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More "Matter-of-fact" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lydia was slender, she would rather have borne her to her bed in her vigorous arms than to have abandoned her in the troubled state in which she had surprised her. Not less practical and, as her compatriots say, as matter-of-fact as she was charitable, she began to question her friend on the symptoms which had preceded that attack, when with astonishment she saw that altered face contract, tears gushing from the closed eyes, and the fragile form convulsed by sobs. Lydia had a nervous ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... of thought, its instrument and medium of observation—these colour each object to which it directs its view. It is called imaginative or creative, from the originality and independence of its modes of thinking, compared with the common-place and matter-of-fact conceptions of ordinary minds, which are fettered down to the particular and individual. At the same time it feels a natural sympathy with everything great and splendid in the physical and moral world; and selecting such ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... assumed a look of rigid resolution, almost of desperation; and her eyes shone with a hard, diamond-like brilliancy, fitful, but never soft or tearful. Her manner grew more and more moody and constrained, till even her matter-of-fact uncle and aunt, good easy souls, and her absorbed cousin, became curious and anxious. The little elfish black pony was in more frequent request than ever; for his mistress now went out at any hour that suited her whim, in any weather, chose the loneliest by-ways, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... back alive," said she, in a cool, matter-of-fact tone. "It is so ordained. I know. Come, we are wasting time. I have much to do between now and nightfall. Bright and early to-morrow morning my daughter and I ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... remove the stopper, and pour some of its contents into a graduated glass. To this she added a portion of the contents of another bottle, taking them down, replacing stoppers, and proceeding in the most matter-of-fact, businesslike way, as if accustomed to the task, and returning to try and trickle a little fluid between the patient's lip, supplementing it by bathing ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... dinner,—the important business of eating being occasionally interrupted by remarks upon the appearance of the corpse, his age, the disease of which he died, the probable division of his property, and the merits of the funeral discourse. This was done in such a business-like matter-of-fact manner, that my friend was astonished how the blood relations of the deceased could ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... suppression of stimulus must not mean the suppression of knowledge. There are things that young people should know, and know fully before they are involved in the central drama of life, in the serious business of love. There should be no horrifying surprises. Sane, clear, matter-of-fact books setting forth the broad facts of health and life, the existence of certain dangers, should come their way. In this matter books, I would insist, have a supreme value. The printed word may be such a quiet counsellor. ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... matter-of-fact and less given to theorizing, looked about her curiously. She found a tin cup; there was no bed, no pack, no other sign to tell who their neighbour might be. Close by the spot where she had set down the frying-pan she noted a second spring. Through an open space ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... took the form of a good dinner at a restaurant, and over this he sat thinking out his proceedings in a very cool, matter-of-fact way, till he thought it was time to make a commencement, when he summoned the waiter, and asked for the railway time-table. Then, after picking out a suitable train, he paid his bill with one of his father's sovereigns, called a cab, and had himself driven ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... chill at this hard, cold statement. The girl could never work in a dance hall any more! And this was accepted as a calamity! Accustomed as he was to the frontier, this matter-of-fact acceptance of a dance-hall occupation as something desirable impressed him with its cynicism. Not that he doubted the virtue of many of those forlorn ones who gayly tripped their feet over rough boards, and drank tea or ginger ale and ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... the fact before her frankly, and in the duties which it laid upon her she began to like Maxwell before Hilary did. Not that Hilary disliked him, but there was something in the young fellow taking his daughter away from him, in that cool matter-of-fact way, as if it were quite in the course of nature that he should, instead of being abashed and overwhelmed by his good fortune, which left Hilary with a misgiving lest he might realize it less and ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... her horse and looked at her watch. It was nearly five o'clock, and Percy Roden was doubtless waiting for her in Park Straat. It is a woman's business to know what is expected of her. Mrs. Vansittart recalled in a very matter-of-fact way the wording of her letter to Roden. She brushed some dust from her habit, and made sure that her hair was tidy. Then she fell into deep thought, and set her mind in a like order for the work that lay before her. A man's ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... to say. Until he was fifteen he'd lived on Tralee, which was then a quiet, pacific world, as Kandar had been. As the nephew of a monarch at least as resolutely constitutional as King Humphrey, he'd been raised in a very matter-of-fact fashion. The atmosphere had been that of a comfortable, realistic adjustment to facts. He was taught a great respect for certain facts without being made fanatically opposed to anything else. He'd been trained to require reasonable ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... of your story?" said practical, matter-of-fact John. "I don't see much use in a tale, unless there's a regular drawn moral in it, that ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... candid. His official communications read like the utterances of a friend; but his influence, as disclosed in the acts of 1783 and 1786, reserving to the State the sole power of levying and collecting duties, clearly indicate that while he loved his country in a matter-of-fact sort of way, it meant a country divided, a country of thirteen States each berating the other, a country of trade barriers and commercial resentments, a country of more importance to New York and to Clinton than to other Commonwealths ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... 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
... a snowstorm, up home," he said in his quiet, matter-of-fact way. "I guess we'll have to make our headquarters in town till I get things hauled out to the ranch. That's it, when you can't look ahead and see what's coming. I could have had everything ready to go right on out, only I thought there wouldn't ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... truth; but it is only the Philistine or the blockhead who can seriously ask, is it true? Some such position seems to be really conceivable as an ultimate compromise. Put aside the prosaic insistence upon literal matter-of-fact truth, and we may all agree to use the same symbolism, and interpret it as we please. This seems to me to be actually the view of many thoughtful people, though for obvious reasons it is not often explicitly stated. One reason ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... women; they do always seem in such a dreadful hurry about everything. When Cyril complains that he feels unsettled, and that I get between him and his work, I do not pretend to understand him. I am very matter-of-fact, am ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... You see, I'd like to go down to the island and—and father is so odd he might not be willing to escort me," she explained, trying to be matter-of-fact, her air showing ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... plain matter-of-fact woman, was the first person to be questioned. She explained to us how she had given her patient his last dose of medicine at half-past eleven, just after Miss Mivart had wished her good-night and retired to her room. Previously she had ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... Atlantic Bridge Company gasped. This was the boldest, the coldest work he had ever experienced. Many times he had witnessed public officials like Sir Thomas Drummond approach this delicate point, but never with such composure, such matter-of-fact certainty and lack of moral scruple. Evidently, however, this Englishman had come to trade and wanted a direct answer. There was no false pose, no romance here. But Jackson Wylie, Sr., was too shrewd a business man to name a rock-bottom price to begin with. The training ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... sorry to go myself," he said to his daughter, "and you, though the most affectionate of daughters, will console yourself after a while. Why should I, who am so old, be romantic? You may, who are still a young creature." This he said, not meaning all he said, for the lady whom he addressed was a matter-of-fact little person, with very ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rumors. A Gatling gun, pointed at the universe, seemed to promise the enemy a sharp reception if a scare ever came. This diabolical little mitrailleuse would not be pleasant to look upon as it ground out grim death in such a matter-of-fact way. A few days were very agreeably spent at Fetterman (of which the very name tells of Indian murders), and there we found courteous, educated men and gracious, lovely women. It was wonderful what elegant little entertainments they managed to give ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... with Sanford and with Allen upon lighter topics in a way which seemed to show entire forgetfulness of what had gone before. It seemed almost heartless to the boy to find these friends, so dear to him, able to conduct themselves in so matter-of-fact a manner while he was in the grip of his own life tragedy. But he could not blame them. He had assumed much which they had never granted. This last dinner together, made possible by his father's presence ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... divining her thought. The girl shivered. She felt terror mounting to her heart, and the matter-of-fact attitudes of the others in the great laboratory did not ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... sun rose above the horizon, all these matter-of-fact circumstances were gradually forgotten, and merged in the surpassing grandeur of the scene that rose majestically before me. The previous day had been dark and stormy, and a heavy fog had concealed the mountain chain, ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... believe that this unbroken record of devotion is one of the factors which eventually made it possible for me to take up again my duties in the social and business world, with a comfortable feeling of continuity. I can, indeed, now view my past in as matter-of-fact a way as do those whose lives ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... you fail in, Alice?" she asked, in the most matter-of-fact tone she could assume. She knew that here in public was ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... little courtesies and graceful actions. It was in the natural course of events that all the comrades should help one another in every possible way, but none of them made any virtue out of it. It was all done in the most matter-of-fact way possible. As he had told Arithelli when they had talked up at Montserrat, one only kissed the hands of a Marie Spiridonova. And he was sending bouquets as to some mondaine of the vanished world ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... between a formal, mechanical annalist and the revival of the past through poetic or artistic sympathy, it is only requisite to turn from some dry chronicle of political vicissitudes, duly registered by a dull, matter-of-fact, conscientious antiquary, to the fresh classical or colonial romance, of which such graceful and well-studied exemplars have been produced by Lockhart, Bulwer, D'Azeglio, Kingsley, Ware, Longfellow, and other bards and novelists. While the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... 