"Artlessly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... danger of an interruption now, not only to the continuity of her testimony, but to the witness herself; or—what is just as likely—possibly he cherished a hope that, in giving her a free rein and allowing her to tell her story thus artlessly, she would herself supply the clew he needed to reconstruct his case on the new lines upon which it was being slowly forced by these unexpected revelations. Whatever the cause, he let these expressions of ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... was so essentially undeserved and so artlessly insincere, that he must needs, of course, treat ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... votary of the idol of the day. She had discerned the signs of the occult power exerted by the ambitious great lady, and told herself that she could gain her end as the satellite of this star, so she had been outspoken in her admiration. The Marquise was not insensible to the artlessly admitted conquest. She took an interest in her cousin, seeing that she was weak and poor; she was, besides, not indisposed to take a pupil with whom to found a school, and asked nothing better than to have a sort of lady-in-waiting in Mme. de Bargeton, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... fault. Blind to the constitutional defects that were incurable, she had her eyes wide open to the acquired habits that were susceptible of remedy. On certain points she would quite artlessly lecture her parent; and that parent, instead of being hurt, felt a sensation of pleasure in discovering that the girl dared lecture her, that she was so much at home ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... mean that"—she turned crimson—"oh, no." She held out her hand artlessly. "Please don't be angry with me. Mother has told me that you've some money and that you really need not work here. ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... suspected that feeling, and, above all, was unable to understand how so artlessly crude an avowal of it could be made, ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... the letter seemed curt and unsatisfactory, but he was already exhausted and had not the strength to make another effort. So he wearily sealed and addressed it, and gave it to Miss Foster for the next mail. Her tired eyes widened a little as she artlessly read ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... smiled, somehow, as if he had been to a very excellent college and a super-fine prep school of many traditions—as, indeed, he had—but now it was exactly the grin, Marjorie realized, still with a feeling of unworthiness, of the soldier, sailor, and marine grinning so artlessly from the War Camp Community posters. In his year of foreign service, Francis had shaken off the affectations of his years, making him, at twenty-five, a much older and more valuable man than Marjorie had parted with. But she didn't like it, or what she glimpsed of it. Whether ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... upon me, the rather," replied Victorine, artlessly, "as I was resting me at the window of the long storeroom. He heard me singing, and ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... a wife," said Marie artlessly, not perceiving the turn the ploughman's ideas were taking. "Are ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... envy, nothing else; envy of the dignity of Marker which has never been bestowed upon him, and which now never will be, not so long as Beckmesser lives and has influence with the masters. When he stops at last, for lack of breath, Sachs asks artlessly: "Was that your song?... Somewhat irregular in form, but it ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... sometimes as she comes home from school," the young man artlessly continued. "I dare say she's told ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... artlessly surprised to see that her neck and shoulders looked quite like those of the women in the fashion-plates and the magazine illustrations. She looked at the clock. It was early yet. She reflected that she never could take the ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... weeping and blushing, promised to wait for that happy day, or to remain single for his sake, while Pierre promised to watch over his friend's interests and keep alive Catharine's love; for, said he, artlessly, "la belle Catrine is pretty and lively, and may have many suitors before she ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... said, artlessly, "I have no personal inclination for society, which is doubtless so large a part of your own amusement. It seems to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... feel that 'tis very sweet. Lover, with thy lips thou didst make me feel it. My lips shall teach thee sweet love. [Kisses him, and artlessly looks up in his face; placing her hand upon his heart.] Does thy ...
— The Indian Princess - La Belle Sauvage • James Nelson Barker
... abundance of water that these Gafsa gardens have a character different from most African plantations. They are more artlessly furnished, with rough, park-like districts and a not unpleasing impression of riot and waste—waste ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... descriptions are true to life, and as I read on and on, I behold the exquisite beauties of your character, for as you so lovingly and simply tell of the birds, the flowers, the brook and the mist enshrouding the lowing kine, you artlessly sound the great depths of your ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... the camp-fire by night. Hereward's beauty, Hereward's prowess, Hereward's songs, Hereward's strange adventures and wanderings, were forever in the young boy's mouth; and he spent hours in helping Torfrida to guess who the great unknown might be; and then went back to Hereward, and artlessly told him of his beautiful friend, and how they had talked of him, and of nothing else; and in a week or two Hereward knew all about Torfrida; and Torfrida knew—what filled her heart with joy—that Hereward was bound to no lady-love, and owned ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... this time, anyway; they can hardly expect that a person will go to Europe for six months and not bring back more than one hundred dollars' worth of things," continued Miss Golightly artlessly. "One might almost as well stay at home. It isn't as if I bought them to sell. They are my own ownty donty effects, and I've no intention of paying the Government one cent on them if I can help it. And they charge one for presents. Of course, I won't pay on presents I have bought to ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... Marie Corelli's new book reminds me, Mr. Fitzgerald—your occupation is connected with books, is it not?" his prospective mother-in-law enquired, artlessly. ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... I cannot say how artlessly ran that voice in this still garden, by some strange power persuading me on, turning all doubt aside, ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... him no, and artlessly informed him we had thought he was a gentleman, assuring him politely at the same time we ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... Nowell—the fourth of the refrain—is the clou of that most common, most excellent carol, and gloriously the tenors and basses rise to it. No, we cannot revive the old Miracle Plays: but here in the Christmas Carols we have something as artlessly beautiful which we can still preserve, for with them we have not to revive, but merely ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that my rambling head can produce nothing of that sort; so I must e'en be content with telling you the old story, that I love you heartily. I have often found by experience, that nature and truth, though never so low or vulgar, are yet pleasing when openly and artlessly represented: it would be diverting to me to read the very letters of an infant, could it write its innocent inconsistencies and tautologies just as it thought them. This makes me hope a letter from me ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... chevalier, whether he, too, sent out for bill stamps, who he was, whether he saw many people, and so forth. These questions, put with considerable adroitness by Pen, who was interested about Sir Francis Clavering's doings from private motives of his own, were artlessly answered by Mrs. Bolton. and to the utmost of her knowledge and ability, which, in truth, ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... anything; at the first sight of a beautiful thing it becomes their duty to discover the defect in it which absolves them from admiring it,—the feeling of all ordinary minds. Yet a few still remained motionless and heedless of the music, artlessly absorbed in the ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... where in the presence of their stiff, ancient superiors, the young sub-prefects still hid their faces behind their opera hats. Granet with Molina went to take leave of Vaudrey, leaving little Marie Launay smiling artlessly because the financier, the Tumbler, had said to her, in drawing down her eyelids with his coarse finger: "Will ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... the forceful comparison fell artlessly from her lips, but at the final word a hot wave as of rage swept through his veins and receded, leaving him tense and cold. So his vision had not tricked him, after all. The man in the car had been ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... your wrist was sprained?" artlessly observed Pembury. "Here, young Paul, let's get behind you, there's a good fellow, I am in ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... duty and of devotion to his King have won him fame abroad as well as at home. He has risen to his present position from the ranks, but he is of pure Spanish blood, not a drop of Indian; and my mother was a Moraga, of the best blood of Spain," he added artlessly. "As to the beauty and variety of our country, senor, of course you will visit our opulent south; but—" They had dismounted at the Commandante's house in the southeast corner of the square. Arguello impulsively led Rezanov back to the gates and pointed ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... I?) her fond consumers, bless them, didn't suspect the trick nor show what they thought of it: they straightway rose on the contrary to the morsel she had hoped to hold too high, and, making but a big, cheerful bite of it, wagged their great collective tail artlessly for more. It was not given to her not to please, nor granted even to her best refinements to affright. I have always respected the mystery of those humiliations, but I was fully aware this morning that they were practically the reason ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... the Grand Trianon as he said this, waiting for the tram car, and as it came into sight he cried out artlessly, his dark, aquiline face glowing with ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... examination of the books and his conversation with the clerk, who artlessly set forth the advantages of the peasants having small holdings and the fact that they were hemmed in by the master's land, Nekhludoff grew only more determined to put an end to his ownership, and give the land to the peasants. From the books ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... 'chestnut' about the lady who accepted from her husband a bet that she would not send him a letter without the inevitable addendum—the result being that, after having composed the epistle and signed her name, she artlessly appended the observation, 'You see I have written you a letter without a postscript,' capping it with 'Who has won the wager, you ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... evil might ensue. He therefore resolved to make himself known, and disabuse her of her error. So, taking her in his arms, and clipping her so close that she could not get loose, he said:—"Sweet my soul, be not wroth: that which, while artlessly I loved, I might not have, Love has taught me to compass by guile: know ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... artlessly indignant I fear, with the college authorities, barbarously irresponsible, as it struck me; for when I broke out about them to poor Mother she surprised me (though I confess she had sometimes surprised ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... Guillaume, when, for the third time in their lives, they had been of antagonistic opinions, had shown itself in a terrible form. Finally, at half-past four in the afternoon, Augustine, pale, trembling, and with red eyes, was haled before her father and mother. The poor child artlessly related the too brief tale of her love. Reassured by a speech from her father, who promised to listen to her in silence, she gathered courage as she pronounced to her parents the name of Theodore de Sommervieux, with a mischievous little emphasis on the aristocratic de. And yielding to the ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... artlessly, "you have just the thin brown coat wi' the braid round it, forby the ane you have ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... moments, and an awkward kind of formality made them slip away without their having said much to each other. Henry was afraid to discover his passion, or give any other name to his regard but friendship; yet his anxious solicitude for her welfare was ever breaking out-while she as artlessly expressed again and again, her fears with respect ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... I retrace our steps to the start, for the pleasure, strangely mixed though it be, of feeling our small feet plant themselves afresh and artlessly stumble forward again—the first began long ago, far off, and yet glimmers at me there as out of a thin golden haze, with all the charm, for imagination and memory, of pressing pursuit rewarded, of distinctness in the dimness, of the flush ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... it doesn't look well anywhere but back to the window," said Mr. Macdonald artlessly. "It belongs there, you see; it has probably been there since the time of Malcolm Canmore, unless Margaret was too pious to look in a mirror. With your national love of change, you cannot conceive how soothing it is to know that whenever you enter your ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... She stood deep in thought—artlessly posed in lance-like straightness, and on the smooth whiteness of her neck a breath of breeze stirred wisps of bronzed and crisply curling hair. The swing of her shoulders was gallant and the man thanked God for that. She would ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... breakfast table on the succeeding morning that I beheld the daughter of the incumbent, the favourite and companion of my pupils, and mistress of the house—a maiden in her twentieth year. She was simply and artlessly attired, gentle and retiring in demeanour, and femininely sweet rather than beautiful in expression. Her figure was slender, her voice soft and musical; her hair light brown, and worn plain across a forehead white as marble. The eye-brows ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... of mendacity, to the pursuit of pleasure. And Swann felt a very cordial sympathy with that Mahomet II whose portrait by Bellini he admired, who, on finding that he had fallen madly in love with one of his wives, stabbed her, in order, as his Venetian biographer artlessly relates, to recover his spiritual freedom. Then he would be ashamed of thinking thus only of himself, and his own sufferings would seem to deserve no pity now that he himself was disposing so cheaply ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... he felt a deep rending within him, as though a brutal hatchet-stroke were parting them forever. Amidst their common sufferings, she had hitherto remained the little friend of childhood's days, the first artlessly loved woman, whom he knew to be still his own, since she could belong to none. But now she was cured, and he remained alone in his hell, repeating to himself that she would never more be his! This sudden thought so upset ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... a charming letter from the bride, this morning, dated Cologne. You cannot think how artlessly and prettily she assures me of her happiness. Some people, as they say in Ireland, are born to good luck—and I think Arthur ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... the beginning of many talks, though no other was of so personal a nature. They felt that they understood each other, that there was no concealment to create distrust. She artlessly and unconsciously revealed to him her life and its inspirations, and soon proved that her mind was as active as her hands. She discovered that Lane had mines of information at command, and she plied him with questions about the North, Europe, and such parts of the East as he had visited. Her ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... writers, with all the happy abandon of a complete sympathy between scribe and recipient, have a value which transcends any more laboured enumeration of historical data. The worth of their correspondence lies in the fact that it presents, artlessly and candidly, the outlook of a contemporary family, of good position and more than average intelligence, upon events ordinary and extraordinary, under four sovereigns. And while many books have been edited describing the sayings and doings of Royal personages and political ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... to go in the usual way. That is, the four Classic boys boldly marched into their house together, and the five Moderns dropped in one by one artlessly and quite ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... I had rashly wasted half an hour of it in breakfasting at the station, - was the one hour of the day (that of the dinner of the nuns; the picture is in their refectory) during which the treasure could not be shown. The purpose of the musical chimes to which I had so artlessly listened was to usher in this fruitless interval. The regulation was absolute, and my disappointment relative, as I have been happy to reflect since I "looked up" the picture. Crowe and Cavalcaselle assign it without hesitation to Roger ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... him artlessly as she plunges her small dagger into a vital place. He tries to smile, and say something agreeable in return—the smile is a failure; the words a greater failure. After that, all Trixy's attention falls harmless. He sits moodily listening to the gay voices on the other side of ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... to be followed by a feeling of despair, darker and deeper than any he had yet experienced, for he knew that he should not, must not accept the priceless boon of her love which she had so freely and so artlessly yielded to him. ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... always wish to relate his affairs before five small brothers and sisters whose little ears drink in the story and whose tiny tongues are liable artlessly to repeat it. ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... slice from the uninviting joint, and then artlessly pushed the dish along one place, opposite the first of the empty chairs, and ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... the more ingenuous Where she was interested (as was said), Because she was not apt, like some of us, To like too readily, or too high bred To show it—(points we need not now discuss)— Would give up artlessly both Heart and Head Unto such feelings as seemed innocent, For objects ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... might warrant. No; there remained a vague expectancy which so dominated my sorrow that at moments I became hopeful—nay, sanguine, that I should one day again behold my beloved superior in the flesh. There was something so happy in his last smile, something so artlessly pleased, that I was certain no fear of impending dissolution worried him as he disappeared into the uncharted depth ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... discovered that Bea was extraordinarily like girls she had loved in college, and as a companion altogether superior to the young matrons of the Jolly Seventeen. Daily they became more frankly two girls playing at housework. Bea artlessly considered Carol the most beautiful and accomplished lady in the country; she was always shrieking, "My, dot's a swell hat!" or, "Ay t'ink all dese ladies yoost die when dey see how elegant you do your hair!" But it was not the humbleness of a servant, nor the hypocrisy of a ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... the confessed incoherence of a happy mortal who had always many things "on," and who, while waiting at any moment for connections and consummations, had fallen into the way of talking, as they said, all artlessly, and a trifle more betrayingly, against time. He would always be having appointments, and somehow of a high "romantic" order, to keep, and the imperfect punctualities of others to wait for—though who would be of a quality to make such a pampered personage wait ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... own fee," grinned the Writer, as he fingered a cheque-book, artlessly placed upon the top of a desk. "Nice fat ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... Perhaps because she was so artlessly determined to please them. The women said that Demoiselle Candeille never left a man alone until she had succeeded in captivating his fancy if only for five minutes; an internal in a dance... the time ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... him so deeply. He could not have told why his eyes grew strangely dim as he heard it now, or why a strange tightening came around his heart. He was but an ignorant lad of the woods. It was not for him to know that these few notes—so few, so simple, so artlessly blown by a rude boatman—touched the deep fountain of the soul, loosing the mighty torrent pent up in every human breast. Pity, tenderness, yearning, the struggle and the triumph of life,—the boy felt everything and all unknowingly, but with quivering sensibility. For ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... in this one instance showed a certain superiority to those conditions in which her daughter had artlessly found Folkestone a paradise. It was yet not so crushing as to nip in the bud the eagerness with which the latter broke out: "But won't you at least ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... returned Creede artlessly; and then, noting the look of incredulity on his partner's face, he slapped him on the leg and ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... stronghold of his enemy for the purpose of assassination. There had been another object in his mind—an utterly mad idea, it is true, yet so bold of conception that it held a ghost of promise. He had meant to go into Jesse Purvy's store and chat artlessly, like some inquisitive "furriner." He would ask questions which by their very impertinence might be forgiven on the score of a stranger's folly. But, most of all, he wanted to drop the casual information, which he should assume to have ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... hand, that, unable to resist the temptation, I stole a kiss ere she was conscious of my intention. "It is not kind of you, sir," she said, in a half chiding whisper; "you must not do it again." And she set her black eye upon me, inquiringly, and artlessly raised her apron, as if to wipe away the blushes. Fain would I have pressed her to my bosom, and beseeched her to regard me as a brother. But her face suddenly became lighted up with a smile, and such was the perfection of its beauty that to me it seemed created only for an angel. I asked ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... black eye and my one-sided countenance at breakfast next morning, and inquired artlessly if English composition had caused them. We truly ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... she artlessly, "they are under suspicion.—But I know Monsieur de Granville, your ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac |
