way. We are not able to suggest, off-hand, exactly what the restrictions should be, and very full discussions between Child Welfare authorities and legal authorities would be necessary as a preliminary to ...
— Report of the Juvenile Delinquency Committee • Ronald Macmillan Algie
... the greater self. In ordinary life this department of mind is more or less shielded by the consciousness. It would retain the permanent impress of every idea it came across, were it not that the consciousness off-hand and summarily rejects a number of impressions which might otherwise prove detrimental. One man calls another a fool, but this one knows very well that he is nothing of the kind, and so the idea carries very little weight in its ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... case to the Squire. I have watched him, too, during one of his pop visits into the cottage of a superannuated villager, who is a pensioner of the Squire, where he fidgeted about the room without sitting down, made many excellent off-hand reflections with the old invalid, who was propped up in his chair, about the shortness of life, the certainty of death, and the necessity of preparing for "that awful change;" quoted several texts of scripture very ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... case, the matter is likely to be disposed of in season for the excursion to-morrow forenoon. If he is bound over, we can appear, such of us as are required as witnesses, at the proper time," I replied, as off-hand as though I had been a lawyer all my days. "Now we will leave that question, and turn to others ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... suddenly spring upon her the fact that she was expected to talk Italian.... Was that an open, an honourable proceeding? What if Lucia had actually told Olga (and she seemed to recollect it) that she and Peppino often talked Italian at home? That was no reason why she should be expected, off-hand like that, to talk Italian anywhere else. She should have been told what was expected of her, so as to give her the chance of having a previous engagement. Lucia hated underhand ways, and they were particularly odious in one whom ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... the poor vine-dresser." All the taxes were to be converted as fast as possible into one on land and one on personal property. But the minds of the reformers had not grasped the real difficulties of the subject. They were in that stage of thought in which great questions are answered off-hand because the thinker has not fully apprehended them. Should the personal tax be based on capital or on incomes, and how should these be ascertained? It is far easier to formulate general principles of taxation than to apply them successfully.[Footnote: ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... off-hand, that he was a little out of control last night and this morning," replied DuQuesne, manipulating connections with his long, muscular fingers. "I don't think that he's insane, and I don't believe that he dopes—probably overwork ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... popular in Ireland, although the gentlemen who filled them belonged to a party of so small a minority. Lord Eglinton was a gentleman personally liberal and generally esteemed, generous, and off-hand, fond of Ireland, and adapted to intercourse with the Irish. Mr. Blackburn, the lord-chancellor, was considered the greatest equity lawyer in Ireland, and an impartial judge. Lord Naas, the chief secretary, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... mutton." A third customer found mortal fault with the colours, which, she said, "were not canny, or in the course of nature." What the fourth one said, and the fifth one took leave to observe, I have stupidly forgotten, though, I am sure, I heard both; but I mind one remarked, quite off-hand, as she sought back her money, that, "unless sheep could do without beards, like their neighbours, she would keep the pot boiling with a piece beef, in the mean time." After all this, would any mortal man believe it, Deacon Paunch, the greasy ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... are too difficult to be answered off-hand," said Will, sculling in his turn. "Sounds like Alice in Wonderland. If two boys eat a turkey at Thanksgiving, how many girls will eat a ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... to remonstrate against—and then we went out to be admired. During the week's retirement he secreted quite a wealth of things to say—appropriate remarks on edibles, on music, on popular books, on conversation, off-hand little things, jotting them down in a note-book as they came into his mind, for he had a high conception of social intercourse, and the public expectation. He was ever a methodical little gentleman, and all these accumulations that ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... opening remarks, which, in the face of a fire of interruption, took the form of an attack upon the Government, showed her an alert, competent, cut-and-thrust, imperturbably self-possessed politician, who knew every aspect of the history of the movement, as able to answer any intelligent question off-hand as to snub an impudent irrelevance, able to take up a point and drive it well in—to shrug and smile or frown and point her finger, all with most telling effect, and keep the majority of her audience with her every ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... she was. In less than half an hour after the sale was made, in this off-hand fashion, Mrs. Cartwright sat alone in her parlor, looking down upon the naked floor. But she had five ten-dollar gold pieces in her hand, and they were of more value in her eyes than twenty carpets. Not long did she sit musing here. There was other work to do. The old ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... looked tired, and a trifle cross, but alas! these had been prevailing expressions even in the days when things were going comparatively well. Casual in her own manner, she saw nothing unusual in Claire's lack of welcome, she nodded an off-hand greeting, and drew up a chair ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... his features in the parson who figures so conspicuously in his "Modern Midnight Conversation." His off-hand style of discourse is given in the Gray's-Inn Journal, 1753 (No. 18), in an imaginary meeting of the political Robin Hood Society, where he figures as Orator Bronze, and exclaims:—"I am pleased to see this assembly—you're a twig from me; a chip of ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... chance of getting news as I went on: and my road being towards the east and south, Dulverton would not lie so very far aside of it, but what it might be worth a visit, both to collect the latest tidings, and to consult the maps and plans in Uncle Reuben's parlour. Therefore I drew the off-hand rein, at the cross-road on the hills, and made for the town; expecting perhaps to have breakfast with Master Huckaback, and Ruth, to help and encourage us. This little maiden was now become a very great favourite ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... the admiral, apparently shocked at Tom's speaking out in such an off-hand way his opinion of the foreign gentleman, as he took Jocko ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... recently contributed an item of information which Russians have adopted as a characteristic bit of ignorance and erected into a standard jest. He asserted that every village in Russia has its own gallows, on which it hangs its own criminals off-hand. As the death penalty is practically abolished in Russia, except for high treason, which is not tried in villages, the Russians are at a loss to explain what the writer can have mistaken for a gallows. There are two "guesses" current as to his meaning: the ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... Mississippi—is about six times as long as the distance, in a straight line, from its head to its mouth. The state of the river is vaguely but generally understood to depend on some distant and foreign phenomena to which bushmen refer in an off-hand tone of voice as "the Queenslan' rains", which seem to be held responsible, in a general way, for most of the ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... all, now," finished Lieutenant Mayberry. "Overton and Terry, I am going to commend you, in an off-hand way, now, for your judgment and intelligence to-night. You have made an excellent beginning. You may very likely hear from the ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... love with herself, her destiny, the air of the hills, the benediction of the sun. All the way home, she continued under the intoxication of these sky-scraping spirits. At table she could talk freely of young Hermiston; gave her opinion of him off-hand and with a loud voice, that he was a handsome young gentleman, real well mannered and sensible-like, but it was a pity he looked doleful. Only - the moment after - a memory of his eyes in church embarrassed her. But for this inconsiderable check, all through meal-time she had a good ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Even the present generation of hustling Canadians know that, though many of them could not tell an inquirer, off-hand, the name of the Canadian Prime Minister who preceded Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Of course he won—by a bare 3000 majority—that's all. Mid-Toronto shouted itself black in the face that night, and went about ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... has been suggested that musical comedy is waning, and the period has been reached when the average piece of this class spells failure. There is, of course, nothing in the work of Isadora Duncan which limits it to one principal, and naught to prevent the combination of singing and dancing. Off-hand it seems rash to suggest that spoken dialogue could be harmonized with these. It is imaginable that the authors of Prunella could see their way to combine with work somewhat on the lines of their ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... again much beholden to the skilful manoeuvring of his messmate, Coffin, who was already higher in the good graces of the mother and daughters than Morton, who, though a handsome man, had not so much of that dashing, off-hand, sort of gallantry as the other; and which goes an incredible way ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... to wait long to find out. In another minute he was at my door greeting me in an off-hand, "Hello, Boyne. Ready to jump into your car and go around with ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... whatever others spoke to him, or he to them, he would correct, transform, and vary in several ways. Hence it was, that he was looked upon as a person of no great natural genius, but one who owed all the power and ability he had in speaking to labor and industry. He was very rarely heard to speak off-hand, but though he were by name frequently called upon by the people, as he sat in the assembly, yet he would not rise unless he had previously considered the subject, and come prepared for it. So that many of the popular pleaders used to make it a jest against ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... initiative in the matter. If the count was asked, he stoutly maintained that Fernanda had given him up; and so much stress did he lay upon the statement, that nobody doubted his sincerity. The heiress, Estrada-Rosa, corroborated her lover's assertion without going into particulars, and this in the off-hand tone she always adopted when speaking of, or to, the count, for they went on seeing each other pretty frequently, albeit not quite so often, although they attended parties at the houses of mutual friends. Moreover, Fernanda soon after became an habituee at the dances ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... had expressed to Marten. Leonhard chanced to be with this young Croesus—who had begun life by dipping water for invalids at the springs—when the ten thousand dollars alluded to were paid him by a dealer; and the instant transfer of the money to his hands was one of those off-hand performances which, apparently trivial, in the end search a man ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... it's a matter of opinion. But, as I have an engagement in another place, be good enough to ask what you are instructed to ask, and settle the matter off-hand. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various
... hooked nose and red face, dressed in a fashionably cut greatcoat, with a fashionable black castor on his head. "No, no, keep behind—the box a'n't for the like of you," said he, as he drove off; "the box is for lords, or gentlemen at least." I made no answer. "D—- that off-hand leader," said the coachman, as the right-hand front horse made a desperate start at something he saw in the road; and, half rising, he with great dexterity hit with his long whip the off-hand leader a cut on the ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... is she? and likewise where is Sylvia, where is she? Obviously they were questions not to be answered off-hand. Was not my future—at all events my immediate future—to be spent ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... show that it is unsafe to decide off-hand in what class of matrix metals will or will not be found, I may say that in my own experience I have seen payable gold ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... us, that the seamen on board the English and Dutch ships, but especially the Dutch, were so enraged at the name of a pirate, and especially at our beating off their boats, and escaping, that they would not give themselves leave to inquire whether we were pirates or no; but would execute us off-hand, as we call it, without giving us any room for a defence. We reflected that there was really so much apparent evidence before them, that they would scarce inquire after any more: as, first, that the ship was certainly ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... and Mr. Webster's vote secured for Mr. Clay the chairmanship. A general compromise bill was speedily prepared, and the "battle of the giants" was recommenced, Clay, Webster, and Calhoun engaging for the last time in a gladitorial strife, which exhibited the off-hand genial eloquence of the Kentuckian, the ponderous strength of the Massachusetts Senator, and the concentrated energies of South Carolina's favorite son. Mr. Clay was the leader in the debate, which extended over seven months, and during that ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... communicated in a bold, off-hand manner, enlisted my sympathies for the sufferer, although it occurred to me that he walked rather too gingerly for a person afflicted with so ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... between the two skins of the leaf, much like boring a tunnel between the two surfaces of a sheet of paper. If you take a needle you can insert the point in the burrow and pass it along wherever the bore is straight, so that the needle lies between the to sides of the leaf. Off-hand, if any one were asked if it were possible to split a leaf, he would say no. This little creature, however, has worked along inside it, and lived there. The upper surface of the leaf is a darker green, and seems to the ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... a button what we call it," Angelica decided off-hand, out of her own inner consciousness. "But you would not like us to be either 'con' or 'per,' would you?" ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Home, where you can get mild drinks, read the papers, and write. Visited the Battery chaps again in the evening. I have grown quite reckless about the lack of a pass; "Orderly to Captain Davies," said in a very off-hand tone I found an excellent form of reply to sentries. I have an "Esmond," and am enjoying it for about the fiftieth time. It serves to pass away the late evenings. A great amusement in the barrack-room ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... spendthrift on earth when you get him started, but as a general rule his middle name is Tight Wad. He would select a combination of scrapper and skipper, and there are any number of such combinations on the beach of 'Frisco town. I could name you a dozen off-hand, and any one of the dozen would make you mind your P's and Q's, big as you are. Still, they all fight alike—rough and tumble, catch-as-catch-can. They come wading in, swinging both arms and you could sail the Retriever through ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... bowed head and clasped hands, like a reverently inclining statue. Her long lashes brushed her cheek; she drew a kind of isolation from the way her manner underlined the office. The civilian's wife, with a side-glance, settled it off-hand that she was absurdly affected; and, indeed, to an acuter intelligence it might have looked as if she took, with the artistry of habit, a cue that was ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... to receive an off-hand invitation from him to "drop in for a little country spread." They were still more surprised when they beheld the long table with its sumptuous array of edibles,—raised biscuits, golden butter, cold chicken, pickles, jelly, sugared doughnuts, pork cake, gold and silver ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... Jones was a man of about thirty, a nice, gentlemanly fellow, in a fine offce. I have usually been an off-hand man in business, accustomed to quick decisions and very little beating about the bush. But I confess I was rather nonplussed with the second Jones. How the devil was I to begin? His waiting-room was full of people, and I hardly felt entitled to sit down and gas about ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... very well," he said, trying to speak in an off-hand tone; "they don't get enough sun. And then, the other day I had to pour my coffee out of the window, and I forgot that the border was just underneath. I daresay it ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton
... of the boys be hanging round to steal the candy when we put it out to cool," answered Sherm easily, trying to be off-hand. ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... which my father diligently impressed upon his pupils, and that was the felicity and the happiness attendant upon pencil drawing. He was a master of the pencil, and in his off-hand sketches communicated his ideas to others in a way that mere words could never have done. It was his Graphic Language. A few strokes of the pencil can convey ideas which quires of writing would fail to impart. This is one of the most valuable gifts which ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... look at me, went into the inn and sat down to his interrupted meal. I could see him plainly through the window, and hugely admired his coolness. The maids clustered around to have a peep at me. Such as were old and ugly declared off-hand that I was indisputably ripe for the gallows, but a younger one with saucy eyes and cherry-red cheeks blew a kiss, and called out to beery breath to deal gentlier with me. He moved a little in turning to grin at her, and I shot my knee into his wind and ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... technicalities of ethical speculation. They have no specimens of logical hair-splitting, no pedantic array of barren definitions, no subtle distinctions proceeding from an ingenious fancy, and without any foundation in nature. On the contrary, we find in this volume a series of lively, off-hand, dashing comments on men and manners, often running into broad humor, and always marked with the pungent common sense that never forsook the facetious divine. His remarks on the conduct of the understanding, on literary habits, on the use and value of ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... recitative, often resembling spoken words, rather than musical notes, many of which are short and guttural. He seldom whistles clearly, like the Robin, but he produces a charming variety of tone and modulation. Thoreau, in one of his quaint descriptions, gives an off-hand sketch of the bird, which I will quote:—"Near at hand, upon the topmost spray of a birch, sings the Brown Thrasher, or Red Mavis, as some love to call him,—all the morning glad of your society, that would find out another farmer's field, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various |
