"Personal matters" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... esteem for that fine fellow Poulter. The very surgeon who attended him in the hospital after he had received his gunshot-wound had been profoundly impressed with the superiority of Mr. Poulter's flesh,—no other flesh would have healed in anything like the same time. On less personal matters connected with the important warfare in which he had been engaged, Mr. Poulter was more reticent, only taking care not to give the weight of his authority to any loose notions concerning military history. Any ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... offering this sacrifice and adoration were, in addition to whatever personal matters there might be, the recovery of a sick person, the prosperous voyage of those embarking on the sea, a good harvest in the sowed lands, a propitious result in wars, a successful delivery in childbirth, and a happy outcome in married life. If this took place among people of rank, the festivities lasted ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... to more personal matters. About December 28 the Staff of the Canadian contingent under Lieutenant- Colonel Morrisy arrived, and, as one might expect, revolutionary plans in connection with the distribution of my battalion, and other matters, were instantly proposed. Some of them were actually carried out, ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... through a speaking tube, either. Tell your father I am sorry I was out when he called. I'll come to see him to-morrow, if he wants me to. Yes—yes. I guess so!" and Tom laughed, it being evident that his remarks at the end of the conversation had to do with personal matters. ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... the poets are too anxious to convert us to their visions and their fancies. There is the fatal odour of the prophet in their perilous rhetoric, and they would fain lay their most noble fingers upon our personal matters. They want to make us moral or immoral. They want to thrust their mysticism, their materialism, their free love, or their imprisoned thoughts, down our ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... ask, feeling that he had penetrated already further into the man's own personal matters than he should have done. He had heard tales such as all men hear when they come into the influence of the desert south-west, wild tales like those he had recounted about Superstition Pool to Helen and her father, wilder tales about a people who dwelt on in the ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... was not referred to and a day or so later Betty Arnold entered their lives, and so intense was their interest in her and her affairs that personal matters were, for the ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... schools of law, and they say that a Mujtahid or doctor of the law can still give decisions of binding authority, which the Sunnis deny. Except as regards marriage, divorce and inheritance and other personal matters, Muhammadan law is of course now superseded by the general ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... fraction as wonderful as the patience and forgiveness of a mother for the exasperations of her son. There is not a thing which you ought to do, the telling of which to your mother will prevent your doing. And her counsel to you will be golden upon those purely personal matters which you could tell no one else, and which no one else ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... harming you soon. That letter refers to personal matters, I swear." There was superb dignity in the voice. "I would have his excellency know that I regret nothing. I would do all over again, did the need arise. Washington would see ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock
... not very important," I remarked, "what I receive in the shape of money, so that I am at no expense beyond my clothing, and other personal matters, and that I find myself well situated. My engagement will, in no case, extend beyond a year. You have your peculiarities, I see, and I have mine. The question is, might ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... haziest thing imaginable. Now and then I had acute hallucinations of a woman with an arrow of gold in her hair. This caused alternate moments of exaltation and depression from which I tried to take refuge in conversation; but Senor Ortega was not stimulating. He was preoccupied with personal matters. When suddenly he asked me whether I knew why he had been called away from his work (he had been buying supplies from peasants somewhere in Central France), I answered that I didn't know what the reason was originally, but I had an idea that the present intention ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... From these personal matters he returned to the abuses that had been discovered by the commission. A terrible story of neglect and cruelty was told. These charges did not rest on the testimony of prisoners. They were sustained ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... in the Kwoh Yue, an ancillary history of these times, but touching more upon personal matters, usually considered to have been written by the same man that first expanded Confucius' annals, to the effect that in 489 B.C. (when Confucius was wandering about on his travels, a disappointed and disgusted man) the King of Wu inflicted a crushing defeat upon Ts'i at a spot not far from the ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... fantastic journey she pleased. But souls are perverse, not to be driven at will, choosing their own times and seasons for travel. And hers, just now, proved obstinately home-staying—had no wings wherewith to fly, but must needs crawl a-fourfoot, around all manner of inglorious personal matters. For that skirmish with her ex-governess, though she successfully bridled her tongue and conquered by kindness rather than by smiting, had clouded her inward serenity, not only by its inherent uselessness, but ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... spiritual and divine part of her being was active. Her hopes, desires, and aspirations were all such as she could have had in greater perfection as a disembodied spirit than as a mortal woman. The small stake for self which she had invested in life was gone,—and henceforward all personal matters were to her so indifferent that she scarce was conscious of a wish in relation to her own individual happiness. Through the sudden crush of a great affliction, she was in that state of self-abnegation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... unreason of the multitudes to whom in vain he preached reason. Unlike the typical man of letters—for he was without vanity—he did not abandon the cause of the Revolution because his suggestions were often repulsed. 'It would be better,' he said to the Girondins, 'if you cared less for personal matters and attended only to public interests.' Years ago, in his eloge on L'Hopital, he had praised the famous Chancellor for incurring the hostility of both of the two envenomed factions, the League and the Huguenots, and for disregarding the approbation or disapprobation of the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... to this same lady. Your husband and a certain officer of the British Navy called upon this same lady last week in Montreal—informally. It is sometimes unfortunate that plans are divulged. To me it seemed only wise and fit that you should not let any of these little personal matters make for us greater complications in these perilous times. I think you understand ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... to collect his thoughts, and to survey his position in its clear and actual light, and to argue with himself, sensibly and frankly, as with a reasonable friend with whom one can discuss private and personal matters. "No," said Akakiy Akakievitch, "it is impossible to reason with Petrovitch now; he is that—evidently his wife has been beating him. I'd better go to him on Sunday morning; after Saturday night he will be a little cross-eyed and sleepy, for he will want to get drunk, and his wife won't ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... the cause of the excitement shown in some of these faces lay chiefly in questions of personal success; his mind, however, was occupied by the different expression he saw on other faces—an expression that spoke not of personal matters but of the universal questions of life and death. Kutuzov noticed Pierre's figure and the group gathered ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... the ready money sales did not go off; processes multiplied in a frightful manner; every day creditors came to the office soliciting actions against their debtors; in a word, he was in a state of perpetual torment either with his own personal matters, or with those of others. However, as he hoped soon to be at the head of the agricultural establishment projected at Senegal, he supported his difficulties ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... a strong desire to stay longer, and to turn the conversation to more personal matters. But he was essentially a business man, and the matters of the moment seemed to be critical. So he promised to return, and then hurried back to his hotel—to find Melky Rubinstein pacing up and down outside ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... we spent an hour talking, principally of the war, which he thought would result in two separate governments. His reason seemed to be entirely restored; but his prestige, power, wealth and health were gone. I tried to avoid all personal matters, as well as reference to our quarrel, but he broke into ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... to know the truth concerning all matters in this world which she has to make her way through, you would have answered her question, and then I suppose I should have gone away without having exchanged a word with her on any more personal matters than induction coils and ohms of resistance; and in all probability you would have been spared the necessity of having me for ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... Miss Dunlop, without accepting any responsibility for what I have written, has with the greatest possible kindness read these pages, and assisted me to attain complete accuracy in the facts, so far as they relate to family and personal matters, but excluding altogether from her purview all military and political topics. For that co-operation, unfortunately restricted by the condition of the promise to Miss Gordon, I avail myself of this opportunity to express my grateful ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... as is well known, members of the Corps Legislatif are shamelessly harassed by constituents, who, on pretence that they have helped to place the interests of their district in your hands, feel authorized to worry you with personal matters, such as the choice of agricultural machines, or a place to be found for ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... finally began to collect his thoughts, and to survey his position in its clear and actual light, and to argue with himself, sensibly and frankly, as with a reasonable friend, with whom one can discuss private and personal matters. "No," said Akaky Akakiyevich, "it is impossible to reason with Petrovich now. He is that—evidently, his wife has been beating him. I'd better go to him on Sunday morning. After Saturday night he will be a little cross-eyed and sleepy, for he will want to get drunk, and ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... were inclined to refer to him in these moments of irritation as "town crank." But they did not really mean it when they said it. And some others, like Leander Babbitt or Captain Hunniwell, came to ask his advice on personal matters, although even they patronized him just a little. He had various nicknames, "Shavings" being the ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... down, old man. I had a very sick patient to-night, and I feel worn out. I'll ring for champagne." They talked about trifling personal matters, when suddenly Effinghame asked:— ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... before leaving Cairo, very little more at the night camp during the journey, and not at all on the night of her arrival. Her first words indicated a purpose on her part to fend off all talk that might touch upon personal matters. ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... stream which, as is usual in many villages, ran through the middle of it. I was impressed during my visit not only by the readiness and intelligence with which my questions were answered but by the good humour with which a stranger's inquiries concerning personal matters was received. I had another thought, that I might not have found a group of Western farmers so well informed about their financial position as these simple, ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... be proper to offer consolation, and watch the effect." Gradually he led the conversation away from this painful topic and talked with her about other places in which she had lived. Then they drifted to more personal matters, to theories upon life and duty, and he spoke with the warmest admiration of what he called the ideal principles by which she guided her life and declared that they would be impossible to a man, unless he had the good fortune to be stimulated and helped ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... his neighbourhood; and though Mr Maxwell had spoken with several of them as to their duty in the circumstances, he had never spoken to Mr Fleming. He was on the most friendly terms with the family, and had always been kindly received and respectfully treated by the old man, but as to personal matters Mr Fleming was as reserved with him as with the rest of the world. It would have seemed to Mr Maxwell an impertinence on his part to seek either directly or indirectly to force the confidence of a man like him. And indeed ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... pass unheeded, because he held them unworthy to be intruded upon more important occupations, and he would not be diverted from the great objects he was pursuing; since his recall, considerations affecting the public service, and the desire not at this time to embarrass the Government with personal matters, have sealed his lips. I will not now disregard his wishes by entering into any detailed discussion of the charges which have been made against him,—but I cannot lay down my pen without bearing voluntary testimony ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... dwelt at length upon little personal matters. It may not interest you to know when I had a pork-chop—though, as you now realise, on active service a pork-chop is extremely important—but it interested my mother. She liked to know whether I was having good and sufficient food, and warm things on my chest and feet, because, ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... genuine old coaching-house in the main street, and Medenham persuaded the girl to turn aside from Salisbury in order to pass through the heart of the New Forest. She sat with him in front then, and their talk dealt more with the magnificent scenery than with personal matters until they reached Ringwood, where ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... great public importance, and in varying degree among different people for more personal matters, the threads of memory and emotion are in a snarl. The same word will connote any number of different ideas: emotions are displaced from the images to which they belong to names which resemble the names of these images. In the uncriticized parts of the mind there is a ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... hotel without a password, or living there without certain preparatory precautions, must have struck Malicorne; and, we will venture to say, really did so. But Malicorne, as we have already said, had personal matters of his own to occupy his attention which prevented him from paying much attention to others. In fact, all the apartments of the hotel were engaged and retained by certain strangers, who never stirred out, who were incommunicative in ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is evident, however, that at times knowledge might be gained in the absence of any set problem upon which the learner reacts. For example, a certain person while walking along a road intent upon his own personal matters observed a boy standing near a high fence. On passing further along the street, he glanced through an opening and observed a vineyard within the inclosure. On returning along the street a few minutes later, he saw the same boy standing at a near by corner eating grapes. Hereupon these three ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... only because it was given to me privately." Then followed an expression of gratitude for the manly and straightforward way in which the speaker felt himself to have been treated by his opponent; then there was an expression of hope that these personal matters might disappear from the contest. "Had I been sensitive, I in my turn might have found matter for complaint, but I was content to place myself in your hands, trusting to your good sense and fairness." (Sir Winterton had not been ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... is told. Hitherto the course of events has been recorded in the impersonal style of history. But henceforward I am able to rely on my own memory as well as on other people's evidence. [I do not desire to bore the reader or depreciate the story by the introduction of personal matters. It will be sufficient if, in the interests of coherency, I explain my connection with the Malakand Field Force. Having realised, that if a British cavalry officer waits till he is ordered on active service, he is likely to wait a considerable time, I obtained ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... charge of High Treason, but from his creditors. While he was abroad, we learn he went under another name; not a new experience for one of his family, which seems to have had no legitimate name of its own, its members, Oliver amongst them, signing in important personal matters such as getting hold of the dowries of their wives, "Williams alias Cromwell." It would, therefore, be interesting to know under what alias this latest descendant of the infamous minister of Henry VIII. corresponded with the wife and family ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... potent agency in civilization, in the union of elevation with enthusiasm, in an openness that seemed to reveal everything, yet nothing that should have been hidden. Hence this biography, little as it deals with purely personal matters, awakens an interest of precisely the same kind as that which the living Agassiz was accustomed to excite. For the student of comparative zoology or of glacial action all that is here told about these subjects can have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... The personal matters which usually, and more or less gracefully, fill the beginning of the end of a biography, are perhaps superfluous in the case of a man who died so recently, and who was so well known as Mr Matthew Arnold. Moreover, if given ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... got to do with my bein' a spy? These things about my guvnor an' me are personal matters. I don't see as 'ow I'm bound to answer such questions." His face reddened slowly and then he added impressively, "This much I'll admit to ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... mixture of English common law, British Mandate regulations, and, in personal matters, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim legal systems; in December 1985, Israel informed the UN Secretariat that it would no longer accept ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... race. There was the same sort of antithetic mixture in Martin Poyser: he was of so excellent a disposition that he had been kinder and more respectful than ever to his old father since he had made a deed of gift of all his property, and no man judged his neighbours more charitably on all personal matters; but for a farmer, like Luke Britton, for example, whose fallows were not well cleaned, who didn't know the rudiments of hedging and ditching, and showed but a small share of judgment in the purchase of winter stock, Martin Poyser was as hard and implacable as the north-east ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... this eminent man contained little that was striking; a cold prudence preserved him from engaging in and personal matters that could make his life eventful. He was born in the year 1788, in a cottage near Bury, in Lancashire, where his father then lived in humble circumstances. Mr. Peel founded in that neighbourhood works for calico-printing, and laid by that means the foundation of a very great fortune. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... should have, success, happiness, harmony and love. You possess sources of dynamic energy, intuition, initiative and inductive power. Your age does not matter, you can start anew. STATE YOUR CASE CLEARLY AND BRIEFLY. I will also answer for you five questions upon personal matters concerning which you may desire special information, advice, or guidance. Your confidence is kept inviolate. Thru my new Method of Mental Induction, I work for you and with you daily for the full realization ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... boyhood into a proud and fastidious man, he had a natural love for the Becoming. This love was unconsciously visible in trifles: it is the natural parent of Good Taste. And it was indeed an inborn good taste which redeemed Ernest's natural carelessness in those personal matters in which young men usually take a pride. An habitual and soldier-like neatness, and a love of order and symmetry, stood with him in the stead of elaborate attention to equipage ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... impossible to ask questions about her, and believed, with a thrilled sense of mystery, that some tragic incident or experience had separated the two sisters. Her brother also, it seemed, was as dead to her. But on all such personal matters Gertrude's silence was insuperable, and Delia knew no more of them than on the first day ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... it a point to be good to the press boys. He acquired an ability to "jolly" them without too obvious loss of dignity. He took them into his confidences, apparently, and made his disclosures personal matters, individual favors. He kept careful note of their names, their characteristics, their interests. He cultivated them, keeping as careful track of them from city to city as he did of the "big" criminals themselves. They got into the habit of going to him for their special stories. He always exacted ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... Buddhism, and of his friend the Pakba Lama, are a truer indication of his feelings. But none were admitted into his private confidence, and his acts evinced a politic tolerance toward all creeds. But his religious tolerance or indifference did not extend to personal matters. He insisted on the proper prayers being offered to himself and the extreme reverence of the kow-tow. Priests were appointed and specially enjoined to offer up prayers on his behalf before the people, who were required to attend these services and to join in the responses. Images of himself were ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... touched these more penetrating and personal matters, the head among the shadows had emerged. The beautiful eyes, so full—unconsciously full—of sad and torturing thought, rested upon the speaker. Friedland became sensitively conscious of them. The grey-haired scholar was in truth one of the most ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... botanised. Flora acted the grown-up lady with Mrs. Wilmot, and Meta found herself sitting by Ethel, asking her a great many questions about Margaret, and her home, and what it could be like to be one of such a numerous family. Flora had always turned aside from personal matters, as uninteresting to her companion, and, in spite of Meta's admiration, and the mutual wish to be intimate, confidence did not spring up spontaneously, as it had done with the doctor, and, in that single ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... slightest need to go into your personal matters, Mrs. Bowman. We know them already. We knew also of your visit to Mr. Gilbert's study that night, and that you didn't go there alone. Had the testimony been of any importance to us, we'd have called in ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... going over the documents, had sorted them into two piles—one to be submitted to the lawyer, the other being made up of obviously personal matters that could have no interest for any but ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... not serious. Your political opinions, or notions, are not represented by any party in England; and therefore they are practically ineffective, and could not clash with mine. And such differences are not personal matters." ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw |
