Dean told Hunter about his off-hand comment and how Baratto had jumped all over the Scranton connection.
Some money turned up missing and I made a stupid off-hand comment in front of him about a connection to Scranton where your husband had visited.
He had written to the Waldenses that it is better not to baptize at all than to baptize little children; now he was cautious, would not condemn the new prophecy off-hand; but advised Melanchthon to treat them gently and to prove their spirits, less they be of God.
There were philosophic and philanthropic elements in his political faith which will always lead some to class him as a visionary and fanatic; but although he certainly indulged at times in dreams at which one may still smile, he was not, properly speaking, a visionary; nor can he with justice be stigmatized as a fanatic. He felt fervently, was not afraid to risk all on the conclusions to which his heart and his mind led him, declared himself with openness and energy; and he spoke and even wrote his conclusions, how ever bold or abstract, without troubling to detail his reasoning or clip his off-hand speculations.
He attacked them not less bitterly for thinking that society could be changed off-hand by a readymade and complete scheme of reform.