"Downright" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... complexion, though perfectly healthy; and there was something of the same expression, half keen, half dreamy, as in Geraldine, his junior by one year; while the grace of all the attitudes of his slender lissome figure showed to advantage beside Felix's more sturdy form, and deliberate or downright movements; while Clement was paler, slighter, and with rather infantine features, and shining wavy brown hair, that nothing ever seemed to ruffle, looked so much as if he ought to have been a girl, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... we offered tobacco-leaves to the dancers and musical ladies: both sexes eagerly seized the favourite refreshment, and crammed their mouths with it, then recommencing the music and dancing with renewed alacrity. When at length downright exhaustion put an end to the spectacle, the Kalushes were entertained with a favourite mess of rice boiled with treacle. They lay down round the wooden dishes, and helped themselves greedily with their dirty hands. During the meal, the women were ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... little spinster of fifty, with endless interests and not a hobby to her name, the most downright, practical person I have ever known, and the most helpful to strangers and pilgrims in the city. It is quite incidental that she is uncommonly rich and uncommonly homely. Nobody ever stops ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... opposing qualities. But the Steingerdas and Gudrunas were generally equal to any emergency of fate or fortune, and slashed their way through the history of their time more after the manner of men than women; supplementing their downright blows by side thrusts of craftier cleverness when they had to meet power with skill, and were fain to overthrow brutality by fraud. The Norse women were certainly as largely framed as they were mentally energetic, ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... only too apt to do in your place. You told the simple truth, when you said you didn't want the ragged wretch in your house. And what person of refinement, I'd like to know, would have wanted him? For, say what you will, it is a most disagreeable thing to admit downright dirty vagabonds into our elegant dwellings. And dangerous, besides; for they might murder us in the night,—or steal something! Oh, we fastidious and fearful! where is our charity? where is the heart of trust? There ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... and said that he were fainer if she were yet to wed, whereas she had done him shame and all them of his lineage; and he told her how and wherefore. When she heard that, she was sore grieved and denied the deed downright; but nought availed. For it is well known that shame so sore is contrary to all women, that if a woman were to burn all, she would not be trowed of such a misdoing, once it ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris
... is what I call downright mean," cried Matt to Andy. "Of course all these cracks at rival concerns are meant for us. He wants to draw the crowd away ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... many of them, conceiving that it might be the civillest way of requiting her for her instructive conversation and the trouble she took in showing me the house. It cost me a pang (not a curmudgeonly, but a gentlemanly one) to offer a downright fee to the lady-like girl who had admitted me; but I swallowed my delicate scruples with some little difficulty, and she digested hers, so far as I could observe, with no difficulty at all. In fact, nobody need fear to hold out half a crown to any person with whom he has occasion to ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... he shook the bridle. Dashing aslant-wise as before, the winged horse made another arrow-flight toward the Chimera, and Bellerophon aimed another downright stroke at one of the two remaining heads as he shot by. But this time neither he nor Pegasus escaped so well as at first. With one of its claws the Chimera had given the young man a deep scratch in his shoulder, and had slightly ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... an element which contrasted strongly with the general environment. Yet Bonner, perhaps, was not without qualifications which fitted him for his mission. He was not, indeed, virtuous; but he had a certain downright honesty about him, joined with an entire insensibility to those finer perceptions which would have interfered with plain speaking, where plain speaking was desirable; he had a broad, not ungenial humour, which showed him things and persons ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... are not questions that should be discussed in the hostile dogmatic tone adopted in both countries by those who only know their own. The ceremonies that are foreign to you impress you, while those you have been used to all your life have become a second nature. An Englishwoman feels downright uncomfortable in her high stuff gown at night, and a German lady brought up at one of the great German Courts told me that when she stayed in an English country house and put on what she called a ball dress for dinner every night, she felt like ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... is a way all women have with him. What think you a Virginian female, who happened to be passing through camp, had the forwardness to say to me but t' other day? 'When General Washington,' she writ, 'throws off the hero and takes up the chatty, agreeable companion, he can be downright impudent sometimes, Martha,—such impudence as you and I, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... there was nothing to be done (short of downright brutality) but to yield. He did it with the worst possible grace. 'Well?' he resumed. 'What do ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... and believe all things. The household is such a menagerie that it is no wonder that the German translation of this novel is called "Tollhaus oder Herrenhaus"? Some of the inmates are merely abnormal; others are downright mad. There is not a natural or a normal character in the entire book, and not one of the persons holds the reader's sympathy, though frequent drafts are made on his pity. The hero is a colossal hypocrite, hopelessly exaggerated. ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... word 'white,'" and added: "The question of striking out the word 'male' we, as an equal rights association, shall of course present as an intellectual theory, but not as a practical thing to be accomplished at this convention." Mr. Phillips also emphasized this point; but I repudiated this downright insolence, when for fifteen years I had canvassed the entire State, county by county, with petition in hand asking for woman suffrage! To think that those two men, among the most progressive of the nation, should dare look me in the face ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... and he drew closer. Beasley always had a knack of so blending truth with his personal venom that it stung far more than downright insult. He wondered what the Padre's generosity had been, and wherein lay its connection with their present purpose. The explanation was not long in coming, for Montana Ike took up the challenge amidst a storm of ominous murmurs from the ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... you ever see her so bright and jolly? She looks downright pretty. She can hold her own better than I thought ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... raged with great fierceness, and with almost uninterrupted success for the knights, till the final battle which took place near Pillerent, in 1456. A Nuremberg painter, Hans Rosenpll, celebrated this in verses like Veit Weber's, with equal vigor, but downright prosaic street-touches. Another poem describes the rout of the Archbishop of Cologne, who attempted to get possession of the city, in 1444. All these Low-German poems are full of popular scorn and satire: they do not hate the nobles so much as laugh at them, and their discomfitures in the field ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... longer be recognised. He would speak gravely to his mother about it. If Andrew again presented himself at the house he should be given plainly to understand that his visits were something less than welcome,—if necessary, a downright blunt word must effect their liberation. Godwin felt strong enough for that, musing here alone. And, student-like, he passed on to debate the theory of the problem. Andrew was his father's brother, but what is a mere ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... it. Coal-trucks!"—with a debonair reference to the fact that Leigh pere was a wealthy coal-owner. "But, you see, when I was having my fling, which came to such an abrupt end at Monte, the governor got downright ratty with me—kicked up no end of a shine. Told me not to darken his doors again, and that I might take my own road to the devil for all he cared, and generally played the part of the outraged parent. I must say," he added ingenuously, ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... conviction, (a thing now rather rare,) the religion of their early prejudices, especially if the conversion is brought about by any political machine, are very apt to degenerate into indifference, laxity, and often downright atheism. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... surprised and distant gaze upon him; but Baldassare was not to be discouraged. He had that tough skin of true vulgarity which is impervious to any thing but downright hard blows. ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... Francis Burdett his spokesman in the House and to the country, often venting his chagrin or singularity of sentiment at the expense of his friend; but what in the first was trick or reckless vanity, was in the last plain downright English honesty and singleness of heart. In the case of the State Trials, in 1794, Mr. Tooke rather compromised his friends to screen himself. He kept repeating that "others might have gone on to Windsor, but he had stopped at Hounslow," as if to go farther might have been dangerous and unwarrantable. ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... them you must; but do try and bear them without losing your temper. If a man have a stubborn Or skittish horse to manage, he knows that the best way to deal with it is by gentle, good-humoured coaxing. Just so it is in other things: kindness, gentleness, and downright good-humour will do what all the blustering and anger in the world can not accomplish. If a wagon wheel creaks and works stiff, or if it skids instead of turning round, you know well enough that it ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... granny had august company, and removed them to sup apart with an anaemic eight-year-old little girl; in none of whom Sister Nora showed more than a lukewarm interest, comparing them all disparagingly with Dave. In fact, she was downright unkind to the anaemic sample, likening her to knuckle of veal. It was true that this little girl had a stye in her eye, and two corkscrew ringlets, and lacked complete training in the use of the pocket-handkerchief. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... will soon get out," exclaimed the other neighbor. "I call it downright unconscionable to crowd up Christian women like this. Might I make bold to inquire, miss, when you ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... sovereign, having proved him sure Erewhile on auburn Ganymede; Stirr'd by warm youth and inborn power, He quits the nest with timorous wing, For winter's storms have ceased to lower, And zephyrs of returning spring Tempt him to launch on unknown skies; Next on the fold he stoops downright; Last on resisting serpents flies, Athirst for foray and for flight: As tender kidling on the grass Espies, uplooking from her food, A lion's whelp, and knows, alas! Those new-set teeth shall drink her blood: So look'd the Raetian mountaineers ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... lamentation, in strange accordance with his feelings at that moment, condoned the sharpness of her words, which hardly reached him. The failure of the missionaries to see the merit in his work showed ignorance, but was their own affair; the omission to say "thank you" for his gift was downright rudeness. Their open contempt of his little masterpiece rankled hot in his mind. He vowed before Allah never again to seek to please a Frank and risk such insult. Henceforth he would cleanse his mouth whenever ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... onset that in all that day there had been no such cruel press, and rage, and smiting. At that same moment rode fiercely into the thickest of the struggle King Arthur and Kings Ban and Bors, and slew downright on both hands right and left, until their horses went in ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... Rotten Row in April,—how in the name of common sense can Jimjams be expected to show up against high-class yearlings like Ballarat and Tifftoff on the Goodwin Sands, T. Y. C.? The whole thing is only another instance of the hare-brained imbecility and downright puddling folly with which the cackling herd will follow any brazen-headed nincompoop who sets up to advise them on turf matters. Jimjams has just as much chance of winning this race as Mr. JEREMY has ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 19 April 1890 • Various
... better to say. His mind was still confused by this sudden upheaval of his ideals. All that was best in Villon's poetry had stirred his enthusiasm, while all the much which was worst had left his sane wholesomeness untainted. To the half-dreamer, half-downright, practical lad in Poitou, Villon, with his jovial, bitter humour and even flow of human verse, had been something of an idol, and when our idols crash into ruin the thunder of the catastrophe bewilders judgment. But there was more than bewilderment, there was an inevitable ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... wander like pilgrims. They beg, and esteem it A paying profession. The people consider That misery drives them 20 More often than cunning, And so to the pilgrims Contribute their mite. Of course, there are cases Of downright deception: One pilgrim's a thief, Or another may wheedle Some cloth from the wife Of a peasant, exchanging Some "sanctified wafers" 30 Or "tears of the Virgin" He's brought from Mount Athos, And then she'll discover ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... a pained surprise throughout England. Men awaited with some irritation the proper work of the Convention. But on the second day, when the two strongest opposing candidates did not together count as many votes as the demagogue, there was downright consternation. ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... lack of sympathy with the northern cause. In 1887 it even became necessary for him to withdraw his acceptance of an invitation to attend a meeting of the Grand Army in St. Louis, because of danger that he might be subjected to downright insult.[4] ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... the truth once in a while. But there ain't anything in my life makes me feel as bad as this.... I s'pose you couldn't understand and I don't myself.... Only the sixteen years keeping still made me think she was gone sure ... but you were so downright good, that's what was the worst ... do you see what ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... ideal of chastity. The great Buffon refused to recognize chastity as an ideal and referred scornfully to "that kind of insanity which has turned a girl's virginity into a thing with a real existence," while William Morris, in his downright manner, once declared at a meeting of the Fellowship of the New Life, that asceticism is "the most disgusting vice that afflicted human nature." Blake, though he seems always to have been a strictly moral man in the most conventional sense, felt nothing but contempt for chastity, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... sheathed my prick in her bottom-hole to its full extent. Mrs. B at this awoke, and exclaimed, "Good Heavens! Fred, you hurt me cruelly. I wish you would be content with my cunt, I shall be unable to walk tomorrow. You know it always has that effect. It is downright cruel of you—but since you are in, stay quiet a little, and then continue to frig me with your fingers, as you know that eventually ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... This is downright sophistry. To any sane man it could not but be evident that this was an "unmistakable disregard of rights secured by the Supreme law of the land." The school authorities had separated white and Negro children ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... wish both the poem and the appointment at the place where pepper grows if you are to become pale and nervous on its account! Promise me now next post-day to be reasonable, and not to look like the waning moon, else I promise you that I shall be downright angry, and will keep ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... measure its weakness and strength. It is not helpful to a race to be continually praised and have its weakness overlooked, neither is it the most helpful thing to have its faults alone continually dwelt upon. What is needed is downright, straightforward honesty in both directions; and this is not always ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... things are going in the world-news, I tell you, girl! My heart is fairly dancing in my body. And, besides, a little puss like you is always glad to hear of an admirer, and only a short time ago you praised him loudly enough as a splendid dancer. A downright good fellow, child, just as I was myself at his age. An uncle of his, a captain ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... unhesitatingly as the word of any white man, and there are white men in the country whose word carries no more assurance than the word of any Indian. The Indian is prone to evasion and quibbling rather than to downright lying, though there are many who ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... Mrs. Vane drew herself up (figuratively). "Speak for yourself. It may be that I am too old to accept new ideas, but this one certainly seems to me downright immoral and indecent. This is not intended to reflect on you personally, Mary, and of course you were more or less demoralized by your close contact with the war. I mean the idea—the thing—itself. We may call in doctors and surgeons when we are in bodily discomfort, ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... he has saved his own skin at the expense of theirs, do their best to make up the difference to him in contempt and abuse. Schoolboys are not distinguished for a fastidious reticence. If they dislike, they never hesitate to say so, and they have a painfully downright way of giving reasons for their behaviour, which is apt to jar on a temperament so sensitive that its owner always and only treads the path of high principle when self-interest points him in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various
... priest, a monster. Mothers caught up their infants and ran into their houses as I passed; men eyed me spitefully, and muttered threats and curses. I was the object of suspicion and distrust - ay, of downright ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... wouldn't give a fip for all your politics, generally, but I think this is something downright cruel and unchristian. I hope, my dear, no ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... homely yet not poverty-stricken kitchens, keeping us as long as they can whilst they chat about their own lives or ask us questions. The beauty, politeness, and clear direct speech of the children, are remarkable. Life here is laborious, but downright want I should say rare. As in the Jura, the forest gorges and park-like solitudes are disturbed by the sound of hammer and wheel, and a tall factory chimney not infrequently spoils a wild landscape. The greater part of the people gain, their livelihood ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... it, or when I felt unable to help it. My mother had been so much alienated by my behaviour toward Marshall and De Saussure, that I thought it needful to please her by every means in my power, short of downright violation of conscience. "Children, obey your parents in the Lord," - I did not forget; I thought I was doing the very thing. For it was not to please myself, that I let my mother make me look as she chose and let her take me - where she would. My heart was too sore to be ambitious and ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... advantage of perseverance, till just about nightfall we got fairly into Mount's Bay. We thought ourselves very fortunate in so doing, for just then a strong breeze which had before been blowing grew into a downright heavy gale, against which we could not possibly have contended. It seemed, however, to be veering round more to the northward, and the captain, hoping that it would come round sufficiently to the westward of north to enable us to stand up Channel, instead of running in and bringing the ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... humorous. For once he had not the courage to pursue the downright course which his nature prompted. Little Coqueline was foremost in his thoughts. Then there was the memory of all the happiness his home meant to him, and he feared that which ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... cause of his father's ruin and death. Paul, had he been asked, would have acknowledged how he ought to feel towards young Devereux, but he at times allowed himself to regard him with bitterness and dislike, if not with downright hatred. He well knew that this feeling was wrong, and he had more than once tried to overcome the feeling when, perhaps, some careless expression let drop by Gilbert Devereux, or some order given by him, would once more arouse it. "I could bear it from another, but not from him," Paul over ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... immediate neighbourhood had, many of them, but little enjoyment of the exquisite sunny days and the calm nights of August and September. To several of the older people—Dr. Ayloff, among others, as we have seen—the summer proved downright fatal, but even among the younger, few escaped either a sojourn in bed for a matter of weeks, or at the least, a brooding sense of oppression, accompanied by hateful nightmares. Gradually there formulated itself a suspicion—which grew into a conviction—that ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... wondered at that some honest-hearted, thorough-going Abolitionists should have lost their equanimity? As you well know I am comparatively no bigot to any creed, political or theological, yet to tell the plain truth, I look upon your notions of government and religious perfection as downright fanaticism—as harmless as they are absurd. I would not care a pin's head if they were preached to all Christendom; for it is not in the human mind (except in a peculiar and, as I think, diseased state) ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... mean a great deal. I'd give I don't know what to be beautiful; but as I am not I don't mean to fret about it. Well, Maggie's downright plain; in fact—in fact—almost ugly, I may say; and yet—and yet, she is just Maggie; and you are not five minutes in her society before you'd rather have her face than any other face in the world. But the ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... absolutely immoral, downright wicked, to forego it," Alice declaimed, with energy. "It would be nothing short of ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... Articles of Faith let it be by direct teaching, not by question and answer. Children should only answer what they think, not what has been drilled into them. All the answers in the catechism are the wrong way about; it is the scholar who instructs the teacher; in the child's mouth they are a downright lie, since they explain what he does not understand, and affirm what he cannot believe. Find me, if you can, an intelligent man who could honestly say his catechism. The first question I find in our catechism is as follows: "Who created you and brought you into the world?" To which ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... recur to the principles of the early ages, these men wished to bring back the ignorance of the early ages. This notion, grounded first on some hardness in their earlier works, which resulted—as it must always result—from the downright and earnest effort to paint nature as in a looking-glass, was fostered partly by the jealousy of their beaten competitors, and partly by the pure, perverse, and hopeless ignorance of the whole body of art-critics, so called, connected with the press. No notion was ever more baseless or more ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... a word, conceived of stage personages on the basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable simplification of actual life be it observed in passing); and, placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... downright earnest," said the bailiff. "Harkye, Mr. Robin Ogg, or whatever is your name, it's right we should tell you that we are all of one opinion, and that is, that you, Mr. Robin Ogg, have behaved to our friend Mr. Harry Wakefield here, like a raff ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... daughter who sings admirably, and has a lovely pure voice; she is only fifteen. She fails in nothing but in stage action; were it not for that, she might be the prima donna of any theatre. Her father is a downright honest German who brings up his children well, for which very reason the girl is persecuted here. He has six children,—five girls and a son. He and his wife and children have been obliged to live for the last fourteen years on an income of 200 florins, but as he has already done his duty ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... for me, that a tall stately lass soon presented herself, saying, 'I be come to help you.' The intelligence was very agreeable, and I welcomed her in the most gracious manner possible, and asked what I should give her by the year. 'Oh Gimini!' exclaimed the damsel, with a loud laugh, 'you be a downright Englisher, sure enough. I should like to see a young lady engage by the year in America! I hope I shall get a husband before many months, or I expect I shall be an outright old maid, for I be most seventeen already; besides, mayhap I may want to go to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... I could wear myself out cleanin', I suppose," retorted Jane. "And like as not run the risk of gittin' some bad germs on my hands, and dyin' of 'em. From what Rosa says, it was downright shameful the way you muddied your clothes, and tore 'em, and messed in the water after nasty tad-poles that week you was up country. I won't allow you to treat your beautiful dresses like that, or climb about, or let the hot sun git ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... good-for-nothing Spanish piece racing and shrieking round the tennis court like a she tom-cat, the heartless hussy. Her and that simpering silly that's trotting round after her had ought to be put in a bag and shaken up, that they ought. It's downright scandalous to be carrying on like that at such ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... in the last chapter.[200] In 48 Caelius was praetor; in the master's absence he suddenly took up the cause of the debtors, and tried to evoke appeals against the decisions of his colleague Trebonius,—a great lawyer and a just man. Failing in this, he started as a downright revolutionary, proposing first the abolition of house-rent, and finally the abolition of all debts; and Milo, in exile at Massilia, was summoned to help him to raise Italy against Caesar. This was too much, and both were quickly caught and killed as they were ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... ground, and while examining these proofs, and arguing upon them rationally, he overlooked the light attacks of his adversary, when not to the point, appeared insensible to his sarcasms and wit, and remained always cool and serious. Voltaire's vivacity at last turned to downright anger; his eyes flashed fire whenever they met the benign and placid countenance of the quaker, and the dispute went so far at last, that the latter, getting up, said, "Friend Voltaire! perhaps thou mayst come to understand these matters rightly; in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... untangling for a good many years. Nobody else seemed to want to take the job, and so I took it, and I flatter myself that I made a pretty good job of it. The Germans have an inhuman way of cutting up their verbs. Now a verb has a hard time enough of it in this world when it's all together. It's downright inhuman to split it up. But that's just what those Germans do. They take part of a verb and put it down here, like a stake, and they take the other part of it and put it away over yonder like another stake, and between these two limits they just shovel in German. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... hour for a call, and if I have interrupted you in your work, pray go on. I wouldn't for the world. What a day, hasn't it been? I always think that these sort of grey depressing days are so much worse than the downright pouring ones, don't you? You are always expecting, you know, and then nothing ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... that counts, only he kep' comp'ny with me, an' I wouldn't hev ennythin' else but a real marriage, an' so he giv in, an' we hed a couple o' rooms in a real respectable house an' hed it fine till he had to go away on business, he said. I never 'b'leeved that. Why he was downright rich. He's a real swell, you know. What kind o' business cud he have?" Lizzie straightened herself proudly and ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... readers sleep, and their huge remains lie embedded in the deep morasses of Chambers and Anderson. We wonder at the length of face and general atrabilious look that mark the portraits of the men of that generation, but it is no marvel when even their relaxations were such downright hard work. Fathers when their day on earth was up must have folded down the leaf and left the task to be finished by their sons,—a dreary inheritance. Yet both Drayton and Daniel are fine poets, though both ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... sank into his body, till the blood streamed to his girdle, and the soil of the ford was crimson with the blood that fell from the body of that warrior so valiant in fight. And Cuchulain's endurance was at an end, for Ferdia continually struck at him, not attempting to guard, and his downright blows, and quick thrusts, and crushing strokes fell constantly upon him, till Cuchulain demanded of Laeg the son of Riangabra to deliver to him the Gae-Bulg. Now the manner of using the Gae-Bulg was this: it was set with its end pointing down a stream, ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... Napoleon's general. For reasons connected with its manufacture, and best not inquired into, the Italian vellum enjoyed the greatest reputation for smooth and silky whiteness. Dibdin calls "our modern books on vellum little short of downright wretched." But the editor of this series could, I think, show examples that would have made ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... when Euryanax and Pausanias both exhorted Amompharetos not to run the risk of remaining behind with his men, alone of all the Lacedemonians, they did not at all persuade him, and at last they had come to downright strife; and meanwhile the herald of the Athenians had arrived and was standing by them. And Amompharetos in his contention took a piece of rock in both his hands and placed it at the feet of Pausanias, saying that with this pebble he gave his vote not to fly from the ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... gentleman and mason, among other general toasts, gave "Caledonia, and Caledonia's Bard, Brother Burns," which rung through the whole assembly with multiplied honours and repeated acclamations. As I had no idea such a thing would happen, I was downright thunderstruck, and, trembling in every nerve, made the best return in my power. Just as I had finished, some of the grand officers said, so loud that I could hear, with a most comforting accent, "Very well indeed!" which set me something to ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... which is directed against him or his favorites, the moderation of the prince is meritorious. The pardon which he grants is a triumph obtained over himself! But when one treats of a crime against society, the pardon is not an act of clemency, it is a downright prevarication.... Every criminal who escapes justice threatens the public safety and innocence is not protected by being exposed to become the victim of a new crime. When a criminal is absolved all the crimes that he can perpetuate are committed by his hands." In no army ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... the purpose of emphasizing some idea, a writer has not entire freedom. Good use, which is the use of acknowledged masters, decides what may be done. There are certain arrangements of words to which we are accustomed; and the disregard of them leads to obscurity or downright contrariety in the thought. "Brutus stabbed Caesar" is the common order; "Brutus Caesar stabbed," or "Stabbed Brutus Caesar," is obscure; while "Caesar stabbed Brutus" is the very opposite of the truth. Those who have studied Latin know that as far as understanding the sentence is concerned, it ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... men—healthy dead men, don't you know? But—give you my word—a cadaverous spectacle like that poor chap, bones stickin' out of his hide, and breathin' as if he was stuffed with dry shavin's, or husks like the Prodigal Son, gives me the downright horrors!" ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... another with cords; many of them together held men in their arms, and going round the holy Sepulchre, let them fall, and then raised horrible shouts of laughter, while they who had fallen ran after the others to avenge themselves: it seemed that both old and young were downright mad. From time to time they raised their eyes, and stretched their hands, full of taper, to heaven, crying all together eleison, as if they were wearied at the delay of the holy fire. This scene continued till towards three ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... difficult task of re-allotting the wastes and open fields in proportion to the rights of the lord of the manor, the tithe-owner, and the parishioners, sometimes furnished an occasion for downright robbery of the poor. That staunch champion of high-farming and enclosures, Arthur Young, names many instances of shameful extortion on the part of landlord and attorneys. Where the village carried out its enclosure fairly and cheaply, the benefits were undoubtedly great. The wastes then ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... brought Colonel Thom to see me to aid in his negotiations, but I would not give in, so McKibben in the kindness of his heart rode several miles in order to procure the beef himself, and thus save me from the dire results which he thought would follow should Halleck get wind of such downright insubordination. The next day I was made Commissary of Subsistence for the headquarters in addition to my other duties, and as this brought me into the line of fresh beef, General Halleck had no cause thereafter to complain of a scarcity of that ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... Wit able enough to justify the town For three days past—wit that might warrant be For the whole city to talk foolishly Till that were cancelled; and when that was gone, We left an air behind us, which alone Was able to make the two next companies Right witty; though but downright ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... interfered definitely with what he did, and why should she? She exerted a silent influence upon everything he did, stamped each of his thoughts from the moment they began to shoot up. For the very reason that she did not know how to discuss, she could not be refuted; what to him was downright logic had no effect whatever upon her. He did not get his own thoughts again stale from her lips, and did not wish to either; her wonderful power over him lay in the fact that she rested so securely on her own, and answered the most ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... gossip of the newspapers. And nothing amazed her more than the announcement that Dora Dundas, of all people in the world, was to inherit his millions. Thoughts of Dora sent cold shivers down her back. She knew the downright and straightforward nature so well that she could easily imagine the hot indignation flaming in the girl's breast for any wrong or ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... I consider it a bloomin' liberty, and a downright piece of himpertinence, you comin' 'ere interferin' with with my business—and so I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... that an agreement on the subject had actually been made, and that it had been reduced to writing by his Excellency's own hand. The devices to which he had had recourse in his attempts to prove that he had merely been guilty of tergiversation instead of downright lying, were such as positively to aggravate the original offence, and to fully justify the Assembly in refusing to attach any weight to his unsupported statement upon any subject.[235] As the weeks passed by, the quarrel ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... seen, time's something server, In mankind's medley a duty-swerver, At downright 'No or yes?' Doffs ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... sight, saw nothing of this; but Hiiaka, in downright pity and goodness of impulse, plucked a hala fruit from the string about her neck and threw it so that it fell before the poor creature, who eagerly seized it and with the stumps of her hands held it up to enjoy its odor. At the sight of the woman's ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... you were a bold man with women, and I know that at least that part of what you said was untrue, for you are a bashful man, John, you are downright bashful. It is I who have been bold. You were too timid to woo me, and I so longed for ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... expression of divine beauty; and at first a shudder runs through him, and again the old awe steals over him; then looking upon the face of his beloved as of a god he reverences him, and if he were not afraid of being thought a downright madman, he would sacrifice to his beloved as to the image of a god; then while he gazes on him there is a sort of reaction, and the shudder passes into an unusual heat and perspiration; for, as he receives the effluence of beauty through ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... audience nightly with his fine baritone voice, good enough for a ballad in those latitudes, and good enough indeed for something much better if it had been properly exercised under a master. He was not downright dissolute, but his experience with his father, who was weak and silly, had given him a distaste for what he called religion; and he was loose, as might be expected. Still, he was not so loose as to have lost his ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... I ever saw when it comes to downright luck, and that's the truth, Dick," said Mr. Winslow, as he stepped out and joined the other when banking hours were done; which on this day was not until ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... aside, is it not a glorious part to play, when you pit yourself against mankind, and the luck is on your side? I have thought a good deal about the constitution of your present social Dis-order. A duel is downright childish, my boy! utter nonsense and folly! When one of two living men must be got out of the way, none but an idiot would leave chance to decide which it is to be; and in a duel it is a toss-up—heads or tails—and there ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... repeated Persis, the tears running down her cheeks. "But there's a difference in women. And the Annabel Sinclair kind, with brains enough to keep 'em from being downright bad and not enough conscience to make 'em good, are the worst of the lot. If the devil couldn't count on their help in laying traps for good men, he'd ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... Slesinger, who was plain but almost as rich as himself, and in his distress he very nearly succumbed; but Clara swooped in to save him, and found that her position was made almost impossible by whispered tittle-tattle, cold looks, and downright rudeness. She was distinctly left out of picnic and boating parties, and almost in contempt she was partnered with Sir Henry who, after Lady Bracebridge's arrival, was no longer master in his own house.... When the Cabinet Ministers ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... some gentlemen towards others, who differed in opinion from them on a subject of so much difficulty as the present. He protested against a debate, in which he could trace nothing like reason; but, on the contrary, downright phrensy, raised perhaps by the most extraordinary eloquence. The abolition, as proposed, was impracticable. He denied the right of the legislature to pass a law for it. He warned the Chancellor of the Exchequer to beware ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... this very moment in my little shop, home in Falmouth, I've a corner cupboard of his under repair that he wouldn't trust to another living soul! And along comes you an' say, 'That man's innocent! Look at his face!' you says, which it's downright womanly instink, if ever there was such a thing in ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... grasp that does not grasp a truth. When he speaks of nature as "immeasurably superior to all that the human mind can conceive," and professes to "pay no regard whatsoever to what may be thought beautiful, or sublime, or imaginative," and to "look only for truth, bare, clear downright statement of facts," he seems to forget what nature is, as adopted by, as taken into art; it is not only external nature, but external nature in conjunction with the human mind. Nor does he, in fact, adhere in the subsequent part of his work to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... brutal, downright words, leaving the poor young thing nothing to say, no little pretence even to herself that she had guarded the proprieties, had comported herself circumspectly, leaving her with not even a little rag of a claim that she had conducted herself with seemly decorum, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... and gives a capital account of the battle between OUR and YOUR weeds. Does it not hurt your Yankee pride that we thrash you so confoundedly? I am sure Mrs. Gray will stick up for your own weeds. Ask her whether they are not more honest, downright good sort of weeds. The book gives an extremely pretty picture of one of your villages; but I see your autumn, though so much more gorgeous than ours, comes on sooner, and that ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... you've learned all you have about boats without ever goin' near the water beats me. Now you ain't a-goin' to think of quittin' Wilton an' leavin' me high an' dry with this propeller idee, are you? 'Twould be a downright shabby trick." ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... always said it) a sailor is the most unfortunate chap alive, one day dried up in these burning latitudes, and then sent to cool his nose up among the icebergs. It's all very well for Dio there. It's his nature to like heat. For us poor white-skinned chaps, it's nothing but downright cruelty." ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston
... as if your own body ran into the horse's body and it was your own forelegs grown with his that sprang, rushing through the air you go, the ground resilient, bodies a mass of muscles, yet you have command too, upright stillness, eyes accurately judging. Then the curves cease, changing to downright hammer strokes, which jar; and you draw up with a jolt; sitting back a little, sparkling, tingling, glazed with ice over pounding arteries, gasping: "Ah! ho! Hah!" the steam going up from the horses as they jostle together at the cross-roads, where the signpost is, and the ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... ad infinitum, with ceaseless arguments that proved nothing and convinced nobody, and a continual stream of contradiction that just fell short of downright quarreling. ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... consists of German elements already resident in the Tsardom. It is a monument of Teuton audacity and Slav forbearance. One might ransack the history of European nations without finding another such instance of downright effrontery and disloyalty on the part of a privileged section of the community, and of easy-going toleration on the part of the State. The German elements of the provinces of Kurland and Livland, subjects of the Tsar though they are, resolved after the ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... labourer who had risen to be a small farmer, had in spite of all obstacles learned to read and write and become a great master of the vernacular. His earliest model had been Swift's Tale of a Tub, and in downright vigour of homely language he could scarcely be surpassed even by the author of the Drapier's Letters. He had enlisted as a soldier, and had afterwards drifted to America. There he had become conspicuous as a typical John Bull. Sturdy and pugnacious ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... few hours old. Look there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and sheath-knife. Here comes another with a sou'-wester and a bombazine cloak. No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one — I mean a downright bumpkin dandy —a fellow that, in the dog-days, will mow his two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Now when a country dandy like this takes it into his head to make a distinguished reputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... be offended and tell Olga that she was tired of him: or to be dignified and say he was unusually busy. Never had he shown such forbearance towards downright rudeness as he had shown to Lucia, and though he had shown that for Olga's sake, she seemed to be without a single spark of gratitude, but continued ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... Yes, that was certainly very odd—that is, it was either very odd or very commonplace. And in either case the family is terribly cut up about it. The boy's name was Arthur Benham, and he was rather a young fool, but not downright vicious, I should think. I never knew him at all well, but I know he spent his time chiefly at the Cafe de Paris and at the Olympia and at Longchamps and at Henry's Bar. Well, he just disappeared, that is all. He dropped completely out of sight between two days, ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... importance to you and for me, but after all it does not concern the orbit of a planet and there is no use talking and acting as if it did." This sense of humour often saves the American in a situation in which the Englishman would have recourse to downright brutality; it unties the Gordian knot instead of cutting it. A too strong conviction of being in the right often leads to conflicts that would be avoided by a more humorous appreciation of the relative importance of phenomena. ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... a slightly differing friend more than a downright enemy. I quite calculate on my being one day or other holden in worse repute by many Christians than the Unitarians and open infidels. It must be undergone by every one who loves the truth for its own sake beyond all ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... "Shore you're a downright good pard," declared Stevens, in admiration, as he took the money. "I give my word, Buck, an' I'm here to say I never broke it yet. Lay low, an' look fer me ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... he was half mad and loved to frighten her, and that she believed in the stories she circulated. [73] The Duke of Wellington said of George IV's story that he was at the Battle of Waterloo, "At first it was a lie, than a strong delusion, and at last downright madness." ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... over there, and I should not have strength to strike a blow; whereas with the rope under my arms and my foot on the edge of the sill, which projects a few inches beyond the side of the window, I could stand upright and strike a downright blow ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... patriotism and national pride often go along with credulity, so that we find here and there in literature of this kind, even downright fabrication. After the introduction of printing, by which literature became more widely diffused, and comparative criticism was rendered possible, it at once became evident among Catholics that error was mixed with truth and that ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... means," Dick replied. "We can come very close to thrashing Fred Ripley and his crew. And they can be scared away, too. But Mr. Fits is downright dangerous." ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... Mrs. Cluppins and Tommy. Entering the coach in waiting, to be driven, as they thought, to Dodson and Fogg's, they were alas! sadly deceived, for shortly afterwards Mrs. Bardell was safely deposited in the Fleet Prison for not having paid those rascals their costs, and promptly fainted in "real downright earnest." ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... a Controversy of Scripture against Scripture, or of Reason against Reason, but of downright Impudence against the plain meaning of Scripture, and all the Sense and Reason of Mankind." And accordingly he scruples not to say, in a most drolling manner, that "Transubstantiation is one of the chief ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... hold of him there. It is really too bad of Cathcart, being a downright good fellow, to forget that he ran away with Miss Selby, old Sir George, the baronet's daughter. Neither of them ever repented it; though he was only Captain Cathcart then, in a regiment of foot, too, and was not even next heir to the ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... this downright and unmistakeable opinion, Miss Lavinia raised her head with dignity, and smoothed down her ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... while longer no sound came from the deck of any sort whatever, and by that I knew that all the boats must have got away. And as I realized that I was forsaken, and felt sure from what I had heard that the ship would float for only a few minutes longer, I gave a cry of downright despair—and then I lost track of the whole bad business by tumbling to the floor in the darkness in ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... a little upper room. She has a small, brisk, wide-awake figure, not ungraceful; frank, simple, straightforward, and downright. She had on a robe, I think, but I did not look so low, my attention being chiefly drawn to a sort of man's sack of purple or plum-colored broadcloth, into the side-pockets of which her hands were thrust ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a strong escort every day, out or in, on the Picolata road, there had been more downright murdering there than in any other part of the territory, some having been shot down almost in sight of Augustine. This was not escort-day, but if it had been, our horses were not disposed to be six hours in the sun, in going so short ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... scrupulous investigation. Well, on my soul and conscience, I do not find the fruit ripe enough, or to speak plainly, I do not consider that you have sufficient grounds to justify your petition for a judicial separation. Let us not forget that the French law is a very downright kind of thing, totally devoid of delicate feeling for nice distinctions. It recognizes only acts, serious, brutal acts, and unfortunately it is these acts we lack. Most assuredly I have been deeply touched while reading the account of the first ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... brought the two girls nearer and nearer together; and Peggy found herself yielding more and more—often against her own judgment—to the fascination of the lawless girl, who on her part seemed curiously drawn to the simple, downright, ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... capable of great presumption, but in this insolent and dictatorial address you surpass yourself—you positively out-Herod Herod! In the whole history of the country, and of parties, I venture the assertion, that a parallel piece of impudence, and downright bold-faced assurance, cannot be pointed to, as the act of any partisan. It is really past all belief, if I had not your production before me. But ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... narrowing the plain much there, till it made a bight, the face whereof looked wellnigh north, instead of west, as did the more part of the wall. And in the midst of that northern-looking bight was a dark place which seemed to Walter like a downright shard in the cliff. For the face of the wall was of a bleak grey, and it ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... trick once too often," said old Billy. "It's downright murder in you boys to try and fool me into going up seven long flights of steps on an awful hot ...
— Harper's Young People, September 14, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... was ready, and the heavy bar caught and shivered the light sword, and then swung and hurled the thane back among his men with a rib broken. Havelok followed that up, falling on the men even as their leader was among their feet. Two he felled with downright strokes, and another shrank away in time to save himself from the like fate. Then a fourth got in under his guard, and wounded Havelok slightly in the left arm; and unless Biorn had been out and beside him by that time it would have ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... resistance Trina had induced her husband to consent to such a move, bewildering him with a torrent of phrases and marvellous columns of figures by which she proved conclusively that they were in a condition but one remove from downright destitution. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... poor Larkspur got a fall, and I broke my knee, and so of course I was of no more use there. But I could not live without horses, of course I couldn't, so I took to the hotels. And I can tell ye it is a downright pleasure to handle an animal like this, well-bred, well-mannered, well-cared-for; bless ye! I can tell how a horse is treated. Give me the handling of a horse for twenty minutes, and I'll tell you what sort of a groom he has had. Look at this one, pleasant, quiet, ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... sheer modesty of the honor of being President of the United States. His is one of the truly Homeric figures in American history. By downright purity of motive, transparency of purpose, and the devotion of commanding powers to the public good, he won for himself the honor, the love and the unbounded confidence of all his fellows. It used to be said of him that he was as honest as any man under heaven or in it. He might have aspired ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... sort. It is the basis on which society rests, the conventional agreement. If society is about to be overturned, it is on this point. Women are beginning to tell men what they really think of them; and to insist that the same relations of downright sincerity and independence that exist between men shall exist between women and men. Absolute truth between souls, without regard to sex, has always been the ideal life of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... by not answering me with a compliment. it is very weak to be pleased with flattery; the stupidest of 'all delusions to beg it. From You I should take it ill. We have known one another almost fifty years—to very little purpose, indeed, if any ceremony is necessary, or downright sincerity not established between us. tell me that you are recovered, and that I shall see you some time or other. I have finished the catalogue of my collection; but you shall never have it without fetching, nor, though a less punishment, the prints you desire. I propose ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... said Mrs. Medlock. "She's begun to be downright pretty since she's filled out and lost her ugly little sour look. Her hair's grown thick and healthy looking and she's got a bright color. The glummest, ill-natured little thing she used to be and now her and Master Colin laugh together like a pair of crazy young ones. Perhaps ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Ashamed!—It needn't have been downright feats, Such as the braving men, the like of Shale, Do easily, and smile, keeping them up. If I could look back to one manful hour Of romping in the face of ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... so," said I. "I have always preferred the excitement of downright fighting to the sort of work we ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... remark. At the epoch of our narrative, had this peculiarity not attracted observation, there would have been room for wonder indeed. It was soon reported that, upon all occasions of the kind, the smile of Bon-Bon was wont to differ widely from the downright grin with which he would laugh at his own jokes, or welcome an acquaintance. Hints were thrown out of an exciting nature; stories were told of perilous bargains made in a hurry and repented of at leisure; ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the first downright cowardly thing I have ever known you to say!" she declared. "And I wish you to know, Mr. Thomas Jefferson Gordon, that Mr. Duxbury Farley and Mr. Vincent Farley and Miss Eva Farley are my guests and my friends!" And with that for her leave-taking, ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... a scene. How much less romantic the town looked now than when I saw it floating, as it seemed, upon the sky-blue water in a haze of gold-dust fired by the slanting rays! It was then like the Castillon of some troubadour's song; now it was a mean-looking little sun-baked town modernized to downright plainness, with no remnant of its ramparts remaining save a sombre old Gothic gateway near the river, and no ecclesiastical architecture deserving notice. Its site, however, is the same as that which it occupied in the Middle Ages, namely, ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... Junius, Modus, Currency Lass, and others of Australian turf pedigree; nay, even a young girl, when asked how she would like to go to England, replied with great naivete, "I should be afraid to go, from the number of thieves there," doubtless conceiving England to be a downright hive of such, that threw off its annual swarms to people the wilds of this colony. Nay, the very miserable looking trees that cast their annual coats of bark, and present to the eye of a raw European the appearance of being actually dead, I have heard praised as objects of incomparable ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... himself a salesman. Therefore he has never studied with personal interest the fine art of selling. He does not realize that ignorance of salesmanship, and consequent non-use of the selling process, almost always are responsible for the merely partial success or the downright failure in life of the man who deserves to ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... even to boldness in her scrutiny, and her manner was rough and ready; but there was a touch of something fine about her—something true, downright, unmistakable—that somehow won people's confidence. Nan Beresford drew nearer to ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... variety of vernaculars it was necessary to keep up and extend a practical acquaintance with the language which supplies all the religious and most of the metaphysical phraseology; and during my last year at Sindian Karachi (1849), I imported a Shaykh from Maskat. Then work began in downright earnest. Besides Erpenius' (D'Erp) "Grammatica Arabica," Richardson, De Sacy and Forbes, I read at least a dozen Perso-Arabic works (mostly of pamphlet form) on "Serf Wa Nahw"—Accidence and Syntax—and learned by heart one-fourth of the Koran. A succession of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... bread, it is held as a sort of sine-qua-non; like that, it may be made invariably palatable by a little care in a few plain particulars, through neglect of which it often becomes intolerable. The soggy, waxy, indigestible viand that often appears in the potato-dish is a downright sacrifice of the better ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... and exhibiting in their freedom of speech more sorrow and sympathy than fault-finding; but in the prevention of wrong-doing and in earnest fighting against the passions they are vehement and inexorable and assiduous: for that is the time for downright plainness and truth. Besides we see that enemies censure one another for what they have done amiss, as Diogenes said,[495] he who wished to lead a good life ought to have good friends or red-hot enemies, for the former told you what was right, and the latter blamed you if you did what was wrong. ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... dear native mud. The air here is too thin for me, and the sky's too clean; and—oh, Lord!—when you're wed to the roar of the traffic—the 'busses and the cabs and what not—the silence in these parts is downright awful. I'll wish you good evening, miss; and get back ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... six, or oftener. Hence very erroneous views are held in relation to the courage of this animal. Some naturalists, led away by what appears to be a feeling of envy or anger, accuse the lion of downright cowardice, denying him a single noble quality of all those that have from earliest times been ascribed to him! Others, on the contrary, assert that he knows no fear, either of man or beast; and these endow ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... yet by his own lights he was a man of honour, incapable of falsehood, even though it were calculated to save his skin. I do not deny that Sir Thomas Picton has described him as a "thieving blackguard." But I am sure that this was merely the downright, rather extravagant manner, of censure peculiar to that distinguished general, and that those who have taken the expression at its purely literal value have been lacking at once in charity and in knowledge of the caustic, ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... points, if you please," said the funny creature, marking each point with one of his favourite knots. "He was a man who might that night have had access to the key of the safe, unsuspected by the manager or even his wife, and a man for whom Mrs. Ireland was willing to tell a downright lie. Are there many men for whom a woman of the better middle class, and an Englishwoman, would be ready to perjure herself? Surely not! She might do it for her husband. The public thought she had. It never struck ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... one of the three by-standers, a blow which has cost many a brave man his life. He struck right down on Hereward's head. Hereward raised his shield, warding the stroke, and threw in that coup de jarret, which there is no guarding, after the downright blow has been given. The stranger dropped upon ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... thing she had said? "'Tis what you give and not what you get is wealth." Extraordinary! And where had Robin picked up these notions concerning the Mill people? And her House of What-did-she-call-it? There was considerable significance about it. Uncanny, downright uncanny, though, for a girl her age to have such a far-reaching vision. Probably the child didn't realize, herself. Well, there was Jeanne d'Arc, and others, too, he pondered, hazily. And this talented girl Robin had found—a most unusual girl, who'd ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... with habit, as elementals will, they found themselves without a tie of sympathy or common interest to link them each to the other. She was by nature blythe; a thing of sunshine, flowers and music, who craved a very poet for her lover; and by "a poet" I mean not your mere rhymer. He was downright stolid and stupid under his fine exterior; the worst type of Briton, without the saving grace of a Briton's honor. And so she had wearied him, who saw in her no more than a sweet loveliness that had cloyed him presently. And when the chance was offered him by Bentinck ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... you haven't. When you stop to think it over, you see it's a fellow's plain duty to take a chance when it's necessary, but it's downright foolish to do it on a dare. One thing about Bob's live-wire adventure I don't believe even he realizes," added Sure Pop. "It was that hurry-up patrol of small boys that he threw out around the live wire which really gave him the idea of how to organize the Safety Scouts of America. I knew the ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... Homer, and a laugh that brings the roof down. He has wasted all his money on two great objects: to help others, and on alchemy. He holds huge courts every day in his garden of all the learned men of all religions—Rajahs and beggars and saints, and downright villains, all delightfully mixed up, and all treated as one. And then his alchemy! Oh dear, night and day the experiments are going on, and every man who brings a new prescription is welcome as ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... I was downright glad that Jack "made good" with Jessie Gordon. She was the sort of girl to get out the best that was in him, and I was glad to have her begin early. Try as I might, I could not feel unhappy that beautiful September morning as we steamed up the finest waterway ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... gracious. After all, what better luck could she look for than to be married for her money? with such a temper as she has, too. He certainly is handsome; but for my part, I would rather have a man who is downright ugly than one who grins and bows like William Dalzell. I will be quite glad when this affair is over. Lovers are very tiresome when one does not quite believe ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... at her. She had fairly fallen in love with this new cousin of hers; her beauty, and gracious ways, her foreign accent, and now her experiences of nuns and convents had come like a revelation to the little English girl in her downright, everyday life. With a comical incongruity, she could compare her in her own mind to nothing but an enchanted princess in some fairy tale; and she stood gazing first at her and then at the glass, where soft wavy brown hair and red and white daisies ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... think of any way of stopping them without being downright rude to our new cousin, they had fled the scene, just like any old conspirators. Rupert—me, I mean—was left alone with the ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... customs of the age. Pope's enemies made as free with his person as with his poetry, and there is little doubt that he felt the former attacks the more bitterly of the two. Dennis, his first critic, called him "a short squab gentleman, the very bow of the God of love; his outward form is downright monkey." A rival poet whom he had offended hung up a rod in a coffee house where men of letters resorted, and threatened to whip Pope like a naughty child if he showed his face there. It is said, though perhaps not on the best ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... which rivaled Florence as a financial center, Nuremberg, famous for artistic metal work, Ulm, Strassburg, and Cologne. The feeble rule of the German kings compelled the cities to form several confederacies for the purpose of resisting the extortionate tolls and downright robberies of ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... the innkeeper's son was stealing away his sitters: even his good friends the Whigs. He chafed under this. He began to speak out. He denounced Lawrence's prudent abstinence from all political feeling as downright hypocrisy. He thought it cowardice "to side with neither faction, and be ready and willing to paint the faces of both." And then he commenced to talk disrespectfully of his rival's art. He claimed for his own portraits greater purity of look and ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... one or two on board who know how to spin a yarn with due effect; some are musical, and others can sing. Concerts, lectures, theatricals, and dances are got up; while, as there is generally a due admixture of the sexes, not a little flirting and downright courting is carried on; and, lastly, if there is any quarrelling and bickering, the differences of those who engage in it afford much amusement to ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... profaned the lake. They allowed the people to trample the grass. They threw papers and banana skins about. And they wasted! His years in Germany had taught him to regard all these things as sacrilege, and the last as downright criminal. He was lonesome for his Germany. That was plain. He hated it, and loved it, much as he hated and loved the woman who had so nearly spoiled his life. The maelstrom known as the southwest corner of State and ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... know you didn't, but I did," flared the man. "Miss Maggie, it's a downright shame—the way they impose on ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... come next week," says the professor, troubled in somewise by the meaning in her eyes. What is it? Simple loneliness, or misery downright? How young she looks—what a child! That tragic air does not belong to her of right. She should be all laughter, and lightness, ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... sincerity; and hence the well-known alliterations, 'fair and false,' 'smooth and slippery.' The fair and false Greek, the polished and wily Italian, the courteous and deceitful Frenchman, are associations which, to the strong, downright, courageous Anglo-Saxon, make up-and-down rudeness and blunt discourtesy a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... than was ours, my dears. Your art has tempered love and passion into sentiment, and hate you have learned to call aversion or dislike. But we of that simple-hearted elder time were more downright; and I have writ the word I mean in saying that my love was at ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... disposition he soon found the fashions of the court, and obtained a general love and notice of the nobility; for he was no carry-tale, nor flattering insinuator to breed discord and dissension, but an honest, plain, downright [man], that would speak home without halting, and tell the truth of purpose to shame the devil—so that his plainness, mixed with a kind of facetiousness, and tartness with pleasantry, made him acceptable into the company of all men." There cannot, perhaps, be a greater ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... exclaimed Schwarzenberg warmly; "that is putting himself in downright opposition to his ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach |
