"Matter-of-fact" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... creatures of impulse are not creatures of despair. Suicide, I suspect, is very often the outcome of mere mental weariness—not an act of savage energy but the final symptom of complete collapse. The quiet, matter-of-fact attentions of a ship's stewardess, who did not seem aware of other human agonies than sea-sickness, who talked of the probable weather of the passage—it would be a rough night, she thought—and who insisted in a professionally busy manner, "Let me make you comfortable down below at once, miss," ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... at all and also in greater degree than that in which they really do: whereas the Reserved man, on the contrary, denies those which really belong to him or else depreciates them, while the mean character being a Plain-matter-of-fact person is Truthful in life and word, admitting the existence of what does really belong to him and making it neither greater ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... has been an eventful one. At last I have acceded to the importunities of my friends, and have hastily sketched some of the striking incidents that go to make up my history. My life, so full of romance, may sound like a dream to the matter-of-fact reader, nevertheless everything I have written is strictly true; much has been omitted, but nothing has been exaggerated. In writing as I have done, I am well aware that I have invited criticism; but before ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... knew what to make of Edna's speech; it was not exactly flippant, but it seemed so strange to hear so young a creature speak in that cool, matter-of-fact way. ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the transatlantic ferry is decidedly English, and Mrs. Harris closely studied the courtesies and requirements. She soon came to like the ship's discipline and matter-of-fact customs. The young people, some newly married, and some new acquaintances like Leo and Lucille, had moved their steamer chairs on the deck, that they might watch the ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... thing itself, and refers to the condition of the people in Egypt to which they are now to be reduced. In favour of the latter explanation, there is not only the comparison of the parallel passage in Ezekiel, but, still more, the purely matter-of-fact character of the entire description. Israel is, in this section, not compared to a wife, so that figure and thing would be co-ordinate, but appears as the wife herself. Ver. 17 also is in favour of this interpretation.—The words, "I make ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... "Of course, yes." His matter-of-fact assent caused poor Toni a pang. "But I think I shall have to borrow Miss Loder from the office for a few weeks. She is used to the job, you know. She told me she had once taken down an eighty-thousand-word book, typed it, and seen it through the press, because ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... then resumed his breakfast without comment. Mary Louise thought she saw a smile flicker over his stolid features for a moment, but could not be positive. Aunt Hannah had spoken in a practical, matter-of-fact way that did not ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... a cool, matter-of-fact, legal letter, written by a clerk, probably from dictation, and signed by the old lawyer. But at the bottom there was a postscript in his own ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... six I turned on the hot water in the bath, and covertly swallowed a small glass of brandy. I then said, "Half-past six; time for little boys to be in bed." I said it in the matter-of-fact voice of one made free of the company of parents, as if I had said it often before, and would have to say it often again, and as if there was nothing particularly delicious to me in hearing myself say it. I tried to say ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... live for ever. Dear old Agnes! She little thought as she struggled with her spelling and her pen that she was writing something that was immortal. If she had known, I don't think she would have bothered. She was a very matter-of-fact old lady, and was too full of worries to have much ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... eminent piety is usually 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
... little arrangements which were involved in the execution of this plan, he remembered that all his money (and in this respect Squire Griffiths was no niggard) was locked up in his escritoire at Bodowen. In vain he tried to do away with this matter-of-fact difficulty; go to Bodowen he must: and his only hope—nay his determination—was to ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the usual question as to whether she had ever experienced anything of the phenomena usually called supernatural, apparently because it is not the habitual experience of every twenty-four hours, she ridiculed the idea. Ghosts? not she. She was a severely practical, matter-of-fact person, who used her natural senses, and had nothing to do with spirits. But was she quite sure; had nothing ever occurred to her which she could not explain? Then she hesitated and said, "Well, yes; but there is nothing supernatural ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... he; "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
... may sound merely like the grating of overwrought nerves. But it is more than that. All religions grew out of that most human mood. And whenever one is deeply moved, he feels it. For even the most matter-of-fact person of us all has now and then a suspicion that this life is merely episodic—that curtain after curtain of darkness is to be pierced, world after world of consciousness and light ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... leg," she said, in a matter-of-fact voice. "I've done the best I could, though I am afraid it is rather ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... No, of course, he's not a goose. I've no doubt he's a very clever man. But you're so matter-of-fact, Archdeacon, when it suits your purpose, that one can't trust oneself to any facon de parler. I've no doubt Mr. Arabin is a very valuable man—at Oxford—and that he'll be a good vicar at St. Ewold. All I mean is that, having passed one evening with him, I don't find ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... have killed Mr Whalley, Mr Pitskiver's eyes would certainly have been tried for murder; but that matter-of-fact individual was impervious to the most impassioned glances. Miss Hendy sank her face in horror over her plate, and celestial rosy red overspread her countenance; while a look of the most extraordinary nature rewarded Mr Pitskiver ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... 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 ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... never get over her wonder at their stolidity, their endless patience, their matter-of-fact way of carrying on life under a cataclysm. They went on with their spading in the fields, while shrapnel was pinging. They trotted up and down a road that was pock-marked with shell-holes. They hung out their washings where machine-gun bullets could ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... good deal in common with this description. The ninth and tenth of Sabellico's thirteen Elegies on the Mother of God contain a minute account of her triumph, richly adorned with allegories, and especially interesting from that matter-of-fact air which also characterizes the realistic ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... that she would, and that all these things would come some day. He sighed inwardly and wondered, not for the first time, where the link could possibly lie between the matter-of-fact mother and the strange child of fancy. There was nothing to do but attribute the phenomenon to Mister, the whimsical knight of the open road. The boarder asked what he should bring Kern from the party: he feared they wouldn't have ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... though he nearly succeeded in finally extirpating "poetic diction." We think the proper antithesis is not between prosaic and poetic words, nor between the speech of actual life and a conventionalized diction, but between the language of real life (which is something different from the actual, or matter-of-fact) and that of artificial life, or society,—that is, between phrases fit to express the highest passion, feeling, aspiration, and those adapted to the intercourse of polite life, whence all violent emotion, or, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... and Alice and Frane, Junior, rather trying. Not having their childish imaginations so well developed as the six little Bunkers had, the children of the plantation were altogether too matter-of-fact. Many childish plays that the Bunkers enjoyed did not appeal to their ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... fact, that his mind remained unimpressed "by the horrors of his residence, or the dreadful aspect and sad fellowship of his thousand unfortunate companions in guilt, or by the flagrant penalties imposed upon him, for so many crimes." On all these grounds, whether abstract or matter-of-fact, the court declares the prisoner guilty of the wilful murder of Avanzi, and sentences him ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... in a sentimental mood this evening," suggested Farquaharson at last, bringing himself with something of a wrench out of his abstraction and speaking in a matter-of-fact voice. He remembered belatedly that his cigar had gone out and as he relighted it there was a slight ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... As a matter-of-fact I suspected from her last words that she knew more about everything than I did, but I was perfectly sure that she wouldn't believe me if I denied it, so I ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... vast gothic castle. It was a folly, I confess, but I often lamented they were not such; the travelling for thousands of miles, without meeting any nobler trace of the ages that are passed, than a mass of rotten leaves, or a fragment of fallen rock, produces a heavy, earthly matter-of-fact effect upon the imagination, which can hardly be described, and for which the greatest beauty of scenery can furnish only an occasional and ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... these Unpretentious Annals of an Unloved Worm, but I can't help feeling that it marks a trivially significant divide in the trend of things. It depresses me more than I can explain. My depression, I imagine, comes mostly from the manner in which Duncan went. He was matter-of-fact enough about it all, but I can't get rid of the impression that he went with a feeling very much like relief. His manner, at any rate, was not one to invite cross-examination, and he insisted, to the ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... tablespoons; a few tiny teaspoons marked F.; a handsome sword and scabbard; a yellow satin waistcoat and small-clothes; portraits, not artistic, but effective, of his grandfather, in a velvet coat and knee-breeches, with a long spyglass in his hand, and of his grandmother, a strong, matter-of-fact ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... from my arm, laid it on one of the tables spread with the presents. There was a faint ringing of silver and china to show the hand was not steady. He is a self-contained, sturdily-built, matter-of-fact young man in the early twenties; quite unlike his sister, whose appearance is elegantly fragile, who is filled with nerves, and sensitive ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... 'to consult his dentist,'" Guy answered, in the most matter-of-fact voice on earth, suppressing a tremor, "because you know I've had toothache off and on myself, one day with another, for the whole last fortnight. And it's a tooth that never ached with either of us before-this one, you see"—he lifted his lip with his forefinger—"the second on the left ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... her a moment in astonishment, and then a twinkle crept into his eyes. Her matter-of-fact brusqueness, which made it perfectly plain that his views in the matter did not count, might have roused a sense of opposition in some men, but he had acquired a wide ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... Stevenson—to whom Mr. Noyes pays a glowing tribute—and Lewis Carroll; yet there is no imitation; Mr. Noyes has a distinct poetic style of his own.... In a matter-of-fact age such verse as this is an oasis in a ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... I know I am not welcome, upon business," he said in a calm, matter-of-fact voice. "I am tired of this place, and I think it is time that we attained the object of our journey here, namely, to find the hidden gold. That, as we all know, can only be done in a certain way, through the clairvoyant powers of one of us and the hypnotic powers of another. Miss Clifford, ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... glimmering. 'The Landscape of other worlds' you alone have sketched for us, and enlightened us on that with which the ancient world but gazed upon and worshipped in the symbol of Astarte, Isis, and Diana. We are matter-of-fact now, and have outlived childhood. What say you to a photograph of those wonderful drawings? It may come to that."* [footnote... It did indeed "come to that," for I shortly after learned the art of photography, chiefly for ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... rather a sense of awe that seizes us both at times, when we are together, as though we were in the presence of unseen influences; as though, rather, a world not our own were projecting itself into our well-defined lives. I have shown you that Alice and I belong to a very real, very matter-of-fact world. But there are times when we seem to be walking in a land of strange sounds and sights and of shadows that fan our cheeks ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... prepared to place about her neck the cord with which she was to be strangled; finding it too short for the purpose, he went into another room to get one of more suitable length. Before he had disappeared through the doorway, Violante had pulled the bandage from her eyes, and was asking, in the most matter-of-fact way, what the trouble was and why he did not complete his task. With great courtesy, he informed his sister what he was about, and a moment later returned, tranquilly readjusted bandage and cord, and then, fitting his dagger hilt into a loop at the back, he slowly twisted it about until the ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... coveting your own house," Barbara would say, boldly. And we did covet, and we did grieve. And although we did not mean to have "hard thoughts," we felt that Aunt Roderick was hard; and that Uncle Roderick and Uncle John were hatefully matter-of-fact and of-course about the "business." And that paper might be somewhere, yet. We did not believe that Grandfather Holabird had "changed his mind and burned it up." He had not had much mind to change, within those last six months. When he was ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... David and Jonathan from their little boy days, no less friends because they were so unlike; Marty, a quiet, brooding, knowledge-hungry youngster, and J.W. matter-of-fact, taking things as they came and asking few questions, but always the leader in games and mischief; each the other's champion ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... 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 ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... presence all that Sam had given them in my eyes. They did not like my mother, they ate in uneasy silence, or spoke gruffly of their dull affairs. Once or twice I heard talk of mutinies, of sailors shot down or put in irons, but all in a matter-of-fact sort of way. Mere grunts came from my father. Steadily drearier grew the ocean, flatter all the ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... ages. If you will ask yourself, What are the main and abiding thoughts which are embodied in Nature? your conclusion, I think, need not be elaborate and confusing. The question, however, must be asked in a receptive and unprejudiced mood, and not merely by the matter-of-fact intellect. "Every inch of earth, of water, of fire, and of air contains the fundamental principles of the universe, and man is the connecting link between dust and Deity, and can bridge the gulf through ...
— Mastery of Self • Frank Channing Haddock
... 'these Goblins are not peculiar to the Gobi.' Yet I felt more than ever assured that Marco's stories about them were of genuine local growth, when I had travelled over the whole route and seen how closely its topographical features agree with the matter-of-fact details which the first part of his chapter records. Anticipating my subsequent observations, I may state here at once that Marco's estimate of the distance and the number of marches on this desert crossing proved perfectly ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... SOC. C. E. (by letter).—Mr. Godfrey has expressed his opinion on many questions in regard to concrete construction, but he has adduced no clean-cut statement of fact or tests, in support of his views, which will give them any weight whatever with the practical matter-of-fact builder. ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... also an ardent lover of Cremonese instruments, and thoroughly understood their characteristics. His career was both chequered and curious, sufficiently so, indeed, to cause our eminent novelist, Charles Reade, to make it the subject of "Jack of all Trades: a Matter-of-Fact Romance." Jack Lott (as he was familiarly styled) therefore shares with Jacob Stainer the honour of having supplied subject-matter for writers of fiction. It must, however, be said that whilst Dr. Schuler's "Jacob Stainer" is mainly pure ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... spoken in a matter-of-fact sort of way, and Elsa went upstairs in a less ecstatic mood than when she came down, and told Karin calmly that her father seemed pleased that she ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker
... job that he gives his mind to with a minimum expenditure of vital energy; nothing is wasted in expression, style, spread-eagleism; everything is instinctively kept as near to the practical heart of the matter as possible. He is—to the eye of an artist—distressingly matter-of-fact, a tempting mark for satire. And yet he is in truth an idealist, though it is his nature to snub, disguise, and mock his own inherent optimism. To admit enthusiasms is "bad form" if he is a "gentleman"; "swank" or mere waste of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... to Paris for our honeymoon, and Ted shall stay there six months—a year—for ever, if he likes. Paris is the place I adore above all others. I shall simply live in that dear Louvre!" She added in more matter-of-fact tones, "And I needn't order my trousseau till I get there. That'll save no end of bother on this side. I hate the way we do things here. For weeks before your wedding-day to have to think of nothing but clothes, clothes, ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... grudgingly. He stood up and watched her while she spread a cloth partly over the table and placed some dishes and food upon it. He was hungry, and the sight of the food made him feel suddenly ravenous. He watched her covertly, noting her matter-of-fact movements. It was as though she had not the slightest idea that he would refuse to eat, and he felt certain that he could not refuse. She was making him feel uncomfortable again; that epithet, "silly," rankled in him and he did not want to hear her apply it to him again. But he would ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Romance, domesticity, and home disappeared, probably with the message along the wire, and the spirit of business descended on the little woman as she applied herself once more to the matter-of-fact ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... to have ham and eggs for tea," said matter-of-fact Betty, "I think one of us had better order them soon, or Mrs. Henderson may say she can't ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... remarkable, that whoever made a sly attack upon that worthy, with a view to a joke, was sure to have the tables turned upon him, by the matter-of-fact way in which his joke was received, refuted, and cut ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... since our gay birds have migrated," he said in a matter-of-fact way. "Which direction shall ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... in anticipation of the sounds which he has probably evoked from the harp of Judah's minstrel king, of the colors which he has put on the canvas where are painted the glowing visions of Isaiah, and of the rude matter-of-fact method in which he has doubtless used the modern telescope to penetrate and scatter the glorious and solemn mysteries of the cloud-land of prophecy out of which spake the God of Daniel. But we forbear, and must ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... know," he said, "that I think people that have dreams and fancies do look backward farther than matter-of-fact people, who let things out of sight go out ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... its interest in Washington. A regiment marching down Broadway was something to see, but the same regiment in Pennsylvania Avenue looked mean and matter-of-fact. A General in the field, or riding uncovered through Boston or Baltimore, or even lounging at the bar of the Continental or the Astor House or the Tremont, was invested with an atmosphere half heroic, half poetic; ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... 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 attempt, by intensity of description and brilliant ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... some 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, intending, apparently, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... temporarily assumed a new aspect. That its walls should contain this fairy tale of possible wealth and power and magnificence made it seem quite soberly respectable, and that Big Tom, sitting in the second-hand looking armchair, which creaked beneath his weight, should, in matter-of-fact tones, be relating such a story, made Judge Rutherford regard him with a ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... putting it in such phrases as should carry conviction to the hearer, and yet should convey to him no suspicion of the pride which Hewson felt in the incident as a sort of tribute to himself. He dramatized the scene at breakfast when he should describe it in plain, matter-of-fact terms, and hold every one spellbound, as he or she leaned forward over the table to listen, while he related the fact with studied unconcern for his own part in it, but with a serious regard for ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... to imagine that there could be a more fitting description of Bideford than that drawn in the opening words of 'Westward Ho!' Bideford, it has been said, is spoilt by ugly modern houses, but the remark implies a matter-of-fact view, for the ugliness and modernness are only skin-deep, and can easily be ignored. A matter of far greater importance is that there is an old-world essence, a dignity in the whole tone and spirit of the town, that keep it in touch ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... not been grounded in mawkish records of the fashionable follies of high life, such as my Lord Duke, or my Lady Bab, might indite below stairs, for the amusement of those in the drawing-room; on the contrary, it was founded in portraits and pictures of human nature, strengthened by historical, or matter-of-fact interest, and stripped of the trickery of fancy and romance; whereas, the chronicles of fashion are little better than the vagaries of an eccentric few, who bear the same proportion to the general mass of society, that the princes, heroes, and statesmen of history ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... As she ate, she watched the pretty matter-of-fact little girl, and laughed with delight. When had she found any thing so wholesome? It was a year, too, since she had seen any one who knew George. Naturally, she began to empty her heart, which was full ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... available as subject-matter, and all the principles governing literary composition are concerned. Here we shall find the poem, the drama, the oration in some of its forms, most essays of the better sort, the greater part of good critical writing, literary description, and all narrative forms except the matter-of-fact historical writing ...
— The Writing of the Short Story • Lewis Worthington Smith
... this point to her satisfaction. I must confess it was irrefutably brought home to me that she was anxious to understand the most delicate and mysterious features of the intrigue, though in rather too precise and matter-of-fact a spirit. In the end I felt as though I had explained a French society play to her. Her high spirits in all such things were as marked as the curious amiability of her nature in other respects; for when I one day explained to her, in illustration of the ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... man would be standing there so quietly unless he were backed by a posse sufficient to overpower them. He had not the manner of a man taking a desperate chance. The situation was as dramatic as life and death, but the voice that had come down to them had been as matter-of-fact as if it had asked some one to pass him a cup of coffee at the ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... 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 in the theatre has gone through some crisis, some tragedy as thrilling, as subtle and as ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... fantasy" which gives it a distinctive charm. This quality is the hint of—not necessarily the supernatural, but rather the weird; it is a recognition and a vague presentation of the many strong influences that are not explainable by our philosophy of life. It is the intrusion into our matter-of-fact lives of the uncanny element, which the novice so grossly misuses in his tales of premonitory dreams and visions, and of most unghostly ghosts. "It is not enough to catch a ghost white-handed and to hale him into the ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... it, I was conscious that all this was taking place around us, and then I heard Sergeant Corney say to the general, in a matter-of-fact tone: ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... rhythm. What more delightful than to yield yourself entirely to the present mood and wander off somewhere, aimless except to see and feel? The trim soberness of the dusty road with its gray windings and vistas of sand-ruts becomes less matter-of-fact at length, and so you leave it to itself, and seek a path that leads to the heart of Nature and far from ways of men. Down grassy slopes and over little hillocks that pique your curiosity by shutting out the view of what is coming next; now skirting the edge of a furrowed potato-patch, ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... this wonderful princess would persist in talking in a very matter-of-fact way. All the afternoon, while he was weaving a luminous web of imagination around her, she was continually cutting it asunder, and stepping forth as an authority on the growing of some wretched plants or the means by which rain was to be excluded from window-sills. And now, in this strange ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... end was his grand ambition, and he took elaborate precautions against becoming a matter-of-fact husband. Every morning he ordered himself to gaze at her with rapture, as if he had wakened to the glorious thought ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... note, which appeared in the first and subsequent editions of this volume, is characteristic of the audacious spirit of fun in which Bon Gaultier revelled. The sonnet here ascribed to Wordsworth must have been believed by some matter-of-fact people to be really by him. On his death in 1857, in an article on the subject of the vacant Laureate-ship, it was quoted in a leading journal as proof of Wordsworth's complacent estimate of his own supremacy over all contemporary poets. In writing the ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... excitement were no small contrast to the sober, matter-of-fact demeanour of the Teutonic knight, who comported himself with the mechanical decorum of an ecclesiastic, but quite as one who meant to keep his word. Maximilian served the mass in his royal character as sub-deacon. He was fond of so doing, either ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at him, amazed at his cool, drawling, matter-of-fact tone. She was still more puzzled to note that he seemed to be juggling with his revolver in a manner which seemed, to say the ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... back, throwing the labouring-oar altogether on me, came to the rescue, and, with his subtle manner and oily tongue, began to make the wrong appear the right. I do not think he blinded his own sister in the least, but I fear he had too much influence over mine. Lucy, though all heart, was as much matter-of-fact as her brother was a sophist. He was ingenious in glozing over truths; she, nearly unerring in detecting them. I never knew a greater contrast between two human beings, than there was between these two children of the same parents, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... attack in force, the colonel, though always ready to doubt the information received and the possibility of the black spies' surmises being correct, felt that he was warranted in making every preparation; and this was set about in a calm, matter-of-fact way. ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... those—well, we will not use harsh terms—who calmly tell you that they always use dry arsenic. Incredible as the statement may appear to the scientist, yet it is true that I have seen a man plunge his hand in the most matter-of-fact way into a box containing dry arsenic, and coolly proceed to dust it on a skin. What is the consequence of this to the user of wet or dry arsenical preparations? Coughs, colds, chronic bronchitis, soreness of the lips and nose, ugly ulcers, brittleness of nails, ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... we must have been creeping along for an hour, though perhaps it was not half that time, when suddenly the first team of oxen was stopped, the wheels of the first wagon ceased to move, and the whole line came, in the most matter-of-fact way, to a stand. No one seemed to heed, and the oxen went on contemplatively ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... manner of putting a stop to the revolution started by MacIan and Turnbull. These two find all the persons they had met with during their odyssey, packed away in the asylum, which is a wonderful place worked by petroleum machinery. But the matter-of-fact grocer from the Channel Island, regarding the whole affair as an infringement of the Rights of Man, sets the petroleum alight. Michael, the celestial being who had appeared in the first chapter and disappeared at the end of it, is dragged out of a cell in an imbecile condition. ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... a short silence. The evening was gathering fast, cold and threatening, the little fire threw our shadows high up on the wall, and the wail of the wind and thunder of the incoming tide gave a ghastly significance to this matter-of-fact catalogue of horrors. As we looked through the little window at the vast gray plain of water, it seemed as if every wave covered a wreck or dead ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... 