"Guileless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... movement and rhythm Are not true elements of heaven Till passed through transforming power of thought; For eye seeth only what soul hath wrought. Ah! Beauty, thou the flowering art Of the upright mind and guileless heart. ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... a pathetic little glance of piteous protest, of shy reproach under which he coloured like a girl He was leaning back against the rock behind. Leopold Bloom (for it is he) stands silent, with bowed head before those young guileless eyes. What a brute he had been! At it again? A fair unsullied soul had called to him and, wretch that he was, how had he answered? An utter cad he had been! He of all men! But there was an infinite store of mercy in those eyes, for him too a word of pardon even though he had erred and sinned ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... oh, yes, Her hideous secret well. We together were cast, I knew not her past; For how was I to tell? I married her, guileless lamb I was; I'd have died for her sweet sake. How could I have known that my Angeline Had been a Human Snake? Ah, we had been wed but a week or two When I found her quite a wreck: Her limbs were tied in a double ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... and sense Had thrill'd my guileless Genevieve; The music and the doleful tale, The rich ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... nothing to conceal; nothing but sincerity in the sweet, honest face—not pretty, but so perfectly candid and true—with the sun shining on the lint-white hair, and the bright blue eyes meeting his, guileless as a child's. Ay, and however they were dimmed with care and washed with tears—oceans of bitterness—that innocent, childlike look never, even when she was an old woman, quite faded ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... great intuition to discern what were the motives in a simple, guileless, and noble soul for the fanaticism of Madame Hulot's love. Having fully persuaded herself that her husband could do her no wrong, she made herself in the depths of her heart the humble, abject, and blindfold slave of the man who had made her. It must be noted, too, that she was gifted with ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... Lyttelton remarks, in urging that the laws of the transmission of life should be taught to children by the mother: "The way they receive it with native reverence, truthfulness of understanding and guileless delicacy, is nothing short of a revelation of the never-ceasing beauty of nature. People sometimes speak of the indescribable beauty of children's innocence. But I venture to say that no one quite knows what it is who has foregone the privilege of being the first to set before them the true ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... not for this source of income, and it cannot afford to refuse the big advertisements even when they are pernicious to the morals or health of the community. So we are confronted daily by the premedicine fakirs, who injure the health and drain the pocketbooks of the guileless. So we are exposed to the plausible suggestions of the swindlers, feasted with glowing prospectuses of mines that will never yield a dividend, or eulogistic descriptions of house lots to be sacrificed at a price that is really double their worth. ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... did not painfully displease me. It was a canting, sentimental, shallow little book, yet something about it cheered my gloom and made me smile; I was amused with the gambols of this unlicked wolf-cub muffled in the fleece, and mimicking the bleat of a guileless lamb. Portions of it reminded me of certain Wesleyan Methodist tracts I had once read when a child; they were flavoured with about the same seasoning of excitation to fanaticism. He that had written it was no bad man, and while ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... with what art they discover the truth in others! With what shrewdness they employ a direct logic in answer to some passionate question which has revealed to them the secret of the heart of a man who was guileless enough to proceed by questioning! To question a woman! why, that is delivering one's self up to her; does she not learn in that way all that we seek to hide from her? Does she not know also how to be dumb, through speaking? What men are daring enough ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... who in the kitchen sat Darning by the fire, Guileless of what he would be at, Sang sweet ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... minister of the New Meeting, Mr. Bowen, an advocate of religious freedom, charged the Baptists (particular though they were) with reviving old Calvinistic doctrines and spreading Antinomianism and other errors in Birmingham; with the guileless innocence peculiar to polemical scribes, past and present. Mr. Dissenting minister Bowen tried to do his friends in the Bull Ring a good turn by issuing his papers as from "A Consistent Churchman." In 1763 the chapel was enlarged, and at the same time ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... break away from him, and on her lip there broke that beautiful smile of hers; withal a little tremulous just then. It is rare on a grown woman's lip, a smile so very guileless and free; mostly it belongs to children. Yet not ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... father whose youth in the eighteen-twenties had been passed without polish in the game of cricket. Old Jolyon would speak quite openly of swipes, full tosses, half and three-quarter balls; and young Jolyon with the guileless snobbery of youth had trembled lest his sire should be overheard. Only in this supreme matter of cricket he had been nervous, for his father—in Crimean whiskers then—had ever impressed him as the beau ideal. Though never canonised himself, Old Jolyon's natural fastidiousness and balance had saved ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Stowe's brother, Henry Ward Beecher, said: "Of course you all sympathize with me to-day, but, standing in this place, I do not see your faces more clearly than I see those of my father and my mother. Her I only knew as a mere babe-child. He was my teacher and my companion. A more guileless soul than he, a more honest one, more free from envy, from jealousy, and from selfishness, I never knew. Though he thought he was great by his theology, everybody else knew he was great by his religion. My mother is to me what the Virgin Mary is to a devout Catholic. She was a woman of great ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... He was stout and healthy, ruddy-cheeked and broad-chested, in a print cotton shirt and full trousers like a toy china sledge-driver. He had a curly, round beard—and not a single grey hair—a hooked nose, and clear, dark, guileless eyes. ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... passing the privet hedge which surrounded Miss Bassett's house and garden; and a sound caused both to glance around. The front door had just been opened; and a gentleman was descending the steps,—a young gentleman in neat clerical garb, his guileless ecclesiastical countenance suffused with mantling blushes of confusion and delight. He stopped on the gravel path to receive the last words of Miss Octavia Bassett, who stood on the threshold, smiling down upon him in the prettiest ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... reverie. How infinitely superior Rose is to all these people whose lives I can picture around me. Two women sit cackling beside me on the bench: they are at once guileless and bad, with their mania for eternally wagging tongues that know no rest. A little farther on, a good housewife is shaking her troublesome child; a stout, overdressed woman of the shop-keeping class is flaunting her finery ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... the depositary of that secret was, as the reader may remember, Mrs. Elwood. The consciousness that this lady knew all, coupled as it was with the thought of the relation in which the latter stood to the object of her secret idolatry, had irresistibly drawn to her the yearning heart of the guileless maiden. She had longed for another interview, but dare not seek it; longed for some excuse for opening a communication with her, but could not find one. At length, however, fortune opened the desired avenue; and, after much hesitation and trembling, she summoned up the courage ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... with no caution to conceal her movements, and went to the barn. Alvino was hobbling about among the horses with his lantern. He gave her an open and guileless good-morning, and she told him ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... sharp man of the world? What would he do now? And she, the young girl, how should she warn her more clearly and even forbid her, for she might make great mistakes. Would anyone have believed that this big girl had remained so artless, so ill informed, so guileless? And the Marquise, greatly perplexed and already wearied with her reflections, endeavored to make up her mind what to do without finding a solution of the problem, for the situation seemed to her very embarrassing. Worn out with ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... (to Teresa). O full of faith and guileless love, thy Spirit 125 Still prompts thee wisely. Let the pangs of guilt Surprise the guilty: ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... observe that it is of the most distinguished cut—quite in the latest fashion. I will whisper to monsieur that it comes to me through the valet of the Comte de St. Nom- la-Breteche-Foret-de-Marly." And, unseen by the guileless bridegroom, he slipped the damning proof into a pocket of the trousers, where his knowledge of the pastrycook's attitudes assured him that it was even more certain to be found than ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... whose thoughts are folded As graciously to rest As a dove's stainless pinions Upon her guileless breast, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Why do we need an incarnation for the manifestation of that purpose? Why not make a guilty, and not an absolutely innocent and guileless man such an example of God's displeasure upon sin? Were there not men enough in existence? Why create a new being for ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... had this devoted statesman at her feet. She had not studied the Senate without a purpose. She had read with unerring instinct one general characteristic of all Senators, a boundless and guileless thirst for flattery, engendered by daily draughts from political friends or dependents, then becoming a necessity like a dram, and swallowed with a heavy smile of ineffable content. A single glance at Mr. Ratcliffe's face showed Madeleine that she need not be afraid of flattering ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... for suffering. The room seemed to have grown darker, as if all the sad light of the cloudy evening had taken refuge on her forehead. This fair hair, this pale visage, this pure brow, seemed surrounded by an ashy halo from which the dark eyes looked out at me. Their glance was guileless, profound, confident, and trustful. She carried her sorrowful head as though she were proud of that sorrow, as though she would say, 'I—I alone know how to mourn for him as he deserves. But while we were still shaking hands, such a look of awful desolation ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... as down a hill From some high spring a slender rill; Ah, piteous it was on the brae to behold How the guileless youth lay in his ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... judge her soberly for herself. Her mind measured to its full extent the evils which the innovative spirit of the age—described to her as so dangerous for young souls by the rector—would have upon her only child, until then so guileless; as pure as an innocent girl, and beautiful with the ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... fly—half-laughingly, half-affrightedly—the anxious Dick following wonderingly at her mustang's heels, until she reached the gates of the hacienda, where she fell into a gravity and seriousness that made him wonder still more. He did not dream that his guileless cousin had discovered, with a woman's instinct, a mysterious invader who sought to share their guileless companionship, only to absorb it entirely, ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the poor little dreamy, guileless Commandant in his conspicuous car, and I smile at her in secret, thanking Heaven that it's Ursula Dearmer and not Mrs. Torrence who ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... the woman written in her face, the tart, thinking, handsome creature that Ibsen prefers. Nigel Debrullier looks the buttoned-up Pastor Manders, even to caricature. But the crawling, bootlicking carpenter, Jacob Engstrand, is changed into a respectable, guileless man with an income. And his wife and daughter are helpless, conventional, upper-class rabbits. They do not remind one of ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... indifferent to forms. They prayed, seated in their chairs, as willingly as, reversed, upon their knees; no ritual having any significance for them. My Mother was sometimes extremely gay, laughing with a soft, merry sound. What I have since been told of the guileless mirth of nuns in a convent has reminded me of the gaiety of my parents ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... now a suspicion grew strong in him which his vanity had hitherto held in check, though he had often seen the friendly relations that subsisted between Paula and the leech.—Perhaps it was a warmer feeling than friendship and guileless trust, which had led her so unreservedly to claim this man's protection and service. Could he ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that the inferior race that can skin Levi Long to his pelt in a gamble is providin' no fit associates for guileless an' confidin' children o' the Occident, ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... That all her voices in his ear Of beast or bird had meanings clear, Like Apollonius of old, Who knew the tales the sparrows told, Or Hermes, who interpreted What the sage cranes of Nilus said; A simple, guileless, childlike man, Content to live where life began; Strong only on his native grounds, The little world of sights and sounds Whose girdle was the parish bounds, Whereof his fondly partial pride The common features magnified, As Surrey hills to mountains grew In White of Selborne's ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... native country, partly to his own good spirits, which prevented him from entirely sinking the man in the politician. He had some enemies in the little court, whose Duke and Duchess were personally so attached to him. A prosperous life such as his could not fail to attract envy, and his frank, guileless character gave plenty of occasion for suspicion. But the only answer which he vouchsafed to ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... have read, when a guileless little chap in roundabouts, "The Children of the Abbey," and other tales of like kidney. They were romantic and sentimental, weren't they? Well, old fellow, not one of them was half so romantic or sentimental as this marriage of mine. There were villains ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... parent dear, Serious infant worth a fear: In thy unfaltering visage well Picturing forth the son of TELL, When on his forehead, firm and good, Motionless mark, the apple stood; Guileless traitor, rebel mild, Convict unconscious, culprit child! Gates that close with iron roar Have been to thee thy nursery door; Chains that chink in cheerless cells Have been thy rattles and thy bells; Walls contrived for giant sin Have hemm'd thy faultless weakness in; ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... they went back and spent a merry evening, all except poor Rose, who, ere she went back, had poured all her sorrows into Lady Grenville's ear. For the kind woman, knowing that she was motherless and guileless, carried her off into Mrs. St. Leger's chamber, and there entreated her to tell the truth, and heaped her with pity but with no comfort. For indeed, what ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... all the frigid wit of 'Love for Love' and the 'School for Scandal' could only move to contempt or pity. A denouement of great skill is not wanting to stir the calm surface of the story by the wind of surprise; the curtain falls over a group of innocent, guileless, and happy hearts, and as we gaze at them we breathe the prayer, that Scotland's peerage and Scotland's peasantry may always thus be blended into one bond of mutual esteem, endearment, and excellence. Well might Campbell say—'Like the poetry of Tasso and Ariosto, that of ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the thought of explaining her position, and clearing her name before the world, never entered her head, or, if it did, was instantly expelled. No; the whole world might spurn her; she might die; but to reveal a secret which Cardo had desired her to keep, seemed to her faithful and guileless nature ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... . . His guileless forerunners, Whose brains I could blandish, To measure the deeps of my ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... guileless glee; Young Frithiof was the sapling tree; In budding beauty by his side, Sweet Ingeborg, the garden's pride." TEGNER, ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... the operative, with a sheepishly guileless air. "It was just a bit from an English musical comedy of two or three years back, I think. It's got a silly-sounding name—something like 'There's ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... fate of artless maid, Sweet floweret of the rural shade! By love's simplicity betrayed, And guileless trust, Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... got on very easily, for Mervyn liked the rector, and felt a confidence in him which was comfortable and almost exhilarating. The doctor had a cheery, kindly, robust voice, and a good, honest emphasis in his talk; a guileless blue eye; a face furrowed, thoughtful, and benevolent; well formed too. He must have been a handsome curate in his day. Not uncourtly, but honest; the politeness of a gentle and tender heart; very courteous and popular among ladies, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... supplies of foreign port, We've first-class wine and cakes." The youth with guileless look replied, "I'll ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... also those of an innocent age, who had knowledge and were unable to distinguish between their right hand and their left. Many, doubtless, were deceived by their own guilelessness; but God's wrath does not discriminate, it falls upon and destroys alike adults and infants, the crafty and the guileless. ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... for Margaret, and the name of the guileless girl seduced by Faust in Goethe's tragedy ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... linen skirt, a white waist, and her sleeves were rolled up. The sun glinted on her uncovered hair, blazed in the bright tin basin into which she was dropping scarlet peppers. She appeared younger than he had remembered her; her arms were youthful and softly dimpled; her brow seemed again the calm, guileless brow of a girl; her eyes, as she raised them ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... care, and that you didn't need to care, about society and fashionable position. I kept saying to you that I envied you your tastes, and let you see that I considered myself your real inferior in my determination to attract attention and oblige society to notice us. I was guileless and simpleton enough to tell you of my progress—things I would have blushed to tell another woman like myself—because I considered you the embodiment of high aims and spiritual ideas, as far superior to mine as the poetic star is superior to the garish ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... no, no," said Bateman, in fear of Freeborn; "we'll have none of your Popery. It will be a simple, guileless chapel, in which the Church Service ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... short-sighted labours of men. From a long and miserable experience of suffering, injustice, disgrace and aggression the nations of the earth are mostly swayed by fear—fear of the sort that a little cheap oratory turns easily to rage, hate, and violence. Innocent, guileless fear has been the cause of many wars. Not, of course, the fear of war itself, which, in the evolution of sentiments and ideas, has come to be regarded at last as a half-mystic and glorious ceremony with certain fashionable rites and preliminary ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... spirit, the division of the Church threefold. The body possesses the earth, man the clouds, the spirit the stars. The white and carved stone means the chaste and wise; the whiteness is modesty, the carving dogma. By the effigy of marble, smooth, shining, dark, the bride is figured, guileless, well conducted, working. The smoothness very rightly means guilelessness, the splendour good conduct, the blackness work. The noble cohort of the clergy lightening the world with light divine is expressed by the clear ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... itself?" Marion asked, coolly. "I tell you, girls, it is impossible to know whether the man who dresses well, and calls on you at stated intervals, looking and talking like a gentleman, is not a very Satan, who will lead away the pretty guileless, unsuspecting young girl who is worth his trouble; and the leading often and often commences with a dance; and the young girl may never have been allowed to dance with him at all had not stately and entirely unexceptionable leaders ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... window alight. O how my heart throbbed!—"Lie still," said I, "busy thing! why all this emotion?—Those shining ornaments cover not such a guileless flatterer as thou. ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... this virtue should be lavished on the lieutenant-commander of the Neptun. I longed to tell him that in all probability he would be relieved from Heemskirk's visitations also. I did not do so only from the fear (absurd, I admit) of arousing some sort of suspicion in his mind. As if with this guileless comedy father ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... creature!" he muttered, with a shudder. "How can she have so fair a face, and eyes of such haunting beauty, so grave, sincere, and almost guileless?" ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... his gun, attracted ever and anon by the twinkling host above, a throng of unwonted memories crowded upon him. He thought of his guileless youth; the uncontaminated days of enjoyment ere he had mingled with the designing and heartless associates who strove to entice him from the path of virtue; of the hopes of budding manhood; of ambitious schemes to win a name by great and honourable deeds; of parents, kindred, home; ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... preservative from misanthropy; and when vexed at the recollection of his own imprudent frankness and folly, in provoking the resentment of powerful foes, he soothed his galled spirit by considering, that the guileless simplicity of his nature, which had raised those foes, had also secured him a faithful friend. That bright creation of his fancy disappeared, a chaos of duplicity, dark contrivance, and injustice remained: Walter proved false, his sister unnatural, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... overhead with a wailing cry; down in the moat a crocodile raised his horrible, fanged snout, then sank beneath the still water. Don Luiz turned his bloodshot eyes upon the town in jeopardy and the bland and mocking ocean, so guileless of those longed-for sails. The four ships in the river's mouth!—silently he cursed their every mast and spar, the holds agape for Spanish treasure, the decks whereon he saw men moving, the flags and streaming pennants flaunting interrogation of ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... tongue to say that common sense had nothing to do with my action, and that therefore it didn't deserve the interest Captain Giles seemed to be taking in it. But he was puffing at a short wooden pipe now, and looked so guileless, dense, and commonplace, that it seemed hardly worth while to puzzle him either with ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... first representation in Hamburg. The pleasant impression then made by its agreeable and lovely melodies has not faded the less that, after hearing many of our stormy and exciting modern operas, one often and ardently {11} longs for the restful charm and guileless pleasure of a piece ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... in Evan. He loved her at sight and his instinct was to open his heart. Of course he was not quite guileless; the portrait of himself that he drew for her was not exactly an unflattering one, but it was a pretty honest one under the circumstances. He was careful not to bore her, and to grace his ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... Whoso would slumber, let him to bed. But he who would bicker, it must needs be with me. Here is a man of the Dale, who hath sought the wood in peace, and hath found us. His hand is ready and his heart is guileless: if ye fear him, run away to the wood, and come back when he is gone; but none shall mock him while I sit by: now, lads, be merry and blithe with ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... no poetic fitness without justice—retribution, pound for pound, and measure for measure. Set any audience that can be gathered to watching a play in which criminal and crafty art is made to meet and master a guileless spirit and pollute a spotless womanhood, and the sympathies of the vilest will follow the victim, and, in the end, demand the punishment of the victor. Nothing will seem to any audience so entirely out of place as kind and gentle ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... "perhaps we had better not discuss this until we know something of Emile's feelings in the matter. That is the only question that concerns us." With this she swept out of the room, leaving the major at first speechless with honest indignation, and then after the fashion of all guileless natures, a little uneasy and suspicious of his own guilelessness. For a day or two after, he found himself, not without a sensation of meanness, watching Rose when in Emile's presence, but he could distinguish ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... we stand, like clockwork toys, A lecturer papa employs To puff and praise Our modest ways And guileless character - Our well-known blush - our downcast eyes - Our famous look of mild surprise (Which competition still defies) - Our celebrated "Sir!!!" Then all the crowd take down our looks In pocket memorandum books. To diagnose, Our modest pose The kodaks do their best: If evidence ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... interview with, at Ujiji; his anxiety for news; the low ebb of his resources; his early rising; took the author for an emissary of the French Government; his hard fare; his suffering and privations; revival of his enthusiasm; his guileless character; his physical appearance, ; absurd report of his marriage, his general character and careful observations; sensitiveness of criticism; amiable traits of his character, and his Spartan heroism; his high spirits, inexhaustible ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... womanhood which had but one glimpse of the outer world will not settle down quietly amid fashions a century old. And Lucy Lennox, when she returned to the farmhouse, was not quite the same as when she went away. Indeed, Aunt Betsy in her guileless heart feared that she had actually fallen from grace, imputing the fall wholly to Lucy's predilection for a certain little book on whose back was written "Common Prayer," and at which Aunt Betsy scarcely dared to look, ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... had done nothing more, he had, by his detestable arts, broken up one of the happiest homes in America, and ruined his guileless victim. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... He was seeking; but His followers are constantly confident that he can, and are therefore his constant and ready tools for this or that party or interest. They sell themselves to monarchy or democracy, to capital or labour, with the same guileless innocence of what is happening to them, with the same simple-minded incapacity to learn anything from the lessons of the past. There are no short cuts to spiritual ends, and those ends can never be accomplished by secular ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... sea! Calm and guileless as a sleeping child, it lay outstretched beneath the pearly sky—now green, the delicate and precious green of malachite, the little red sails upon it like flickering tongues of fire, now intensely—almost one ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... also, had nature dealt most lovingly with the inhabitants of this land. Throughout the whole being of the Greek there reigned supreme a quick susceptibility, out of which sprang a gladsome serenity of temper, and a keen enjoyment of life; acute sense, and nimbleness of apprehension; a guileless and child-like feeling, full of trust and faith, combined with prudence and forecast. These peculiarities lay so deeply imbedded in the inmost nature of the Greeks that no revolutions of time and ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... "guileless Ministers" in the speech of a former Prime Minister on the fiscal question (1903) became in course of telegraphing "guileless monsters," and so reached the Bristol press. Fortunately, the newspaper proof readers were wide awake, and the error ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... oft have soothed to rest The sorrows of my guileless breast, And charmed away mine infant tears; Fond memory shall your strains repeat, Like distant echoes, doubly sweet, That on ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... Mabel; ay, and a comely," returned the guileless guide, looking earnestly at the girl, as if he distrusted her judgment in speaking slightingly of his friend. "Were I only half as comely as Jasper Western, my misgivings in this affair would not have been so great, and they might not ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... my strength of mind—fear lest any trivial act of mine, however guileless; the most innocent glance in the direction of a decent-looking woman; should be misinterpreted by the good ladies in whose hands I have placed myself—especially aunt Julia. You ...
— The Gay Lord Quex - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... and as she turned her head on one side, gazing up at the narrow streak of blue sky which was visible between the roofs, her dark eyes shone with a guileless, rapturous light, as if they were piercing the ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... simple pains, For tender recollections, cherished long, For guileless griefs, which no compunction stains, We blush; as if we wore these earthly chains Only ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... for the Mice, but, as he skimmed the ground, his keen eye caught the flutter of feathers by the trap and turned his flight. The feathers in their uninteresting emptiness were exposed before he was near, but now he saw the scraps of meat. Guileless of cunning, he alighted and was devouring a second lump when—clank—the dust was flirted high and the Marsh Hawk was held by his toes, struggling vainly in the jaws of a powerful wolf-trap. He was not much hurt. His ample wings winnowed from ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... it is very likely that many New Yorkers were familiar with the face of David Morrison. It was a peculiarly guileless, kind face for a man of sixty years of age; a face that looked into the world's face with something of the confidence of a child. It had round it a little fringe of soft, light hair, and above that a big blue Scotch bonnet ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... selection: it is as great a favourite of his as of mine. The lady on whom it was made is one of the finest women in Scotland; and in fact (entre nous) is in a manner to me what Sterne's Eliza was to him—a mistress, or friend, or what you will, in the guileless simplicity of Platonic love. (Now, don't put any of your squinting constructions on this, or have any clishmaclaver about it among our acquaintances.) I assure you that to my lovely friend you are indebted for many of your best songs of mine. Do you think that the sober, gin-horse routine ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... ready I am to forgive and forget," said Pride, with a wicked, mocking smile, as he saw the guileless child lay her hand on the poisoned gift; "you have spoken against me, tried to drive me away—nay, at this very moment, I believe, you would not suffer me to enter your door—and yet I bring you this cage ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... much to displease the Lord of Ringstetten in the events of this day; yet he could not look back upon them, without feeling proud of the guileless truth and the generosity of heart shown by his lovely wife. "If indeed her soul was my gift," thought he, "it is nevertheless much better than my own;" and he devoted himself to the task of soothing her grief, and determined he would take her away the next ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... subject and the Grand Lama here"—that's the name he called the count—"was throwing in details about his carving his friends, it flashed across me where I'd seen it. About a couple of years ago I was selling the guileless rural druggists contiguous to Scranton, Pennsylvania, the tasty and happy combination called 'Dr. Bulger's Electric Liver Cure,' the same being a sort of electric light for shady livers, so to speak. I made my headquarters ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... at last ceased to be a virtue. Knowing that the playful young monk who had made the discovery caused his downfall, he looked for a moment at that guileless-appearing creature. The expression of his face rapidly changed from a look of entreaty to that of ferociousness. With a vicious bound, he pounced upon his enemy, clawing, tearing, and biting. The other members ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... rolled into one, while physically, his exterior rather conjures up the picture of Harold Skimpole, though his eyes beam with the youthful impetuosity of old Martin Chuzzlewit when he caned Pecksniff. To this delightfully guileless good Samaritan, the rough, nay brutal, Uncle Gregory from Sheffield, with a heart apparently as hard as his own ware, is a contrast most skilfully brought out by Mr. CHARLES GROVE. Though the part of Uncle Gregory does not require the delicate treatment demanded by that of Goldfinch, ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... O Balthasar, thou whose soul is as dark as thy face, but whose heart is as guileless as the heart of ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... which humble her, they would not wonder why proud women are so difficult to subdue. This is a matter on which we all ponder much, but we dare not write honestly upon it. But imagine a young, haughty, guileless beauty, married to a man whom she neither loves nor honours; and so far from that want of love rendering her likely to fall hereafter, it is more probable that it will make her recoil from the very ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... jests as we read of in Grammont's memoirs, which generally aimed at making an ugly woman ridiculous, or an injured husband the sport and victim of wicked lover and heartless wife. No sense of the fitness of things constrained her ladyship from communicating these Court scandals to her guileless sister. Did they not comprise the only news worth anybody's attention, and relate to the only class of people who had any tangible existence for Lady Fareham? There were millions of human beings, no doubt, living and acting and suffering on the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... the air. The fragile creature, without knowing anything, or recognising anything, or understanding anything, softly floating in musings which are not thought, felt itself in safety in the midst of nature, among those good trees and that guileless greenery, in the pure and peaceful landscape, amid the rustle of nests, of flowing springs, of insects, of leaves, while over all there glowed the great innocency of the ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... bent, And stood, composed, to wait the dire event. Still on the cross his looks Anselmo cast, As if all thought of this vain world was passed, And in a world of light, without a shade, Ev'n now his meek and guileless spirit strayed. Where stood the Spanish chief, a muttering sound 50 Rose, and each club was lifted from the ground; When, starting from his father's corse, his sword Waving before his once-triumphant lord, Lautaro cried, My breast shall meet the blow: But save—save him, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... impossible. She meant Mr. Vereker and Mr. Norris from the office, and their wives and children, and Anthony's secretary, Miss Lathom. If Miss Lathom were not engaged to young George Vereker, she soon would be, to judge by the behaviour of their indiscreet and guileless faces. ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... all tuneless things! Hidden and covered things, away! Away, all crippled, shapeless things, And things profane and strange! Erect and naked all, and guileless, Bodies and breasts and earth and skies! Nakedness, too, is truth, And ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... experience has thrown, even that, far into the back ground. It was my initiatory lesson upon subjects which ought never to enter the imagination of girlhood: my introduction into a region which should never be approached by the guileless and the pure." (page 61) One or two individuals (Roman Catholic) soon formed a close intimacy with me, and discoursed with a freedom and plainness I had never, before encountered. My acquaintances, however, had been brought up ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... his friends well," returned the banker, with his guileless smile. His face was bovine, and in the heat of summer apt to be shiny. No one would attribute an inner meaning to a stout person thus outwardly brilliant. Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence appeared to be mollified, ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... a pause. The owner of the filly and his friend withdrew a step or two and conferred together in Irish at lightning speed. The filly held up her head and regarded her surroundings with guileless wonderment. Fanny Fitz made a mental dive into her bankbook, and arrived at the varied conclusions that she was L30 to the good, that on that sum she had to weather out the summer and autumn, besides pacifying ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... The guileless prostrations which the many affect regarding art judgments evoke the same degree of pity as the assertion of the beggar that he needs money for a night's lodging when you and he know that one is awaiting him for the asking at the Bureau of Charities. The many declare they know nothing about ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... of handling the shining cigarette-case Mrs. Pittaway rubbed her hands on her apron; then the look of favor with which her eyes had rested on the fair guileless face of the Terror, changed to a frown; and she said: "Bother the thing! It's sure to be stuck somewhere out of sight. And the bar ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... melancholy misgivings at this lean man with hair and whiskers of a lifeless black. Beck suggested a starved black spider, especially when you were looking into his cold, amused, malignant black eyes. He made short work of the guileless brewer, who was dazed and frightened by the meshes in which he was enveloped. Staring at the horrid specter of publicity which these men of craft kept before him, he could not vigorously protest against extortion. Beck ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... that the fingers of the lettered and unlettered itched alike with desire of the caligraphic art. By this desk loitered a large man of bland and commanding presence. He wore a white waistcoat, and a massive gold chain, with which he toyed while watching the guileless spectators or sought with soothing voice to entice one to display his handwriting in the order-book. My friend, who was small and thin, almost succeeded in defeating the vigilance of the white-waistcoated and honey-voiced Cerberus; but ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... thick darkness from the wise and the prudent. We must simplify our approach to Him. We must strip down to essentials (and they will be found to be blessedly few). We must put away all effort to impress, and come with the guileless candor of childhood. If we do this, without doubt God ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... Martin was quite guileless, and looking down at his coat in a puzzled way, as if to make doubly sure, replied, "No, it cannot be my clothes, for they are the same." Then, brightening, as the possible reason occurred to him: "Perhaps it may be my shaven face; you see, the ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... such a naive trusting person (HARRY laughs—CLAIRE gives him a surprised look, continues simply). Such a guileless soul that I thought flying would do something to a man. But it didn't take us out. We just ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... autumn of life, training up a large family in the limited accommodations afforded by a common shoe, we cannot but feel a twinge of compassion for the singular Mrs. HUBBARD and her lovely dog, who "had none," only to have those tears chased away by the arch and guileless portrayal of the eccentric ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... dwell Spirits of Evil, the never-resting, vagrant, home-destroying guests, who enter unbidden into the human soul! Hark, the rustling of their raven-hued plumage! They take wing, they fly aloft; 't is the shriek of the vulture, swooping down upon the guileless dove. ...
— A Ghetto Violet - From "Christian and Leah" • Leopold Kompert
... the solving of many problems; but from the pages she contrived to cull stories of lordly lovers and cruel or kind beauties, whose romances created for her a strange world of pleasure in the midst of her loneliness. Poor, neglected young female, with every guileless maiden instinct withered at birth, she had need of some tender dreams to dwell upon, though Fate herself seemed to have decreed that they must be no ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the guileless frankness which, from first to last, characterises her whole relations to Ladislaw. If there is one flaw in this noble work, it is that Ladislaw on first examination is scarcely equal to this exquisite creation. Yet it might have been nearly as difficult even for George ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... the Tsarina died—no one knew why. Anna, guileless and innocent enough, was at once suspected by all as having poisoned her, except the Tsar, who, to avert further suspicion, promptly created her Duchess of Poddoff. This mark of royal esteem had the effect ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... intimacy kept up between my mother and The Cleeve. Why was there that strange proposition as to her marriage; and why, when it was once made, was it abandoned? I know that my mother has been not only guiltless, but guileless, in these matters as to which she is accused; but nevertheless her affairs will have been so managed that it will be almost impossible for her to remain ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... Rosey my hand, and made a few good-natured compliments on her beauty and her tidy appearance. She had a simple, guileless expression, and met my half-bantering remarks with an innocent frankness that charmed me. She was only sixteen, but had developed into a beautiful woman. Her form was slight and graceful, with just enough embonpoint to give the appearance of full health; and her thin, delicate features, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... time of which he spoke, seated on this very piazza beside the innocent young lady opposite, who now showed no tokens of the sweet confusion, with which she listened to my broken confidence last night, and only glanced from one to the other with guileless ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... quite often begins his remarks with "on the ship going over;" the Young Lady declares that he has a sort of roll in his chair, when he says it, that makes her sea-sick] who was the most innocent, artless, guileless, natural bunch of lace and feathers you ever saw; she was all candor and helplessness and dependence; she sang like a nightingale, and talked like a nun. There never was such simplicity. There was n't a sounding-line on board that ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... impressively, holding back her hair from blowing across her face and gazing at him wide-eyed, with a wicked assumption of guileless innocence, "at the Mission San Jose there is a very old and very wise woman. She lives in a tule hut behind the very walls of the Mission, and the Indians go to her by night when dreams have warned them that death threatens. She is a terribly wise ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... defenses which might have been found in a different temperament. Full of health and spirits, she was naturally eager in the pursuit of enjoyment, and anxious to please every one, from feeling nothing but kindness toward every one; she was frank, open, and sincere; and, being perfectly guileless herself, she was, as through her whole life she continued to be, entirely unsuspicious of unfriendliness, much more of treachery in others. Her affability and condescension combined with this trustful disposition to make her too often the tool ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... terrible tiger roars and ended with the nightmare screams of a child. I have never been so frightened in my life. And there was a snake song, a soft, wavy, piano, pianissimo effect, all malignant stealth and horror, and running through it were the guileless and insistently hungry twitterings of baby birds in the nest. But there were comical pieces, too, in which ludicrous adventures befell unsophisticated monkeys; and there was a whole series of spring-fever songs—some of them just rotten ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... feel lost amid the bustle of New York. His dream was over, and at thirty-five he found himself amid the realities of a money-seeking nation. The look upon his face was sad, almost despairing. I certainly never pitied a man more than I did him. Pure, guileless generous—and poor, what could he do ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... world, and gazed on scenes As beautiful as rest beneath the sun. I trust he will remember all his life That to his best achievement, and the spot Nearest to heaven his youthful feet have trod, He has been guided by a guileless lamb. It is an omen which his mother's heart Will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... of tears washed away the vain emotions I blushed to have felt. But I could not be as though I had never known them. I could not recall the guileless simplicity of childhood, its sweet unconsciousness and contentment, in the ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... to terminate this inchoate comedy. At the same time I am here to help out Alcmena, poor innocent, denounced as disloyal by her lord, Amphitryon. For it would be sinful of me, if the storm I have brewed should descend on the head of guileless Alcmena. ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... the Vaisyas waited upon the Kshatriyas, and the Sudras adoring the Brahmanas and the Kshatriyas, waited upon the Vaisyas. And Santanu residing in Hastinapura, the delightful capital of the Kurus, ruled the whole earth bounded by seas. He was truthful and guileless, and like the king of the celestials himself conversant with the dictates of virtue. And from the combination in him of liberality, religion and asceticism, he acquired a great good fortune. He was free from anger and malice, and was handsome in person ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... foraging among the old manuscripts. He has since, at different times, visited most of the curious libraries in England, and has ransacked many of the cathedrals. With all his quaint and curious learning, he has nothing of arrogance or pedantry; but that unaffected earnestness and guileless simplicity which seem to belong ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... Adrian would watch him with great eyes. What meant this change? the guileless philosopher would ask himself, and wonder if he had judged his brother too harshly all through life; or if it was his plain speaking in their last quarrel which had put things in their true light to him, and awakened ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... please,' said Holmes. 'You did not let me finish. I was going to add, Dr. Tattersby, that a week's acquaintance with that lovely woman, a full knowledge of her peculiarly exalted character and guileless nature, makes the alternative of guilt that affects her integrity clearly preposterous, which, by a very simple process of elimination, fastens the guilt, beyond all peradventure, on your shoulders. At any rate, the presence of the seal in this house will involve you ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... years lost one jot of that intensely innocent and guileless look of childhood, which inclined one to laugh while he merely cast earnest gaze into one's face; but years had given to him a certain gravity and air of self-possession which commanded respect, even from that volatile ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... left Oakdale the morning after he had been interviewed by Grace and Eleanor, and it was afterwards discovered that the land in which he had persuaded certain guileless citizens to invest money had proved worthless. The swindled ones joined forces and put the matter in the hands of a detective, but to no purpose, for no clue was ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... doings, and sweetness and tranquillity—the ease and dignity of a matron elevating and upholding the maiden's native modesty. And did she not love her sire as ardently? Yes, if her virgin soul spoke faithfully in every movement of her guileless face. Yes, if there be truth in tones that strike the heart to thrill it—in thoughts that write their meaning in the watchful eye, in words that issue straight from the fount of love, in acts that do not bear one shade of selfish purpose. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... an abundance of fresh stores on board. The captain gave his steward some order, and I remember that the guileless young man asked me if I could manage, besides other things, a few cans of milk and a cheese. When I offered my Montevideo gold for the supplies, the captain roared like a lion and told me to put my money up. It was a glorious outfit of provisions of ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... so sort of guileless," affirmed Boyne. "Not that I have had a lot of experience, but in a lawyer's office you are bound to see considerable of ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... "old man" and all, for the car had supplementary seats to be used in emergencies, being built for seven passengers. Thad and Hugh were trying hard to keep from exhibiting broad grins on their faces; though, for that matter, neither of those simple, guileless souls would have suspected the least thing had the boys ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... July, she came out in her new dress. Lord Henry complimented her upon her elegant appearance, but she was not happy. On their way to the gardens, he talked to her in a manner which she did not comprehend. Perceiving this, he spoke more explicitly. The guileless young creature stopped, looked in his face with mournful reproach, and burst into tears. The nobleman took her hand kindly, and said, "My dear, are ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... of cultivating the sentiment of gratitude, as is the case in all other departments of moral training, can not be taught by definite lessons or learned by rote. It demands tact and skill, and, above all, an honest and guileless sincerity. The mother must really look to, and aim for the actual moral effect in the heart of the child, and not merely make formal efforts ostensibly for this end, but really to accomplish some temporary object of her own. Children easily see through all covert intentions ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... The fact that from the very beginning his actions were in apparent contravention of the manifesto was attributed by the Lutherans to the sinister influence of such bitter, baiting, and unscrupulous theologians as Eck, Cochlaeus, and Faber, who, they claimed, endeavored to poison and incite the guileless heart of the Emperor. Thus the Lutherans would not and could not believe that Charles had deceived them,—a simple trust, which, however, stubborn facts finally compelled ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... foeman in the land Whose deeds or tongue would gall; Of guileless heart, of liberal hand, He smiled on ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... such divine husbandry has completely cleansed souls, how guileless and how pure they may be! Nor am I speaking of the Elect, such as I saw at La Trappe—merely of young novices, little priestlings whom I have known. They had eyes like clear glass, undimmed by the haze of a single sin; and, looking into them, behind those eyes you would have seen their open ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... sober state, Through the sequestered vale of rural life, The venerable patriarch guileless held The tenor of his ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... linsey-woolsey hugs her spindle form; her teeth are shovels, and cleave down her nether lip; her eyes catch every point of the compass across each other's glance; her forehead is low, her hair, a smoky white, and her voice, now flat, now treble, and now sharp. But a kinder, or more guileless heart never warmed a human breast, than that which lies in Dinah Troffater's; and whoever were in fault regarding her strange looks, they cannot criminate her as accessary. She milks the cow, and yonder come leaping like vagrant foxes, her half-wild children, with a ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... Endymion's guileless heart was strongly uplifted. Not a question did he ask as to heating arrangements, save to show a mild spark in his eye when he saw the two fireplaces. Plumbing was to him, we saw, a matter to be taken on faith. His paternal heart was slightly perturbed by a railing that ran round the top of the ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... crestfallen, for could Fido have spoken he would have confessed that he indeed was afflicted with fleas,—not with very many fleas, but just enough to interrupt his slumbers and his meditations at the most inopportune moments. And the little boy's guileless impeachment set Fido to feeling creepy-crawly all of a sudden, and without any further ado Fido turned deftly in his tracks, twisted his head back toward his tail, and by means of several well-directed bites ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... science displays when he seeks to add to the knowledge of the world, but a kind of social concern. None of us is likely to forget that on the authority of Holy Writ the serpent became familiar with mankind very shortly after his appearance on earth, and whispered injurious secrets into guileless ears. Ever since the scene in the Garden of Eden, war between man and the serpent has prevailed, and now, if we are to credit the sayings of the wise, the end of all reptiles, if not actually in view, cannot be long postponed. Is it not mete, therefore, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... came armed with a papal licence as usual. What did these fellows come for? Was it to make confusion worse confounded? Alas! Alas! If we had only been as we were in the golden age, these friars would never have had a chance—not they! We too are not as the monks of old were; they lived the guileless life—austere, hard, self-denying, saintly! What are ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... much respected friend! No mercenary bard his homage pays; With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end, My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise: To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene, The native feelings strong, the guileless ways, What Aiken in a cottage would have been; Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... commonplaces of condolence, yet I must write a few lines to assure you of my heartfelt sympathy in your grief. There is one thing, however, that should soften the sharpness of a mother's agony under such a bereavement. It is the reflection that "little children" are pure and guileless, and that of such is the kingdom of heaven. "It is well with the child." Much sin and woe has it escaped. It is treasure laid up in a better world, and the gate through which it has passed to peace and joy unspeakable is left open so that you, in due ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... a firm, small hand she knew. She was the only person in the room and she had time to examine it thoroughly, even as to thickness, before Mrs. Hills came in. It happened that there were mail deliveries just before the three meal times and it was the boarding-house keeper's guileless custom to sort and distribute letters at the table, thus saving a wearisome climb and ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... for a week to make satisfactory impress on the Colonel's mistrustful fears, but the Cap'n was patient. In the end, Colonel Ward, having carefully viewed this astonishing conversion from all points, accepted the amity as proof of the guileless nature of a simple seaman, and on his own part reciprocated with warmth—laying up treasures of friendship against that possible day of discovery and wrath that his guilty ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... this little child happy. Poor Liz! Poor, bewildered, heart-broken Liz! Ignorant London heathen as she was, there was one fragrant flower blossoming in the desert of her soiled and wasted existence—the flower of a pure and guileless love for one of those "little ones," of whom it hath been said by an all-pitying Divinity unknown to her, "Suffer them to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... up at one. She reminds me of Praxiteles' Psyche when she looks down. Why did I not meet her long ago? I believe I ought not to stay now—something tells me I shall fall deeply into this. And what a voice!—as gentle and caressing as a tender dove. A man would give his soul for such a woman. As guileless as an infant saint, too—and sensitive and human and understanding. I wish to God I had the strength of mind to get up and go this minute—but I ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... a great and affluent author. Had not great and affluent authors—men who are the boast of our time and land—acted, yea, on a common stage, and acted inimitably too, on behalf of some lettered brother or literary object? Therefore in these guileless minds, with all the pecuniary advantages of extreme penury and forlorn position, the Comedian obtained the respect due to prosperous circumstances and high renown. But there was one universal wish expressed by all who had been present, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in the blood of the guiltless, it is recorded that the posterity of Avidius Cassius lived in security, and were admitted to honors and public distinctions by favor of him, whose life and empire that memorable traitor had sought to undermine under the favor of his guileless master's too ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... And thy guileless heart whose truth, my boy, Is to me a source of the purest joy, In whose sinless depths I can plainly see, That as yet from all thought of ill 'tis free; When manhood's down shall have clothed thy cheek, When pleasure shall tempt and passion speak, When beset by snares that have others beguiled, ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... that lurked behind these Oriental situations. He made the most of his chance for a quaint parable, applicable to the courts, the church and science of Europe. As the story runs on, midst many and sudden adventures, the Babylonian reads causes from events in guileless fashion, enthusiastic as Sherlock Holmes, and no less efficient—and all the while, behind this innocent mask, Voltaire is insinuating a comparison between the practical results of Zadig's common sense and the futile ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... a very English Englishman, with an inborn love of fine horse-flesh and a guileless nature. Some years before he had fallen into the hands of a promoter, and had bartered a goodly proportion of his worldly belongings for a horse-ranch in Dakota, to be taken possession of immediately. Long indeed was the wail which went up from his home in Sussex when the fact was made known. ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... and grief have plunged her into crime. I could never learn her fate, but the thought of her sweetness and purity has comforted me when I have thought distractedly of her. I could never connect anything but guileless innocence with those calm, clear eyes, and that lofty brow, ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... sheep's clothing!" thought Frederica, using as was her wont, the well-worn phrase with guileless zest. She held that although it might not, primarily, have been intended to describe the Roman Catholic Priesthood, its application in a later ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... As a further precaution against the suspicions of doubting Thomases, great care was exerted in the selection of priests and of their assistants. In nearly every case the persons selected were active, popular, and, apparently at least, guileless young men. I myself was shocked on discovering to what length these young fellows, in all other respects attractive and popular, went in their propagation of the fraud and of their insidious ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... Miss Baylis, who was only too delighted to shine so advantageously in her superior's eyes, had scuttled away, issuing as she went, the order to close all outer doors and guard them, allowing no one to pass through. Guileless souls both hers and Miss Woodhull's, though another adjective might possibly be more apt. The house had a few ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... this enchanted garden Madame Nilsson, in white cashmere slashed with pale blue satin, a reticule dangling from a blue girdle, and large yellow braids carefully disposed on each side of her muslin chemisette, listened with downcast eyes to M. Capoul's impassioned wooing, and affected a guileless incomprehension of his designs whenever, by word or glance, he persuasively indicated the ground floor window of the neat brick villa projecting obliquely ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... disclaimer. And all the time the deep, dark glance of Mimi was fixed on him, as though she would read his soul. If, indeed, he had any skill in reading character, it was easy enough to see in the face of that young man a pure, a lofty, and a generous nature, unsullied by anything mean or low, a guileless and earnest heart, a soul sans peur et sans reproche; and it did seem by the expression of her own face as though she had ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... dark eye and a long grey beard, he presented an image of vast wisdom and reverend probity. He possessed—an especial treasure for a statesman in that plotting age—a singularly honest visage. Never was that face more guileless, never was his heart more completely worn upon his sleeve, than when he was harbouring the deepest or most dangerous designs. Such was the "good fellow," whom that skilful reader of men, Henry of France, had sent to represent ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Shakespeare to let the father do the haunting and leave to Hamlet the role of a guileless and sentimental youth; the authorities do not agree as to whether Hamlet was really a fool or only pretended to ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... suppose that she would part with one gentleman before the other was secured. It is all over with Frederick indeed! He is a deceased man—defunct in understanding. Prepare for your sister-in-law, Eleanor, and such a sister-in-law as you must delight in! Open, candid, artless, guileless, with affections strong but simple, forming no pretensions, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Biff Pemberton, Hefty Hollingsworth, Bunch Bingham, Buster Brown, Beef McNaughton, and Pudge Langdon, who had been attacked in a fashion similar to Butch's spasm, concealed grins of delight, and made strenuous efforts to appear guileless, as Track-Coach Brannigan approached T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. To that cheery youth, who was brushing the dirt from his immaculate track togs, and bowing to the cheering youths in ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... drawn by their instincts, held fast upon it [the Spanish War of Walpole's time, in Jenkins' Ear Question], and would take no denial of it, as if they had surmised and seen. For the instincts of simple, guileless persons (liable to be counted stupid by the unwary) are sometimes of prophetic nature, and spring from the deep places of this universe!'[16] If the writer of this had only thought it out to the end, and applied the conclusions ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley |
