"Simple-minded" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the worried face of the big, simple-minded sportsman, more or less a child in his knowledge of the subtleties of human nature, and as he did ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... M. Jasmin shaves more skilfully than any other poet. After a long conversation with this simple-minded man, I experienced a certain confusion in depositing upon his table the amount of fifty centimes which I owed him on this occasion, more for his talent than for his razor; and I remounted the diligence more than charmed with the modesty of his ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... embarking for Turkey, Philip, with his bride, paid a visit to Newberg. His second sermon he preached in the Baptist church. To those simple-minded country people, he stood before them a living illustration of what the grace of God might effect. Six years previously he had startled and amazed them, as though he had ridden through the air on a broomstick; now he came back to them in peace ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... accepted Schiefflin's presence without any fear of ill consequences. Had their calling been more stealthy they would not have worried about him; prospectors went unquestioned among all sorts of law breakers then, owning something of the same immunity which simple-minded persons always got from the Indians. He came in at evening and rolled up in his blankets after cooking his supper; and in the morning he went forth again into the ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... not without poignant emotion that we have followed, at close range, this struggle for the mastery of the Ruthenian soul. We hardly know which we should admire the more, the faithfulness of the simple-minded Ruthenian, or the devotedness of the few missionaries who, for the last fifteen years, have lived, worked and died among them. We all remember that cry of distress, that demand for help which came from Archbishop Langevin in favor of his Ruthenian children. It broke upon ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... was a real belief in supernatural things among the simple-minded, a belief which, it seems to me, was much more in accordance with the Christian character than the senseless unbelief in every thing which cannot be explained according to natural laws, which is certainly ...
— The Pearl Story Book - A Collection of Tales, Original and Selected • Mrs. Colman
... effort of one generation after another to define with scientific accuracy and to everybody's satisfaction his exact nature and attributes; in consequence of which efforts there had come to be several most distinct but quite contradictory ideas upon the subject. There were some simple-minded folk to whom the chime typified a God essentially masculine, and like a man, hugely exaggerated, but somewhat amorphous, because they could not see exactly in what the exaggeration consisted except in the size of him. They pictured ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... lisp. It would be intolerable to me to pass a whole evening tete-a-tete with a brat. Don't draw that chair farther off, Miss Eyre; sit down exactly where I placed it—if you please, that is. Confound these civilities! I continually forget them. Nor do I particularly affect simple-minded old ladies. By-the-bye, I must have mine in mind; it won't do to neglect her; she is a Fairfax, or wed to one; and blood is said to ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... his ideal family had not reached. An essentially coarse method of finding fault was the only one to which it had attained. Never, indeed, was a more bumptious, conceited, and disagreeable set of personages created by an author, under the impression that they were the reverse. The simple-minded, (p. 153) thoughtful, and upright Mr. Effingham can speedily be dismissed as merely a mild type of bore. Not so with his daughter Eve, and his cousin John Effingham. The latter plays the part of critic ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... anything of your own that you've kept after they get through with you. And would you think that this poor, simple-minded old rancher would be any match for their wiles? But if you knew he had been a match and had nicked 'em for at least three hundred dollars, would you still think something malignant might be put over on him by a mere ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... merchandise of every description. Dutch uncle though he was to me, I must give him thanks for the careful business training he bestowed on me. I say with pride that I proved to be his most apt and willing pupil. He taught me how the natives, by nature simple-minded and unsophisticated, had lost all confidence in their fellow-men in general and merchants in particular through the, to say the least, very dubious and suspicious dealings of the tribes of Israel. My uncle said he was an old ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... report speaks more eloquently than many descriptions as to the character of the "simple-minded Boer." We discovered to our cost during the Indian Mutiny that the "gentle native" was not all our fancy painted him, and it may be as well to realise that our simple-minded and pious brother in the Transvaal is scarcely ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... again that, adopting the tactics of Conachar when brought face to face with Hal o' the Wynd, I have been trying to get my simple-minded adversary to follow me on a wild-goose chase through the early history of Christianity, in the hope of escaping impending defeat on the main issue. But I may be permitted to point out that there is an alternative hypothesis which equally fits the facts; and that, after all, there may have ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... of course that this unknown lady should have the best that the Hall could offer her, and that her old alliance with Sir Tom should throw open his doors and his wife's heart. Perhaps it was because Lucy's warm and simple-minded attachment to her husband had little in it of the character of passion that it was thus entirely without any impulse of jealousy. And what was so natural in common circumstances became still more so in the exhilaration and rebound of her troubled heart. Sir Tom was so ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... in the house, next to Mr. Lindsay, she liked the company of the old housekeeper best. She was a simple-minded Christian, a most benevolent and kind-hearted, and withal sensible and respectable, person, devotedly attached to the family, and very fond of Ellen in particular. Ellen loved, when she could, to get alone with her, and hear her talk of her mother's young ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... the oath with uplifted hand, and gave similar evidence. No one had even doubted for twenty years past, that Antipas was simple-minded. He often said and did strange things; but only when everybody around him was greatly excited, was he at all liable to ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... chef and then send her a formal invitation. I believe ours is one of the half-dozen houses where people don't pretend to be something quite different from what they are when Mrs. Lenox appears. And yet she's the most simple-minded and genuine person, and would rather have beefsteak and friendship than pate de fois gras ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... her uncle, James Binnie, and now of her papa, as she affectionately styled Thomas Newcome. This affection, I am sure, the two gentlemen returned with all their hearts, and but that they were much too generous and simple-minded to entertain such a feeling. It may be wondered that the two good old boys were not a little jealous of one another. Howbeit it does not appear that they entertained such a feeling; at least it never interrupted the ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... off; but Eric advised him to make no attempt of the sort as the boy was now under his protection. They rode on and left him grumbling and threatening as before. Thomas seemed highly pleased at the change. He was evidently a sharp, clever little fellow, though simple-minded and ignorant of the world. He was the son of a poor shepherd, but the desire to gain knowledge induced him to quit his father's cottage and to go forth in search of that education which he could not gain at home. He had met with all sorts ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston
... work to control his features. He wondered if the man was really a little simple-minded, or if the effects of his fall still confused him. He finally decided that both theories were right. For a moment he hesitated, wondering what to do. He wanted to get back into the passageway, and he did not want the German to see him doing it. As he thought, he studied the ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... And the kind-hearted, simple-minded Stoker serves as a foil to the villains, the kidnapping Badawi and Ghazban the detestable negro. The fortunes of the family are interrupted by two episodes, both equally remarkable. Taj al-Muluk[FN287] is the model lover ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... conscientiousness of very special brand to halt with them before paintings fit to please their unpracticed eyes but which he did not think worthy of admiration. He likewise passed Venuses, Eves, Truths, all nudities, without remark or pause, acquainted of old with the simple-minded prudery of certain Americans, ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... no," replied the simple-minded Sampson. "Nathless, it was I who did educate Miss Lucy in all useful learning,—albeit it was the housekeeper who did teach her those unprofitable exercises of ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... word-trap for unsuspecting souls; Spoke no oracular, ambiguous phrase, Intending merely the vicarious pure; Reserved no strange or mystical condition To breed fine points of doctrine, or confound The simple-minded and the slow of faith. Heart-purity and singleness and love, Fertile in loving acts, sole proof of these, Summed up for them, my father and my mother, All nobleness, all duty, all ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... simple-minded major prattled on, Macleod paying but little heed. There had been nothing about Major Stuart's courtship and marriage to shake the world: why, he said to himself, when the lady was pleased to lend a favoring ear, was there any reason for making ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... gate, which had borne the legend: "Quincy Wells, Dealer in Fruit and Vegetables," had been rudely altered in chalk to read: "Jackson Wells, Double Dealer in Wills and Codicils," and the intimation "Bouquets sold here" had been changed to "Bequests stole here." For an instant the simple-minded Jackson failed to discover any significance of this outrage, which seemed to him to be merely the wanton mischief of a schoolboy. But a sudden recollection of the lawyer's caution sent the blood to his cheeks and kindled his indignation. He tore down the paper and rubbed out the chalk interpolation—and ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... chief of the Mackinnons to borrow a boat. This old man was a fine type of a Highland gentleman. It was his daily—probably his only—prayer that he might die on the field of battle fighting for his king and country. He was simple-minded, brave, and faithful, and though now between sixty and seventy, as active and courageous as any young man. John had received injunctions not to betray the Prince's presence in the neighbourhood to the laird, but to keep such a piece of news from ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... whose houses were to windward. Many of their abodes had thatched roofs, and these seemed certain to go. The sparks flew in abundance across the road, and nothing, except a change of the wind, could now save those houses. The simple-minded Coreans, however, attempted a curious dodge, which I heard afterwards is in general use under such circumstances. Numerous ladders having been procured, men and women climbed on to the roofs which were in peril. What do you suppose they intended to do? I am sure you will ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... not in the least alter honest, simple-minded William Dobbin's feelings, and his adoration for young Osborne remained unchanged. The two entered the army in the same regiment, and served together, and Dobbin's attachment for George was as warm and loyal then as ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... some real effect produced by it upon the cheerfulness of the participants. The more rationalistic of the smaller species, we may be sure, find it hard to reconcile the existence of hawks and owls with the doctrine of an all-wise Providence; while even the most simple-minded of them can scarcely fail to realize that a world in which one is liable any day to be pursued by a boy with a shot-gun is not in ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... acknowledging the great mercy of God, who had been pleased to cast His eyes on the lowliness of His servant. Although this advice came from a poor countryman, it was nevertheless the very best that could be given to a saint. So true it is that no one should be despised, and that the most simple-minded persons often say more sensible and more spiritual things than men of the ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... despise this my humble offering which I have felt more need of publishing than any other of my sermons or tracts. For the greatest of all questions has been raised, the question of Good Works, in which is practised immeasurably more trickery and deception than in anything else, and in which the simple-minded man is so easily misled that our Lord Christ has commanded us to watch carefully for the sheep's clothing under which the wolves hide ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... boy would return! That was all she cared for. She really liked him, for he was so candid, so good, and so simple-minded. With such a son-in-law much was possible, she thought. Okoya could certainly be moulded to become a very useful tool to her as well as to Tyope. The woman felt elated over the results of the evening; she felt sure that notwithstanding one egregious mistake, of which of course she would ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... there is no man whom I love better than Porthos, because he is so simple-minded and good-natured. Porthos is so straightforward in everything. Since I have become a bishop, I have looked for these primeval natures, which make me love truth ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was so slow, that Fairford had time to notice all this, and to marvel in his mind what wily and ambitious priest could have contrived to subject his worthy but simple-minded hostesses to such superstitious trammels. Father Buonaventure's entrance and appearance in some degree accounted for ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... Dashope were men of the law, and Mr Robert Queeker was a man of their office—in other words, a clerk—not a "confidential" one, but a clerk, nevertheless, in whose simple-minded integrity they had much confidence. Bob, as his fellow-clerks styled him, was sent on a secret mission to Ramsgate. The reader will observe how fortunate it was that his mission was secret, because it frees us from the necessity of setting down here ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... the one side devotion, simple-minded loyalty and a fighting heart in a body of such mechanical perfection as Mars had never seen before or since. On the other side a primal beast, just as huge, rage-driven, ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... didn't want him to kill himself; he didn't care two cents for life except for her, and he'd just as soon go to sleep in the lake as not, "by George! he! he!" any day. And then he rattled his keys, and sang in a quite affecting way, to the simple-minded Kate, how for "bonnie Annie Laurie," with a look at Katy, he could "lay him down and dee," and added touchingly and recitatively the words "by George! he! he!" which made his emotion seem very real and true to Katy; she even saw a vision of "poor Mr. Westcott" dragged ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... is on the style of the bamboo spear trap described above but is much smaller, being set on the branch of a tree without any attempt at concealment. The poor, simple-minded monkey, on catching sight of the bait, walks up innocently, seizes it, and is wounded by the spear. He does not travel far after that, for monkeys ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... in such a way as to make it one seamless tissue of libel from beginning to end. This I say in full consciousness of the interspersed occasional compliments, since these have only the effect of disguising the libellous intent of the whole from a simple-minded or careless reader, and since they subserve the purpose of furnishing to the writer a plausible and ready-made defence of his libel against a foreseen protest. Compliments to eke out a libel are merely ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... General Headquarters, the very heart of German militarism, talking to General von Lichtenstein, the most powerful and astute man in all Europe. But for the German accent and magnificent uniform it might have been in the Union Club in New York, and he himself talking to a very nice, rather simple-minded old gentleman, who was flattered by the attention of ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... man put the question, lounging on the rocks and looking up into Lois's face. Tom grew impatient. But Lois was too humble and simple-minded to fall into the snare laid for her. I think she had a half-discernment of a hidden intent under Mr. Lenox's words; nevertheless in the simple dignity of truth she disregarded it, and did not even blush, either with ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... 'Simple-minded old fellow,' thought Waring, lighting a fresh pipe; 'has lived around here all his life apparently. Think of that,—to have lived around here all one's life! I, to be sure, am here now; but then, have I not been—' And here followed a revery of ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... intelligent creature, they would look for some unintelligent creature with a good strong body that would be capable of doing all sorts of things if it only had an intelligence to guide it. Suppose these virus-creatures found a simple-minded, unintelligent race on this planet and tried to set up a symbiotic relationship with it. The virus-creatures would need a host to provide a home and a food supply. Maybe they in turn could supply the intelligence to raise the host to a civilized level of life and performance. ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... itself that they may be its servants; but other things not in accord with it it discards and expels. That there is present in love every capacity for receiving truths in harmony with itself, and a longing to conjoin them to itself, has been made clear also by the fact that some who were simple-minded in the world were taken up into heaven, and yet when they were with the angels they came into angelic wisdom and heavenly blessedness, and for the reason that they had loved what is good and true for its own sake, and had implanted it in their ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... quite inconsolable, and rocked herself to and fro with all her hair over her eyes, till at last the drummer began to feel quite sorry for her and almost angry with himself. She was certainly most simple-minded and confiding. ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... was really showing that he himself had not the dramatic sense. The baldness of the idea and of the language had evidently offended him. But this is exactly where the true merit lies. Macaulay is giving the rough, blunt words with which a simple-minded soldier appeals to two comrades to help him in a deed of valour. Any high-flown sentiment would have been absolutely out of character. The lines are, I think, taken with their context, admirable ballad poetry, and have just ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... me, or it will be the worse for you!" and now Tom caught the simple-minded youth by the collar. He did not intend to harm the lad, but he wanted ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... inconsequential behaviour of the first-class passengers at the hotel. They were leaving by the liner which was to take me, and, I gathered, were going to cross a bridge to England in the morning. Of course, this might have been merely the innocent profanity of the simple-minded. ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... both which requests Messieurs were nothing loth to fulfil. It was hardly to be realized that these were the besotted habitans, the unimprovable race, the blotch on the fair face of Canadian civilisation; these happy-looking, simple-minded people. Hiram Holt was a slanderer. Full an hour passed before the Wynns could get away from the embarrassing hospitalities and politeness of the good villagers, who shook hands all round at parting in most affectionate style. As for Andy, much ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... at home, she found the country dreadfully dull; and that, consequently, she was extremely glad to have made his acquaintance. But what he chiefly realized when they parted was that he had spent a couple of pleasant hours talking nonsense with a girl who was natural, simple-minded, and entirely free from that repellently protective atmosphere with which a woman of the 'classes' so carefully surrounds herself. He and Esther had 'made friends' with the ease and rapidity of children before they have learned the dread meaning of 'etiquette', and they said good night, not ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... ahead of me were in their late sixties. Fifty years ago, what would they have said if someone had predicted this flight? The answer to that was easy; at that time, high-school songbooks featured a well-known piece entitled "Darius Green and His Flying Machine." Darius, it seems, was a simple-minded lad who ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... English who allied themselves with the "degenerate" French and the "barbaric" Russians; nonsense about "the freedom of the seas"—the emptiest phrase in history—childish attempts to sow suspicion between the Allies, and still more childish attempts to induce neutrals and simple-minded pacifists of allied nationality to save the face of Germany by initiating peace negotiations. But apart from their steady record and reminder of German brutalities and German aggression, the press organisations of the Allies have none of this definiteness ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... critics. As a rule, however, the reader is concerned neither with the moral purpose of the book nor with the attacks of the Reviewers, and so the preface remains unread. Nevertheless, this is a pity, especially with us Russians! The public of this country is so youthful, not to say simple-minded, that it cannot understand the meaning of a fable unless the moral is set forth at the end. Unable to see a joke, insensible to irony, it has, in a word, been badly brought up. It has not yet learned that in a decent book, as in decent society, open ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... her eye. "I believe it's out," she said. The other man in brown made movements indicating commiserating curiosity concerning the alleged fly. Mr. Hoopdriver—the word is his own—stood flabber-gastered. He had all the intuition of the simple-minded. He knew there was no fly. But the ground was suddenly cut from his feet. There is a limit to knighterrantry—dragons and false knights are all very well, but flies! Fictitious flies! Whatever ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... this relation; for said sermons must have been before him when he began the Large Catechism with the words: "This sermon is designed and undertaken that it might be an instruction for children and the simple-minded." (575, 1.) This was also Roerer's view, for he calls the Large Catechism "Catechism preached by D. M.," a title found also in the second copy (Nachschrift) of the third series: Catechism Preached by Doctor Martin Luther. In the conclusion of the first edition of the Large Catechism, Luther ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... him and tied him to the back of a horse and rapidly borne him into the interior. They might not have meant any harm to him at first, he thought, but when they found him examining a dog with great care they were convinced the simple-minded old man was a witch doctor and at once sentenced him to ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... effrontery of his military companion, who had claimed to be his friend, and forced himself upon the acquaintance of the powerful man on the strength of that intimacy; had even brought to his notice the fact—if it was a fact—that he had been at Magenta and in the Crimea. The simple-minded young man had seen no such diplomacy in Pinchbrook, or in the course of his travels in Maryland and Virginia; and he was fearful that the audacious fellow would dare to address the daughter as he ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... with simple-minded compunction at that distance of time. He said: "You understand that directly I stooped to pick up that coil of running gear—the spanker foot-outhaul, it was—I perceived that I could see right into that part of the saloon the curtains were meant ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... and patronising when she honoured Cary with a call; Mrs Combermere liked to call upon folks whom she denominated inferiors—to impress them with an overwhelming idea of her importance. But on the simple-minded literal Cary, this honour was lost, she received it with such composure and unconscious placidity: on Bab it produced, indeed, the desired effect; but whether it was Mrs Combermere's loud talking and boasting, or Mr Newton's easy ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... a simple-minded old soul!" replied the Judge, pleasantly. "And you're another, Williams! However, I am glad you are satisfied. So this difficulty is settled, too." For already one very serious difficulty had been arranged through ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... replied Jonas, who, with all his bitterness, was nothing worse than a simple-minded enthusiast, and never imagined that Sir Willmott's words could convey aught than approbation of his zeal, and the right spirit that dwelt within him;—"even so; and it rejoiceth me to find thee apt and prompt in scriptural passages. Verily, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... Simple-minded Bud readily accepted the wily half-breed's explanations and surmises, and fell into the trap he was preparing. This was to hold up the express-agent and rob him of the money Payson was expecting, on securing which it was McKee's intention ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... his statement failed to carry conviction in other quarters at least, Glass went further. It was so easy to string these simple-minded people that he could not resist the temptation. "Didn't you never hear about the killin' he made ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... overcome to get an education, made him a strong man. He knew people, and when he came later to be President and to guide the country through the greatest trial in its history, it was those same qualities of perseverance and courage and trust in the people that made the simple-minded man the great helmsman ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... weapons of defense, and are simple-minded to the last degree. Most are incapable of long-distance speed, but all have an exuberance of multiplication that fills their ranks as fast as foe can thin the line. If, indeed, they did not have several families, ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... I had ever called her lawn fete the climax of frivolity. The dear little soul! who would have suspected that she had such a worthy motive for her ball? But, do you know, sometimes in fashionable life we catch a glimpse of the simple-minded, homely kindliness which we are taught to believe exists only among horny-handed farmers, rough miners, ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... was then directed by President Woodruff and his two Councillor's, George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith. But President Woodruff was as helpless in the political world as a nun. He was a gentle, earnest old man, patiently ingenuous and simple-minded, with a faith in the guidance of Heaven that was only greater than my father's because it was unmixed with any earthly sagacity. He had the mind, and the appearance, of a country preacher, and even when he was "on the underground" he used to do his daily "stint" of farm labor, secretly, ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... on, and Lucy's pretty face and modest ways, perhaps her very sadness, which clung to her in never-ending remorse, caught the heart of a simple-minded man, one John Ashford. He was a flourishing grocer in a village on the banks of the Thames, and was then staying in London on a visit. After a hard struggle with herself the poor girl returned his love, and ventured to become ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... wandering about Pannanich, the shepherds told him many strange legends, and the old dames often enticed him into their huts to amuse him with fairy tales and witch stories. It was thought by the old crones that the wonderful boy had communings with more uncanny neighbours than these simple-minded people, who no more doubted the existence of witches and fairies than they doubted that the Dee flowed from the mountains to the sea. If report spoke true, he was often heard in conversation with intelligent ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... on and "clues" came to nothing, the police had no greater concern than quietly to forget, according to custom, a problem beyond their limited powers. With the release of the German musician, who was found to be simple-minded to the verge of half-wittedness, public interest waned, and the case faded out ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... tradition of the county, or any feeling whatever for history in stone, was about to demolish much, if not all, that was interesting in that ancient pile, and insert in its midst a monstrous travesty of some Greek temple. In the name of all lovers of mediaeval art, conjured the simple-minded writer, let something be done to save a building which, injured and battered in the Civil Wars, was now to be made a complete ruin by the freaks of an irresponsible owner. Her sending him the paper seemed to ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... voice of conscience, never heard before, heard suddenly, a voice I am at once endearingly intimate with. This announces feminine depravities in my affections. I am feminine, morbid, perverse. But above all perverse, almost everything perverse interests, fascinates me. Wordsworth is the only simple-minded man I ever loved, if that great austere mind, chill even as the Cumberland year, can be called simple. But Hugo is not perverse, nor even personal. Reading him was like being in church with a strident-voiced ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... gives the very essence of Utilitarian politics. I am afraid that it also suggests that the political theory was chiefly remarkable for a simple-minded audacity. Good political treatises are rare. They are apt to be pamphlets in disguise, using 'general principles' for showy perorations, or to be a string of platitudes with no definite application to facts. They are fit only for the platform, or only for the professor's lecture-room. Mill's ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... learn anything from these simple-minded blacks seemed useless. They would speak freely on every subject, indeed they seemed fond of talking with one whose face was white, yet regarding our journey they obeyed the command of the fetish-man to the very letter. It is the same everywhere in West and Central Africa; ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... is the more free to gain a foot-hold and go about controlling the tone of our life. There is real advantage in bringing the large issues of life to a point where not only our mind but, as it were, our senses, can lay hold on them. It is the impulse of simple-minded men like those early disciples, and if we continue straight-seeing we do not outgrow it. What makes these views of life so deep is not that they are less simple than those of others, but that they ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... along, hoping they will find some bars down where they can break into the clover pasture. They will take the tune as an inextricable conundrum, and give it up. Besides that, Pisgah, Ortonville and Brattle Street are old fashioned. They did very well in their day. Our fathers were simple-minded people, and the tunes fitted them. But our fathers are gone, and they ought to have taken their baggage with them. It is a nuisance to have those old tunes floating around the church, and sometime, just as we have got ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... days of liberty were now slipping by. Some of the poorest folk of the environs of Paris were at last coming into the city, bringing their chattels with them. Strange ideas, however, had taken hold of some of the more simple-minded suburban bourgeois. Departing hastily into the provinces, so as to place their skins out of harm's reach, they had not troubled to store their household goods in the city; but had left them in their coquettish villas and pavilions, the doors of which were barely looked. The ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... Obediah Hickson and he had once been a sailor, though he told so many different versions of his life at sea, that it was hard to say where truth began and fiction left off. Still he might not have meant to deceive any one, for he was rather simple-minded. ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... and other vehicles stood at the entrance of a house in which an auction was going on of the effects of one of those wealthy art-lovers who have innocently passed for Maecenases, and in a simple-minded fashion expended, to that end, the millions amassed by their thrifty fathers, and frequently even by their own early labours. The long saloon was filled with the most motley throng of visitors, collected like birds of ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... sees what he can do to "fix up matters" with the state's attorney when the charge is really a serious one, and in doing this he follows the ethics held and practised by his constituents. All this conveys the impression to the simple-minded that law is not enforced, if the lawbreaker have a powerful friend. One may instance the alderman's action in standing by an Italian padrone of the ward when he was indicted for violating the civil service regulations. The commissioners had sent out notices to certain Italian day-laborers ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... thought that, Mr. Crawford; for this is evidently a sweet, simple-minded lady, and more over nothing has turned up to indicate that Mr. Crawford had a romantic interest ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... had been snubbed by the jefe, who would not treat with us outside of office hours. When the presidente of Pahuatlan took us to the house where arrangements had been made for our accommodation, we found a garrulous, simple-minded, individual who was set to clear our room and make our beds. To myself, as leader of the company, he was attentive and ceremonious in the highest degree, and on several occasions he took my companions to task for their ignorance regarding the proper deference to display toward ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... suspect that, in some particular instance, one of your fellow men takes you for a simple-minded fool. To know you are being so regarded, not in one instance, but in general, is in the highest degree exasperating, no matter how well your ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... "A simple-minded people, basically good-humored," was the way the doctor summed the matter up when reporting what he had seen. However, it was not so easy to analyze certain things that were said during the time the four Sanusians spent in each ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... heart leaping sky-high. I worked early and late. I also played the fool as (worse luck) only boyhood can. With my fellows, arm in arm through the streets, I shouted imbecile songs. I went to all kinds of reprehensible places—to the bals du quartier, for instance, where we danced with simple-minded damsels who thought choucroute garnie a generous supper and a bottle of vin cachete as setting the seal of all that was most distinguished upon the host. With the first five francs that I made by selling a drawing I treated ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... went diligently around among the convents and religious orders, to see if I could find out any thing about the fate of Lady Chetwynde. My letters of introduction from Sir H. Furlong and from Lord Chetwynde led these simple-minded people to receive me with confidence. They readily seconded my efforts, and opened their records to me. For some time my search was in vain; but, at last, I found what I wanted. One of the societies of the Sisters ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... of the country had insisted on giving him one of his daughters as a wife, but that he had refused the honour because he was too old and too frail. The simple-minded shepherd, who believed his story implicitly, asked him, 'Do you think the king of the country would give his ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... by one of their medicine men to find three whites, whose horses, arms, attire, and personal appearance he minutely described, which description was repeated to Mr. Brown by the warriors before they saw his two companions. When afterwards, the priest, a frank and simple-minded man, was asked to explain this extraordinary occurrence, he could offer no other explanation than that "he saw them coming, and heard ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... for the old chap?" I queried. "He seems a simple-minded old sort. He might take it in. Anyhow, we ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome
... Uncle Gabriel has only lately assumed the additional character of father-in-law to Ephraim, for he declared that none but Eph-raim should be his pet daughter's husband. And now he has come for the purpose of having a confidential chat with Viola. There he sits, the kind-hearted, simple-minded man, every line of his honest face eloquent with good-humor and happiness, still guilty of an occasional violent onslaught upon his thighs. Viola still ...
— A Ghetto Violet - From "Christian and Leah" • Leopold Kompert
... been held, filling the house to overflowing, and eliciting the highest and most deserving praise. But that was of course from outsiders, and those simple-minded souls in the church, who never see evil without looking for good; who indeed are always finding the latter in everything and in every one but themselves. These were not competent judges. "Had the church ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... difficulties in a party struggle, again opened negotiations with Pisistratus, proposing that the latter should marry his daughter; and on these terms he brought him back to Athens, by a very primitive and simple-minded device. He first spread abroad a rumour that Athens was bringing back Pisistratus, and then, having found a woman of great stature and beauty, named Phye (according to Herodotus, of the deme of Paeania, but as others say a Thracian flower-seller of the deme of Collytus), ...
— The Athenian Constitution • Aristotle
... men of violence and blood, it was very difficult to find a suitable person. At length he fixed with much hesitation upon M. Codro, the astrologer. He was a simple-minded, good man; learned, though very artless. M. Codro was strongly attached to De Soto, the preserver of his life. As we have seen, he was well aware of the peril to which his benefactor was hourly exposed from the malignity ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... that; I've reached it, and I intend to maintain it. Why, you simple-minded jackass, these scientists will eat you up. They'll make a monkey of me and disgrace the girl. They'll pretend to expose her—the press will be on their side—and I will be made the butt of all their slurring gibes. I ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... patriot's enthusiasm fell flat. The Bretons were marching into danger partly from desire, but more from duty and discipline. At the very first shot these simple-minded creatures reach the supreme wisdom of loving one's country and losing one's life for it, if necessary, without interesting themselves in the varied mystifications one calls government. Four or five of the men, more or less astonished at the cry which greeted them, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... well, Brannan," said Langston, with a smile of deep meaning, "and among simple-minded military folk the answer would be enough, perhaps, but not to a lawyer. Would you declare that Howard did not wield the knife that slashed you—but ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... the name by which our old schoolmaster was endeared to his boys; a kindly, simple-minded, worthy man, teaching, as well as scholastic subjects, behaviour, morals, truth, loyalty; and these as much by example as by precept, impressing ever upon us the virtue of thoroughness in all we did and of truth in all we said. Since those days I have seen many youths, educated at much finer and ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... the simple-minded Indian inhabitants of the village by this sacrilege, and the great noise of the rejoicings, that they knew not which way to turn or flee, until they were seized by the brutal soldiers, and either killed or set to work with the negro slaves brought from the West Indies in throwing up fortifications. ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... to rest, and, stretching myself on my rude bed of rugs, in a room adjoining the kitchen, I blessed these simple-minded, hospitable people. Good heavens, thought I to myself, what a glorious field is waiting here for some new Theocritus! How unutterably worn out, stilted, and artificial seems all the so-called pastoral poetry ever written when one ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... great leader announces the birth of a new epoch, it is meet that the rank and file remain silent; and at this Congress of the Church of England no jarring interruptions marred the solemnity of the moment. No old-fashioned doctor was there to utter a futile protest, and there was no simple-minded clergyman to rise in the name of Christ and give Lord Dawson the lie. Without dissent, on a public platform of the Established Church, presided over by a Bishop, and in full view of the nation, "the moth-eaten mantle of Malthus, the godless robe of Bradlaugh, and the discarded garments ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... their waists or improve their minds, the effects on the hotel waiters and cabmen must be immense. They will be charged three times the ordinary tariff instead of only the double which is the stranger's usual fate at the hands of simple-minded foreigners. The satisfaction must be cheap, ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... may meet with simple-minded and ignorant persons, weak in the faith, as the Apostle calls them, who are as yet unable to apprehend that liberty of faith, even if willing to do so. These we must spare, lest they should be offended. We must bear with their infirmity, till ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther
... same organization often encountered and recognized each other in them. Contractors and "jobbers" used to besiege the offices of the Secretaries of War and Navy, and the venerable Welles (who reminded me of Abraham in the lithographs), and the barnacled Stanton, seldom appeared in public. Simple-minded, straightforward A. Lincoln, and his ambitious, clever lady, were often seen of afternoons in their barouche; the little old-fashioned Vice-President walked unconcernedly up and down; and when some of the Richmond captives came home to the ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... door he had had to burst was bolted as well as locked. He confirmed Mrs. Drabdump's statement about the windows; the chimney was very narrow. The cut looked as if done by a razor. There was no instrument lying about the room. He had known the deceased about a month. He seemed a very earnest, simple-minded young fellow, who spoke a great deal about the brotherhood of man. (The hardened old man-hunter's voice was not free from a tremor as he spoke jerkily of the dead man's enthusiasms.) He should have thought the deceased the last man in the ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... the world around. This is still another plant frequently miscalled shamrock. Good luck or bad attends the finding of the leaves, when compounded of an even or an odd number of leaflets more than the normal count, according to the saying of many simple-minded folk. ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... word. He was of the Gamanrdians, dwellers by the Sue, which feeds the great Western River; [Footnote: The Shannon.] his people were of the Clan Dega in the south, and of the children of Orc [Footnote: In scriptural language "of the seed of the giants," huge, simple-hearted and simple-minded men, who could obey orders and ask no questions.] from the Isles of Ore in the frozen seas. [Footnote: The Orkney Islands.] The blood of the Fomoroh was in those men. The women went on, and that grim company followed, keeping close behind. When they gained the first ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... men—officers of the law at that—being simple-minded enough to come fogging out here to me, instead of getting on the trail of the men that were seen on the spot! You say they came in a machine to the bank and you never so much as tried to trace it, or to get the license number even, I'll bet a month's salary you didn't! It was a ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... afraid: there is no man whom I love better than Porthos, because he is so simple-minded and good. Porthos is so straightforward in everything. Since I have become a bishop, I have looked for those simple natures, which make me ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... The simple-minded Monticelli had no psychology to speak of—he was a reversion, a "throw back" to the Venetians, the decorative Venetians, and if he had possessed the money or the leisure—he hadn't enough money to buy any but small canvases—he might have become a French Tiepolo, and perhaps the greatest ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... Myrtle was piqued to see that Cyprian was devoting himself to Bathsheba. Her ambition was already reaching beyond her little village circle, and she had an inward sense that Cyprian found a form of sympathy in the minister's simple-minded daughter which he could not ask from a young woman ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... ornaments came from Cubakan, meaning the interior of Cuba; but he, on hearing the syllable kan, immediately thought of the "Khan" mentioned by Marco Polo, and therefore imagined that "Cathay" (the China of that famous traveler) was close at hand. The simple-minded Cubans were amazed that the Spaniards had such a love for gold, and pointed eastward to another island, which they called Hayti, saying it was more plentiful there than in Cuba. Thus Columbus discovered the ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... may hear from her that he rambles, talks wildly. It may seem so. I maintain there is wisdom in him when conventional minds would think him at his wildest. Believe me, he is the humanest, the best of men, tenderhearted as a child: the most benevolent, simple-minded, admirable old man—the man I am proudest to think of as an Englishman and a man living in my time, of all men existing. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... she enforced sympathy; and each one began to have a half-guilty fear that Minnie had been wronged by her. Especially did Mrs. Willoughby feel this. She feared that she had neglected the artless and simple-minded child; she feared that she had not been sufficiently thoughtful about her; and now longed to do something to make amends for this imaginary neglect. So she sought to make the journey as pleasant as possible ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... barbarous islanders of the South Seas. A well-informed Roman Catholic priest told me that he had been disappointed with the progress his powerfully organized church had made in converting the freedmen. Before going among them I had supposed that the simple-minded black, now no longer a slave, would be easily attracted to the impressive ceremonies of the Church of Rome; but after witnessing the activity of their devotions, and observing how anxious they are to take a conspicuous and a leading part in all religious services, it seemed ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop |