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 ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... foolish," said Betty, striving to make her voice sound matter-of-fact, her eyes glued to the road ahead of them as it twisted and turned through the woods. "I don't see why lights should make a perfectly harmless wood look ghastly. And, anyway, I couldn't turn them out now. I don't believe I could find my way. You don't want ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... on these occasions, and this girl had futon, bags, etc., neatly tied in big furoshiki (wrapping cloths) in the shortest possible time. It was only when she was satisfied that our belongings were in readiness for easy removal that she went to look after her own. The matter-of-fact, fore-sighted, neat way in which she got to work was admirable. With great kindness one of the elders of the village came hurriedly to the temple, evidently thinking we should feel alarmed, and cried out, "Yoroshii, Yoroshii" ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... matter-of-fact story of Belgian life under German rule. Many more people will be tempted to praise the glory of our soldiers. But, if the incidents of conquered Belgium's life are not recorded in good time, they might escape notice. People might forget that, besides the 150,000 ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... fancy to unroll itself, an endless panorama of pansophical mysteries, before my eyes. I do not appreciate it in the least. Philip Bailey's "Mystic" is more comprehensible to me. This is a practical, matter-of-fact world; I know it is. Sophie Percival, my sister, is the wife of Aaron Wilton, country-clergyman in Redleaf,—nothing more; and I thought of my untasted cup of tea, in which lay condensed all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... very success of his last and most pretentious effort that had placed him in the horrifying predicament in which he now found himself—with the corpse of what was apparently a human being in his workshop and no available explanation that could possibly be acceptable to a matter-of-fact ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... militia. In 1814 he went to Italy, and crossed to Elba, where he saw Napoleon. Lord John was always a most authentic reporter. His description of the Emperor, written the next day, besides its intrinsic interest, is so characteristic of the writer himself that it may be quoted here. It is as matter-of-fact as one of Wellington's dispatches and as shrewd as a passage from ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... and the return of Ware and Sylvia did not disturb them. It seemed, however, that Ware was a famous story-teller, and when he had lighted a fresh cigar he recounted a number of adventures, speaking in his habitual, dry, matter-of-fact tone, and with curious unexpected turns of phrase. Conversation in Indiana seems to drift into story-telling inevitably. John Ware once read a paper before the Indianapolis Literary Club to prove that this Hoosier trait was derived from the South. He drew a species of ellipsoid ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... is the character of the heroine, Natalya, the quiet, sober, matter-of-fact girl, who at the bottom is an enthusiastic and heroic nature. She is but a child fresh to all impressions of life, and as yet undeveloped. To have used the searching, analytical method in painting her would have spoiled this beautiful ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... remarked Miss Terry, in the most matter-of-fact way, without having the faintest idea of what ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... habit, an intimate personal habit of not being cheated. Everything he does is full of this habit. The sinful man, as he is usually called, is a man who is off in his facts, a man who does not know what he really wants even for himself. In a matter-of-fact civilization like ours, he cannot hope to keep up. If a man can be cheated, even by himself—of course other people can cheat him and everybody can take advantage of him. He naturally grows more incompetent every day he ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... of inconceivable immensity and infinite diversity, the human spirit which is not content with the dead bones of science and has entered into communion with Nature cannot but turn away dissatisfied—and even with despair. Let me try to illustrate this in a more matter-of-fact way. ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... a truthful, matter-of-fact character. The writers tell us what they saw, with little if any colouring or exaggeration. Wherever there is any interest in the things themselves, it is preserved in the book, whether it relates to the appearance ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853 • Various
... sanctuary for the community of the twelve tribes prior to the days of Solomon, and so in fact a projection of the later temple. How modest, one might almost say how awkwardly bashful, is the Deuteronomic reference to the future place which Jehovah is to choose when compared with this calm matter-of-fact assumption that the necessary centre of unity of worship was given from the first! In the one case we have, so to speak, only the idea as it exists in the mind of the lawgiver, but making no claim to be realised till a much later date; in the other, the Mosaic idea has acquired also a Mosaic ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... the ground of his talk appeared somewhat delicate, nothing could have been more matter-of-fact than the way he tramped it. Yet now he palpably paused to ask himself whether it was worth his while to go more into detail. Yes; clearly it was. If it ever became necessary to ask the boarding-house agent to find his father for him, she would ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... pleading the cause of all true women. In those days when, perhaps, people's nerves were stronger than they are now, sentiment may have existed in a less degree, or have been more ruled by judgment, it may have been calmer and more matter-of-fact; and yet Jane Austen, at the very end of her life, wrote thus. Her words seem to ring in our ears after they have been spoken. Anne Elliot must have been Jane Austen herself, speaking for the last time. There is something so true, so womanly about her, that it is impossible not to love her ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... a little gesture of contempt. "We argue from different standpoints," he said. "I am a plain, matter-of-fact, cold-blooded business man. There is no ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the desire to perform feats of valor. Three warrior chiefs informed me personally that they had done this in order to accustom their young sons to the sight of blood and to impart to them the spirit of courage. I have no doubt whatsoever of the truth of their statements, as they were made in a matter-of-fact, straightforward way, as if the affair were a most natural occurrence. Accounts of such performances may be overheard when ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... it aloud, for the vague pepper-and-salt took on familiar lines suddenly, and the matter-of-fact little features scattered so indistinguishably, as it were, though the boyishly round face became obviously one with the much-photographed trader-prince; it was Absolom Vail, ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... a new pair of gloves," she answered in a tone cruelly matter-of-fact, as if she would show deliberately her unconcern. He could now see all too clearly what a fool's dream he had cherished, and the awakening was painfully abrupt. He divined that something was amiss, something of which ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... civil and his accents almost silken, Venner glanced keenly from one Scot to the other, and everyone felt that the atmosphere had grown more intense, and that there was latent antipathy between the two men. And even Rooke, a blunt and matter-of-fact Englishman, who having said his say, had been smoking diligently, turned round to listen to MacKay, who had never said a word through all the ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... from Irene M'Rae. I dare say there must have been a deal of romance about me even then, for Irene's delightful little matter-of-fact and prosaic letter gave me much pleasure, and I—I believe I carried it about with me till it was all frayed at every fold, and I finally stowed it ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... he'll take us home, Clarence," Rachael said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "It's a shame to carry you off when you've just ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... of a period of unrestrained misconduct. Intoxicated by the novelty of yielding to Satan, I gave him a free hand and the result was months of debauchery and self-disgust. The underworld women I met, the humdrum filth of their life, and their matter-of-fact, business-like attitude toward it never ceased to shock and repel me. I never left a creature of this kind without abominating her and myself, yet I would soon, sometimes during the very same evening, call on her again or on some other woman ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... area intervened between that and the foot pavement; and to see a gentleman scrambling through by that orifice into the principal street of, and from one of the principal houses of the town, whilst all the people were going to church, was a little too preposterous even for Mr Root's matter-of-fact imagination. However, they all peeped up the chimney one after the other, as if an elderly, military-looking gentleman, encumbered with a surtout, for thus he was described, would have been so generous as ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... before the arrival of the ensuing Sunday, he might have afforded a little employment to that ancient and gloomy functionary, a coroner, and his jury. At that time, however, inquests of this sort were matter-of-fact and melancholy affairs enough; which I doubt not would have been rather a dissuasive from suicide, in the estimation of one who might be supposed ambitious of the eclat of a modern inquest; where, indeed, such strange antics are played by certain new performers ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... Almost every Englishman has been surprised on making the acquaintance of an accidental American (no "magnate" or "captain of industry" but an ordinary business man) to learn that though he is no more than the manufacturer of some matter-of-fact article, his operations are on a confusing scale and that, with branch offices in three or four towns and agents in a dozen more, his daily dealings are transacted over an area reaching three thousand miles ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... and still more because of my fine physical condition, I was disposed toward a large charity. And yet I could not help wondering how some that I saw could walk among their roses and still look so glum and matter-of-fact. I felt as if I could kiss every ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... avowed to be such—may read Tennyson's "Eve of St. Agnes" or Scott's "Hymn to the Virgin" with almost complete imaginative sympathy; but he expects to believe his religion as firmly as he believes in the existence of the British Islands. Such, at least, was the matter-of-fact temper that belonged to Protestantism in those days. In more recent times a more ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... was asked, for the doctor began to talk about different little mysteries which he had met with in his career, all of which had had matter-of-fact explanations that came in time, and then they reached the house, to find a light in the breakfast-room, where Aunt Hannah was dressed, and had prepared ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... back quick from the window to him, and then, for the first time in many a long day, her old mellow sweet laugh rolled over the subject, dismissing make-believes and figures of speech in its clear matter-of-fact rejoicing. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... said in a matter-of-fact tone. "I assure you that I have no intention of returning to Earth. If Keroth loses this war, then I will die—either fighting for the Kerothi or by execution at the hands of Earthmen if I am captured. Or," he added ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... as to the origin of language, which, for shortness, may be defined as the poetic and the matter-of-fact. The former (of which M. Ernest Renan is one of the most eloquent advocates) supposes a primitive race or races endowed with faculties of cognition and expression so perfect and so intimately responsive one to the other, that the name of a thing came into being coincidently with the perception ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... his arriving at that minute was an extraordinary coincidence; but when Sir S. shook hands, and asked in a matter-of-fact tone, "How is it we meet here?" he confessed, as if half ashamed, that it wasn't exactly an accident. "You see, I often come to Melrose for a look round if I'm in Scotland on leave," he said, "and I saw in the paper yesterday that ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... hallucinations". That is to say, they see persons, or hear them, or believe they are touched by them, or all their senses are equally affected at once, when no such persons are really present. This kind of thing is always going on, but "when popular opinion is of a matter-of-fact kind, the seers of visions keep quiet; they do not like to be thought fanciful or mad, and they hide their experiences, which only come to light through inquiries such as those that ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... thus putting me in the third person, although he was not addressing these words to Silverthorn. Then he gave his thick frame a slight shake, as if to get rid of the disagreeable feelings I had excited, and turned toward his friend. On the instant there came into his unmoved eyes and his matter-of-fact countenance a look of sentiment so incongruous as to be almost laughable. "I wish I could have done ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... the most pleasure to see. And I believe that my liking for you is due especially to one thing: you remind me of some one who was the great affection of my youth, a sedate and sensible little being she also, chained to the matter-of-fact side of existence, but tempering it with that ideal element which we artists set aside exclusively for the profit of our work. Certain things which you say seem to me as though they had come from her. You have the same mouth, like an antique model's. Is it that that gives this resemblance to ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... answered the auctioneer, in a matter-of-fact voice. "We'll try to crowd in. But don't anyone what don't want to bid on kitchen stuff, come and use the ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... calm and matter-of-fact about it. If there was more that she could have told him, her inscrutable smile signified plainly that it should be left for him to ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... probably no training could have made the didactic poet lyric or passionate. Sincerity and common-sense were his predominating qualities, and he had the rare faculty of obedience to his own instincts. He first studied for the priesthood, but anything like mysticism was too repellent to his matter-of-fact mind. Then, as many of his family had been lawyers, he naturally turned toward that career. But the practice as taught him seemed senseless and arbitrary. Its rational basis upon a logical theory only dawned upon him later. In spite of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... which they who talk of it have not very fully measured. And then the original 4,000,000 remain. To those who have been accustomed to advocate the removal of the colored race from this country, we recommend a matter-of-fact calculation in ships and money and time. It will be both interesting and profitable; possibly it will impart some new ideas on the matter. For ourselves, we may say that we deem the proposition for the deportation of a race of four millions, with ...
— The Future of the Colored Race in America • William Aikman
... shock of curly hair which his friends would in these latter days have called auburn, while his enemies—if he had possessed any—would have tersely described it as "carrots". In temperament, too, Chichester was the very antithesis of Stukely, for he was absolutely unimaginative and matter-of-fact. Perhaps his occupation may have had something to do with this; for he was apprenticed to a shipwright, and delighted in his work. He was also an orphan; his nearest relative being his uncle Michael Chichester, a merchant of Plymouth, who had adopted him upon the death of his parents, ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... 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 ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... Kennedy, in the most matter-of-fact manner, as though he were discussing an ordinary campaign for social betterment. "How were you ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... tale of the other, the better world?" he asked, with a matter-of-fact surprise. "You must evoke for that task those who have ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... are innutritious, and clog the soul with unwholesome vapors of all kinds. No doubt they too help to weaken the moral fibre, and make their readers indifferent to "plodding perseverance and plain industry," and to "matter-of-fact poverty and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was only for an instant; and in the gentlest manner he said, "Perhaps I may never quite understand you, Ellen, but I can always trust you. You have always been unlike everybody else, particularly unlike me, with my matter-of-fact stubbornness, and that is probably why you bewitched me against my will; and in spite of all my resolutions," (he added, with a smile,) "I suppose I never have quite understood you; but to admire blindly and ardently what we least understand, is one of the peculiarities of human nature; ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... quiet and matter-of-fact acceptance of her duties, placed her iron once more upon the chain, and bent herself to the task with well-accustomed effort of ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... translation seems to be lost, and with it an insight into Moltke's elaboration of his style, which a translation would reveal better than original composition. In one respect these letters about Turkey were never equalled by Moltke. Henceforth, he turned absolutely matter-of-fact, a military writer par excellence. Even in his letters those nice bits of humor and incidental manifestations of a subtle and fine nature sense grow scarcer and scarcer. There are two essays—The ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... and the dear old world of the senses the spirit-world begins to peep in, and wholly clouds it over. What are the flowers to us? They are fuel waiting for the great burning. We look at the walls of the farmhouse and the matter-of-fact sheep-kraals, with the merry sunshine playing over all; and do not see it. But we see a great white throne, and him that sits on it. Around Him stand a great multitude that no man can number, harpers harping with their harps, a thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands. How ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... a sensitive child! Hilda now saw the sacred name stamped in gold on a whole set of elegant volumes! It was marvellous that she should have turned the page containing just that poem! It was equally marvellous that she should have discovered the works of Victor Hugo in the matter-of-fact office of Mr. Cannon! But was it? Was he not half-French, and were not these books precisely a corroboration of what her mother had told her? Mr. Cannon's origin at once assumed for her the strange seductive hues of romance; he shared the glory of Victor Hugo. Then the ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... conclusion, that Glyndewi was a rising place. It did not seem inclined to rise at all at once though; but in patches here and there, with a quarter of a mile or so between, like what we read of the great sea-serpent. (I fear this individual is no more; this matter-of-fact age has been the death of him.) There were two long streets—one parallel to the quay, (or, as the more refined called it, "the terrace,") and the other at right angles to it. The first was Herring Street—the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... shadows of the night, or in the less wholesome glow of moonshine. Giovanni's first movement, on starting from sleep, was to throw open the window and gaze down into the garden which his dreams had made so fertile of mysteries. He was surprised and a little ashamed to find how real and matter-of-fact an affair it proved to be, in the first rays of the sun which gilded the dew-drops that hung upon leaf and blossom, and, while giving a brighter beauty to each rare flower, brought everything within the limits of ordinary experience. The young man rejoiced ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... occurrence of facts, and brings that to pass which otherwise would not have been; and this method it uses to investigate, to illustrate what was previously known, and to confirm what was surmised. Its end, whether through observation or experiment, is to reach general truth as opposed to matter-of-fact, universals more or less embracing as opposed to particulars, the units of thought as opposed to the units of phenomena. The body of ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... longer any doubt. He faced it with the most matter-of-fact self-possession of which he was capable. Some-thing was waiting for his surrender. He figured it, sitting quietly back in the reading-room, listening to the Debate, watching the faces around him, as the tracing of some ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... she did not believe. It was no use telling her this; she would argue that a conversation of facts would be as dull as a work on algebra, and that all she did was to put her poetry into practice. In these moods you might as well attempt to imprison a sunbeam as keep her to matter-of-fact; and the misery was, that gradually the number of detractors increased, who caught up these "effective" scraps, and set ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... a lost character, a wayward son, a gentleman sport, with nerves of steel. The sentimental values appealed to his imagination. It gave a deep romantic tinge to the too matter-of-fact freckled nose and hungry mouth. Besides the end was noble and the end was Miss ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... left the front door open?" it said, in energetic, matter-of-fact tones, at the sound of which ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... the Middlesex Regiment had already such a record of travel and remarkable experiences to its credit that it was in quite a matter-of-fact way I answered a summons from Headquarters at Hong-Kong, one morning in November, 1917, and received the instruction to hold myself and my battalion in readiness to proceed to a destination unknown. Further conferences between the heads of departments ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... would a child. She was in the habit of walking over whenever she pleased and giving directions to Mary McGuire in regard to matters which she thought needed attention in his house. And all this had been done in the most open and matter-of-fact way, so that the most accomplished gossip in Durford never accused her of making matrimonial advances to the lonesome widower. Even Jonathan himself had been clever enough to see that she regarded him much as she would an overgrown boy, and had always accepted her many ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... beings who are known to us as saints are so little understood is, that their lives are usually written in one of two ways, both equally unsuited to popular appreciation. Either they are presented in a dry, bare, matter-of-fact manner, which requires all the knowledge and sympathy of the initiated to give it vital meaning; or else they are surrounded with an appanage of portents, visions, miracles, legends—spread before the reader without discrimination or ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... of life is the rigidity of the material universe in which we are placed. We are bound by physical laws, and there is a constant pressure of matter-of-fact evidence to prove that we are nothing but common and cheap products of the earth to which in a few moments or years we return. Spinoza's chief aim is to free us from this sorrow, and to free us from it by THINKING. The emphasis on this ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... his bearing had on Diane the effect of making her more calmly mistress of herself. Quietly, and in a manner as matter-of-fact as she could make it, she told her tale from the beginning. She narrated her summons from Mrs. Wappinger, her visit to his own house, her arrangements there, her journey to Lakefield, and her interview with Carli Wappinger. ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... fact that Browning removed the original title, "Madhouse Cells," which headed this poem, and "Johannes Agricola in Meditation," Mrs. Orr says: "Such a crime might be committed in a momentary aberration, or even intense excitement of feeling. It is characterized here by a matter-of-fact simplicity, which is its sign of madness. The distinction, however, is subtle; and we can easily guess why this and its companion poem did not retain their title. A madness which is fit for dramatic treatment is not sufficiently ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... hand than the North American: I expect it, but have not got it Yet.** The North American seems to say that he too sent me one. It never came to hand, nor any hint of it,—except I think once before through you. It was not at all an unfriendly review; but had an opacity, of matter-of-fact in it that filled one with amazement. Since the Irish Bishop who said there were some things in Gulliver on which he for one would keep his belief suspended, nothing equal to it, on that side, has come athwart me. However, he has made out that Teufelsdrockh is, in all human probability, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... keep copies of all my reports. I have them in my valise," answered he of the South in a matter-of-fact manner. ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... plainness, and promises the readers of his Letters only a matter-of-fact account of his pursuits, he has his full share of eighteenth-century "sensibility." Since he is, however, at many removes from the sophistications of London and Paris, he is moved, not by the fond behaviour of a lap-dog, or the "little arrangements" carters make with the bridles of ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... manner clipped my wings. It is difficult to speak movingly while sitting on the ground. Instinctively I avoided eloquence. Standing up, I might have been pathetic and pleading. Sitting down, I was compelled to be matter-of-fact. ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... be an epoch-making observation. There are not many such and those who make them are not legion in number. It was an interesting fact, with a very definite value, which has persisted through many succeeding decades and is so matter-of-fact that rarely does one arise to ask who first discovered this ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... in course, when saluting," replied the gunner, who was a plain matter-of-fact man and did not see the drift of my observation. "But, with a ten-pound charge, now, they'd make a pretty fair hole in a six-inch plank, I ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... level: it suffers, but is not corrupted; it is the goodness of instinct, not of struggle and aspiration; it happens to belong to this or that person, just as his hair happens to be black or brown. Everything in the surroundings and the action is to the last degree matter-of-fact, commonplace, inevitable; there are no picturesque coincidences, no providential interferences, no desperate victories over fate; the tale, like the world of the materialist, moves onward from a predetermined beginning to a helpless and tragic close. And yet few books have been ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... Tom, took any pleasure in the task, but having no old vulgus-books of his own, or any one's else, could not follow the traditionary method, for which too, as Tom remarked, he hadn't the genius. Martin then proceeded to write down eight lines in English, of the most matter-of-fact kind, the first that came into his head; and to convert these, line by line, by main force of Gradus and dictionary into Latin that would scan. This was all he cared for—to produce eight lines with no false quantities ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... accuracy the observations of a man who had lived in the scene of that terrible calamity, giving curious incidents, anecdotes, statistics, after so methodical a manner, that it was long before any doubts were cast on the authenticity of the journal. It was a work of imagination, but so matter-of-fact, that it is difficult to believe the author had any imagination, and that he had not actually witnessed every occurrence he so calmly related. It is the same with the "Memoirs of a Cavalier." The civil wars ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... companions, and they laugh in chorus. If she knows of sprites, and gnomes, and nymphs, and fairies, she finds them all dancing in glee at her feet in the form of rippling wavelets. And while she is thus refreshing her spirit from the brimming cup of life, her matter-of-fact elders are reproaching her for getting her dress soiled. To the parent or the teacher who lacks a sense of humor and cannot enter into the little girl's conception of life, a dress is of more importance than ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... to London,' said she, in a matter-of-fact, almost ironical tone. She was inscrutable. This morning she could not bear to let any deep emotion come uppermost. She wanted rest. 'No,' she said, with calm distinctness, a few moments after, when they were climbing the rise to the ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... was thought to be in the running—poor Sybil, how well she took it!—last year her mother told me she knew for a fact he was not a day more than five-and-forty! Poor Steel, too! He has done for them both in that quarter, I am afraid. And now," added Hugh, in his matter-of-fact way, as though they had been discussing theology all this time, "I must go back to my sermon if I am ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... nervous and tearful, and would have made a scene, no doubt, but for Fred's admirable tact. He addressed her, as he had done the Laird, just as if they were ordinary acquaintances meeting in the most matter-of-fact, every-day kind of manner. Wrath and sentiment alike collapsed before such commonplace salutations, and both Mr. Adiesen and his sister felt they would only make themselves ridiculous if they met young Garson's simple civility with any expression ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby |
