"Offhand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... get this straight, Jim." Holland's pudgy face was sober, his eyes serious. "You started out by thinking Jean was showing paranoid tendencies, and offhand I'm inclined to agree with you. Overnight you changed your mind and began thinking that maybe, just maybe, she might be right. Honestly, don't you suspect your own reasons for such a ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Wesley Barefoot
... is continually bringing forth things new and old, and often it happens that the newest are the oldest of all. Whether this or the exact converse is the case in regard to the latest discovery of Biblical archology is a question not to be determined offhand; but the interest and importance of the question can hardly be overrated. There are now deposited in the British Museum fifteen leather slips, on the forty folds of which are written portions of the Book of Deuteronomy in a recension ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... the fingers of the seer, lingered the two young men, one of whom had stirred the unstirable. Norris looked vaguely around as at unknown faces, and Dick nodded in this or that direction in that offhand manner which invites people to keep their distance rather than to seek further intercourse, but the woman who was handsome and thirty refused to be ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... garden in old Chelsea Village to the theological seminary of his professorship. How many people remember this, or his scholarship? But before that old rooftree was laid low, he wrote beneath it, quite offhand, a little poem, 'The Night Before Christmas,' that blends with childhood's dreams anew each Christmas Eve—a few short verses holding more vitality than all ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... the beef-shoot was forty yards "ef ye shot from a chunk." Twenty-seven yards, or about two-thirds the distance, if the shot was offhand. "A chunk" was any rest for the rifle—a bowed limb cut from a tree, the fork of a limb driven firmly into the ground, a part of a log—anything that was the height to give the needed low level to the rifle-barrel when the shooter lay sprawled behind the gun. The permission to shoot ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... enter the laundry and pass over his parcel, as though it were his week's washing. He would be gone before they had discovered its contents. He merely needed to be offhand and nonchalant. More than once he had seen dilapidated actors carrying a limited wardrobe to the laundry at equally small hours of the night. And the sloe-eyed iron-thumpers would never again get sight ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... croquet hoops, but he made no comments, for fear of offending the old gobbler. But he felt that he must say something to make the gobbler think that he was not frightened, so he remarked, in an offhand way: ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... "Wouldn't want to say offhand. We'd have to figure that. That's another reason for filling the boat up, though. The more we have the less everyone's share of the expense ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... no respect for a lawyer who does not know certain fundamental definitions by heart; and I have less respect for the preacher who cannot repeat the eleventh chapter of Hebrews offhand. ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... able to think offhand of an objection; not one which he wanted to voice. He couldn't admit outright that the prospect was dismaying to his young pride. That he was afraid of the ridicule which certainly it would bring ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... Mother Graham's demand to know what Dicky had written to me had been appeased by Lillian's offhand remark that country mails were never reliable, and that my letter would probably arrive later, the elder woman went to her own room to puzzle anew over her son's letter, which simply said over again what he had told her ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... Plato, that the virtuous man contents himself with dreaming that which the wicked man does in actual life. I am therefore of the opinion that it is best to accord freedom to dreams. Whether any reality is to be attributed to the unconscious wishes, and in what sense, I am not prepared to say offhand. Reality must naturally be denied to all transition—and intermediate thoughts. If we had before us the unconscious wishes, brought to their last and truest expression, we should still do well to remember that more than one single form of existence ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... are frequently held in suspense for some time, in order that the opening pages may be made attractive by the introduction of smart conversation or rapid action. A similar method is often followed in the short story, and it cannot be condemned offhand, for if used skillfully it is a clever and legitimate device for immediately fixing the reader's attention; but it holds danger for the uninitiated, for the amateur is liable to postpone the introduction of the details until the story ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... little man, with a deprecatory glance, "w'en a man in ragged clo'se orders people here about as if 'e was the commander-in-chief o' the British Army, an' flings yellow boys about as if 'e was chancellor o' the checkers, an orders sassengers offhand for all 'ands, 'e may be a gentleman—wery likely 'e is,—but 'e ain't a redooced one, such as slopes into lodgin'-'ouse kitchens. W'atever little game may 'ave brought you 'ere, sir, it ain't poverty—an' nobody ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... as we came up toward the gloomy corner, there was a shout of bantering laughter from those whom, offhand, I should have called Aunt Lou, Cousin Becky, Brother Bob, and Milly Snagg, and we saw that the automaton had just dispatched his opponent—the fifth member of the party, a well-bronzed countryman, with a shaved ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... was pointed out to her she tapped. Miss Gallifer opened it, receiving her colleague with a great big hearty smile. Great, big, and hearty were the traits by which Miss Gallifer was known among the doctors. Healthy, skilful, jolly, and offhand, she carried the issues of life and death, in which she was at home, with a lightness which made her easy to work with. Some nurses would have resented the intrusion of an outsider—professionally speaking—like Miss Walbrook; but to Miss Gallifer it was the more the merrier, even in the ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... Nivens, in that quiet, offhand style of his. "I'd always been in the habit of putting by most of my wages, not needing them to live on. There's tips, you know, sir, and quite a little one can pick up—commissions from the stores, selling second-hand clothes and shoes, ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... is, perhaps, untenable—almost repulsive," he said, "but the law on the matter is governed by so many differing decisions that I cannot express a reasoned opinion offhand. You see, the question of consideration intervenes. ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... the greater is the task and the more gigantic the creative power which such a task may develop. It has been said that, in this scene, Goethe revealed leanings towards Catholicism. I do not pretend to deny it offhand, but I must insist on these leanings being understood in the sense of my premises. Goethe took from tradition those elements which were able to materialise his spiritual life and gave them a new interpretation. We are justified in believing that he accepted nothing ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... could not move her. At last he gave it up and turned her over for the day's inquest to an old hand at tricks and traps and deceptive plausibilities—Beaupere, a doctor of theology. Now notice the form of this sleek strategist's first remark—flung out in an easy, offhand way that would have thrown any ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... then, he must be as much as a week old," hazarded Adam, in an offhand tone. "They are never born with teeth, are they, unless they are going to be Richard ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... college training? We who have had it seldom hear the question raised—we might be a little nonplussed to answer it offhand. A certain amount of meditation has brought me to this as the pithiest reply which I myself can give: The best claim that a college education can possibly make on your respect, the best thing it can aspire to accomplish for you, is this: that it should help you to know ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... to him. But all the time she was in her Spiral room she had a sense that he was upstairs, a physical sense of his person in the same building. Every second she expected him to come through the door, and when he came it was a shock to her. But he was often short and offhand with her. He gave her his directions in an official manner, keeping her at bay. With what wits she had left she listened to him. She dared not misunderstand or fail to remember, but it was a cruelty to her. She wanted to touch his chest. She knew exactly ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... educated people, can tell you offhand how an American President is elected, what is the difference between a Republican and Democrat, or what is the position of the Governor of a State? Well, it will not be Mr. Harris' fault if the reader does not know how to answer these and kindred questions at the same ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... the football team, was to make a few grief-saturated remarks. So was Perkins. Every one was confidently expecting Perkins to make the effort of his life and swamp the chapel in sorrow. He was in the secret and he afterward said that he would rather try to write a Shakespearean tragedy offhand than to write another funeral oration about a man who he knew was at that moment sitting in a pair of pajamas in an upper room half a mile away and yelling ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... to find any large tract of country exactly what you would desire. If for no other reason, through sheer stress of numbers there will be collisions, and much damage done by kicks through mutual entanglement; whereas a pick of horse and men will be able to escape offhand, (15) especially if you have invention to create a scare in the minds of the pursuers by help of the moiety of troops who are out of action. (16) For this purpose false ...
— The Cavalry General • Xenophon
... Colonel, solemnly; "certainly I will think it over. Of course, there are pros and cons, but, on the whole, speaking offhand, I don't see why the young people should not make a match. Also you have always been a good relative, and, what is better, a good friend to me, so, of course, if possible I should like to ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... court a great variety of cases came up, such as disputes as to debts, failure to perform contracts of sale or purchase, false measurements, theft, assault, defamation, and misdemeanors of all kinds. Sometimes the court decided offhand, sometimes compurgation was allowed immediately or on the next day, sometimes juries were formed and gave decisions. The law which the court of pie-powder administered was often referred to as the "law merchant," a somewhat less rigid system than ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... universe, and of the inadequacy fully to match it of the peculiar systems that he knows. They don't just cover HIS world. One will be too dapper, another too pedantic, a third too much of a job-lot of opinions, a fourth too morbid, and a fifth too artificial, or what not. At any rate he and we know offhand that such philosophies are out of plumb and out of key and out of 'whack,' and have no business to speak up in the universe's name. Plato, Locke, Spinoza, Mill, Caird, Hegel—I prudently avoid names nearer home!—I am sure that to many of you, my hearers, these names are little more than reminders ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... commonly thought of, and referred to by writers on the history of the West, as a "wilderness"; and offhand, one might suppose that the settlers were obliged literally to hew their way through densely grown vegetation to the spots which they selected for their homes. In point of fact, there were great areas of upland—not ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... Reginald; "and it is a somewhat difficult question to answer: very much too difficult to answer offhand. We want a man—" ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... this is the sheer impossibility of bringing the terms together in thought. That a circle may be square, or that parallel lines may enclose a space, are propositions the truth of which may be denied offhand. The ground of this is that the conception of squareness and circularity, of straight lines and an enclosed space are mutually destructive, they cancel each other. And so far as Atheism may be said to involve the denial of particular ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... superannuated, which had become useless and soulless, extended much farther. He found society, and especially religious life, full of practices, ceremonies, traditions and conceptions, from which the spirit seemed to have departed. He does not reject them offhand and altogether: what revolts him is that they are so often performed without understanding and right feeling. But to his mind, highly susceptible to the foolish and ridiculous things, and with a delicate need of high decorum and inward dignity, all that sphere of ceremony ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... go so easily. Assuming charge in a simple, offhand manner, he found a taxicab which took them to the South Station, led her to the ticket-office, secured a chair, and put ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... Lasswade. During the resting time passed in the country cottage, Scott found enjoyment in composing poems based upon some of the legends and superstitions with which he had become familiar in his jaunts among ruined castles and scenes in the Highlands. Some of these verses, shown in an offhand manner to James Ballantyne, who was the head of a printing establishment in Kelso, met with such favorable recognition that Scott was encouraged to lay bare to his friend a plan that had been forming in his mind for publishing a great collection of Scotch ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... to the holy volume? And what had they exactly in their several individual minds, when they delivered their utterances? These are manifestly questions of historical fact, and one does not see how the answer to them can decide offhand the still further question: of what use should such a volume, with its manner of coming into existence so defined, be to us as a guide to life and a revelation? To answer this other question we must have already in our ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... left this aviation camp alive," said Tom sternly. "Why, the boys would be so furious they'd be tempted to lynch him offhand." ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... sort of man that you would expect to find at the head of a mob shouting, 'To Hell with the Pope'?" Witness, with great emphasis: "No. Certainly not. Jamie was never any ways a religious man." These bewildering corruptions of sense and sanity overwhelm you at every turn. Ask your neighbour offhand at a dinner in Dublin: "What is so-and-so, by the way?" He will reply that so-and-so is a doctor, or a government official, or a stockbroker, as it may happen. Ask him the same question at a dinner in Belfast, and he will automatically tell you that so-and-so is a Protestant ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... debating what steps should be taken to find him. But they were very slow in coming to any conclusion, and while they were weighing questions and discussing measures, an energetic American settled the matter offhand. ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... of those smaller mines, Mr. Potash," he explained, "which sometimes get to be phenomenal profit-makers. Of course, I can't tell you offhand what the value of the stock is, but I'll make inquiries at once. The inside market at present is ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... to show us that he at least was no Anglo-maniac, shot at us a look fierce as any bonassus; while he asked, abruptly, what we thought in England of one whom he styled the "Demosthenes of Ireland"—looked at us for an answer. As it would have been unsafe to have answered him in the downright, offhand manner, in which we like both to deal and to be dealt by, we professed that we knew but one Demosthenes, and he not an Irishman, but a Greek; which, by securing us his contempt, kept us safe from the danger of something worse; but, our Demosthenic friend excepted, it was a pleasant, unceremonious ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... and the Book" must be regarded as Browning's crowning work. Offhand critics have disposed of it, but the great minds go back to it again and again. In the character of Pompilia the author sought to pay tribute to the woman whose memory was ever in his mind; yet he was too sensitive and shrinking to fully picture her. He sought to mask his inspiration; but ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... been quite accidental, but his appearing a second time among her favorite haunts hinted of more than the fortuitous. Daylight was made to feel that she suspected him, and he, remembering that he had seen a big rock quarry near Blair Park, stated offhand that he was thinking of buying it. His one-time investment in a brickyard had put the idea into his head—an idea that he decided was a good one, for it enabled him to suggest that she ride along with him to inspect ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... offhand—Bonaparte never admitted any one to such secrets—instead of the proclamation he had dictated to Bourrienne two days earlier, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... leave very cheerfully; that was certain. As much could not be said for his principal. Dolly had privately asked her father to send her down the money for the servants' wages; and Mr. Copley had given an offhand promise; but Dolly saw that same want of the usual ready ease in his manner, and was not surprised when days passed and the money did not come. The question recurred, what was she to do? She wrote to remind her father; and she took a fixed resolve ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... his usual offhand way. He did not dislike Braybrooke. When Braybrooke was there he perceived him, having eyes, and having ears heard his voice. But hitherto Braybrooke had never succeeded in conveying any impression to the mind of Garstin. On one occasion when Braybrooke had been discussed in Garstin's presence, ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... generations, at least, behind his authors. Consequently, this sudden development of capacity on the part of the poet is liable to take him unprepared, and the mere apparition of a poet who can add up a pounds shillings and pence column offhand might well induce apoplexy. Yet it is to be feared that that providence which arms every evil thing with its fang has so protected the publisher with an instinctive dread of verse in any form, and especially in manuscript, that he has, ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... in the desk and gave it to Gryson, saying tersely: "That isn't a bribe, you understand; it's merely to help you make your getaway. Can you manage to ride on Transcontinental trains without being recognized offhand?" ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... one you have known who has the gift of racy colloquial utterance. Make a list of offhand, homely, or picturesque expressions you have heard him employ, and ask yourself what it is in these expressions that has made them linger in your memory. With them in mind, and with your knowledge of the man's methods of imparting his ideas vividly, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... been less surprised at the tone of this last remark if he had seen Lady Groombridge's exceedingly offhand way of greeting Molly this same evening. That great lady, having expected to find that Molly had, acting on her advice, abandoned Mrs. Delaport Green, was quite disappointed in the girl when she met them still together ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... he would have related it himself. He has confided so much in me that at times it seems as though he must come in presently and tell the story in his own words, in his careless yet feeling voice, with his offhand manner, a little puzzled, a little bothered, a little hurt, but now and then by a word or a phrase giving one of these glimpses of his very own self that were never any good for purposes of orientation. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... give them a better railroad bill than they were asking. His practice was to commit to memory a bill that he was about to introduce and then go into his committee-room, when it was full of loafers, and pretend to dictate it offhand to the stenographer, section by section without pausing. It was an impressive performance, and gained Handy the reputation of being brainy. But we at home who knew Handy were not impressed; and, in our office, we knew that he was the same ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... naturally to the front, and Garfield was one of them. Indeed, the faculty for organization seems innate in the American people, so that when it became necessary to raise and equip so large a body of men at a few weeks' notice, the task was undertaken offhand by lawyers, doctors, shopkeepers, and schoolmasters, without a minute's hesitation, and was performed on the whole ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... Offhand as the words were, there was unmistakable satisfaction, happiness, even triumph in his voice, and he returned Aleck's hand-clasp with a vise-like grip. His masculinity ignored Agatha, or pretended to; but she had followed him to the door. As the old man clasped hands with Aleck, he heard behind ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... have never known,—where the steamers like the Mariposa Belle come from. Whether they are built by Harland and Wolff of Belfast, or whether, on the other hand, they are not built by Harland and Wolff of Belfast, is more than one would like to say offhand. ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... those tools of Nature's own providing, both hands and your teeth. An hour passed—busy, yet pleasant—and we were both gorged to the gills and had reared back with our cigars lit to enjoy a third jorum of black coffee apiece, when Johnny, speaking in an offhand way to Bill, who was still hiding away biscuits inside of himself like a parlor ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... offhand that even the complete appearance of depth such as the stereoscope offers would be in no way contradictory to the idea of moving pictures. Then the photoplay would give the same plastic impression which the ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... seemed to suggest du Croisier's name in this predicament. He had seen du Croisier on his knees to the aristocracy, and of the man's real disposition he was entirely ignorant. So to du Croisier he wrote a very offhand letter, informing him that he had drawn a bill of exchange on him for ten thousand francs, adding that the amount would be repaid on receipt of the letter either by M. Chesnel or by Mlle. Armande d'Esgrignon. Then he indited two touching epistles—one to Chesnel, ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... in camp, now," said Jack, addressing Don, who had been adopted into a tribe of Crees in the Canadian Rockies. "If this Patrol should step into an Indian village now we'd be adopted offhand on ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... Millard, tartly. "Mrs. Frankland is eloquent, but she has imposed on you and done you a great deal of harm. Why, Phillida, you are as much superior to that woman as the sky is—" He was about to say, "as the sky is to a mud-puddle," but nothing is so fatal to offhand vigor of denunciation as the confirmed habit of properness. Millard's preference for measured and refined speech got the better of his wrath barely in time, and, after arresting himself a moment, he finished the sentence with more ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... state through which so many men have to pass when the woman they love will have none of them. If Marie Deland had happened to turn up then, he would have asked for forgiveness and have married her offhand and regretted it the next day; and now, as he looked at June, he wondered if he had been a fool not to properly appreciate her. He felt a vague twinge of jealousy, realising that the days were gone for ever when he had been the most wonderful man in ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... only do what I can, but remember, I am not going to be married offhand either to Louis or anybody else. However, I don't mind being the brave, bold Newfoundland dog, who swims in and saves poor Louis from the wicked jaws ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... interesting residents of the precinct. I had even seen him more than once on the avenue, but I had never before been brought face to face with him, and consequently had much too superficial a knowledge of his countenance to determine offhand whether the uneasy light in his small gray eyes was natural to them, or simply the result of present excitement. But when he began to talk I detected an unmistakable tremor in his tones, and decided that he was in a state of suppressed agitation; ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... she saw in one of the down-town stores one day, impressed her as much too cold and remote. Mrs. Merrill was a woman of superior mood and education who found herself, in her own estimation, hard put to it for suitable companionship in Chicago. She was Eastern-bred-Boston—and familiar in an offhand way with the superior world of London, which she had visited several times. Chicago at its best was to her a sordid commercial mess. She preferred New York or Washington, but she had to live here. Thus she patronized nearly all of those with whom she condescended to associate, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... question about her work which I could not answer offhand, I secretly consulted a standard cook-book, and later gave her the desired information airily. I taught her to cook many of the things which I could cook well, and imbued her with a sort of sneaking respect for my knowledge. Throughout, I treated her with the perfect courtesy which one lady ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... sight of that arm, thin and white, D'Herouville felt all his ire ooze from his pores. He could not measure swords with this old man, who stood near enough to his grave without being sent into it offhand. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... seasons for Hank Rowan and his partner," I returned briefly. I didn't much like his offhand way of asking; not that it wasn't a perfectly legitimate query. But I couldn't get rid of the notion that he would hand me out the same dose he had given MacRae if only ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between the outside of the world and ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... know is also the most beautiful," he replied. "Yes, I can name her offhand. She has all the finesse of her sex, together with the reasoning mind; she is surpassingly good to look at, and knows how to use her looks to obtain her end; as the occasion demands, she can be as cold as steel or warm as a summer's ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... reply to Germany—his second Note of the Peace Series—we were given no view of the Note which was already in Lansing's hands and was emitted at four o'clock; and had no talk upon it, other than some outline given offhand by the President to one of the Cabinet who referred to it before the meeting; and for three-quarters of an hour told stories on the war, and took ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... native land, the scandals of the court and the cloister, the petty struggle for the primacy of Wales, and the great tragedy of the fall of the Angevin Empire - is all alike dealt with in the bold, dashing, offhand style of a modern newspaper or magazine article. His first important work, the 'Topography of Ireland,' is, with due allowance for the difference between the tastes of the twelfth century and those of the nineteenth, ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... one poet and another does not at all impair the possibility that it is his accusation which they are answering. So multiple are the threads of influence leading from the Republic through succeeding literatures and civilizations that it is unsafe to assert, offhand, that any modern expression of hostility to poetry may not be traced, by a patient untangler of evidence, to a source in the Republic. But even this is aside from the point. One might concede that the wide-spread modern antagonism to poetry would ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... said the captain, who was not prepared to answer a question like that offhand; "but wherever I've been"—he held up his hand theatrically—"the image of my dear lost wife has been always in ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... hosts, there and then put McAndrew's Hymn into vigorous idiomatic French—an extraordinary feat, as it seemed to M. Bourget. Something similar, it will be remembered, is told of Tennyson. "One evening," says F. T. Palgrave of the poet, "he read out, offhand, Pindar's great picture of the life of Heaven, in the Second Olympian, into pure modern prose splendidly lucid and musical." Let who will decide which tour de force ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... wearing a German uniform he would be regarded as a spy and would be shot or hanged offhand, perhaps even without ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... talking, Mrs. Lincoln entered the room. She was, of course, greatly embarrassed at Mr. Lincoln's offhand manner of entertaining his caller, and, stepping up behind her husband, she grasped him by the hair and twitched his head about, at the same time ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... drew into himself at this insolent and offhand definition. He was astonished and hurt at the tone of his friend. However, presently, he resolved to go through ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... him; either he did not or would not perceive it, and he sailed without showing me any preference. In six months he returned, and whether it was that he was told of by others, or at last perceived, my feelings towards him, he joined the crowd of suitors, made a proposal in his offhand manner, as if he was indifferent as to my reply, and was accepted. My father, to whom he communicated the intelligence as carelessly as if he were talking about freight, did not approve of the match. 'Very well,' replied he, 'I shall say no more; as long ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... edge of the southern range of the North American malaria belt; and when I was growing up, if one seemed intellectually torpid or became filled with an overpowering bodily languor, the indisposition always was diagnosed offhand as a touch of malaria. Accordingly, the victim, taking his own advice or another's, jolted his liver with calomel until the poor thing flinched every time a strange pill was seen approaching it, and then he rounded out the ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... thought mutually advantageous in the late years of Spanish rule, would be useful to Porto Rico, then give them that. But, in any case, the starting-point should be the needs of Porto Rico herself, intelligently studied and conscientiously met—not the blacksmith's offhand attempt to fit on her head, like a rusty iron pot, an old system made for other needs, other industries, a distant land, ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... the culprit. Yet you tell me Millard did not contest her divorce and that it would have been very easy for him to file a counter-suit because everyone knew of her relationship with Manton. That, offhand, shows no ill-will on his part. And now we find this note from him, which at least is friendly ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... least—tremendous thing: we'll take that up later. Vast, amorphous aerial regions, to which such definite words as "worlds" and "planets" seem inapplicable. And artificial constructions that I have called "super-constructions": one of them about the size of Brooklyn, I should say, offhand. And one or more of them wheel-shaped things a goodly number of ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... was, fantasizing about sharks, envisioning huge jaws armed with multiple rows of teeth and capable of cutting a man in half. I could already feel a definite pain around my pelvic girdle. And how I resented the offhand manner in which the captain had extended his deplorable invitation! You would have thought it was an issue of going into the woods on some harmless ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... rankled, though they were said offhand and with the license of coffee-house talk at so late an hour. Beau Wilson rose, in a somewhat unsteady attitude, and, turning towards Law, addressed him with a tone which left small option ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... been fiddling with his hat and staring hard at a pile of old ties just outside the window. He raised his head, and regarded her steadily. It was beginning to occur to him that there was a good deal to this Miss Georgie, under that offhand, breezy exterior. He felt himself drawn to her as a person whom he ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... He told me three times before I took it off. He wouldn't have so much as a rag on me. 'What's this?' says he. 'A little trouble I had a year or so ago, with a gland that swelled,' says I. 'It had to be cut, and has been as right as rain ever since.' Just in that offhand way, Cicely. Quite brisk and cheerful. 'Tubercular, eh?' says he, very soft and thoughtful-like. And I knew it ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... like to answer such a question positively, offhand, but I don't, on the spur of the moment, recall ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... had been studying Bryce on ultra vires, and he went round to the Bar library to take advice from his friends there. Sir Charles Paul and Mr. Hill said offhand: But you agreed to pay, how can you get out of it? To this Mr. Tremearne (the director in question) replied: Yes, but it was an extortion, the Municipality is the creature of a statute, they have only statutory powers, and are not entitled to charge what ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey
... of course. In an offhand manner, to his next neighbor. It went round the table, and a sort of icy silence, after that, greeted his small sallies. He never knew what the trouble was, but his heart was ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... called to see me this morning,—a brisk, gentlemanly, offhand, but not rough, unaffected and sensible man, looking not so elderly as he ought, on account of a very well made wig. He is now on his return from a cruise in the East Indian seas, and goes home by the Baltic, with ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of this; but he did go on—he was as crashingly consistent as a motorcar without a brake. He was visibly in love with the idea of what they might do for her and of the rare "social" opportunity that they would, by the same stroke, embrace. How he had been offhand with it, how he had made it parenthetic, that he didn't happen "personally" to know Basil French—as if it would have been at all likely he should know him, even im personally, and as if he could conceal from ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... Work?" she said. "Answer that offhand! There is a reporter down-stairs for the Sunday Gorgon, who wants five hundred words from you which he is prepared to take down in shorthand. Should ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... and hourly strain of constant intimate association with the woman he loved, of knowing that she gained strength and courage from her reliance upon him, and of forcing himself to treat her with an offhand good-fellowship which defied analysis for the mere reason ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... matter to reform these rich people offhand. Just to call at their houses and advise them, when you aren't too busy—that would be a kindness, of course, but quite far from a cure. Besides, they might even resent your little calls as intrusions. A good-hearted reformer would certainly endanger ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... expressly and solely to accompany the preceding text in which the distinctions of synonyms have been carefully pointed out. It is not expected, intended, or desired that the questions should be answered or the blanks in the examples supplied offhand. In such study nothing can be worse than guesswork. Hence, leading questions have been avoided, and the order of synonyms given in Part I. has frequently been departed from ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... an offhand cordiality decidedly prepossessing. Expressing my thanks, I at once accepted it in the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... luck," answered the watery-eyed young man with an offhand attempt at familiarity. "I'm his Assistant—name of ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... a remarkable achievement if he had planned to do so and had learned up his speech; but the fact was that he was compelled to speak offhand on the spur of the moment. He describes the situation in a letter of February 6, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... at creating a musical equivalent for the Maeterlinck 'atmosphere,' The score of 'Pelleas et Melisande' is a pure piece of musical impressionism, an experiment in musical pioneering the value of which it is difficult to judge offhand. He has wilfully abjured melody of any accepted kind and harmony conforming to any established tradition. His music moves in a world of its own, a dream-world of neutral tints, shadowy figures, and spectral passions. The dreamy unreality of the tale is mirrored in the vague floating ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... could feel the effort of will with which he conquered his perturbation and continued in a more offhand way: "Gordon is apt to write confidential things about his own affairs and he is the sort of man who would never think of ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... an absolutely wanton slander, were not a certain excuse to be found in the linguistic affinities of the word 'pragmatism,' and in certain offhand habits of speech of ours which assumed too great a generosity on our reader's part. When we spoke of the meaning of ideas consisting "in their 'practical' consequences", or of the 'practical' differences which our beliefs make to us; when we said that the truth of a belief consists ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... still maintain their cohesion when they were no longer fighting units, and when the motives of conquest and defence were no longer in operation, is a question on which I should not like to dogmatize either way. Certainly we have no right to assume offhand that the unifying process which has given the nations the mass cohesion and efficiency they require for holding their own against enemy States would still remain in full power when there were no longer any enemy States ...
— Progress and History • Various
... look, the more likely he'll be to trust me with a responsible position. Still," he continued, surveying himself critically, "I might make a more favourable impression if I had that 'well-groomed' look the papers lay so much stress on nowadays, and I could mention in a careless, offhand way something ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... a great surprise in store for her. He's going to tell a good one on Marthy. At just the proper moment he's going to lean over—Lord, he hopes he can keep his face straight—and say, kind of offhand: ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... offhand description of Washington in these later days is that given by an English actor, Bernard, who happened to be driving near Mount Vernon when a carriage containing a man and a woman was upset. Bernard dismounted to give help, and presently another rider came up and ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... asked me offhand, 'Does the male hummer help the female feed the young?' I am quite sure I should have answered, 'Of course he does.' As the case now stands, however, I am inclined to believe him a ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... for it," returned the other superciliously. While willing to aid in a good work, he did not in the least approve either of the Unspeakable Perk or of his offhand manners. ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... and a very intellectual one, but he has some halting and hesitating in his conversation, and says very pleasant, agreeable things in a husky, weak, peculiar voice. He has a dark complexion, dark hair, whiskers already a little gray. This is a very offhand portrait of so ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... to enquire after your wants; you must begin by foraging for yourself, and thank God if any notice is taken of what you say; it is as if your presence were barely tolerated. But once the stranger has learnt to pocket his pride and treat his hosts in the same offhand fashion, he will find among them an unconventional courtesy of ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... requirements, and should be able to form very exact ideas of just what he wants, and the doing so is, in my opinion, one of the most important requisites for satisfactory tomato growing. I also believe that it is as impossible for a man to answer offhand the question, "What is the best variety of tomato?" as for a wise physician to answer the question, "What is ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... really remarkable to hear these three men, disguised as devils, discussing matters generally in such an offhand manner. ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... farm-servants, they can all do everything; and an Irish gentleman told me that he lately hired a young man, an emigrant, to plough for him; and, on asking him if he understood ploughing, the good-natured Paddy answered, offhand, "Ploughing, is it? I'm the boy for ploughing."—"Very well, I'm glad of it," said the gentleman, "for you are a fine, likely young fellow, so I shall hire you." He hired him accordingly at high wages—ten dollars a month and provisions and lodging found. ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... anythin' queer about thet guide?" asked the teamster, lowering his voice. "Did ye see how oneasy he was last night? Did it strike ye he left us in a hurry, kind of excited like, in spite of his offhand manner?" ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... sample of it yesterday." The stranger was offhand in his reply, but his eyes twinkled behind ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... obliges one to consider possible ramifications of every great enterprise. Rhodes wanted simply to sweep away all obstacles without giving the slightest thought to the consequences likely to follow on so offhand a manner ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... is, that when once a group of sacred books has been evolved—even though the group really be a great library of most dissimilar works, ranging in matter from the hundredth Psalm to the Song of Songs, and in manner from the sublimity of Isaiah to the offhand story-telling of Jonah—all come to be thought one inseparable mass of interpenetrating parts; every statement in each fitting exactly and miraculously into each statement in every other; and each and every one, and all together, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... his people and his people knew and strongly liked him. So much Hal gathered from the offhand and cheerily friendly greetings which were exchanged between the head of the vast concern and such employees, important or humble, as they chanced to meet in their wanderings. First they went to the printing-plant, the Certina ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... me to answer offhand so momentous a question as that, do you? It is all very well, of course, for you, who have given the matter much careful thought, to feel so confident as you do that your plans are capable of realisation, but with me it is very different; ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... the gate, slowly, so as to get time to think. The question surprised me and I was not prepared to give, offhand, a definition of simony. ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... citizen in the "Pantagruel" of Rabelais, who seats himself judge-wise on the first stump that offers, and passes offhand a sentence in any matter of litigation; a character who figures similarly in a comedy of Racine's, and in a fable of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Lucetta distressfully. "'Tis somebody else that I have married! I was so desperate—so afraid of being forced to anything else—so afraid of revelations that would quench his love for me, that I resolved to do it offhand, come what might, and purchase a week of ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... facts well into your head, will you? The man must pursue Mary's affection either there or here, mustn't he? He can't do it there because his wife won't let him. In order to do it here, one would say offhand that Mary would have to be here, and since her mother declines to bring her, it does look to me as if the job would have to be done by somebody else. However, if my logic is wrong, kindly let ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... and detailed lists of crimes and monstrosities appeal to any newcomer, who will be delighted to hold forth on the subject; but when one has lived with them and worked with them under varying conditions, and has suffered in some degree what they suffer, one hesitates to condemn them offhand. ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... saved carriage too, for I could take them out on the waggon. Then Mary began to hear (through James) of a buggy that some one had for sale cheap, or a dogcart that somebody else wanted to get rid of—and let me know about it, in an offhand way. ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... matters connected with the golf course mystery. Jack had obeyed the colonel's instructions to the letter. He had played many rounds on the links and had gotten to a certain degree of friendship with Jean Forette. He had even formed a liking for Bruce Garrigan, who, offhand, informed him that the amount of India ink used in tattooing sailors during the past year was less by fifteen hundred ounces than the total output of radium salts for 1916, while the wheat crop of Minnesota for the ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... Barracks, were taken into court by the owner; but all the judges and juries in the land had no power to put them back when it was decided upon a technicality that they should not have been destroyed offhand. It was a case of "They can't put you in jail for that."—"Yes, but I am in jail." They were gone, torn down under the referee's decision that they ought to go, before the Appellate Division called a halt. We were not in a mood to trifle with the Barracks, or risk any of the ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... of my mother's! He knows you for the very best woman I shall ever have the chance of marrying. Shall I tell you the sort of woman my mother would like me to marry? Oh, I know the sort! First, she must be tall and handsome, with red, fashionable hair, and cool, offhand manners. She must never look shy or put out, or as if she did not know what to say. On the contrary, she must know who's who, and what's what, and never wear a dowdy bonnet, but always a stunning hat. And she must have a father who can give her something handsome when she is married. That's ...
— Far Above Rubies • George MacDonald
... to the matter under discussion," said the Attorney. "One cannot affirm offhand that we are floating on the battered hull. One must not forget to take the young Norway ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... bed and whistled softly to himself. This was a contingency he had not foreseen. What would the Mexican chief do to two of the range-rider's friends who delivered themselves into his hands so opportunely? Steve did not think he would kill them offhand, but he was very sure they would not be at liberty to return home. Moreover, Harrison would be on the ground, eager for revenge. The prizefighter never had liked Farrar. He had sworn to get even with Threewit. An added incentive to this course was ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... something in the quiet man that had effectually prevented any development of roughness in Norah. Boyish and offhand to a certain extent, the solid foundation of womanliness in her nature was never far below the surface. She was perfectly aware that while Daddy wanted a mate he also wanted a daughter; and there was never any real danger of her losing that gentler attribute—there was too much in her ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... stands for internationalism in the more advanced countries of Europe, but are we justified as yet in calling this more than a phase in the development of democratic doctrine? It is a very difficult question, which it would be presumptuous to try to answer offhand; all we have tried to show here is that, on the whole, the assumption as to the peaceful tendencies of a democratic foreign policy is a doubtful one, on which we must to ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... accompanied by two ladies, he again appeared. Between two violent blushes, and with an air which would have been light and offhand if it could, Mr. Ransome presented to his friend, the foreman, his mother—and Miss Usher. And as if the foreman had not sufficiently divined her, Miss Usher's averted shoulders, burning cheeks, and lowered eyelids made it impossible ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... said the detective, deftly slipping half-a-sovereign into the hand of the guard, 'by going to the window and informing them in an offhand casual sort of way that the tragedy took place ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... omitted. Terrified at the majesty of the law and its grand though incomprehensible wording, the young warned one burst into tears, which so worked upon the tender-hearted officer that he (being conveniently a widower) proposed to her offhand, was called in meeting, married her, and thus took her under his own and the town's protection. More than one case of "marriage at first sight" is recounted, of bold Puritan wooers riding up to the door of a fair one whom they ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... some people from New York down East," he said in an offhand manner, as if, after all, a man might meet a New Yorker and still not sink ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... to find that we are of some account in the world,' says Mr Desmond, in his offhand Irish way; 'but if you please, Miss O'Regan, we are as hungry as hounds, and as thirsty as hippopotami, and I'm sure you'll say a good word to get us something to eat ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... from the Hudson's Bay Company departed for Saginaw, at seven o'clock A.M. The adverb "fiducially" first brought to my notice, as the synonym of confidently, steadily. Finished the perusal of Mr. F.'s manuscript lectures, on the Romish Church. Think them an offhand practical appeal to truth, clear in method, forcible in illustration. Learning and research, such as are to be drawn from books other than the Bible, have not been evidently relied on. They might not do to print without revision. The New Testament does ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... Majesty the Sun of the tropics is not to be claimed offhand. The imperious luminary does not grant his letters-patent to all. Very few does he permit to wanton in his presence without exacting probation. He is a rare respecter of persons. Though there are faces, like King Henry V.'s, which the sun will not condescend to ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... West. He sent DeLancey East to school, where he was educated regardless of expense or anything else and was returned a few years ago a finished product, sublime, though a little terrifying to look at, and reeking with knowledge of one kind or another. I have heard it said that DeLancey can tell offhand what has been the correct thing in dress for each of the last thirty-five years, and that he can handle as many as fifteen articles of cutlery and forkery at a dinner ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... was all pity. I had not thought him great, but I had not suspected how small he was. His friends, the best, were confounded. One of them said to me the next day, 'It was not amazement that I felt, but consternation.' I spoke offhand and the report is horrible. Conkling's speech was carefully written out, and therefore you do not get all the venom, and no one can imagine the Mephistophelean leer ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... talk of sin I see in it at all, ma'am. 'Tis a dale liker they just couldn't get out wid it convanient offhand. The same way that I'd aisy enough bate out a shoe on me anvil there, when it's bothered I'd be if you axed me to make a one promiscuous here of a ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... illustrated with so much success in Rienzi, so that, oppressed by a secret sense of shame, I had no serious rejoinder to offer to his candidly poisonous abuse. My line of defence was not yet sufficiently clear in my own mind to be available offhand, nor was it yet backed by so obvious a product of my own peculiar genius that I could venture to quote it. Moreover, my first impulse was only one of pity for the unlucky playwright, which I felt all the more constrained to express, because his burst of fury gave me the inward satisfaction ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... to which I sat down occupied the recess of a bay-window, and commanded a view of the front of the inn, where I continued to be amused by the successive departures of travellers—the fussy and the offhand, the niggardly and the lavish—all exhibiting their different characters in that diagnostic moment of the farewell: some escorted to the stirrup or the chaise door by the chamberlain, the chambermaids, and the waiters almost in a body, others moving off under ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to breakfast, he found his friend Mason waiting for him. That genial gentleman was evidently ill at ease, but he said in an offhand way— ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... was not to be answered offhand. Mr. Grey, advancing, laid a finger on the man's shoulder. "Come," said he, "we will have our conversation in ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... surprised at the apt wit and the subtlety with which these gentlemen formulated their replies, he felt bewildered with epigram and repartee, and, most of all, by their offhand way of talking and their ease of manner. The material luxury of Paris had alarmed him that morning; at night he saw the same lavish expenditure of intellect. By what mysterious means, he asked himself, did these people make such piquant reflections on the spur ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... the hard road of fact," he said. "What you really mean is that Mr. Grant has never made love to you. But I must be candid, young lady. There is no earthly reason why he shouldn't, though I could name offhand half a dozen why he should.... Well, well, I must not pay compliments. My friend, Mr. Furneaux, can manage that with much greater facility, being half a Frenchman. And now I'm going to say an unpleasant thing. I ask your forgiveness in advance. Both Mr. Furneaux and I agree in the opinion ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... and noted with a fierce excitement that they had taken off the 5.30 from Larne Harbour, or that the 7.30 from Galashiels was stopping that month at Shankend. He knew all the connections; he knew all the restaurant trains; and, if you mentioned the 6.15 to Little Buxton, he could tell you offhand whether it was a Saturdays Only or a ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... hand pointed successively to the constellation of Orion, to the stars Castor, Pollux, Aldebaran, Rigel, the Pleiades, Sirius and others which with my very limited knowledge I could not recognise offhand. Then on the plate which I held, he showed us those same stars and constellations, checking ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... Suddenly and offhand he was hurried into a most momentous decision. Towards the end of June 1505, when several Church festivals fall together, he paid a visit to his home at Mansfeld, in quest, very possibly, of rest and comfort to his mind. Returning on July 2, the feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin |
