|
|
|
More "Plainness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in his way. His speech was nothing if not artificial—in the good sense of the word sometimes and sometimes in the bad. Simplicity (it seemed) was impossible to him. In the quest of expression, the cult of antithesis, the pursuit of effect, he sacrificed directness and plainness with not less consistency than complacency. In that tissue of 'apocalyptic epigram' which to him was style there was no room for truth and soberness. His Patmos was a place of mirrors, and before them he draped ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... elaboration. He informs us that his purpose has been to help the inquiring soul and young Christian with counsel taken immediately from the unerring word: he has therefore studied conformity to scripture, rather than novelty of thought, and plainness more than grace of style. Yet there is in this volume much of the author's usual boldness of originality and peculiar felicity of expression. Our readers have been made acquainted with the high merits of ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... Some international obscurity prevailed between me and the coloured gentleman at Council Bluffs; so that what I was asking, which seemed very natural to me, appeared to him a monstrous exigency. He refused, and that with the plainness of the West. This American manner of conducting matters of business is, at first, highly unpalatable to the European. When we approach a man in the way of his calling, and for those services by which he earns his bread, we consider him for the time being our ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Arc were very sweet and charming. During her discourse, which was frequently interrupted, Miss Dickinson maintained her presence of mind, and uttered her radical sentiments with augmented resolution and plainness. Those who did not sympathize with her remarks, provocative as they were of numerous unmanly interruptions, were softened by her simplicity and solemnity. 'We are told,' said she, 'to maintain constitutions because they are constitutions, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... vitally alive. Her tiny feet skimmed the ground, her tiny head reared itself jauntily on the slender neck, the brilliance of her smile, the embracing kindliness of her glance more than compensated for the plainness of her features. Like most people who made the acquaintance of Pixie O'Shaughnessy, Stephen Glynn was already beginning to fall under her spell and marvel at the blindness of his first impression. She was not plain; she was not insignificant; ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... till stimulants lose their power." [See a fine article on history, Ed. Her., 1828. Also in Macaulay's Miscellanies.] We have taken occasion in the notes to point out not a few examples of rhetorical pomp, and poetical coloring, and even needless multiplication of words, where plainness and precision would have been much better, and which may well surprise us in a writer of so much conciseness. Lord Monboddo, in a very able, though somewhat extravagant critique on Tacitus, has selected numerous instances of what he calls the ornamented dry style, many of which are ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... interested in each other?" was the burden of them all; for, though she avoided plainness of speech, I could yet detect ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... the yielding and yet withdrawing which is characteristic of woman and man never fully understands, plunged into a new topic. Frightened at the plainness of her revelation and almost seeming to divine his purpose, with her brightest talk she ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... good soldier, careful and judicious in his plans, patient and intrepid in their execution. His body was covered with the scars of his battles, till the natural plainness of his person was converted almost into deformity. He must not be judged by his closing campaign, when, depressed by disease, he yielded to the superior genius of his rival; but by his numerous expeditions by land ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... effectually knocked me out of time, as Mr. Morrissey would say,—not quite into eternity, but so near it that I perfectly remember one of the good ladies told me (after I had come to my senses a little, and was just ready for a sip of cordial and a word of encouragement), with that delightful plainness of speech which so brings realities home to the imagination, that "I never should look any whiter when I was laid out as a corpse." After my room-mate and I had been separated twenty-five years, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... well as a fillet. The glitter of gold, or of diamonds, will but hurt sore eyes instead of curing them; and an aching head will be no more eased by wearing a crown, than a common night-cap." In a far better style, and more accordant with his own humour of plainness, are the concluding sentences of his "Discourse upon Poetry." Temple took a part in the controversy about the ancient and the modern learning; and, with that partiality so natural and so graceful in an old man, whose state engagements had ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... a man of gentle disposition and simple habits. His plainness of dress and freedom from ostentation gave the impression that he was parsimonious, and Handel says of him that "he liked nothing better than seeing pictures without paying for it, and saving money," He was also noted for his objection ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... thing can he concealed no longer, she comes to me with that face of simplicity, and knowing my generous temper, throws herself on my mercy, and trusts that her speaking to me with this audacious plainness will convince me of her innocence. "You have acted in the most prudent manner possible, Miss Portman," said her ladyship, as she went on sealing her notes, "by speaking at once to me of this strange, scandalous, absurd report. Do you act from your aunt Stanhope's ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... followed his visitor's to the floor, where Monsieur de Sainfoy's letter lay; that letter which seemed to belie his bull-dog boasting. Something he wanted in life had been refused him point-blank; in ceremonious terms, but with uncompromising plainness. The Comte de Sainfoy did not even trouble himself to find reasons for declining the offer of marriage that General Ratoneau had done Mademoiselle de Sainfoy the honour ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... but for one thing. All the hints she dropped, all the details she gave, went unconsciously to prove, to my thinking, that M. Isidore's homage was offered with great delicacy and respect. I informed her very plainly that I believed him much too good for her, and intimated with equal plainness my impression that she was but a vain coquette. She laughed, shook her curls from her eyes, and danced away as if I had paid her ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... influence in the Royal Society,[173] which had for one of its objects the reform of English prose by getting rid of its "swellings of style," and which bound all its members to use "a close, naked, natural way of speaking ... as near to mathematical plainness as they can." Dryden accepted this excellent rule for his prose, and adopted the heroic couplet, as the next best thing, for the greater part of his poetry. As ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... dignified and beautiful face among them is that of the seated figure which used to be known as that of Agrippina but which, known now as that of a Roman matron, does not relieve the imperial average of plainness. The rest could rival the average American society woman only in the prevailing modernity of their expression; imperial Rome was very modern, as we all know, and nothing in our own time could be more up to date than the lives and looks of its ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... thought I, "judging from the plainness of the servant and carriage, Mrs. Fairfax is not a very dashing person: so much the better; I never lived amongst fine people but once, and I was very miserable with them. I wonder if she lives alone except this little girl; if so, and if she is in any degree amiable, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... with which they were sometimes seized from their love of popularity, issued a decree explanatory of their decision on the 24th of September. "The real intentions of the court," said the decree, "have been distorted in spite of their plainness. The number of deputies of each order is not determined by any law, by any invariable usage, and it depends upon the king's wisdom to adjudge what reason, liberty, justice, and the general wish may indicate." The Parliament followed up this strange retractation ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and design of this edition of the Sacred Volume, which, from the various objects it embraces, the freedom of its pages from all sectarian peculiarities, and the beauty, plainness, and correctness of the typography, that it cannot fail of proving acceptable and useful to ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... had scarcely left a trace on his manly brow; and his fair and well-moulded features had almost the freshness of youth. And notwithstanding the unpretending simplicity of his deportment, and the extreme plainness of his dress, the large arm-chair, in which he now reclined, furnished probably by some considerate matron of the neighborhood for his special convenience, could not have found, in the broad land, an occupant who would have filled it with more native dignity, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... pet words which they love, not because they are a bit better than the synonyms used by other people, but just because other people don't use them, whereby they serve as a sort of passwords or Masonic signs among the initiated. Just now plainness is all the fashion. Ladies who are not in society talk of "dresses" and "gentlemen," and grammatically contract "are not" into "aren't;" so the ladies of the Upper Ten say "gowns" and "men" and "ain't" for distinction's sake. And the same idea comes out at many points. The public-ball cavaliers ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... nothing to be desired on the score of plainness or conciseness of style. Count Del Ferice had ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... could exist in the imagination of a European, and of its attendant distresses he could have no idea.—These are very happily and minutely painted by our descriptive poet. What sublime simplicity of expression! what nervous plainness in the opening of ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... him. By degrees, however, he ascertained that his last shot but one had struck Delaney's pistol hand, shattering it and knocking the revolver from his grip. He was overwhelmed with astonishment. Why, after the shooting began he had not so much as seen Delaney with any degree of plainness. The whole ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... genuine repentance. On Sunday I took the pulpit in the morning, and preached from First Kings, nineteenth, on the fire, the earthquake, and the voice, distinguishing the true spiritual power, and referring with such plainness as I dared to recent events in Falesa. The effect produced was great, and it was much increased when Namu rose in his turn and confessed that he had been wanting in faith and conduct, and was convinced of sin. So far, then, all was well; but there was one unfortunate circumstance. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... In the savage plainness of these words and the excited ring of the angry voice, the sculptor could scarcely recognise his gentle courteous friend, to whom mere living used to be a joy. The absent expression in his eye, the ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... when she made known the munificent intentions of Fanny's father, it was not for a reason that he chose to discuss with her. His remarks were reserved for Mr Grove's private ear, and to him they were made with sufficient plainness. ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... fastened with three diamond clasps. The bright little daughter wore a green veil with gold stars upon it over her head, and ornaments of rich, red gold elaborately worked. The Datu Klana apologized for the extreme plainness of their dress by saying that they had only just arrived, and that they had called before changing their traveling clothes. When they departed the two ladies threw soft silk shawls over their heads, and held them so as to cover their ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... {ant. 526} manifestation; plainness &c. adj.; plain speaking; expression; showing &c. v.; exposition, demonstration; exhibition, production; display, show; showing off; premonstration|. exhibit[Thing shown]. indication &c. (calling attention to) 457. publicity &c. 531; disclosure &c. 529; openness &c. (honesty) 543, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... later," smiled the young detective, with that strange softening of his features which made one at times forget his extreme plainness. "I'm sure you will not consider the time lost if I ask you to consider the comparison I am about to make, if only as a curiosity ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... as one of three brothers, all gentle cavaliers, of unblemished honor, remarkable for the plainness of their persons, the elegance and courtesy of their manners, and the magnificence of their style of living. This one, Alonso, he describes as a man of a singularly clear head. Quincuagenas, MS., bat. ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... than this choir of Saint-Nazaire, and few churches in the Romanesque form are more finely constructed than its nave. On the exterior, the Gothic choir and the Romanesque nave are so different in style it seems they must be, perforce, antagonistic, that the grace of the Gothic must make Romanesque plainness appear dull, or that the noble simplicity of the rounded arch must cause the Gothic arches, here so particularly tall and slender, to seem almost fragile and undignified. In reality, this juxtaposition of the styles has justified itself; and passing from one to the other, ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... piazza and welcomed her without waiting for an introduction. Maggie mumbled some reply; she later could not remember what it was. Indeed she never had met such a woman: so finished, so gracious, so unaffected, with a sparkle of humor in her brown eyes; and the rich plainness of her white linen frock made Maggie conscious that her own supposed simplicity was cheap and ostentatious. If Miss Sherwood had received her with hostility, doubt, or even chilled civility, the situation would have been easier; the aroused Maggie would then have made use of her own ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... what brings her to Priorsford! I rather think that having been all her life so very 'twopence coloured' she wants the 'penny plain' for a change. Perhaps that is why she likes The Rigs and us. There is no mistake about our 'penny-plainness'—it ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... the Indian wars, and other distresses that had befallen the country, to that persecution, as so many judgments of God to punish so heinous an offense, and exhorting a repeal of those uncharitable laws. The whole appeared to me as written with a good deal of decent plainness and manly freedom. The six concluding lines I remember, though I have forgotten the two first of the stanza; but the purport of them was, that his censures proceeded from good-will, and, therefore, he would be ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... plainness, the classic poet would have said of her hair and dress. She was of the women whose wits are quick in everything they do. That which was proper to her position, complexion, and the hour, surely marked her appearance. Unaccountably this night, the fair fleshly presence over-weighted her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Leaning back in his chair he could watch Caroline without her perceiving where his gaze was fixed. Her cheek had a colour, her eyes a light, her countenance an expression this evening which would have made even plain features striking; but there was not the grievous defect of plainness to pardon in her case. The sunshine was not shed on rough barrenness; it fell on soft bloom. Each lineament was turned with grace; the whole aspect was pleasing. At the present moment—animated, interested, touched—she might be called beautiful. Such a face was calculated ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... the queer girl distracted her mind so that she could not go back to her attitude of lazy indifference. She had thought Anne a little commonplace until now; but it had not been a commonplace thing, that changing from prettiness to plainness. She even wondered if Anne had not done a finer act than she could have ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... laid on him terribly.... Legge answered Beckford very rationally and coolly. Lord K. spoke long. Sir F. D[ashwood] maintained the German war was most pernicious.... Lord B[arrington] at last got up and spoke half an hour with great plainness and temper, explained many hidden things relating to these accounts in favour of the late K., and told two or three conversations which had passed between the K. and himself relative to these expenses, which cast great honour upon the K.'s character. This was with regard to the ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... became an author for this once, and what you may discover that I lack in literary ability, let me trust you will find compensated for in the plainness and simplicity of the facts, incidents and reminiscences that I relate. If not the manner, at least the matter ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... comedy was introduced, which had a magisterial freedom of speech, and by its very plainness of speaking was useful in reminding men to beware of insolence; and for this purpose too Diogenes used to take from ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... her attentions with a manner of simple courtesy which was graceful enough but perfectly cool. So cool, that it rather excited Lady Brierley's curiosity, who was accustomed to be a person of great importance wherever she went. Her eye took in swiftly the neatness of the room, its plainness, and yet its expression of life and mental activity; the work and workbasket on the chair, the bunch of ferns and amaranthus in one vase, the roses in another, the violets on the table, the physiognomy of the books, which were not from the next circulating ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... order of Society is to be that of root-and-branch Socialism, it will mean the proletarian condition for all of us, and for a long time to come. There is no use in flattering ourselves and painting the future better than it is; the truth must be spoken with all plainness. If we work hard, and under capable guidance, each of us will at most have an effective income of 500 marks in pre-war values, or, say, 2000 marks for the family. This average will be higher if we proceed on the principles ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... contend for supremacy in number, and the blunders get it,—nor from that bald, cold business, entitled "Vita Poggii," which Recanati, flinging aside brilliancy and clinging fast to fidelity in facts and plainness of speech, prefixed to his edition of Bracciolini's "Historia Florentina," published at Venice in 1715, and which Muratori, sixteen years after, reprinted at Milan along with the said "History of Florence, in the 20th volume of his "Rerum Italicarum ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... come back with Miss Ramsden, a hardheaded old maiden lady in a plain brown silk gown, with enough rings, chains and brooches to show that her plainness of dress is a matter of principle, not of poverty. She comes into the room very determinedly: the two men, perplexed and downcast, following her. Ann rises and goes eagerly to meet her. Tanner retreats to the wall between the busts and pretends to study the pictures. ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... other are behind Matthew and Luke. Luke in his preface explains his methods. They are collectors and transmitters; and the indications—are that they did their work very faithfully. There is a simplicity and a plainness about the stories in the Gospels, which further guarantees them. It is remarkable how little of the adjective there is—no compliment, no eulogy, no heroic touches, no sympathetic turn of phrase, no great ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... Deacons seat and ye pulpit is for persons hard of hearing to sett in." In nearly every meeting a bench or pew full of aged men might be seen near the pulpit, and this seat was called, with Puritan plainness of speech, the "Deaf Pew." Some very deaf church members (when the boys were herded elsewhere) sat on the pulpit stairs, and even in the pulpit, alongside the preacher, where they disconcertingly upturned their great tin ear-trumpets directly in ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... Stephen saw. And yet the very plainness of the man's appearance only added to his curiosity. Who was this stranger? His words, his action, too, had been remarkable. The art of administering a rebuke like that was not given to many men. It was perfectly quiet, perfectly ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... truth and plainness of the case, I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here, Giving my verdict on the ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... robust: his manners rustic, not clownish; a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity, which received part of its effect perhaps from one's knowledge of his extraordinary talents. His features are represented in Mr. Nasmyth's picture, but to me it conveys the idea that they are diminished as if seen in perspective. I ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... sank back on his seat, terrified by this unexpected plainness, which caused little less alarm among his suite. But I soon saw that my words had been rightly judged. Being an Oriental, the Nabob could not believe that I should have spoken like that if I had really been privy to any ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... the kind she had ever owned—it was a present from Uncle Josie, who had insisted upon her coming to his house-warming. Patsey's toilette, however, though so much more elegant than usual, looked like plainness and simplicity itself, compared with the gauzes and flowers, the laces and ribbons of Mrs. Tibbs and Mrs. Bibbs, who were sitting on the sofa beside her. Presently, a thin, dark, sober-looking young man walked in at a side-door; ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... I published, in England, a little book entitled the 'Glaciers of the Alps,' and, a couple of years subsequently, a second book, entitled 'Heat a Mode of Motion.' These volumes were followed by others, written with equal plainness, and with a similar aim, that aim being to develop and deepen sympathy between science and the world outside of science. I agreed with thoughtful men[1] who deemed it good for neither world to be ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... Kossuth. We found him in an obscure lodging on the outskirts of London. I would that some of the editors in America, who have thrown out insinuations about his living in luxury, could have seen the utter bareness and plainness of the reception room, which had nothing in it beyond the simplest necessaries. Here dwells the man whose greatest fault is an undying love of his country. We all know that if Kossuth would have taken wealth and a secure retreat, with a life of ease for himself, America would gladly ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... hoping for a miracle of plainness she will be unpleasantly surprised," said the old woman, and her shrivelled face was as mischievous as a monkey's as she drew the key of Olive's room from her pocket. "I am going to take her some soup now, and you ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... standard. Seven more pounds will make you all right. But I fear before I see you the unnatural life, which I fear you will lead in Baltimore, will reduce you to skin and bone. Do not go out to many parties, preserve your simple tastes and manners, and you will enjoy more pleasure. Plainness and simplicity of dress, early hours, and rational amusements, I wish you to practise. You must thank Cousins Eleanor and George for all their kindness to you, and remember me to all friends. If you see your uncle Marshall, present my kind regards to him, ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... Mrs. Robson: I know not where I could live with more comfort; and where comfort is, my good madam, what signifies the costliness or plainness of the dwelling?" ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... the foils, to disfigure his opponent's face badly, without at all endangering his life. In this manner he had already sadly mutilated several brave officers and students, who had had the bad luck to stand up against him. He himself was anything but pleasant to look upon, his natural plainness having been rendered repellent by a life of low debauchery. He cherished a secret grudge against the bridegroom and bitter feelings toward the bride, because the latter had so plainly shown her aversion for him when he had ventured to pay suit ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... background. They were both to repair, on a given day, at a given hour, to a given office, in a given street, where they were to sign without inquiry, and even without perusal, whatever documents might then and there be presented to them. This course, the writer pointed out, with perspicuous plainness, was all in the end ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... immediately ahead. Standing there in her night attire, poised like a brown wood-nymph on the edge of a pool, she asked herself for the first time if it were possible that she could have any pretensions to beauty. It was not in the least likely, of course. Her mother had always railed at her for the plainness of her looks. Did Eustace—did Scott—think her plain? She wondered. ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... in the authorities and privileges of the Holy Priesthood, revelation of the great truth was given,[15] they transmitted it to the people rather in the language of imagery and parable than in words of direct plainness. Nevertheless the testimony of the evangelists and the apostles, the attestation of the Christ Himself while in the flesh, and the revelations given in the present dispensation leave us without ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... citizens of Stockholm is that of extreme plainness and simplicity. I take them to be an honest, substantial, and reliable people, well educated and intelligent; satisfied with themselves and the world, and proud of their country and its history. Politeness is a national characteristic. Every person, of high and low degree, upon ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... herald her dawn,—these are the springs of action to which he appeals,—these are the chords his fingers sweep, and from which he draws out the troubled music, "solemn as death, serene as the undying confidence of patriotism," to which he would have the battalions of the people march! Directness, plainness, a narrow range of topics, few details, few but grand ideas, a headlong tide of sentiment and feeling; vehement, indignant, and reproachful reasonings,—winged general maxims of wisdom and life; an example from Plutarch; a pregnant sentence of Tacitus; thoughts ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... spoke, "you have forgotten its contents strangely, if you imagine that I consider that as a step towards reconciliation. My brother expresses no wish of the kind; he was no hypocrite at least, and he says with sufficient plainness, that he only turns to ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... familiar to my childhood! None but those who have experienced can tell the charm of such an incident. The minister was in the pulpit. His dress and hair were very plain, and his complexion was extremely dark. He was evidently a Welshman: there was no mistake about it: his gravity, plainness, attitude—all told the fact. I ventured forward, and walked along to the stove, which to me was an object of agreeable attraction. Around the stove were two or three chairs. A big aristocratic-looking Welshman, a sort of a "Blaenor," who occupied one ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... thought Mr. Rolles, would know more on dangerous topics than he knew himself; none of them were fit to give him guidance in his present strait. At length, in the smoking-room, up many weary stairs, he hit upon a gentleman of somewhat portly build and dressed with conspicuous plainness. He was smoking a cigar and reading the Fortnightly Review; his face was singularly free from all sign of preoccupation or fatigue; and there was something in his air which seemed to invite confidence and to expect submission. The more the young clergyman scrutinised ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... against those mysterious charms of superior rank, which do so much to foster unworthy conceptions of life in English society; and there are many people capable of accepting Mr. Mill's social principles, and the theoretical corollaries they contain, who yet would condemn his manly plainness and austere consistency in acting on them. The too common tendency in us all to moral slovenliness, and a lazy contentment with a little flaccid protest against evil, finds a constant rebuke in his career. The indomitable passion for justice which made him strive so long ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... idea of no countenance is yet carried out, and this kind will take more developing for the completion of its idea, and may result in a greater beauty. I would therefore advise any young man of aspiration in the matter of beauty, to choose a plain woman for wife—IF THROUGH HER PLAINNESS SHE IS YET LOVELY IN HIS EYES; for the loveliness is herself, victorious over the plainness, and her face, so far from complete and yet serving her loveliness, has in it room for completion on a grander scale than possibly most handsome faces. In a handsome face one sees the lines ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... irreproachable, arrayed in the stiff black-and-white sateen, which, while decent as regards length and certainly not open to the charge of skimpiness, contrived to emphasize every corner and angle of her thin figure. Her hat was a little, flat, glossy, new sailor, the extreme plainness of which had likewise much disappointed Anne, who had permitted herself secret visions of ribbon and flowers. The latter, however, were supplied before Anne reached the main road, for being confronted halfway down the lane with a golden frenzy of wind-stirred buttercups and ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... two lofty towers are hung with many bells, which daily call with their brazen tongues to matins and vespers. Some of these bells are very ancient. The church is not elaborately ornamented,—it rather strikes one with its unusual plainness. It contains a few oil paintings of moderate merit, and also the tomb where the ashes of Columbus so long reposed. All that is visible of this tomb, which is on the right of the altar, is a marble tablet six or eight feet square, upon which, in high ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... manners of the same vivacious cordiality, are to be found in Hawaii and amongst Italian fisher-folk or whose people, in the midst of life, retain more charm. I recall faces, both of men and women, with a certain leonine stamp, trusty, sagacious, brave, beautiful in plainness: faces that take the heart captive. The tougher struggle of the race in these hard isles has written history there; energy enlivens the Hawaiian strength—or did so once, and the faces are still eloquent of the lost possession. The stock that has produced a Caesar, a Kamehameha, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... emerald buckle. Therein, of course, the child only obeys the reigning fashion. Simplicity,—so I am informed by the last number of La Mode Parisienne,—is the dominant note of Parisian dress to-day,—simplicity, plainness, freedom from all display. A French lady wears in her hair at the Opera a single, simple tiara bound with a plain row of solitaire diamonds. It is so exquisitely simple in its outline that you can see the single diamonds sticking out from it and can count up the price of each. The Parisian ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... an extraordinary gift in opening the scriptures. He would go to the marrow of things, and show the mind, harmony, and fulfilling of them, with much plainness, and to ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... illusion of life to a work of fiction, and fills us with delight or melts with woe, whether in the happiness or the suffering of some imagined being, uniting goodness with beauty, or virtue with plainness, or uncommon purity and intellect even with deformity; for even that may be so overpowered in the prominent harmony of superior intellect and moral worth, as to be virtually neutralized, at least, to become unobtrusive as a discordant force. ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... true, self-devoted saint indeed but unable to win the attention of the people in their present condition. In India, where asceticism is the test of sanctity even among the heathen, the most self-denying preacher has the best chance of being respected; but in those luxurious islets, poverty and plainness of living, without the power of showing the arts of life, get despised. If the priests could bring their pomp of worship, and large bands of brethren or sisters to reclaim the waste, they might tell upon the minds of the people, but at present they go forth few and poor, and are little ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... whim, flightiness, perverseness; patient fidelity to Nature, in a word, SCIENCE,—leading it at last, though slowly, and not by the most brilliant road, out of the bondage of the humdrum and common, into the better life. The universal dead-level of plainness and homeliness, the lack of all beauty and distinction in form and feature, the slowness and clumsiness of the language, the eternal beer, sausages, and bad tobacco, the blank commonness everywhere, pressing at last like a weight on the spirits of ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... considered plain, even in youth, but her expression was so benevolent, her manners were so perfectly well-bred, partaking of English dignity and Irish frankness, that one never thought of her with reference either to beauty or plainness. She ever occupied, without claiming attention, charming continually by her singularly pleasant voice, while the earnestness and truth that beamed from her bright blue—very blue—eyes increased the value of every word she uttered. She knew how to listen as well ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... thing which once was or still is of vital importance in the daily life of humans. The nouveaux-riches of the ancient and the modern world cannot find it easy to separate themselves from their traditions nor are they wont to put up with their plainness, hence the fancy trimmings. The development of the American pie is a curious analogy in this respect. We see in this the intricate working of human culture, its eternal strife for perfection. And perfection is synonymous with decay. The fare of the Carthusian monks, ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... the decease of his majesty was known, his next brother, William Henry, Duke of Clarence, was proclaimed by the title of William IV. The new monarch in a short time rendered himself very popular by the plainness of his habits and manners, and by the condescension, or rather the familiarity of his intercourse with his people—qualities which rendered him more popular by a comparison with the secluded life of his predecessors. No immediate change took place ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of tears from her cheeks, but her eyes were red and swollen. The cheap mirror exaggerated her plainness, while memory pitilessly emphasised the beauty of the other woman. As she dressed, the thought came to her that, no matter what happened, she could still go on loving him, that she might always give, whether or not she received anything at ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... and his address was free both from country rusticity and professional pedantry; so that he had considerable powers both of address and persuasion, joined to an unshaken effrontery, which he affected to disguise under plainness of manner. Confident, therefore, in himself, he appeared at Woodbourne about ten in the morning, and was admitted as a gentleman come to wait upon ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... of your own creating, my friend," answered Mrs. Bland with the plainness of speech warranted by the intimacy of their friendship; "and my advice is to come out of it as ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... men. "If they are guilty," continues he, "of any scandalous offence, they should be censured or degraded by the superior pontiff; but as long as they retain their rank, they are entitled to the respect of the magistrates and people. Their humility may be shown in the plainness of their domestic garb; their dignity, in the pomp of holy vestments. When they are summoned in their turn to officiate before the altar, they ought not, during the appointed number of days, to depart from the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... with want may be allowed, We in our plainness may be justly proud: Our royal master willed it should be so; Whate'er he's pleased to own can need no show. That sacred name gives ornament and grace, And, like his stamp, makes basest metal pass. 'Twere folly now a stately pile to raise, To build a playhouse, while you throw ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... to the wounds which his keen edged words had made, and to show that they were wounds by a surgeon, not by a foe. In effect, this parting smile of love says, 'I am not become your enemy because I tell you the truth; I show my love to you by the plainness and roughness of my words.' Generalise that, free it from its personal reference, and it just comes to this: There never was a shallower sneer than the sneer which is cast at Christianity, as if it were harsh, 'ferocious,' or unloving, when it preaches the terror of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... to the eighteenth century tradition of plainness is the most prominent characteristic of Hazlitt's prose. But his plainness is not precisely of the blunt type associated with Swift and Arbuthnot. It is modified by the Gallic tone of easy familiarity, by the ideal deemed appropriate for dignified converse among educated people of ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Revolution (1791), Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), and Original Stories for Children, illustrated by W. Blake. Her Vindication received much adverse criticism on account of its extreme positions and over-plainness of speech. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... shocked as you read this by the plainness of my words, but you know them to be true, though you suppose that to insist on the facts is "impracticable" because you fancy that there is no way out of the marvellously absurd arrangements that exist. But there is a way out, though it is no royal road. ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... he was overawed, and distrusted himself. I doubt if Lady Caroline would have liked anything in the shape of jocose familiarity; and I fear her naturalness and simplicity and cordiality of manner, and the extreme plainness of her attire, might have put him at his ease ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... like the explanatory notes which have added so greatly to the value of this issue of "Alf Laylah wa Laylah." Some of these are startling in their realism, and often the traveller who believed that he knew something of the East, winces at the plainness with which the Wazir's daughter tells her tales to Shahryar, King of the Banu Sasan. The language is, however, more frequently coarse than loose, and smacks more of the childish plainness with which high and low talk in the family circles ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... see, was laid down by Erasmus, as my father wished it, with the utmost plainness; but my father's disappointment was, in finding nothing more from so able a pen, but the bare fact itself; without any of that speculative subtilty or ambidexterity of argumentation upon it, which Heaven had ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... myself on this subject with earnestness and plainness of speech because I can not rid myself of the belief that there lurk in the proposition for the free coinage of silver, so strongly approved and so enthusiastically advocated by a multitude of my countrymen, a serious menace to our prosperity and an insidious temptation of our people to wander from ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... one of the handsomest men in the world, and with few exceptions, your Court appears to me perfectly fitted for you. I have come but scantily equipped to such an assemblage. Fortunately, I am neither jealous nor a coquette, and I shall win pardon for my plainness, I myself being the first to make merry ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... Iwa is a plain girl. The end of time for man, and the carping comment of neighbours come to his ears, have opened the eyes of Matazaemon to the truth. Great has been the favour in disregarding this plainness and taking her to wife. Everything is in the hands of Iemon San. Consider her happiness and deign to use her well. Abstain if possible from taking a concubine. At all events conceal the fact from Iwa, if it be deigned to keep such company. Plainness and ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... defame the worth Of those that do things worthy; the man that uttered this Had perisht without food, be't who it will, But for this arm that fenc't him from the foe. And if I thought you gave a faith to this, The plainness of my nature would speak more; Give me a pardon (for you ought to do't) To kill him ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... half so lovely as now in the plain black gown which she wore all day long, with her hair tucked into a knot behind her ears. Her real beauty of feature and outline seemed only enhanced by the rigid plainness of her attire, and the charm of true expression grew in her face. Never had Katy admired and loved her friend so well as during those days of fatigue and wearing suspense, or realized so strongly the worth of her sweetness of temper, her unselfishness and power ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... priest's] orders; but having a genius for business, and falling into the acquaintance of my Lord Ranelagh, when tutor to my Lord Hyde, he was sent into Flanders as paymaster to the English troops there. ... He is a gentleman of very clear parts, and affects plainness and simplicity [Swift, au contraire] in his dress, and conversation especially. He is a favourite to both parties [Swift, to neither]; and is beloved for his easy access, and affable way by those he has business to do with. He is a thin, tall man, [Swift, short, if I remember ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... vain for the poet whom I describe. We do not with sufficient plainness or sufficient profoundness address ourselves to life, nor dare we chaunt our own times and social circumstance. If we filled the day with bravery, we should not shrink from celebrating it. Time and nature yield us many gifts, but not yet the timely man, the new religion, the reconciler, whom ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... a beautiful present. The rifle, designed with that plainness of ornament and simplicity of form peculiar to English weapons, was of the finest finish. Like the pistols, of which Roland had had opportunity to test the accuracy, the rifle was made by the celebrated Manton, and carried a twenty-four calibre bullet. That it had been ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... not unlike the curtain of the office window, made tight to the figure, and terminating at the throat, where it was fastened behind by a peculiarly large and massive button. Feeling, no doubt, that simplicity and plainness are the soul of elegance, Miss Brass wore no collar or kerchief except upon her head, which was invariably ornamented with a brown gauze scarf, like the wing of the fabled vampire, and which, twisted ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... Leigh, who were literally giving their lives without the least expectation of reward. Even the refined ethical-culture groups had no sneer for Father Damon. The little chapel of St. Anselm was well known. It was always open. It was plain, but its plainness was not the barrenness of a non-conformist chapel. There were two confessionals; a great bronze lamp attached to one of the pillars scarcely dispelled the obscurity, but cast an unnatural light upon the gigantic crucifix that hung from a beam ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and conclude. I am far from the vanity of thinking there is any merit in this narrative: I hope censure will be suspended, when it is considered that it was written by one who was as unwilling as unable to adorn the plainness of truth by the colouring of imagination. My life and fortune have been extremely chequered, and my adventures various. Even those I have related are considerably abridged. If any incident in this little work should appear uninteresting ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... the kind that an ordinary servant can arrange. In part, he was interested in the talk of his son and daughter, who always looked well. The vanity of Mrs. Hurstwood caused her to keep her person rather showily arrayed, but to Hurstwood this was much better than plainness. There was no love lost between them. There was no great feeling of dissatisfaction. Her opinion on any subject was not startling. They did not talk enough together to come to the argument of any one point. In the accepted and popular phrase, she had her ideas and he had his. Once in ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... with such good-looking parents, I was just ordinary and nothing else, "But never mind, Merle, you have a good figure and talking eyes," as Aunt Agatha once said to me. "I was much plainer at your age, my dear, but my plainness never prevented me from having a happy life and a ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... seen Phedre; the part of Phedre by that admirable actress Mlle Duchesnois, who performs the part so naturally and with so much passion that we entirely forget the extreme plainness of the person. She acts with far more feeling and pathos than Mlle Georges. I shall never be able to forget Mlle Duchesnois in Phedre. She gave me a full idea of the impassioned Queen, nor were it possible to depict with greater fidelity the "Venus toute entiere a sa ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... in the wilderness, with the preaching of repentance, and with. the announcement, that now the introduction to the true Canaan was near at hand. By proclaiming himself as the voice crying in the wilderness, announced by Isaiah, he showed with sufficient plainness how false was that carnal view which, without being able to distinguish the thought from its drapery, understood, and still understands, by the wilderness spoken of in this prophecy, some piece of land, limited ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... the hearers more than the wise. But this may find a speedier redress in writing, where all comes under the last examination of the eyes. First, mind it well, then pen it, then examine it, then amend it, and you may be in the better hope of doing reasonably well. Under this virtue may come plainness, which is not to be curious in the order as to answer a letter, as if you were to answer to interrogatories. As to the first, first; and to the second, secondly, &c. but both in method to use (as ladies do in their attire) a diligent kind of negligence, and their sportive freedom; though ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... paper against the wall at the end of the room, and retire from it a greater or less distance according as you have drawn the figures larger or smaller. You will come to a point where, though you can see both the spots with perfect plainness, you cannot tell which is the square ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... understand what he means. Somehow or other a well-ordered monastery represents the Least Common Multiple of nearly all pleasant houses. It has the largeness and amplitude of a castle, and the plainness of decent poverty. It has none of that theatricality which it is supposed to have, none of the dreaminess or the sentimentality with which Protestants endow it. He had passed just now through, first, a network of ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... content with uttering cheering words; she offered to accompany Els and secure the place to which she was entitled. Frau Rosalinde had formerly often visited the matron to seek counsel, and had shown her, with embarrassing plainness, how willingly she admitted her superior ability. She disliked the old countess—but with whom would not the self-reliant woman, conscious of her good intentions, have dared to cope? Since the daughter ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... this poet, who may justly be regarded as the corypheus of Circean orgies in the seventeenth century, left in MS. a grave lament upon the woes of Italy. Marino's Pianto d'Italia has no trace of Marinism. It is composed with sobriety in a pedestrian style of plainness, and it tells the truth without reserve. Italy traces her wretchedness to one sole ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... I made poor Prince Bulbo, when he was christened, the present of a rose which made him look handsome while he had it; but he gave it to Angelica, who instantly looked beautiful again, whilst Bulbo relapsed into his natural plainness.' ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... address in the capital of the Nation. I had many misgivings as to what I ought to say, and as to the impression that my address would make. While I cannot recall in detail what I said, I remember that I tried to impress upon the committee, with all the earnestness and plainness of any language that I could command, that if Congress wanted to do something which would assist in ridding the South of the race question and making friends between the two races, it should, in every proper way, encourage ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... from the wall. Flying buttresses were also introduced at this period. We can generally distinguish Early English work from that of the Norman style by its lightness and elegance, as compared with the roughness and massiveness of the latter; and its plainness and simplicity sufficiently distinguish it from ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... all the operations, subsequent to the shearing, necessary to the ultimate result of shaping into a garment, had been performed by his wife or daughter. Many politicians have continued this affectation of plainness, even when the necessity has ceased, on account of its effect upon the masses; for people are apt to entertain the notion, that decent clothing is incompatible with mental ability, and that he who is most manifestly behind the improvements ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... monks were falling from their first rigid simplicity — falling into those habits of extravagance which in days to come caused their fall and ultimate suppression — the Cistercians still held to their early regime of austere simplicity and plainness of life; and though no longer absolutely secluding themselves from the sight or sound of their fellow men, or living in complete solitude, they were still men of austere life and self-denying habits, and retained the reputation for sanctity of life that was being lost in other ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... other on her face on which hollows and protuberances abounded, imparted to it that suggestion of libertinism which the painter of love scenes gives to the rough sketch of his mistress. Everything about her,—her mouth, her eyes, her very plainness—was instinct with allurement and solicitation. Her person exhaled an aphrodisiac charm, which challenged and laid fast hold of the other sex. It unloosed desire, and caused an electric shock. Sensual thoughts were naturally and involuntarily aroused by her, by her gestures, her ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... had a full share of both these manly excellences, and practiced them in thoroughly feminine fashion. She was essentially true, hating humbug in all its disguises.... Her love of plainness and distaste for affectation were forms of veracity. But in narrative of hers one got much besides plain realities. These had their significance heightened by her eager emotion, and their picturesqueness by her happy artistry.... Of course ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... men, he cherished an ideal. Since meeting Constance Leigh, unconsciously to himself that ideal had grown very like her. But now he was sitting beside a fascinating young girl—for fascinating she was to Steve, even in her brusqueness and plainness of speech; a mere child, as it were, who was without home and without the protection of love and parental care, and as he looked into her eyes, still wet with tears, he felt his heart go out ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... trying to improve their minds. They screwed up their noses in the effort. Meaning to thrill the celebrated beauty who had been specially invited to meet him, he devoted himself to a plain woman for whose plainness a sudden pity had mastered him (for, like all true worshippers of beauty in women, he always showed best in the presence of plain ones). With the intention of being a gallant knight to Lady I-Won't-Tell-the-Name, ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... Nature, in a word, SCIENCE,—leading it at last, though slowly, and not by the most brilliant road, out of the bondage of the humdrum and common, into the better life. The universal dead-level of plainness and homeliness, the lack of all beauty and distinction in form and feature, the slowness and clumsiness of the language, the eternal beer, sausages, and bad tobacco, the blank commonness everywhere, pressing at last like a weight on ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... government there. It was in favor of liberty of conscience and in behalf of the Baptists, Quakers, and other sectaries that had been under persecution. The whole appeared to me to be written with a good deal of decent plainness and manly freedom. The six concluding lines I remember, though I have forgotten the two first of the stanza; but the purport of them was that his censures proceeded from good will and therefore he would be ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... task of mediating between science and the popular mind, is one that requires a peculiar gift of perspicuity, both in thought and style; and this, I think, the author possesses in an eminent degree. I am pleased with its comprehensiveness, its plainness, and its fidelity to the ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... the charm of such an incident. The minister was in the pulpit. His dress and hair were very plain, and his complexion was extremely dark. He was evidently a Welshman: there was no mistake about it: his gravity, plainness, attitude—all told the fact. I ventured forward, and walked along to the stove, which to me was an object of agreeable attraction. Around the stove were two or three chairs. A big aristocratic-looking Welshman, a sort of a "Blaenor," who occupied one of these chairs, invited me to take another ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... He will also convince the Scholar, that the Artifice of a Professor is never more pleasing, than when he deceives the Audience with agreeable Surprizes; for which reason he will advise him to have Recourse to a seeming Plainness, as if ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... a possibility. It arises when we shrink from that plainness of speech which is, after all, friendship's best service. Is it not better to offend, even to wound deeply, than to speak only the smoother things, however kindly the intent, and, so speaking, fail to produce that great renunciation, ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... OF, a community of Christians popularly known as Quakers, founded in 1648 by GEORGE FOX (q. v.), distinguished for their plainness of speech and manners, and differing from other sects chiefly in the exclusive deference they pay to the "inner light," and their rejection of both clergy and sacrament as media of grace; they ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... last provokes your rage, the first provokes your pride; and in a word either of them is hurtful rather than useful. But the writer that strives to be useful, writes to serve you, and at the same time, by an imperceptible art, draws you on to be pleased also. He represents truth with plainness, virtue with praise; he even reprehends with a softness that carries the force of a satire without the salt of it; and he insensibly screws himself into your good opinion, that as his writings merit your regard, so they ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... warmth and heat which he, the dreamer, the recluse, the lover of abstract problems, could bring into such discussions. Here, at all events, his views were definite enough, and stated with a bold precision of English plainness that would have pleased the most pronouncedly Tory or Unionist newspaper editors ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... married off her three daughters in a way that people said was beyond their deserts, for they had the professional plainness only to be found, as a rule, among the female kind of the more legal callings. Her name was upon the committees of numberless charities connected with the Church-dances, theatricals, or bazaars—and she never ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of calm sense, and character, and the handwriting of life-work, and the dignity of mental calm, were unmistakeable now, and made her a person worth looking at. Charity was much younger, of course; but she had the plainness without the dignity; sense, I am bound to say, was ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... gods, and of men. "If they are guilty," continues he, "of any scandalous offence, they should be censured or degraded by the superior pontiff; but as long as they retain their rank, they are entitled to the respect of the magistrates and people. Their humility may be shown in the plainness of their domestic garb; their dignity, in the pomp of holy vestments. When they are summoned in their turn to officiate before the altar, they ought not, during the appointed number of days, to depart from the precincts of the temple; nor should a single day be suffered to elapse, without the prayers ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... description. "His eloquence was part of his intellectual character. It was plain, strong, terse, condensed, concise; sometimes impassioned, still always severe. Rejecting ornament, not often seeking far for illustration, his power consisted in the plainness of his propositions, in the closeness of his logic, and in the earnestness and energy of ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... Mudlake West, Pigeon Park and Appleblossom Villa. These influential factors combined were undoubtedly the foundations of the enormous mathematical ability which became apparent long before the boy attained the age of three, but unfortunately for the level development of his mentality, the repulsive plainness of Senator Mills-Tweeper coupled with the innate idiocy of General Udby, completely overshadowed the girlish charm of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Had Rupert been consulted would he have liked playing the game at all—holding the cards in the wrong hand as he did from the very ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... Link turned a scowling visage on the interrupter of his triumphal homeward progress. At his elbow stood a stockily-built man, dressed with severe plainness. ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... And upon the whole I find him a most exact and methodicall man, and of great industry: and very glad that he thought fit to show me all this; though I cannot easily guess the reason why he should do it to me, unless from the plainness that he sees I use to him in telling him how much the King may suffer for our want of understanding ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... glided away to Florence. There was something in Ferrers that was remarkable from its very simplicity. His clear, sharp features, with the short hair and high brow—the absolute plainness of his dress, and the noiseless, easy, self-collected calm of all his motions, made a strong contrast to the showy Italian, by whose side he now stood. Florence looked up at him with some little surprise at ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... into the room. She was dressed with extreme plainness, and looking so calm and sweet that it was no wonder Mr. Carlisle's eyes rested on her as on a new object of admiration. Few of his acquaintance looked so; and Eleanor did not ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... wood-pigeons completed this extraordinary menu. The sago pasty, the artocarpus bread, some mangoes, half a dozen pineapples, and the liquor fermented from some coco-nuts, overjoyed us. I even think that my worthy companions' ideas had not all the plainness desirable. ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... of wine in the common room. "When I came up at Easter, 1825, one of the first standing jokes against the college all over the university was the Oriel tea-pot." [6] Dean Church testifies to the plainness of the services at St. Mary's.[7] Aubrey de Vere reports his urging Newman to make an expedition with him among the Wicklow Mountains, and the latter's "answering with a smile that life was full of work more important than the enjoyment of mountains and lakes. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... blue and the other of bright scarlet. I was not ignorant that this peculiar feature in his toilet indicated a heart suffering from the tender passion. The flute, which he carried in his hand, added confirmation to the fact, while the joyous, animated expression of his countenance showed with equal plainness that he was ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... day, the distinct, earnest tones of this juvenile Joan of Arc were very sweet and charming. During her discourse, which was frequently interrupted, Miss Dickinson maintained her presence of mind, and uttered her radical sentiments with augmented resolution and plainness. Those who did not sympathize with her remarks, provocative as they were of numerous unmanly interruptions, were softened by her simplicity and solemnity. 'We are told,' said she, 'to maintain constitutions because they are constitutions, and compromises because ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... die. 375 Now strike at Hector. He is here;—himself Provokes thee forth; madness is in his heart, And in his rage he glories that our ships Have hither brought no Grecian brave as he. Then thus Achilles matchless in the race. 380 Laertes' noble son, for wiles renown'd! I must with plainness speak my fixt resolve Unalterable; lest I hear from each The same long murmur'd melancholy tale. For I abhor the man, not more the gates 385 Of hell itself, whose words belie his heart. So shall not mine. My judgment undisguised Is this; that neither Agamemnon ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... the time, the series begun by Richardson's (1689-1761) "Pamela," "Clarissa Harlowe," and "Sir Charles Grandison" have a virtuous aim, but they err by the plainness with which they describe vice. The tediousness and overwrought sentimentality of these works go far towards disqualifying the reader from appreciating their extraordinary skill in invention and ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... taste, when dress'd, The butcher shook his head in jest; "If for such prog your fancy is, Judge of the flavour by the phiz." This speech was not so true as keen, For I in life have often seen Good features with a wicked heart, And plainness acting ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... parish under my good friend's care is very pleasant. It is placed among meadows, washed by a clear trout-stream, and flanked on both sides with downs. His house, indeed, would not much attract the admiration of the virtuoso. He built it himself, and it is remarkable only for its plainness; with which the furniture so well agrees, that there is no one thing in it that may not be absolutely necessary, except books, and the prints of Mr. Hogarth, whom he ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... plainly," continued the physician, "and I crave pardon, sir, should it seem to require pardon, for this needful plainness of my speech. Let me ask as your friend, as one having charge, under Providence, of your life and physical well being, hath all the operations of this disorder been fairly laid open ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... dramatic situations it created. But these cannot be told. The valor for dragging the accused spirits among his acquaintance to the stake is not in the heart of the present writer. The reader must be content to learn that she knew how, without loss of temper, to speak with unmistakable plainness to any party, when she felt that the truth or the right was injured. For the same reason, I omit one or two letters, most honorable both to her mind and heart, in which she felt constrained to give the frankest ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Elegant in plainness, the classic poet would have said of her hair and dress. She was of the women whose wits are quick in everything they do. That which was proper to her position, complexion, and the hour, surely marked her appearance. Unaccountably this night, the fair fleshly presence ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... you've been a damned good master to me, and I've been a damned good servant to you; we've been proud of each other from the first; but if you'll excuse my plainness, Mr. George, I never ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Judea, and in the regions of Asia under the ministries of Paul, and Silas, and Barnabas, and Peter, and others. He saw a tendency in the churches even in his day to depart from God's ordinances; and led by the Divine Spirit he felt it his duty to set these forth in their simplicity and plainness, as he had seen them instituted and exemplified in his own personal presence by ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... leader of the barons. From the first it is apparent that he is actuated by personal malice as much as by righteous indignation on behalf of his misgoverned country. He confides to his uncle that it is Gaveston's and the king's mocking jests at the plainness of his train and attire which make him impatient. But the unwisdom of the king serves him for a stalking-horse while secretly he pursues the goal of his private ambition. In adversity he is uncrushed. When he returns victorious he ruthlessly sweeps ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... wind round the sides of the court, up to the highest story. Our dining-room and bedrooms were in the latter region, and were all paved with brick, and without carpets; and the characteristic of the whole was all exceeding plainness and antique clumsiness of fitting up. We found ourselves sufficiently comfortable, however; and, as has been the case throughout our journey, had a very fair and well-cooked dinner. It shows, as perhaps ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... precise wording of the matter shows his speech to be the result of meditated preparation; for he has come with his mind so full of what he was to say, that he could think of nothing else; and Macduff, with characteristic plainness of ear and tongue, finds it "too nice." His comment, at once so spontaneous and so apt, is a delightful touch of the Poet's art; and tells us that Shakespeare's judgment as well as his genius was at home ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... of the feminine about him. There was not. Yet in spite of his good looks and astonishing colouring, Meg was right in her consciousness that for women there was more magnetic attraction in Mike's mobile plainness, in his sensitive, irregular features. When the two men were talking together, the senses and eyes of women would be drawn to ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... and looped flounce waved grandly out behind from the waist to the level of the knees; and the stomacher recalled the ornamentation of the flounce; and both the stomacher and flounce gave contrasting value to the severe plainness of the skirt, designed to emphasise the quality of the silk. Round the neck was a lace collarette to match the furniture of the wrists, and the broad ends of the collarette were crossed on the bosom and held by a large jet brooch. Above that you saw ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... thick black veil and black mantle, but it was impossible to mistake her figure and her walk; and by her side was a short stout form, which he recognised as that of Monna Brigida, in spite of the unusual plainness of her attire. Romola had not been bred up to devotional observances, and the occasions on which she took the air elsewhere than under the loggia on the roof of the house, were so rare and so much dwelt on beforehand, because of Bardo's dislike to be left without her, ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... Quakers' address was esteemed somewhat singular for its plainness and simplicity. It was conceived in these terms: "We are come to testify our sorrow for the death of our good friend Charles, and our joy for thy being made our governor. We are told thou art not of the persuasion of the church ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... clearness insists on the great truth that bad education is responsible for bad life, and expresses with equal plainness the complementary truth that education, from the cradle upwards, is something which acts on the whole intellectual and moral nature, and that its object is the production of the ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... follows B in line 10, where A had Air, pillowy air. There is no comma at barebill in any MS., but a gap and sort of caesural mark in A. In a letter Aug. 14, '79, G. M. H. writes: 'I enclose a sonnet on which I invite minute criticism. I endeavoured in it at a more Miltonic plainness and severity than I have any- where else. I cannot say it has turned out severe, still less plain, but it seems almost free from quaintness and in aiming at one excellence ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... as you read this by the plainness of my words, but you know them to be true, though you suppose that to insist on the facts is "impracticable" because you fancy that there is no way out of the marvellously absurd arrangements that exist. But there is a way out, though it is no royal road. It is this. Get the meaning ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... is." He took her hand, which she could not withdraw, or feigned to herself that she could not withdraw, and looked at her with a silent laugh, and a hardy, sceptical glance that she felt take in every detail of her prettiness, her plainness. Then he turned and went out, and she ran quickly and locked ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... pioneer of French thought. In education there is less room for scientific originality. The sage of a parish, provided only she began her trade with an open and energetic mind, may here pass philosophers. Locke was nearly as sage, as homely, as real, as one of these strenuous women. The honest plainness of certain of his prescriptions for the preservation of physical health perhaps keeps us somewhat too near the earth. His manner throughout is marked by the stout wisdom of the practical teacher, who is content to assume good sense in his hearers, and feels no necessity for kindling a blaze ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... was out exercising Calyste's horse, which the youth had not mounted for two months. The three women, mother, aunt, and Mariotte, shared in the tender feminine wiliness, which taught them to make much of Calyste when he dined at home. Breton plainness fought against Parisian luxury, now brought to the very doors of Guerande. Mariotte endeavored to wean her young master from the accomplished service of Camille Maupin's kitchen, just as his mother and aunt strove to hold him in the net of their tenderness ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... we pray to say, "Give us this day our daily bread." Yet a great number of persons, I may say, nearly all men, are not content with enough, they are not satisfied with sufficiency; they wish for something more than simplicity, and plainness, and gravity, and modesty, in their mode of living; they like show and splendour, and admiration from the many, and obsequiousness on the part of those who have to do with them, and the ability to do as they will; they like to ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... private audience of his Catholic Majesty, which was given me in the Buen Retiro, and therein did deliver myself in the sense of my instructions and directions; not in many words, because the King's weak state of body will not allow it; but with much plainness and humble freedom, concerning the languishing and desperate condition in which the peace and commerce between the Crowns and nations have long lain gasping, and expecting an utter dissolution, by frequent ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... between these extremes that our prophetical speculators wrecked themselves. Men always had it to say that their prophecies had been either too plain or too obscure; or, if very plain, and yet as plainly written before the event, that their very plainness had insured their own accomplishment by prompting to the very actions and conduct they ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... cut out the pearl for the slides and ornamentation on his bows. This accounts for the characteristic plainness of these features of his work. He was often at a loss for silver for the mountings, and the Doctor says it was highly diverting to him when a boy to hear the old housekeeper soundly rating Dodd for melting down another of her ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... a small canvas. Mabane was tall and fair and lean, with a mass of refractory hair which was the despair of his barber; a Scotchman with keen blue eyes, and humorous mouth amply redeeming his face from the plainness which would otherwise have been its lot. He also was ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... little dealings he 's forced to transact, He determines with plainness and candour to act; And the great point on which his ambition is set, Is to leave at the last neither riches nor ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... answered many objections urged against the President on account of the conduct of the war, his Emancipation Proclamation, and his purpose to enlist colored men as soldiers. For perspicuity, terseness, plainness, and conclusiveness of argument this letter stands among the best of all President Lincoln's writings. It came at an opportune time, and it did much to silence the caviler, to satisfy the doubter, ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... now mounted the papal chair under the name of Eugene III. As Eugene honored and loved the abbot Bernard as his spiritual father and old preceptor, so the latter took advantage of his relation to the Pope to speak the truth to him with a plainness which no other man would easily have ventured to use. In congratulating him upon his elevation to the papal dignity, he took occasion to exhort him to do away with the many abuses which had become so widely spread in the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... armour, wound his solitary way; His mail was black and unadorned; on his vizor waved no plume. But there was something in his carriage and mien, and the singular beauty of his coal- black steed, which appeared to indicate a higher rank than the absence of page and squire, and the plainness of his accoutrements, would have denoted to a careless eye. He rode very slowly; and his steed, with the licence of a spoiled favourite, often halted lazily in his sultry path, as a tuft of herbage, or the bough of some overhanging tree, offered its temptation. At length, ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... it as a principle to their own satisfaction, that feminine weaknesses were to be sternly discouraged as the main cause of the position held relatively to men. Thus they cultivated a certain brusqueness of speech, expressed their opinion uncompromisingly, and were distinguished by a certain plainness in the fashion of their gowns, and by the absence of trimmings, ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... oblique persuasion, Anita took up the jacket, and her quick fingers made the needles fly. Her glance was keen, and although apparently concentrated on her work, she saw the strange mixture of plainness and luxury in the little room. The floor was covered with a fine rug, and a little glass cupboard shone ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... to indicate a seat rather than a tomb, and the date as about the end of the twelfth century. Beneath the Johnson window there is another Norman relic, of about the same date, in the outline of the old Canons' Doorway, formerly connecting the aisle with the cloisters. The extreme plainness of the moulding will be contrasted with the elaborate work in the Prior's entrance further east, on the exterior of the same wall. The next window contains a memorial to Alexander Cruden, compiler of the Scripture Concordance, who died on 1st November, 1770, and was buried in the parish. This ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... wish to be better; she could admire good people; she could trust in God her Saviour. And now the loving God-made human heart in her was going into a new school that it might begin a fresh beautiful growth. She was old, I have said, and plain; but now her old age and plainness were about to vanish, and all that had made her youth attractive to young Tomkins was about to return to her, only rendered tenfold more beautiful by the growth of fifty years of learning according to her ability. ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... severe as it might be, to the desires and interests of his country. With the letter Madison sent a draft of an address, and in reference to it remarked: "You will readily observe that, in executing it, I have aimed at that plainness and modesty of language which you had in view, and which indeed are so peculiarly becoming the character and the occasion; and that I had little more to do, as to the matter, than to follow the just and comprehensive outline which ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... There was a total absence of every object of ornament. On the table figured merely an earthenware vase, in which were placed several chrysanthemums. A few books and teacups were also conspicuous, but no further knicknacks. On the bed was suspended a green gauze curtain, and of equally extreme plainness were the coverlets and mattresses ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... opinions, though I readily admit that he is not accountable for them to me—who may, in his peculiar opinions, withdraw her from that notice and favour, she is at any time at liberty to do so. We are obliged to you for the plainness with which you have spoken. It will have no effect of itself, one way or other, on the young woman's position here. Beyond this, we can make no terms; and here we beg—if you will be so ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... the neck of her dress, and this heightened the plainness and the pallor of her face. She shrank instinctively at the first sight of herself, and opened the drawer where the crimson cape was folded, ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... it is, having too this strange interest, that though mainly characterised by a great plainness and simplicity of thought, and, in the earlier stages, of expression, we feel, oftentimes, a sudden weirdness, a strange glamour shoots across the poem when the tale seems to open for a moment into mysterious depths, druidic secrets veiled by time, unsunned caves of thought, indicating a ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady
... liking for knocks. Courage tempered by stupidity (as in the persons of Fluellen, etc.) is what he loves in a man. He, himself, has plenty of his favourite quality. His love of plainness and bluntness makes him condemn sentiment in ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... destined to bear the persons of females, of a rank that it was not usual to meet so far in the wilds of the country. A third wore trappings and arms of an officer of the staff; while the rest, from the plainness of the housings, and the traveling mails with which they were encumbered, were evidently fitted for the reception of as many menials, who were, seemingly, already waiting the pleasure of those they served. At a respectful distance from this unusual show, were gathered divers ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... Bill. Mr. [afterwards Sir James] Stephen was present. We pointed out to His Lordship the injustice of the bill, and the probable consequences if it were passed in its present shape. We spoke at some length, but with great plainness; intimating that we regarded the measure as the forfeiture of good faith on the part of Her Majesty's Government, as the violation of the constitutional rights of the inhabitants of Upper Canada, and as the cause of the unpopularity of the British Government in that ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... folk and left the sea and found work in the West Indies and bided there for five-and-twenty years. And now he came back, brown as a berry and ugly as need be. At forty you might say Jack Cobley couldn't be beat for plainness; and yet, after all, I've seen better-looking men that was uglier, if you understand me, because, though his countenance put you in mind of an old church gargoyle, yet it was kindly and benevolent ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... clean oval Face, just edged about with little thin Plaits of the purest Cambrick, received great Advantages from the Shade of her black Hood; as did the Whiteness of her Arms from that sober-coloured Stuff, in which she had Cloathed her self. The Plainness of her Dress was very well suited to the Simplicity of her Phrases; all which put together, though they could not give me a great Opinion of her Religion, they did ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... villages, in smaller towns, in greater towns, as we gained experience in war and knowledge in the art of ruling people, and so tediously won our promotion. I am speaking in Tatho's private abode, that was mine own not two hours since, and I would have an answer with that plainness which we always ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... at a Visitation in Essex, one in Orders (of good estate and extraction) appeared before him very gallant in habit, whom D'r Laud (then Bishop of London) publickly reproved, shewing to him the plainness of his own apparrel. My Lord (said the Minister) you have better cloaths at home and I have worse, whereat the Bishop rested very ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... savage plainness of these words and the excited ring of the angry voice, the sculptor could scarcely recognise his gentle courteous friend, to whom mere living used to be a joy. The absent expression in his eye, the anxious wrinkle on his brow, and the heat of the hand which grasped Vedrine's, ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... against counter-evidence of still greater weight. Even the Swedes themselves, if they still retain the convictions of their forefathers, have grown tolerant of opposite convictions; and Geijer has not scrupled to intimate, with tolerable plainness, that he considers the charge against the Duke of Saxe ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... declared his opposition to any amendment to the Constitution. "The Union," he said, "is indissoluble, and no State can secede. I will lay down my life for it.... We must have the arbitration of reason, or the arbitrament of the sword." Amaziah B. James, another New Yorker, possessed the same plainness of speech. "The North will not enter upon war until the South forces it to do so," he said, mildly. "But when you begin it, the government will carry it on until the Union is restored and its enemies put down."[655] ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... the lines of the furniture, were all subdued, even a little austere. Quiet greens and blues, mingled with white, showed the artistic mind; the chairs and sofas were a trifle stiff and straight legged; the electric fittings were of a Georgian plainness to match the Colonial architecture of the house; the beautiful self-coloured carpet was indeed Persian and costly, but it betrayed its costliness only to the expert. Altogether, the room, one would have ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his excellent cigar with all the enjoyment of a satisfied connoisseur. His glance played from one article of furniture to another, from the floor to the ceiling, from bookcase to bookcase, from picture to picture. The very plainness of the room seemed to fascinate him. His gaze sought out the ugliest picture, and became fixed on it. Tranter turned over all the cards, and shrugged ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... of the sins of Jerusalem and the judgments of heaven that are about to fall upon her. With these are interspersed denunciations of the false prophets that flatter the people in their sins, and fervent addresses to his fellow-captives remarkable for their plainness and evangelical spirit. The second part opens with a series of prophecies against seven foreign nations, in which the order of time is not observed—first, short prophecies against the four neighboring nations, Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia (chap. 25); secondly, a series of prophecies ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... for the streaked daffodil," the Captain went on to say, believing that he was stating the case with incontrovertible plainness, "and if he does not have the true bulb he must have the money back; otherwise he will, with justice, say he has been cheated, for I guaranteed ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... the old comedy was introduced, which had a magisterial freedom of speech, and by its very plainness of speaking was useful in reminding men to beware of insolence; and for this purpose too Diogenes used to ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... it so,' she said, looking musingly at the fire. 'So,not in precise colour, of course, nor exact pattern,but in general qualityand plainnessand' ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... To dine at the rude board table with the young officers of one of the companies of a battalion, perhaps in a bare hut, on the floor of which lay the lads' beds, was something sacred and sacramental. Their apologies for the plainness of the repast were to me extremely pathetic. Was there a table in the whole world at which it was a greater honour to sit? Where could one find a nobler, knightlier body ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... explication as he gave, but it was greatly needed in the theological world, which at that time was sunk in a sea of metaphysical definition, and consumed with a lust for explaining everything in heaven and earth in terms of alphabetic plainness. Dr. Bushnell was not only justified by the necessity of his situation in resorting to his theory, but he had the right which every man of genius may claim for himself. Any one whose thought is broader than that about him, whose feeling is deeper, whose ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... was laid down by Erasmus, as my father wished it, with the utmost plainness; but my father's disappointment was, in finding nothing more from so able a pen, but the bare fact itself; without any of that speculative subtilty or ambidexterity of argumentation upon it, which Heaven had bestow'd upon man on purpose to investigate truth, and fight for her on all sides.—My ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... of the very gravest character; and in the course of what follows, it will appear with sufficient plainness wherein it consists. For the moment,—singly considered,—it is my painful duty to condemn Dr. Temple's Essay ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... half without notes, the people listening as still as mice. There has been a great row about Tyndall's address, and I had some reason to expect that I should have to meet a frantically warlike audience. But it was quite otherwise, and though I spoke my mind with very great plainness, I never had a warmer reception. And I am not without hope that I have done something to allay the storm, though, as you may be sure, I did not sacrifice plain speaking to that end...I have been most creditably quiet here, and have gone to no dinners or breakfasts or other such fandangoes ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... the wealth that was displayed before my eyes. My own poor preparations lost all their charm, and I had not been above half an hour in the place before I was seeking a quiet corner in which to hide the poverty of my coat and the plainness of my cloak. But the desire for privacy thus bred in me was not to find satisfaction. Darrell, whom I had not met all day, now pounced on me and carried me off, declaring that he was charged to present me to the Duke of York. ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... some of their state apartments, in cornices or sculptured friezes on the external walls of their buildings; and even then its employment suggested rather that of a band of embroidery carefully disposed on some garment to relieve the plainness of the material. Crude brick, burnt brick, enamelled brick, but always and everywhere brick was the principal element in their construction. The soil of the marshes or of the plains, separated from the pebbles and foreign substances which it contained, mixed with grass ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... house with all its plainness seemed very cosy as she took leave of it, and the woman instinct for home made its outcry in her when she turned her face resolutely from its sheltering warmth and felt the force of the north wind whipping mercilessly upon her. But she steeled herself to meet the cold, and her spirits rose ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... of that great scheme of which this life is a part. It is an apparently essential element and fulfilment of the wonderful apparatus of retribution, reward, and discipline, intended to educate us as members of God's eternal family. Because from the little which we now understand we cannot infer with plainness and certainty the precise means and method by which we can discriminate our friends in heaven need be no obstacle to believing the fact itself; for there are millions of undoubted truths whose conditions and ways of operation we can nowise fathom. Upon the whole, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... learned Orientalists, steeped in recondite knowledge of all kinds; men who had worked their way to knowledge through hardship and grinding labour, and not to be outdone in Germany itself for devouring love of learning and a scholar's plainness of life. In the other class may be mentioned Frederic Faber, J.D. Dalgairns, and W.G. Ward, men who have all since risen to eminence in their different spheres. Faber was a man with a high gift of imagination, remarkable powers of assimilating knowledge, and a great ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... Robert Howard.] the best that I ever saw at that house, being a great play and serious; only Lacy did act the country-gentleman come up to Court, who do abuse the Court with all the imaginable wit and plainness about selling of places, and doing every thing for money. The play took very much. Thence I to my new bookseller's, and there bought "Hooker's Polity," the new edition, and "Dugdale's History of the Inns of Court," of which there was but ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... consist of Monosyllables. I speak chiefly of the Gothick, Saxon, and Teutonick. It must be confest that in the Saxon, there are many Primitive Words of one Syllable, and this to those who know the Esteem that is due to Simplicity and Plainness, in any Language, will rather be judged a Virtue than a Vice: That is, that the first Notions of things should be exprest in the plainest and simplest manner, and in the least compass: and the Qualities and Relations, ...
— An Apology For The Study of Northern Antiquities • Elizabeth Elstob
... here, at a third entertainment (181), servants are bringing in wine and necklaces—a kind of hospitality to which, as regards the latter object, modern ladies would in no way object. The ancient Egyptian ladies had their bouquets, their ornaments, and their couches, and exacted a plainness of costume from their servants, as in the present time. On passing south from the Egyptian Saloon, between the two great lions, the visitor at once gains the central saloon, but without pausing here, or turning to the right into the tempting Phigalian and Elgin Saloons, he should ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... say with plainness, I who am no longer in a public character, that if by a fair, by an indulgent, by a gentlemanly behaviour to our representatives, we do not give confidence to their minds, and a liberal scope to their understandings; if we do not permit our members to act upon a VERY ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... camel-driver is a scene that scarce could exist in the imagination of a European, and of its attendant distresses he could have no idea.—These are very happily and minutely painted by our descriptive poet. What sublime simplicity of expression! what nervous plainness in the opening of ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... mature and successful, as I have hitherto regarded him. He may be unsuccessful in a worldly sense; but from my present point of view I do not much care whether he is unsuccessful in that sense. I know that plain men are seldom failures; their very plainness saves them from the alarming picturesqueness of the abject failure. On the other hand, I care greatly whether the plain man is mature or immature, old or young. I should prefer to catch him young. But he is difficult to catch young. The fact is that, just as he is seldom a failure, so he is seldom ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org
|
|
|