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 ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... I were pretty well acquainted with you already. I want to thank you for what you have done for Paul. I think that your influence has been just what he needed. Mother is one of the best and dearest of women; but her robust, matter-of-fact Scotch common sense could not always understand a temperament like my laddie's. What was lacking in her you have supplied. Between you, I think Paul's training in these two past years has been as nearly ideal as a motherless ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... be it observed, of style. What is called a picturesque style is generally a great trial. Who was it who called Professor Masson's style Carlyle on wooden legs? What can be drearier than when a plain matter-of-fact writer attempts to be animated, and tries to make his characters live by the easy but futile expedient of writing about them in the present tense? What is wanted is a passion for facts; the style may be left to take care of itself. Let ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... highly imaginative he is apt to be the most matter-of-fact of mortals. He is rarely imaginative, and seldom has an alert sense of humor. Yet England has produced the finest of humorists and the greatest of poets. The humor and imagination which are diffused through other peoples concentrate ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... long while discovering his fate. I know that it is not a romantic view to take of the question, to suppose simply that he wrote the three letters found upon his dressing-table, and then decamped; but to my mind, it savours most wonderfully of matter-of-fact. I now speak more freely than I have otherwise done, for I am now upon the eve of my departure. I have no wish to remain here, and breed dissension in any family, or to run a tilt against anybody's prejudices." Here he looked at Admiral Bell. "I ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... 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 ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... said. "I am afraid I am much too commonplace and matter-of-fact to care about such things. It is a great loss I know, and deprives me of the pleasant society of Russian princesses. But we are all made differently; that is very lucky. ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... his gunners until, from the swaying platform of their decks, they shot with a deadly coolness and accuracy nothing floating could resist. Broke, as a matter of fact, owed his famous victory over the Chesapeake to one of his matter-of-fact precautions. The first broadside fired by the Chesapeake sent a 32-pound shot through one of the gun-room cabins into the magazine passage of the Shannon, where it might easily have ignited some grains ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... at which I felt I had the latent power to excel, were I but given a chance, were in a sphere far above us, and to mention my feelings and ambitions to my matter-of-fact practical mother would bring upon me worse ridicule than I was already forced ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... here, where I know I am not welcome, upon business," he said in a calm, matter-of-fact voice. "I am tired of this place, and I think it is time that we attained the object of our journey here, namely, to find the hidden gold. That, as we all know, can only be done in a certain way, through the clairvoyant powers of one of us and ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... would not willingly say a single word that might cause you or anyone else to think lightly of him, or picture him in your mind as other than the very soul of truth and honour. Yet if I were to repeat to you some of the statements that I have in my mind, I know that you two hard-headed, matter-of-fact Englishmen would at once set them down as the veriest fairy tales, their author a second Munchausen, and myself a credulous old fool for attaching the slightest weight to them. And yet, let me tell you, Africa is a very queer country—as you will discover if you persist ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... never 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
... and, like a sensible man, he turned the matter over to their common superior, in a very few words, before the arrival of the general audience. It was this that had caused the colonel to turn quietly to Rayner and say, in the most matter-of-fact way,— ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... of her husband's earnings, she made no pretence of despair at the loss of his affection; some day she would meet the fugitives, and the law would see her duly righted, and in the meantime the smallest contribution was gratefully received. While she was telling all this in the most matter-of-fact way, I had been noticing the approach of a tall man, with a high white hat and darkish clothes. He came up the hill at a rapid pace, and joined our little group with a sort of half- salutation. Turning at once ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... young Julian, early began to show a restiveness under the training he received, which sadly perplexed his plain matter-of-fact father. The latter could not conceive why the boy should sometimes leave his plough in the furrow, and sit upon a hillock, gazing curiously and admiringly upon a simple wild flower. He knew not why the youth should ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... Some matter-of-fact traditions concerning the author were furnished, a few years since, by a son of the farmer, who was sixteen years of age at the time Goldsmith resided with his father. Though he had engaged to board with the family, his meals were generally sent to him in his room, in which ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... Very few matter-of-fact citizens of the present-day world will understand the part that the sea used to play in our young lives ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... womanly soul—sweet, tender, and strong—and the perfect form and features seemed but a transparent mould, a crystal vase into which heaven was pouring a new and divine life. Why should he not long to escape from the dusty matter-of-fact world and witness this spiritual repetition of the most beautiful story of the past? Thus his philosophical mind was able once more to reason the whole matter out clearly and prove that his wish to annihilate the intervening hours before he could dare to present himself to Ida ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... and matter-of-fact thinker, Jenkin was an equally clear and graphic writer. He read the best literature, preferring, among other things, the story of David, the ODYSSEY, the ARCADIA, the saga of Burnt Njal, and the GRAND CYRUS. Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Ariosto, Boccaccio, Scott, Dumas, Dickens, ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm (Now am I free to be poetical?) I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows — Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone. One by one he subdued his father's ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... 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
... I was caught fairly and squarely prying into another person's business. I don't know why, but these two little chaps, with their clean-cut unembarrassed features, their relentless stare and their matter-of-fact outlook upon life, seemed to have in a supreme degree the faculty of inspiring and snubbing curiosity. I think the others, since I had borne the brunt of the ordeal, sympathized with me, for they were silent. I stared at our visitors in some perplexity; ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... questions it discusses become indeed more complex, but the answer, when found, is more prolific in results. Wealth, then, is treated only as one of the forces of civilization. Other interests than purely material ones occupy the first place. This matter-of-fact philosophy which, according to Bacon's precept, seeks to improve the conditions of life, bears in mind, that the most fruitful source of material development lies in intellectual development. It humbly recognizes that ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... girl wielded—quite without being conscious of it; he granted her that grace—was too potent. It was dangerous, and he knew it. Even imaginative and very unpractical people can be in some things surprisingly matter-of-fact, and Ste. Marie was matter-of-fact about this. The girl had made a mysterious and unprecedented appeal to him at his very first sight of her, long before, and ever since that time she had continued, ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... soon as Elizabeth was dead, Lady Scrope dropped a sapphire ring from the window—a preconcerted signal—to her brother, Robert Carey, who was waiting below. Carey states that he was told in a more matter-of-fact way—by a sentinel, whom he had previously requested to ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... and I was still seated at the dinner-table, absorbed in deep thought. My imagination had been so racked that it passed from the domain of the real, and reveled in the most fantastic regions of the ideal, and it required a strong effort of the will to bring back my mind to the dull matter-of-fact aspects of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... new plays for the stage. Dryden and D'Avenant, the chief dramatists of Pepys's day, were rapid writers. To a large extent they carried on, with exaggeration of its defects and diminution of its merits, the old Elizabethan tradition of heroic romance, tragedy, and farce. The more matter-of-fact and lower-principled comedy of manners, which is commonly reckoned the chief characteristic of the new era in theatrical history, was only just beginning when Pepys was reaching the end of his diary. The virtual leaders of the new movement—Wycherley, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, and Congreve—were not at ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... with a quiet and matter-of-fact acceptance of her duties, placed her iron once more upon the chain, and bent herself to the task with well-accustomed effort ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... any grease around your gills," said the girl, in quite a matter-of-fact way, no flippancy in her manner. "Charley, stir up the fire, will you? I can't offer you much, Mr. Mackenzie, but you're welcome to what there is. How about a ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... 'there is that about you which would make me sorry to find you a Pharisee or a hypocrite. Therefore, if you please, we will stop religion and allegory, and come to plain matter-of-fact. When I knew you in Samoa, you were a sailor without ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... we ladies, you dreadful matter-of-fact creature!" said Nattie. "Their presence at the dinner was quite accidental; Cyn and I started out for a little quiet feast, and behold the result! Bohemian enough for ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... Harry explained to her, and when he had finished she asked in the most matter-of-fact tone: "And what ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... To the most matter-of-fact mind these things are indeed a solemn reality. Death has power to change our every-day thoughts to others ennobling, beautifying and divine! But we do not sink under the weight of affliction. God has seen otherwise for us. He heals the wounds and bids us go on amid life's ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... automobile and take her into the next township to the Hulett farm. "I'm so shrunk away to nuthin', I know I can lay on the back seat if I crook myself up," she said, with a cool accent but a rather shaky voice. Seeming to realize that even her intense desire to strike the matter-of-fact note could not take the place of any and all explanation of her extraordinary request, she added, holding my eyes steady with her own: "Emma Hulett's my twin sister. I guess it ain't so queer, ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... What interest lay in those few words! You have taken thought for that thing belonging to you called Claudine? This imbecile would never have opened my eyes; he thinks that everything I do is right; and besides, he is much too humdrum, too matter-of-fact to have any feeling ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... a nod, and say 'Not at all, you have only got a new coat on; you are the same old wretch that has bored me these last twenty years; get away.' But if one could be in a new skin, if I could be for half-an-hour your tall porter, or one of your eminent matter-of-fact men, I should then really travel into a new world.' Every man's brain must be a world in itself, eh? If I could but make a parochial settlement even in yours, Audley,—run over all your thoughts and sensations. Upon my life, I 'll go and talk to ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The matter-of-fact way in which the expression, "a church fight" is used by the writer of the above item, seems to indicate that tabernacular conflicts are rather the rule than the exception in "deeply religious" Brooklyn. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various
... pleasant, in turning over these pages, to find written testimony to a number of points which I shall be apt to charge solely upon my imagination. I wonder whether Miss Blunt, in days to come, referring to the tables of her memory for some trivial matter-of-fact, some prosaic date or half-buried landmark, will also encounter this little secret of ours, as I may call it,—will decipher an old faint note to this effect, overlaid with the memoranda of intervening years. Of course she will. Sentiment aside, she is a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... site of another gigantic factory, on which a cool million had already been spent. Coming from almost any other Minister this amazing example of how not to do it would have raised a storm of supplemental inquiries, if not a motion for the adjournment. But the House accepted Sir WORTHINGTON'S calm and matter-of-fact narration as quietly as if it were the last word ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug. 22, 1917 • Various
... three sugar-plums on one number, always naming it aloud—"trente-et-un," "douze-premier," "douze- apres." It was the oddest game for a small thing not six years old; and there was something odd, too, in her matter-of-fact, business-like air, which amused Graham. He had seen gambling- tables during his three weeks' visit to Germany, and he felt sure that this child ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... office door opened, and a gentleman of perhaps forty entered. He was a man with a kindly face, and looked far less important than the bookkeeper. Mr. Mullins, on seeing him, laid aside his unpleasant manner, and said, in a matter-of-fact tone: ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... it. I regret this now, as it contained valuable notes on the habits of wild animals, and the request was made in the letter to convey the volume to my family. The prospect of passing away from this fair and beautiful world thus came before me in a pretty plain, matter-of-fact form, and it did seem a serious thing to leave wife and children—to break up all connection with earth, and enter on an untried state of existence; and I find myself in my journal pondering over that fearful migration which lands us in eternity, wondering whether an angel ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... or listen to a question about that. It is a certainty. Receive it on my judgment. It is a sort of prologue to the play, a motto to the chapter; and will be soon followed by matter-of-fact prose." ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... papers had all announced the fact that the detail of police would that day be withdrawn from the scene of the murder in Christie Place. With them it had been a mere matter-of-fact news item, but with the evening sheets it was different. They had had time to digest the matter, and their view of the order was one of surprise. Two or three allowed this feeling to expand itself into headlines of some size; a few ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... in no way from that in any other coroner's court in the kingdom, the relation of dry details by matter-of-fact persons spoken slowly in order that they might ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... a creature of impulses and instincts not by any means infallible. They had led him into blunders and scrapes before now. On the other hand, they had protected him from mistakes no less serious. Had he been a matter-of-fact person he would have said to himself: "What can I do? I know of nothing positive against Bullard. Being a poor man, I cannot, by a stroke of the pen, make Lancaster independent of him, and I need not waste my wits in plotting to confound him by some great financial operation ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... necessary to discuss at this stage of the proceedings the tonnage allowance of these nations, but the United States proposes that this subject be reserved for the later consideration of the Conference." This somewhat blunt, matter-of-fact way of stating the case gave unexpected offense to the French delegation. During the next four or five weeks, while Great Britain, the United States, and Japan were discussing the case of the Mutsu and the question of fortifications in the Pacific, the French delegates were cherishing ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... spoke in the most matter-of-fact tone, as if it were a perfectly usual thing to be made love to by a spy, and that rather soothed my annoyance. 'When he asked me to marry him he proposed to take me to a country-house in Devonshire. I rather think, too, he ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... had grown very white. She had never heard anything so pitiful as this, yet the lad explained his circumstances in a cheery, matter-of-fact way that showed he ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... attention. When I say 'new,' I mean in our hemisphere. I believe it to be as old as time in Eastern countries. I think we are receiving it wrongly. When handled by science, and when it shall become stronger and clearer, it will rank very high. Hailed in our matter-of-fact England as a new religion by people who are not organized for it, by people who are wildly, earnestly seeking for the truth, when they have it at home—some on their domestic hearth, and others next door waiting for them—it ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... such an intense reality. Had there been anything excited or unreal about her companion's manner, she would not have thought twice about it; but her tranquillity and sweetness seemed to her very remarkable. Moreover, Fraulein Sonnenthal was strangely devoid of imagination; she was a matter-of-fact little person, not at all a likely subject for visions and delusions. Erica was perplexed. Once more there came to her that uncomfortable question: ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... a moment, somewhat taken back by the matter-of-fact coolness with which his advances were received; he might as well finish the job now however, he reflected, and as he did not mean the business to proceed beyond the "shouting" stage, it would not hurt him to make any concession that Margaret ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... a British man-of-war told me that he considered them to be the poorest fighters in existence. That they habitually make a feeble show in battle cannot be gainsaid, but then they are a most matter-of-fact people, without any craving for military glory, and knowing beforehand that there is no possible chance of success, take time by the forelock and run away ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... little education, whom I met a day or two after in the stage-coach, observed to me: "Bright is far the more eloquent of the two, but Cobden is more felt, just because his speeches are so plain, so merely matter-of-fact and to ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... sciences, and in Political Economy among the rest; in whatever science there exist, among those who have attended to the subject, what are commonly called differences of principle, as distinguished from differences of matter-of-fact or detail,—the cause will be found to be, a difference in their conceptions of the philosophic method of the science. The parties who differ are guided, either knowingly or unconsciously, by different views concerning the nature of the evidence ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... are made by men who profess to be guided by facts only, as if facts could not be misconceived, or figments taken for them; and, therefore, one day, when somebody was speaking of a person who valued himself on being a matter-of-fact man, "Now," said he, "I value myself on being a matter-of-lie man." This did not hinder his being a man of the greatest veracity, in the ordinary sense of the word; but "Truth," he said, "was precious, and not to be wasted on ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... promised, and "King" Plummer joined them in the carriage that bore them to the hall. He took his place with them in such a natural and matter-of-fact manner that Harley was confirmed in his renewed opinion that he was Sylvia Morgan's uncle, or, at least, her next of ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... one novel incident, or one fresh character, except, perhaps, the muscular divine. Even in the grouping and narration of its old incidents it exhibits no dramatic power, and little skill of characterization in the portraiture of its personages. And not only does a matter-of-fact air pervade the narrative, but the tale is told with such reticence of fact as well as of feeling, that it reveals but little of the real life of a London courtesan, and leaves the reader almost as ignorant as he was when he took up the book ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... of the bolts, and that of the lock, have been loosened from the inside with the poker," explained Malcolm Sage in a matter-of-fact tone. "The marks upon the poker suggest a left-handed man. The wound in ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... of sexual intercourse, and inculcated the doctrine of Platonic love—an exquisitely refined intercourse, but much better adapted to the ideal inhabitants of his imaginary island of Atlantis than to the sturdy race, composed of rebellious flesh and blood, which populates the little matter-of-fact island we inhabit. ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... 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
... possible that his good luck was to continue, and that he was to have an opportunity of earning some more money through his faithful friend, the violin? He didn't think it well to exhibit the satisfaction he felt, and answered, in a matter-of-fact tone; ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... woman, he could not deny that her conversation was both seemly and entertaining. She had evidently been a great traveller, and referred to things she had seen in Savannah or Montreal or Los Angeles in as matter-of-fact fashion as he could have spoken of a visit to Tecumseh. Theron asked her many questions about these and other far-off cities, and her answers were all so pat and showed so keen and clear an eye that he began in spite of himself to think of her ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... 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 little ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... rejoined Lady Blakeney in a more quiet, more matter-of-fact tone of voice. "You must represent me, here, when I am gone: explain as casually and as naturally as you can, that I have gone to join my husband on his yacht for a few days. Lucie, my maid, is devoted and a tower of secrecy; ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... into the house with Peggy Blackton did Aldous feel that he had descended firmly upon his feet once more into a matter-of-fact world. MacDonald was waiting with the horses, and Blackton was pointing over toward the steel workers, and was saying something about ten thousand pounds of black powder and dynamite and a mountain that had stood a million ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... is quite matter-of-fact. It states that the movements and activities of a large part of the body are outside of the realm of consciousness, such as the activities of the great viscera—heart, lungs, intestines, liver, blood vessels, sex glands—and are largely operated by the vegetative nervous system.[1] There ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... even on the business men of the city of Boston and the legislature of the State of Massachusetts was the most remarkable phenomenon of the kind ever witnessed in that frugal and matter-of-fact community, for he had only to announce that he wanted for his museum or department in the University a donation or an appropriation, to obtain either, so absolutely recognized was his unselfish devotion to science by all classes. There are few of us left who can remember the sudden shadow ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... ancient Grecce, it was no such far cry back from the essential modernity of Pericles' or of Plato's time to the antiquity of Homer's. In India, the faery light of an immemorial dawn mingles so with the facts of history that there is no disentangling myth from matter-of-fact; if you should prove almost any king to have reigned quite recently, his throne would still be somehow set in the mellow past and near the fountains of time. Augustan Rome, modern in all its phases, stands not so far in front of a background peopled with ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Audrey, who was now becoming accustomed to the world of conspiracy and chicane in which Jane Foley carried on her existence with such a deceiving air of the matter-of-fact. "We'll ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... to myself in my most matter-of-fact tone, "is a little cool sense. Be quiet now and ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... "I don't like you a bit. Really and truly I don't.... Now, now, no more.... Maoni can hear you, I'm sure. The idea of your going away for two days—two whole days—and marching calmly up to me and telling me of it in such a rude, matter-of-fact manner. You are unkind.... Don't.... I don't like you, Harvey... I'll tell father that you went away and left me for two whole days—to go fishing and pig-shooting, and poor Mr. Atkins had to look after me, and... oh, Harvey, Harvey, isn't it lovely! Father ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... in one of the upper galleries in conversation with a bright-eyed lady on the subject of Eadhamite—the subject was his choice and not hers. He had interrupted her warm assurances of personal devotion with a matter-of-fact inquiry. He found her, as he had already found several other latter-day women that night, less well informed than charming. Suddenly, struggling against the eddying drift of nearer melody, the song of the Revolt, the great song he had heard in the ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... all but Phebe, her illness and long imprisonment and her return to matter-of-fact life downstairs, was a tame-enough story now. But to her it was as the opening chapter of a new history. Life seemed changed and strange to her when she stepped back into it, and took up again the duties and labors that she had laid by only so lately. ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... 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
... much good, if unappreciated, work. Meanwhile the old man was alone in the chamber of death. He had no nerves, no fine sensibilities, and little natural affection to make the moment trying to him. He entered the room in a perfectly matter-of-fact manner, set the lamp on the washhand-stand, and approached the bed. As he stood there, looking on the face, calm, restful, beautiful in its last sleep, a wave of memory, unbidden and unwelcome, swept over his selfish and hardened heart. The ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... all have heard an account and written their own. You will then have two series of accounts of the same picture proceeding from two sources. It will be well for the two who look at the picture to be of very different types, let us say, one imaginative, the other matter-of-fact. ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... five minutes' time, Tom was ensconced in the room opposite the bar—the very room where he had imagined the fire blazing—before a substantial, matter-of-fact, roaring fire, composed of something short of a bushel of coals, and wood enough to make half a dozen decent gooseberry bushes, piled half-way up the chimney, and roaring and crackling with a sound that ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... until we stood before the clerk at the Central Office. The matter-of-fact way in which he picked up a pen and poised it over the police docket, the callous indifference with which he inquired the prisoner's name and the nature of the charge, made Burke flinch for ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... our Pleasaunce." And they would have stayed for hours, but there was one other spot that had a fascination for the General neither years nor wars had dulled, and he, who was the most matter-of-fact and romantic of men, must see and show it to his daughter before ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... 'So you may as well have your things now,' he continued, speaking in a matter-of-fact tone. 'We'll buy them here; it will save me a lot of work. I shall not have the trouble of taking them round to where you live. It's lucky I happened to meet you, ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... but large and airy. On one side a table was arranged for the ancestral family worship, and I delayed turning in at night to give the people a chance to burn a few joss sticks, which they did in a very matter-of-fact fashion, nowise disturbed at my washing-things, which Liu, the cook, had ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... like a girl, and he fairly shrank behind the Madame's tall figure to conceal his rising color. But Joyce did not notice. She was so intent on what she had just seen, as to be oblivious now. She took the dear lady's arm with a delightful sense of security, and observed in as matter-of-fact a way as she ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... so utterly matter-of-fact and there was about his remark so simple an air of directness and of finality that there was no escaping his sincerity, unduly ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... to talk to you, Rachel," said Mrs. Maldon, once more reassuringly matter-of-fact. "Sit ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... material and matter-of-fact age it is difficult to place belief in anything savouring of the occult—anything which cannot be explained by recognised natural laws, or ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... 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 ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... up 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
... the Zurich professors, en particulier, to clear up 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
... seen more in innocent and childish exaggeration than in vicious distortion. It is the vice of untutored minds to run to gossip and make miracles of the matter-of-fact. The Negro also tells falsehoods from excess of good nature. He promises to do a piece of work on a certain day, because it is so much easier and pleasanter to say Yes, and stay away, than ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... bring our lunch out here," said Julia Cloud in a matter-of-fact tone. "It keeps us out-of-doors, and makes a pleasant change." There was finality in her tone, and a sensitive-minded professor would have moved on at once, for the cocoa was boiling over, and had to be rescued, and he might have seen they did not ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... 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
... unwonted emotion quite out, and now looked at his brother with his usual matter-of-fact eye. "Did you tell the station agent ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... next morning my prospective customer appeared. After looking the garment over carefully, he asked me how much I wanted for it. I told him I thought it was worth three dollars. He seemed to agree with me as to price, but remarked in the most matter-of-fact way: "I tell you what I will do; I will take the coat, and will pay you five cents, cash down, and pay you the rest of the money just as soon as I can get it." It is not hard to imagine what my feelings ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... hands crossed over her knees, Jacqueline seemed no longer a creature of indefinite or ambiguous purpose. On the contrary, her profile was rimmed in light, and very matter-of-fact and serious ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... drive, and soon found himself on the well-remembered road to Pleasant River. He had not trodden that dusty thoroughfare for many a year, and every tree and shrub and rock had a message for him, though he was a plain, matter-of-fact maker of pumps. There was no old home to revisit, for his stepmother had died long ago, and Jennie had conscientiously removed the family wreath from the glass case and woven some of the departed lady's hair into the ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... looked at the two little girls, covered with snow, their faces flaming with excitement, and at the black hole gaping behind them. "I always TOLD Father we ought to put a fence around that pit," she said in a matter-of-fact voice. "Some day a sheep's going to fall down there. Shep came along to the house without you, and we thought most likely ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... awhile and 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 admit ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... possible that there may not be a third solution to the mystery?" asked Roger, who was clear-sighted and somewhat matter-of-fact. "There being a good many people who desire to have it supposed that the Duke is the rightful heir to the throne of England, it is possible that the paper was a bold forgery, drawn up for the purpose of influencing the populace. Either the woman may have been hired to play her part, and was not ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... there was temptation to color and adorn a narrative with the stuff that makes travelers' tales attractive, it was here; yet in none of the journals is there to be found a departure from plain, simple truth-telling. Their matter-of-fact tone would render them almost commonplace, if the reader did not take pains to remember what it all meant. Nowhere is there anything like posing for effect; the nearest approach to it is in the initial entry in the diary of that excellent Irishman, Private Patrick Gass,—and ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... want to know where he has been, what he has been doing, and what right he had to come back in this matter-of-fact way, when you had been imagining all sorts of unlikely things about him; and so you cried over it, to give the whole thing the girl-like ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... please," I said, in the most matter-of-fact tones I could muster. "Shut the door ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... American journal which claims—I do not say with no reason—to be portentously clever and superior, that Strindberg is destined to become in America the voice of the masculine reaction in favour of "the corrective influence of a matter-of-fact attitude towards woman." One wonders by what strange fatality Strindberg-the most fantastic genius that ever lived—can appeal to an American as "matter-of-fact." And one wonders why Americans, anyway, should go to this distinguished ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... about the best place to dump his hodful, he went to work. He opened his beak and, in the most matter-of-fact way, pushed out his lump of plaster with his tongue, on top of the nest wall. Then he braced his body firmly in the nest and began to use his trowel, which was his upper beak, pushing the fresh lump all smooth on ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... meant by the use of the term 'Geographical Distribution.' As I said, there is another aspect, and a much more important one, and that is, the relations of the various animals to one another. The Horse is a very well-defined matter-of-fact sort of animal, and we are all pretty familiar with its structure. I dare say it may have struck you, that it resembles very much no other member of the animal kingdom, except perhaps the Zebra or the Ass. But let me ask you to look along these ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... was evident. She had thought, when he had entered her room at the hotel, that his manner was strange and not nearly so hearty as it should have been over finding her. He had been too matter-of-fact and undemonstrative. ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... 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
... her lashes swept down to hide the glow in her eyes. Without a word she swung ahead, on up the canon. Though not a little puzzled over her abruptness, Lennon felt certain that she had been far from displeased by his matter-of-fact suggestion. ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... This also contained paper. The third box held a quantity of counterfeits, the amount of which made even the matter-of-fact detective gasp. ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... both smiled. Romantic was about the last word anyone would think of in connection with frankly practical Ellen Ranger. She would have died without hesitation, or lived in torment, for those she loved; but she would have done it in the finest, most matter-of-fact way in the world, and without a gleam of self-conscious heroics, whether of boasting or of martyr-meekness or of any other device for signaling attention to oneself. Indeed, it would not have occurred to her that she was doing anything out of the ordinary. ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... likes bronchial troches,' said Miss Motley, a very matter-of-fact young person who saved money, wore thick boots, and was never unprovided with an umbrella: 'I have seen her throw them away directly after ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... as a hard-headed, matter-of-fact, common-sense being, what would you suggest for a poor devil who is sick and tired of everything and most ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... Luis had finished his story of the shooting. He had chewed gum with the slow, deliberate jaw of a cow meditating over her cud, and he had juggled the wheel of his machine and shifted his gears on hills and in sandy stretches with the same matter-of-fact deliberation. Sheriff O'Malley might be called one of the old school of rail-roosting, stick-whittling thinkers. He took his time, and he did not commit himself too impulsively to any cause. But he could act with surprising suddenness, and that made him always an uncertain ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... in a matter-of-fact way, that, more clearly than anything else, showed her want of that peculiar kind of love which sanctifies marriage. Charles saw ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... quite understand that, Mr. Blagrove," Sir Sidney said kindly, while the others smiled at the matter-of-fact way in which Edgar related what must have been a very ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... the creation of this unique plaything of the capricious Queen, but we had thought of it as a thing of the past, a toy whose fragile beauty had been wrecked by the rude blows of the Revolution. The matter-of-fact and unromantic Baedeker, it is true, gives it half a line. After devoting pages to the Chateau, its grounds, pictures, and statues, and detailing exhaustively the riches of the Trianons, he blandly mentions the gardens of the Petit Trianon as containing "some fine exotic trees, an artificial lake, ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... fellows to ask how I'm getting on with Bully," and Nestie's eyes lit up with fun, for he'd a nice little sense of humour, and never could resist the temptation of letting it play upon our slow-witted, matter-of-fact intellects. "And I declare you seem to know all about what h-happens. I'll j-just tell you something about it, but it'll make you creepy," and then all the circle gathered in round Nestie. "I have to rise at five ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... Captain Ross to the North Pole? "A ship to be sure!" exclaims some matter-of-fact ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... In the far distance, looking as though close upon the blue hills, though in reality several miles apart, sundry spires and taller buildings are seen rising above the grey mists towards which a straight, undeviating, matter-of-fact line of railway passing up the right of the vale, directs the eye. This is the famed Laverick Wells, the resort, as indeed all watering-places are, according to ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... play me such a trick at the very outset of my business in this house! That I could not be left alone, with life in every part of the house, and the sound of the piano and cheerful talking just across the hall, without the sense of the morbid and unearthly entering my matter-of-fact brain! ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... doctor protested in matter-of-fact tones, "to kill yourself, to put yourself in such a position for a man, who is no longer a man. For a man you ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... though she talked rather more than Theron found himself expecting from a woman, he could not deny that her conversation was both seemly and entertaining. She had evidently been a great traveller, and referred to things she had seen in Savannah or Montreal or Los Angeles in as matter-of-fact fashion as he could have spoken of a visit to Tecumseh. Theron asked her many questions about these and other far-off cities, and her answers were all so pat and showed so keen and clear an eye that he ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... we got a kettle or anythin' else," said Dick, laughing at Ed's bedraggled appearance and matter-of-fact manner. "We better go back an' see. I hitched th' trackin' line to a rock, but I ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... softness in Tim's black eyes. He is a stout-hearted, matter-of-fact lad, people say, not given to dreaming; and yet he is seeing visions this afternoon. He sees Bee, not in her sailor's hat and girlish frock, but in white robes, with all her wealth of hair plaited up, and the pearls glistening on her neck. He sees the merry face grown graver, yet lovelier than ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... subjection, behold, I have capitulated at your bidding, and all that I held—including your own self—have I relinquished. It is perhaps fitting. Haply I am punished for having wed you before I had wooed you." Again his tone changed, it grew more cold, more matter-of-fact. "I rode this way a little while ago a hunted man, my only hope to reach home and collect what moneys and valuables I could carry, and make for the coast to find a vessel bound for Holland. I have ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... mine was 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 away in ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... animals evince for their young, and the tender love of the human mother and father for their children. This difference is more apparent than real; for the ethical love, the refined affection of civilized human parents for their offspring, is but a psychical culmination of the material and matter-of-fact solicitude of the lower animals for the preservation of ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... "Northumberland" the ex-Emperor "appeared to be in perfect good humour," says Keith, "talking of Egypt, St. Helena, of my former name being Elphinstone, and many other subjects, and joking with the ladies about being seasick."[543] In this firm matter-of-fact way did Napoleon accept the extraordinary change in his fortunes. At no time of his life, perhaps, was he so great as when, forgetting his own headlong fall, he sought to dispel the smaller griefs of Mmes. Bertrand and Montholon. A hush came over the crew as Napoleon mounted ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... that the talkers in this conversation expressed their real, final sentiments, or that they should be held accountable for what they said. Nothing so surely kills the freedom of talk as to have some matter-of-fact person instantly bring you to book for some impulsive remark flashed out on the instant, instead of playing with it and tossing it about in a way that shall expose its absurdity or show its value. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... always hooking fellows, but you see she don't get married," said matter-of-fact Harry. "It won't come to any thing, now, I'll bet. Everybody said she was engaged to Danforth, but it all ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... to be understood as belonging to the 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 her like the ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... these writers from an artistic point of view, but with sympathetic and responsive feeling. The doctor had often smiled at his emotions which had struck him as rather silly; now he plainly saw that this sentimental soul could never, never have been the friend of his father, who was so matter-of-fact, so narrow, so heavy, to whom the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... would say, with a sort of hydrophobic shudder, "is only a fit beverage for asses!"—"To say a man could drink like a fish, was once the greatest encomium that a bon-vivant could bestow upon a brother Bacchanalian—but, alas! in this matter-of-fact and degenerate age, men do so literally—washing their gills with unadulterated water!—Dropsy and water on the chest must be the infallible result! If such an order of things continue, all the puppies in the kingdom, who would perhaps have become jolly dogs ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... to him of immortality we need not here repeat, for the while he spoke out of the romantic eloquence of his heart, his matter-of-fact mind kept incorrigibly whispering to him that immortality is the theory that life is a rough ocean voyage and the soul ...
— A Book Without A Title • George Jean Nathan
... big grave men sitting round the table there fell a-weeping, and not one of them felt ashamed of himself before the others. Even the matter-of-fact lawyer spoilt his nib, and could not see the letters he was writing. Only on the Squire's face was there no sign of sadness. He spoke like one bent on ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... asked the question. He spoke in a tone quite matter-of-fact and colorless, so that Shirley looked at him in surprise; but she saw that he was very grave; and then instantly some sudden ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... harsh, metallic, free of emotion. There was nothing about her indicative of grief. She did not look as if she had been weeping. He could learn nothing from her manner; it was extremely matter-of-fact, and chilly. Only, in her eyes he saw suspicion—perhaps, he reflected, suspicion was always ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... counselor, a practical, matter-of-fact man, guiltless of any acquaintance with principles, and brought up in the ways of his ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... these remarks with profound admiration, chiefly because she did not understand them; but cook, who was more matter-of-fact in her nature, and somewhat demonstrative in her tendencies, advised Dan not to talk gammon, but to ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... boy's appearance to make any impression upon his hearer he would have been disappointed. But, without any confessed reason for so doing, Caleb had aimed rather at the opposite effect. And Allison turned from it with a large, matter-of-fact indifference, to rise and bow to Sarah Hunter, who appeared that moment in ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... Henley in his most matter-of-fact way, as Big Ben gave voice to the midnight hour. "Everybody does it nowadays. Two heads may be really better than one, although I seldom believe in the truth of accepted sayings. Your head is a deuced good one, Andrew; but—now don't ...
— The Collaborators - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... would have placed the navies of the world at their mercy. Believe me, gentlemen, if they had kept their secret it would have given them dominion of the earth. They made one mistake," he added in a most matter-of-fact tone. "They should have killed me; it ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... (She speaks in the most matter-of-fact tone possible. Then, more impulsively, the girl slips down from the bench, and sits by him on the around.) Do you think I shall make as good a match as my sisters, Guido? Do you think some great rich nobleman will marry me very soon? And shall I like the court! ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... notwithstanding the patches of snow lying about. The crowds seem remarkably well behaved as I trundle through the bazaar toward the telegraph office, the total absence of missiles being particularly noticeable. The telegraph-jee proves to be a sensible, enlightened fellow, and quite matter-of-fact in his manner for a Persian; apart from his duty to the Governor and a few bigwigs of the place, whom it would be unpardonable in him to overlook or ignore, he saves me as much as possible from the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... opinion —which is as much as to say, in all the moral or mental sciences, and in Political Economy among the rest; in whatever science there exist, among those who have attended to the subject, what are commonly called differences of principle, as distinguished from differences of matter-of-fact or detail,—the cause will be found to be, a difference in their conceptions of the philosophic method of the science. The parties who differ are guided, either knowingly or unconsciously, by different views concerning ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... a chill at this hard, cold statement. The girl could never work in a dance hall any more! And this was accepted as a calamity! Accustomed as he was to the frontier, this matter-of-fact acceptance of a dance-hall occupation as something desirable impressed him with its cynicism. Not that he doubted the virtue of many of those forlorn ones who gayly tripped their feet over rough boards, and drank tea or ginger ale and filled their pockets with bar checks to make a living as best ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... there moved not the least dissentient shade across his own while he received it. She need have had no fear. He said, "I agree absolutely with that, Rosalie. There's only one point—" and his expansion of this point wholly entranced her because it established conditions even more matter-of-fact and businesslike than her own ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... eagerness upon the visible and tangible world about us and seeks to convey that zest in words. Our poets not only do not scorn the earth to lose themselves in the sky; they are positive friends of the matter-of-fact, and that not in spite of poetry, but for poetry's sake; and Pegasus flies more freely because 'things' are 'in the ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... cleverness in manipulating the El Bolero, and the undoubted fascination he had previously exercised over the stockholders. The story had, of course, been garbled in repetition. I had never before imagined what might be the effect of Enriquez's peculiar eccentricities upon matter-of-fact people,—I had found them only amusing,—and the broker's suggestion annoyed me. However, Mrs. Saltillo was here in the hotel, and I should, of course, meet her. Would she be as frank ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... that! It's comforting to remember that you're so resolute and matter-of-fact. You wouldn't let troubles daunt you—perhaps you would scarcely notice them when you had ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... such a substantial appearance it seemed to indicate that some men were blessed with big fists to fall back on in case their fingers lost employment. A. P.'s composition, too, was solid and matter-of-fact; there were no flourishes, except occasional slang; the letter was plainly the product of a free mind and a ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... It had been revealed to him by the accident of a moment's faintness, by which the conscious will of the girl had been driven back from the defences. In a short time it would be over. She would resume her ordinary demeanour, her ordinary interest, her ordinary bright, cheerful, attractive, matter-of-fact, efficient self. Everything would be as before. But—and here Bob's breath came quickest—in the great goodness of the world lay another possibility; that sometime, at the call of some one person, for that one and no other, this inner beautiful soul of the feminine appeal would come ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... read quantities of novels, ancient and modern. She knew that love was a wonderful thing; she knew also that modern life and its exigencies had created a new and far more matter-of-fact point of view about it than that which was obtained in most books. She did not expect much, and had indulged in none of those visions of romantic bliss which girls were once supposed to spend their time in constructing. ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... he sat in his padded leather chair, surveying the Chief's quizzing face across the little table where their coffee was steaming, Desmond felt the oddness of the contrast between the direct, matter-of-fact personalities all around them, and the extraordinary web of intrigue which seemed to have spun itself round the little house at ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... on the turn of the century, claim to discover a change in the Emperor's character about this period. He has lost much of his imaginative, his Lohengrin, vein, and has become more practical, more prosaic and matter-of-fact. To use the German word, he is now a Realpolitiker, one who deals in things, not words or theories, and drawing his gaze from the stars makes them dwell more attentively on the immediate practical considerations of the world ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... new King was not yet the Lord's anointed, and had never received the seal of God, as it were, to his commission, was a fact which struck the imagination of the village as of much more importance than many greater things—being at once more visible and matter-of-fact, and of more mystical and spiritual efficacy than any other circumstance in the ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... inside, you know.' He smiled, as if at some quiet joke. 'So you are going out there. Famous. Interesting too.' He gave me a searching glance, and made another note. 'Ever any madness in your family?' he asked, in a matter-of-fact tone. I felt very annoyed. 'Is that question in the interests of science too?' 'It would be,' he said, without taking notice of my irritation, 'interesting for science to watch the mental changes of individuals, on the spot, but . . .' 'Are you an alienist?' I interrupted. 'Every doctor ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... rate, to Kendric's matter-of-fact way of thinking, here was further clap-trap that might well have been the result of a mad mind working extravagantly. The room was empty. All four walls, from ceiling to floor, were draped in gorgeously rich hangings, oriental silks, he imagined, ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... earnings, she made no pretence of despair at the loss of his affection; some day she would meet the fugitives, and the law would see her duly righted, and in the meantime the smallest contribution was gratefully received. While she was telling all this in the most matter-of-fact way, I had been noticing the approach of a tall man, with a high white hat and darkish clothes. He came up the hill at a rapid pace, and joined our little group with a sort of half salutation. Turning at once to the woman, he asked her in a business-like way whether she had anything ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that I was going to work at my writing." Her face fell, and he went on hastily. "Don't misjudge me. I am not going in this time with any iridescent ideas. It is to be a cold, prosaic, matter-of-fact business proposition. It is better than going to sea again, and I shall earn more money than any position in Oakland can ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... seem so. The true ideal is not opposed to the real, nor is it any artificial heightening thereof, but lies in it, and blessed are the eyes that find it! It is the mens divinior which hides within the actual, transfiguring matter-of-fact into matter-of-meaning for him who has the gift of second-sight. In this sense Hogarth is often more truly ideal than Raphael, Shakespeare often more truly so than the Greeks. I think it is a more or less conscious perception of this ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... ferocity was not only inevitable, but it was in a certain sense proper; or, at least, even if many of its manifestations were blamable, the spirit that lay behind them was right. The backwoodsmen were no sentimentalists; they were grim, hard, matter-of-fact men, engaged all their lives long in an unending struggle with hostile forces, both human and natural; men who in this struggle had acquired many unamiable qualities, but who had learned likewise to appreciate at their full value the inestimable virtues of courage and common-sense. The ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... if they are tested along one line, such as memory. Some have desultory, some rote, some logical memories; some have immediate memories, others the permanent type. In imagery, some have principally productive imagination, others the matter-of-fact reproductive; some deal largely with object images that are vivid and clear-cut, others fail almost entirely with this type, but use word images with great facility. In conduct, some are hesitating and uncertain, ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... Tudor England 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 room ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... me?" echoed Duncan, who was of a matter-of-fact mind, and was always content with things just as ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... that the war means to them. But the fever is rising now. The wounded are coming back, the dead are mourned, and the agony of hearing only that such-and-such a man is missing—these are having a prodigious effect. The men I meet now say in a matter-of-fact way: "Oh, yes! we'll get 'em, of course; the only question is, how long it will take us and how many of us it will cost. But no matter, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... to the “classical scholar,” I had cast aside their associations like an old Greek grammar, and turned my face to the “shining Orient,” forgetful of old Greece and all the pure wealth she left to this matter-of-fact-ridden world. But it happened to me one day to mount the high grounds overhanging the streets of Pera. I sated my eyes with the pomps of the city and its crowded waters, and then I looked over where Scutari ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... write to your father, tell him what we have found, and ask him to send the money right on," said Bob, in a matter-of-fact tone. ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... crude and joyous colors—bright reds, apple greens, golden oranges and yellows—and executed with genuine verve and fantasy. The Slavonic and Oriental legends and fairy tales are illustrated astonishingly, with a certain humor in the matter-of-fact notation of grotesque and miraculous events. The personages in the pictures are arrayed in bizarre and shimmering costumes, delightfully inaccurate; and if they represent kings and queens, are set in the midst of a fabulous pomp and glitter, and wear crowns incrusted with large and ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... knocked the ashes out of it against the arm of his chair, while he seemed to be considering the question. Then, as if he had formed a definite determination, he leaned forward and addressed his wife in a forcedly matter-of-fact tone. ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... Radcliffe, whose magical wonders and mysteries were then the ruling style of the day. I urged, how could any one expect that the admiring readers of such works could consider my simply-told biographical legend of Poland anything better than a dull union between real history and a matter-of-fact imagination? ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... eating her chop and salad, her hot muffin and tart without much heart to appreciate these delicacies, "How much time I have spent in my life, going through imaginary conversations with maids! Why couldn't I just step to the pantry door and say, in a matter-of-fact tone, 'I'm afraid I must ask you to put the sitting-room in order, Justine. Miss Sandy has apparently forgotten all about it. I'll see that it doesn't occur again.' And I could add—now that I think of it—'I will pay you for your ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... about it. One day I had a thirty-third degree one pointin' his finger in my eye an' beatin' his palm with his fist, an' spreadin' himself somethin' gorgeous. He never curbed his jubilization nor altered the heavy seriousness of his expression; but in the most matter-of-fact way in the world he backs over to the door-jamb an' begins to polish it up with his spinal column. If ya'll notice you'll find most o' the coats in that locality has curious little streaks up the back—but it ain't polite ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... below; large ice-crystals dislodged by our movements continued to shower down on our heads. As a first step I took off my goggles; I then discovered that Evans was hanging just above me. I asked him if he was all right, and received a reassuring reply in his calm, matter-of-fact tones.' ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... you dreadful matter-of-fact creature!" said Nattie. "Their presence at the dinner was quite accidental; Cyn and I started out for a little quiet feast, and behold the result! Bohemian enough for ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... young woman only a few hours, and yet he knew that with her he could not adopt the easy, matter-of-fact intimacy that had answered with the other women he had known. In fact, the desire to look upon her in this light never entered his mind. Instead, he was filled with a deep admiration for her—an admiration in which there ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... your ghost of making complaint to the magistracy in case the ruler of the universe does not honor them. Nothing in my old age affords me such melancholy amusement as the foolishness of these persons, who deem themselves so wise, especially those practical, rational, matter-of-fact and epicurean persons, who go to such a vast amount of trouble and suffer themselves to be put off with such hackneyed, transitory, unreal, ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... not exist without it. The gout is pain—this is not pain; it is joy, bliss, heaven! When I am dead it must lie for ever on my breast as it lies now, or I shall never rest in my grave.' He had been talking about amulets in the most quiet and matter-of-fact way during that morning; but the I moment he produced this cross a strange change came over his face, something like the change that will come over a dull wood-fire when blown by the wind into a ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... said. "She told me so and I have no reason to doubt her. She doesn't romance as a rule, and is certainly not the least bit in the world poetical—on the contrary she is most practical and matter-of-fact. Her only hobby, as far ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... As a matter-of-fact, he did not mince matters. Endowed with unbounded courage and an extraordinary command of language, when he got upon his feet he spoke his mind in a way that was good to hear. Moreover, he had the strong oratorical temperament that forces attention and commands men in a body. He said that ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... him some parting words of advice, but they fell on deaf ears. Even had Basil quite understood them, he would have asked how was it possible for a matter-of-fact, prosaic soldier like Colonel Mostyn, a man of the world, to understand such transcendental beings as Lady ...
— The Coquette's Victim • Charlotte M. Braeme
... the cold, matter-of-fact tone in which she alluded to such interests as those which she ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... scenes famous in history or fable, was expressed by some of the partners and clerks, with respect to some of the storied coasts and islands that lay within their route. The captain, however, who regarded every coast and island with a matter-of-fact eye, and had no more associations connected with them than those laid down in his sea-chart, considered all this curiosity as exceedingly idle and childish. "In the first part of the voyage," says he in his letter, "they were determined to have it said they had been ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... devised a plan which, for assurance and ingenuity, defied even the powers of Mr. Puff in the Critic: for who but himself would have thought of summoning up a ghost from the grave to bear witness in favor of a halting body of divinity? There is a matter-of-fact, business-like style in the whole account of the transaction, which bespeaks ineffable powers of self-possession. The narrative is drawn up "by a gentleman, a Justice of Peace at Maidstone, in Kent, a very intelligent person." And, moreover, "the discourse is attested by a very sober ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... strange to say, has scarcely a spice of the leaven of party wickedness in its pages. The information is in a facete but earnest vein, and we cheerfully miss in its tone the dull preachment, the cold calculation, and matter-of-fact obstinacy of a work professing to be statistical. After a just censure upon the swarm of books on emigration, and their insufficiencies, (from which we are glad to perceive Mr. Gourlay's "really valuable and statistical account" ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... the furniture, the hotels. It is entirely a new sensation to an American to look into a Parisian theatre, and see the acting and hear the music. The chances are that, for the first time, he sees the interior of a theatre that does not have a hard, businesslike, matter-of-fact air. The auditors look comfortable and cozy, and quite at home, and do not, shoulder to shoulder and in solid lines, make a dead set at the play and the music. The theatre has warm hangings, warm colors, cozy boxes and stalls, and is in no sense ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... long in coming to them, and the matter-of-fact world had to be faced once more. The young man produced his card, and said a few words to the conductor, mentioning the name of his uncle, who, by the way, happened to be a director of the road; and then he explained ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... at least, and with an increased interval, the father wrote fine fatherly letters that would have stood the test of publication. Then his communications became comparatively hurried and matter-of-fact. His boy's return home for the holidays was always rather a stirring time for his private feelings, but he became more and more inexpressive. He would sometimes lay a hand on those growing shoulders and then withdraw it. They felt braced-up shoulders, ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... only possible 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 ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... examination came, and Winthrop passed through it, as President Tuttle told his father, "as well as a man could;" and took honours and distinctions with a calm matter-of-fact manner, that somehow rather damped ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... ago a story was current of an old darkey from Salisbury, N. C., visiting Washington, D. C., to see the President and obtain social recognition. We name him. Uncle Abe Wallis was an industrious, well-behaved matter-of-fact old darkey who had accumulated the snug sum of forty dollars, and concluded to spend it in the advancement of his social position, and he reasoned that the shortest way to get to the top quick would be to call on the President for recognition. So he paid $15.00 ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... at Chi, not that the other boys did not know the games, but simply because this matter-of-fact boy was their natural leader ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... confidently; "and gets enormous sums of money for them." Whenever Zack found an opportunity of magnifying a friend's importance, he always rose grandly superior to mere matter-of-fact restraints, and seized the golden moment without an instant of hesitation or a ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... he had sent flowers to a woman. His present life did not encourage little courtesies and graceful actions. It was in the natural course of events that all the comrades should help one another in every possible way, but none of them made any virtue out of it. It was all done in the most matter-of-fact way possible. As he had told Arithelli when they had talked up at Montserrat, one only kissed the hands of a Marie Spiridonova. And he was sending bouquets as to some mondaine of the vanished ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... scrub it occurred to Norah once or twice to wonder if her companion were really a little mad. He said such extraordinary things, all in the most matter-of-fact tone—but when she looked up at him his blue eyes twinkled so kindly and merrily that she knew at once he was all right, and she was quite certain that she ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... the Italian in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone. 'My dresser finds out from the box-office. I never take the C sharp if there are less than ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... hardly describe my sensations at this announcement—I felt the room swim and shake; and yet it was made in such a deliberate matter-of-fact tone, that it flashed across me for an instant that Arthur was joking, and together with it came a curiously dismal sense of unreality, that is well known to all those who have passed through any great strain or emotional crisis, as if, suddenly, the soul had fallen out of everything, ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a tale of the other, the better world?" he asked, with a matter-of-fact surprise. "You must evoke for that task those who ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... repeated and Connie glanced into the face of 'Merican Joe who stood with sagging jaw, the picture of abject fear. With an effort, the boy spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, for he well knew that it would never do to let the Indian see that his own nerve ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... Kemble, yielding to irritation in his deep perplexity, "the more matter-of-fact we are the better we're off. I suppose the best thing to do is just to face what happens and ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... and rose. They walked a few moments without a word. She noticed how well he carried himself and how muscular and athletic his figure appeared even in its shabby clothes. As they strolled toward the nearest exit she talked of the Park, and asked him a few matter-of-fact questions, to which he replied with growing animation. "I can't give you figures and statistics, ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... as a kind of sleep and the closing of the eyes was the distinctive sign of the latter condition the open eyes were not unnaturally regarded as clear evidence of wakefulness and life. In fact, to a matter-of-fact people the restoration of the eyes to the mummy or statue was equivalent to an awakening ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... be 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 trembling ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... dear sir, not a few. It has been engaged in a—in a pretty good practice, I believe I may say,' replied the doctor, coughing as if the matter-of-fact were so very dry and literal that he couldn't help it. 'In a pretty good practice,' repeated the doctor, putting another glass of wine ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... 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 ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... path of routine and duty and the honorable tradition of his calling. Manifestly his present business is epic and the making of epic, if he knew it; yet not knowing it he grasps things, as the epic paladins always grasp them, by the matter-of-fact, not the heroic, handle. What better stories have the poets to tell than that of Captain Parslow, a Briton if ever there was one, who, refusing to surrender, saved his ship in a submarine attack at the cost of his own ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... Nicasio! My God! My God! Yes, your honor. Two days before—no one can think of everything, no one can foresee everything—he came to the shop and said to me, 'Neighbor, lend me a razor; I have a corn that is troubling me.' He was so matter-of-fact about it that I did not hesitate for an instant. I even warned him, 'Be careful! you can't joke with corns! A little blood, and you may start a cancer!' 'Don't borrow ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... 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 good heat if he is not a "gentleman." England produces ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... rose above the horizon, all these matter-of-fact circumstances were gradually forgotten, and merged in the surpassing grandeur of the scene that rose majestically before me. The previous day had been dark and stormy, and a heavy fog had concealed the mountain chain, which ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... wind,' captain! 'Only a capful of wind,'" said Ishmael, in a grave, matter-of-fact way, as he carefully ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... 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. Without making light of what ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... personal habit of not being cheated. Everything he does is full of this habit. The sinful man, as he is usually called, is a man who is off in his facts, a man who does not know what he really wants even for himself. In a matter-of-fact civilization like ours, he cannot hope to keep up. If a man can be cheated, even by himself—of course other people can cheat him and everybody can take advantage of him. He naturally grows more incompetent every day he lives. The men who ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... 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 musingly, "perhaps ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... he said, in the most matter-of-fact way, as if bringing meals to my door had been a fixed habit with him, man and boy, for years. "Hope I haven't spilt anything! There's such a crush in our feeding place that I thought you'd be safer up here. So I made friends ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... English. But there were judges who said they were wonderful for a boy, and everybody predicted a splendid future for him. Everybody but his father. He shook his head doubtingly, whenever it was mentioned, for, as I have told you, he was a practical, matter-of-fact man. ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... long!" she interrupted, helped to a meek sort of gayety by his matter-of-fact tone. "Good-night, Joe." She gave him her hand. "I don't want you to come with me. It isn't very late and this ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... farmhouse was timely, for the unexpected appearance in their midst of one whom they looked upon as surely dead had stunned and bewildered the family to such an extent that it needed the presence of just such a matter-of-fact, self-possessed woman as Bell to bring things back to their original shape. It was wonderful how the city girl fitted into the vacant niches, seeing to everything which needed seeing to, and still finding time to steal away ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... Seaton's voice was cheerful but matter-of-fact. "I'll thicken this up so you can see us better in a minute. But don't think that we are flesh and blood. You'll see simply three-dimensional talking pictures of ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... privilege and of the exception to it; that the exception is expressed in the Constitution, and that the Constitution gives effect to the act of suspension when the conditions occur; that the conditions consist of two matters of fact—one a naked matter of fact; and the other a matter-of-fact conclusion from facts: that is to say, rebellion and the public danger, or the requirement of public safety." By these words Mr. Binney intends to imply that the Constitution itself gave the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, and itself prescribes the ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... Never mind him, said I, Queequeg, come on. But he stole up to us again, and suddenly clapping his hand on my shoulder, said — Did ye see anything looking like men going towards that ship a while ago? Struck by this plain matter-of-fact question, I answered, saying, .. Yes, I thought I did see four or five men; but it was too dim to be sure. Very dim, very dim, said Elijah. Morning to ye. Once more we quitted him; but once more he came softly after us; and touching my shoulder again, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... carry as much weight to-day as they did when the Han dynasty made them the standard of human wisdom. They were especially adapted to the Chinese intellect, which although shrewd and ingenious is phlegmatic, unspeculative, matter-of-fact, and unspiritual. Moreover, as we have said, it was to the interest of rulers to support his doctrines, from the constant exhortations to loyalty which Confucius enjoined. And yet there is in his precepts a democratic influence also, since he recognized ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
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