"Downright" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... recollection of what had happened this morning left an aftermath of bitterness in Mrs. Otway's kind heart. It was only too true that it would sometimes be awkward; in saying so downright Miss Forsyth had been right! She told herself, however, that after a few days they surely would all get accustomed to this strange, unpleasant, new state of things. Why, during the long Napoleonic wars Witanbury had always ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... presence of a fresh clover in a meadow of sun-scorched grasses, or the sound of a singing lark in a council of crows, is the sight of a bashful child. In this age of juvenile precocity and pinafore wisdom I would rather run across a downright timid boy or girl than drink Arctic soda in dog days. Never be distressed, then, when "johnnie" hangs his head and blushes like a girl, or when his little sister stands on one foot and fairly writhes with embarrassment in the presence ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... Sprengel well remarks that "it is hard to say whether one should admire most his rare dexterity and quickness in dissection, his unimpeachable love of truth and justice in his estimation of the work of others, his extensive scholarship and rich classical style or his downright common ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... all together a well-shaped effect of intricacy: and you will find that a little careless scratching about with your pen will bring you very near the same result without an effort; but that no scratching of pen, nor any fortunate chance, nor anything but downright skill and thought, will imitate so much as one leaf of Duerer's. Yet there is considerable intricacy and glittering confusion in the interstices of those vine leaves of his, as well as of ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... thousand grown people in a long street, at the windows, on the footways, and in carriages, amused day after day for several hours in pelting and being pelted with handfuls of mock or real sugar-plums; and this no name or presence, but real downright showers of plaster comfits, from which people guard their eyes with meshes of wire. As sure as a carriage passes under a window or balcony where are acquaintances of theirs, down comes a shower of hail, ineffectually returned from below. The parties in two crossing carriages similarly ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... hope you do, indeed. What downright lies are accepted as indisputable! That about love being a woman's whole life; who believes it really? Love is the most insignificant thing in most women's lives. It occupies a few months, possibly a year or two, and even then I doubt ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... say,' Marlowe agreed. 'Now I was saying that one could always take Manderson's word if he gave it in a definite form. The first time I ever heard him utter a downright lie was on the night he died; and hearing it, I believe, saved me from being hanged as ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... my husband. "The fact is," he resumed, after a slight pause, "I wouldn't lend such a woman anything. It is a downright imposition." ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... There in the base-court fought he with his sword, Using his left hand much, more than the wont Of most knights now-a-days; our men gave back, For wheresoever he hit a downright blow, Some one fell bleeding, for no plate could hold Against the sway of body and great arm; Till he grew tired, and some man (no! not I, I swear not I, fair lady, as I live!) Thrust at him with a glaive between the knees, ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... satisfaction in making sacrifices for his sake. It may be that Jeanne may, after all, look to what you call the simple life for happiness. Well, if she does that after a year or so, well and good. But she shall not do so with my consent, without indeed my downright opposition, until she has had an opportunity of testing both sides, of weighing the matter thoroughly from every point of view. Do you not agree with me, Mr. De ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... interested in the outlaw. Miss Terry," he observed, as if by chance the thought had just occurred to him, when, in reality, he was downright jealous. ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... my feelings, was not sought for by me. Of the decision of the members of the Board, to give the Principal permission to employ me part of the year, I express my decided disapprobation. Now, Sir, I consider such a resolution a downright insult. Had I come before that Board as a stranger, or under the character of a mercenary hireling, and one concerning whose qualifications you were entirely ignorant, then there would have been some appearance of ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... 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 became ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... occupations of the day—nor will you live dissatisfied with yourself, or unprofitable to others." De Tranquilitate, ch. 3. Cicero has positively told us that "study is the food of youth, and the amusement of old age." Orat. pro Archia. The younger Pliny was a downright Bibliomaniac. "I am quite transported and comforted," says he, "in the midst of my books: they give a zest to the happiest, and assuage the anguish of the bitterest, moments of existence! Therefore, whether distracted by the cares ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... mutiny, downright mutiny!" he exclaimed, and without more ado he ordered the second mate and boatswain to lash their arms behind them and ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... the story of stupid Brutus over again. Altered circumstances made a new man of him; and few things are more strange than the change wrought in his whole bearing and look by that week of energy in climbing his brother's throne. The great article in Nicholas's creed was a complete, downright faith in despotism, and in himself as despotism's apostle. Hence he hated, above all things, a limited monarchy. He told De Custine that a pure monarchy or pure republic he could understand; but that anything between these he could not understand. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... this ship than you'd probably believe. A good percentage of them are pretty fair lip readers, and the things you want to talk about are connected with the Federation's hottest current secret. So while it's a downright crime not to put you on immediate display in a place like this, we won't take ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... But see the madman rage downright With furious looks, a ghastly sight. Naked in chains bound doth he lie, And roars amain he knows not why! Observe him; for as in a glass, Thine angry portraiture it was. His picture keeps still in thy presence; 'Twixt him and thee, there's ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... cold grey chalk, something of Roman competence about the proud old gatehouse on the Castle Hill. Never in mufti, never in gaudy uniform, Dover is always clad in "service" dress. A thousand threats have made her porterage a downright office, bluntly performed. And so those four lean years, that whipped the smile from many an English hundred, seem to have passed over the grizzled Gate like the east wind, leaving it scatheless. About herself no change was visible. As we leaned easily upon the giant parapet of the Admiralty ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... to know whether you are not ashamed of yourself?" she deliberately pursued. "You! A married man, with children in your house! I'd rather have believed anything downright wicked of ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... 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 authority, ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... you will, find me a very backward pupil," Guy said. "I have been well taught in English fashion, but as you know, maitre, we were more famed for downright hard hitting than for subtlety and ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... they flourished, and how far their vitality was due to their partial or complete truth. To write such a history would perhaps require an impartiality which few people possess and which I do not venture to claim. I have my own opinions for which other people may account by prejudice, assumption, or downright incapacity. I am quite aware that I shall be implicitly criticising myself in criticising others. All that I can profess is that by taking the questions in this order, I shall hope to fix attention upon one set of considerations which are apt, as I fancy, to be unduly neglected. The result ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... Look, There is young Hexarly with six years' service and half your talents. He asked for what he wanted, and he got it. See, down by the Convent! There's McArthurson who has come to his present position by asking—sheer, downright asking—after he had pushed himself out of the rank and file. One man is as good as another in your service—believe me. I've seen Simla for more seasons than I care to think about. Do you suppose men are chosen for appointments because of their special fitness beforehand? You have all passed a ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... "It is downright unnatural, truly, that the fellow should be there!" he replied, shaking his head, but meaning no more than that it was entirely out of the order of nautical propriety; "I see the philosophy of what you say, Captain ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... within the territory of rebeldom, it should have been the first decree he sent forth. Every hour's delay, every life sacrificed up to the proclamation that called the slave to freedom and to arms, was nothing less than downright murder by the Government. For by all the laws of common-sense—to say nothing of laws military or national—if the President, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, could have devised any possible means whereby ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the truth," answered the old lady dejectedly. "What with the wild varmints in the woods and one thing an' another, I'm about cleaned out of all the poultry I ever had. It's downright disheartenin'." ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... he was given good cause to assert himself, but habitually affable, unassuming and sunny tempered. Towards his father's tenants and slaves he was most kindly and nothing could be more to any man's credit than his downright heroic behavior from the very day the pestilence appeared on his estates, all through the frightful period of its raging about Falerii, until the neighborhood had somewhat recovered after the plague ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... absence of that arrogance which the American mind has so long associated with the English. For fear of being thought to swagger, an Englishman will understate his case. And so with the various English officers I met at the front. There was no swank. They were downright, unassuming, extremely efficient-looking men, quick to speak of German courage, ready to give the benefit of the doubt where unproved outrages were in question, but rousing, as I have said, to pale fury where their ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... objection some people have to strong measures! They see around them, amongst those under their influence, a great deal going on which is downright evil. You call upon them to put a stop to it, and to do all in ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... sepals deciduous, and the leaves generally cut, as you see these are. They are what you may call a bitter family; it runs in the blood, that is to say, in the juice of them; and a good many of the members of the family are downright wicked, that ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... all his disciples except the twelve in consequence); says many apparently contradictory and nonsensical things to which no ordinary reader can now find any clue; and gives the impression of an educated, not to say sophisticated mystic, different both in character and schooling from the simple and downright preacher of Matthew and Mark, and the urbane easy-minded charmer of Luke. Indeed, the Jews say of him "How knoweth this man ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... moderation in cases past remedy, 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 ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... had his own opinion in the matter. There are some boys to whom Alene's timidity would have appealed, but he was not one of that kind. He was the most outspoken and the least gentle of all the boys with whom the Happy-Go-Luckys associated. But his downright honesty and fearlessness, his renown among the boys as an athlete, and especially his devotion to his little sister which Laura dilated upon, and of which new proofs were daily shown, had awakened Alene's admiration, ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... your 'Seven Stars' I do," he said. "In fact, I want for 'The Tiger' to swallow the 'Seven Stars,' in a poetical way of speaking. I'm a downright man and never take ten minutes where five's enough, so there it is. It came over me last night as a thing that must be—like the conversion of Paul. And I'll go further; I won't have you beat about the bush, Nelly. You're the sort ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... moulds as Dorothy and Irene should be so deficient in tact as to gush over the humiliation of another, and check the rhapsodies of successful candidates by such significant coughings and frownings as must have been obvious to the dullest faculties. Oh, for Tom's downright acceptance of a situation—her calm taking-for-granted that the sufferer was neither selfish nor cowardly enough to grudge success to others! Rhoda felt, as we have all felt in our time, that she had never thoroughly appreciated her friend until she had departed, and she was one of the most enthusiastic ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... way in the labyrinths of passages, so I went on with them, and after all Kitty was hunting for me! I sat next him at breakfast, and, do you know, he asked me whether I was the sister of a little downright damsel he met at Rotherwood two years ago, and said he had used her truthfulness about the umbrella for a favourite example ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... be sure they are, and smoking; and big fires they are making, too, for I saw red sparks coming out of one. Why, what's the matter, Miss Sarah? You must be getting downright nervous,' observed Naomi, for Sarah had started and given a little shiver at ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... scarce had Ripton plunged his head into the missive than he gave way to violent transports, such as the healthy-minded little damsel, for all her languishing cadences, deemed she really could express were a downright declaration to be made to her. The boy did not stop at table. Quickly recollecting the presence of his family, he rushed to his own room. And now the girl's ingenuity was taxed to gain possession of that letter. She succeeded, of course, she being a huntress with few scruples ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... lost so much lately at Trimble's," he was saying, "that it is long past the stage of being merely interesting. It is downright serious—for me, at least. I've got to make good or lose my job. And I'm up against one of the cleverest shoplifters that ever entered a department-store, apparently. Only Heaven knows how much she has got away with in various departments so far, but when it comes ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... off on that. They got too much respect for my judgment. And they admitted that Safety's way of standing the gaff had been downright uncanny. So there was nothing to do but pay over their share of this tainted money and wait for the blow, eight hundred and seventy-five dollars being the amount I split with 'em for their masterly headwork ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... Rubaiyat, and we find him praising Mr. Edmund Gosse's lyrics. Of novelists Dickens was his favourite. He called Darwin "our British Aristotle." Eothen [515] was "that book of books." He never forgave Carlyle for denouncing The Arabian Nights as "downright lies" and "unwholesome literature;" Miss Martineau, as an old maid, was, of course, also out of court. If she had written Shakespeare, it would have been all the same. He enjoyed a pen and ink fight, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... as well as the most stable price; but not at the expense of corn, cotton, and wheat; and it is to be hoped, if any have debts to meet now or hereafter, that they may meet them with the least inconvenience consistent with plain, downright, integrity; but, from being led astray by the loud declamations of those who earn nothing themselves and know no trade but spoliation of the earnings of others, let them heartily ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... be a downright physical reason for this effect—it is so remarkable and so universal. It seems that the sun's rays so completely alter and modify the constitution of the atmosphere, that it produces, as we inhale it, a wonderfully different effect upon the ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... exemplary patience, only snatching the very earliest opportunity to take to his heels. Where a sharp tongue will not serve the purpose, they trust to the sharpness of their finger-nails, or incarnate a whole vocabulary of vituperative words in a resounding slap, or the downright blow of a doubled fist. All English people, I imagine, are influenced in a far greater degree than ourselves by this simple and honest tendency, in cases of disagreement, to batter one another's persons; and whoever has seen a crowd of English ladies (for instance, at the door of the Sistine ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... come from about anywhere. He wore the red fez of the Algerian troops, the tunic of his Britannic Majesty's fighting forces, the horizon-blue slicker of the Armee de France, but his underpinning, as well as his voice, was downright United States. Only the khaki trousers and canvas leggins identified him, in part, at least, as a member of an American Railroad ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... quickness of perception, Iris saw that Mountjoy had not only pounced on his opportunity prematurely, but had spoken with a downright directness of allusion which must at once have put such a ready-witted person as Mrs. Vimpany on her guard. In trying to prevent him from pursuing his unfortunate experiment in social diplomacy, Iris innocently repeated Mountjoy's ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... Voting is not a short cut to the millennium, it is no way of changing human nature, and in the new type of assembly, as in the old, spite, vanity, indolence, self-interest, and downright dishonesty will play their part. But to object to a reform on that account is not a particularly effective objection. These things will play their part, but it will be a much smaller part in the new than in the old. It is like objecting to some projected ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... kindness, Expecting me to speak; I like the proud ones best Who sit as struck with blindness, As if I wasn't there. 340 But if any gentleman Is staying at the Hall (Though few come prying here), My Lady seems to fear Some downright dreadful evil, And makes me keep my room As closely as she can: So I hate when people come, It is so troublesome. In spite of all her care, 350 Sometimes to keep alive I sometimes do contrive To get out in the grounds For a whiff of wholesome air, ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... be downright jealous of his fiddle, Moggy," replied Nancy; "but never mind, you sha'n't be jealous now about nothing. I'll sing you a song, and then you'll forget all this." Nancy ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... married! A bachelor would never dare to take a house like the Grange. It would be downright wicked! He is a married man, with a grey beard, and a fat wife, and four beauteous daughters. I see them now before me, as in a mirror!" Kitty shut her eyes behind the spectacles, and screwed up her face into a grimace which was ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... it's nought but toiling At baking, roasting, frying, boiling; An' tho' the gentry first are stechin, Yet ev'n the ha' folk fill their pechan Wi' sauce, ragouts, an' sic like trashtrie, That's little short o' downright wastrie. Our whipper-in, wee, blasted wonner, Poor, worthless elf, it eats a dinner, Better than ony tenant-man His Honour has in a' the lan': An' what poor cot-folk pit their painch in, I own ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... 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
... "If it had come from Italy?" The lady blushed and held her peace, and then You blushed and said, "Perhaps it came from France!" And then when blushed the lady more, nor spoke, You said, "At least it came from Germany!" The air was English!—a true English air; A downright English air!—a common air; Old as "When Good King Arthur." Not a square, Court, alley, street, or lane about the town, In which it is not whistled, played, or sung! But you must have it come from Italy, Or Germany, or France. Go home! Go home! To Lincolnshire, and mind thy dog and horn! ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles
... I'd 'a' got as fur along as we have to-day. How 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
... the evening before, as you may remember the ostler told us, had been 'gay and dull,' and this morning it was downright dismal: very dark, and promising nothing but a wet day, and before breakfast was over the rain began, though not heavily. We set out upon our walk, and went through many streets to Holyrood House, and thence to the hill called Arthur's Seat, a high hill, very rocky ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... Oldmixon stands, And, Milo-like, surveys his arms and hands; Then sighing thus, 'And am I now threescore? Ah, why, ye Gods! should two and two make four?' He said, and climb'd a stranded lighter's height, Shot to the black abyss, and plung'd downright: The senior's judgment all the crowd admire, Who but to sink the deeper rose the higher. "Next Smedley div'd; slow circles dimpled o'er The quaking mud, that clos'd and op'd no more. All look, all sigh, and call on Smedley lost; Smedley in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... the principal. "I call this downright ingratitude, Nancy Nelson. Suppose I wrote what you say to Mr. Gordon? And he should in turn transmit my report to—to the people who furnish the ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... ten years in that first winter of rigid and unexplainable penuriousness, and of a secrecy which meant perilous skirtings of downright lying; for Eleanor occasionally asked why they had so little money to spend? He had requested a raise—and not mentioned to Eleanor the fact that he had got it. When she complained because his salary was so low, he told ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... 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
... give Nelly a gown, and a jacket, and hat for the last two years. I want her to look nice, and hold her own with the other lasses of the place—she's as good looking as any—but I daren't do it. No, I daren't, downright. I know, as well as if I see it, how she'd flash up, ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... been a man of sin—not only in the vague ecclesiastical sense, but in downright, practical earnest. He had committed every imaginable crime, save the odd few that lead to penal servitude and the gallows. He drank, he betrayed women, he cheated at cards, he had an evil reputation on the turf. His companions were chosen from the harlotry and knavery of ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... with disportive wit, Rally his friend, and tickle while he bit; Winning access, he play'd around the heart, And, gently touching, prick'd the tainted part. The crowd he sneer'd; but sneer'd with such a grace, It pass'd for downright innocence of face. ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... downright good fellow," said the Skeptic warmly. "The fuss and feathers of his wife's hospitality can't prevent his giving you the real thing. Even Philo likes to go there—particularly when Camellia is away. I ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... recognition gave him pause, and he almost wished he had not taken so much trouble to meet Miss Van Tuyn and her companion. For he could say nothing he wanted to say while Garstin was there. And the man was so damnably unconventional, in fact, so downright rude, and so totally devoid of all delicacy, all insight in social matters, that even if he saw that Braybrooke wanted a quiet word with Miss Van Tuyn he would probably not let him have it. However, it was too late now to avoid the steadily advancing couple. Miss Van Tuyn had seen ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... Fuller, 'this girl has been busy a week fixing your rooms and planning for you. We could not hear of your going elsewhere. It would be downright ingratitude to her.' ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... always act so—though he will in five cases out of 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 him with many virtues besides courage. Both parties ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... Miss ——— in 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 as she came forward to greet ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... qualification and exception. There are Indians whose word may be taken as 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 are utterly unreliable ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... They never end an article with the mystical hint, this occasions great speculation. They seem to have been ignorant of such engaging introductions as, we hear it is strongly reported; and of that ingenious, but thread-bare excuse for a downright lie, it wants confirmation.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... take people at their own estimate," replied Maisie, whose downright nature much disliked Flossie's ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... pike what the artificial fly is for salmon, the most scientific method, and followed perseveringly it is downright hard work, bringing, as the use of the salmon rod does, all the muscles of the body into play. The degree of exercise depends upon the style adopted. Casting direct from the Nottingham winch is less trying than the ordinary ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... Father Francis with dismay. This was the first time that easy-going priest had shown her how impressive he could be. She was downright frightened, and said she hoped she knew better than to defy her director; she laid her will at his feet, and would obey him like a child, as was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... she repeated, as she rose from her chair slowly and went out of the room. Though he had fluttered flamewards now and again, though he had shown some moth-like aptitudes, he had not shown himself to be a downright, foolish, blind-eyed moth, determined to burn himself to a cinder as a moth should do. And she;—she was weak. Having her opportunity at command, she went away and left him, because she did not know what more to say. She went away to her own bedroom, and cried, ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... She looked at me out of her downright eyes, and went on with her little tale. 'I was scarcely more than a child then,' she continued, 'and though I liked Kew very much—who would not like such a generous honest creature? I felt somehow that I was taller than my cousin, and as if I ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you!" said Tilly angrily. "Upon my word, Jinny Beamish, if one didn't know you 'ad the 'abit of marrying yourself off to every fresh cove you meet, one 'ud say you was downright bold!" ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... is that Borrow had one dangerous virus in him—a poison which distorts the whole vision—for he was a bigoted sectarian in religion, seeing no virtue outside his own interpretation of the great riddle. Downright heathendom, the blood-stained Berserk or the chaunting Druid, appealed to his mind through his imagination, but the man of his own creed and time who differed from him in minutiae of ritual, or in the interpretation ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not for him to lend the sanction of his presence to a meeting with which he could not sit to its final termination. It is not for him to stand associated, for a single hour, with an assemblage of men who begin with hypocrisy, and end with downright blackguardism. It is not for him to watch the progress of the coming ribaldry, and to hit the well selected moment when talk and turbulence and boisterous merriment are on the eve of bursting forth upon the company, and carrying them forward to the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... you there is no quiz whatever in it. It is just as you see it and say it—a downright mystery, and one that, perhaps, will ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... rich young voice of the mistress of the house, "I'm so glad. Roger Barnes, this is just downright good of you; it's so long ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... papers consulted must be correct. Motley, in his 'History of the United Netherlands,' published in 1860, had dwelt upon the shortness of ammunition and provisions in the Channel Fleet commanded by Lord Howard of Effingham; but he attributed this to bad management on the part of officials, and not to downright baseness on that ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... went off with great eclat. Arnaud at the head of the table carved with foreign courtesies, contrasted with the downright bluff way of the sailors. As soon as Sir Guy brought Mrs. Ashford to look in on them, old James Robinson proposed his health, with hopes he would soon come and live among them for good, and Jonas Ledbury added another wish, that 'Lady Morville' ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bank, and it's no use my explaining, or begging ever so hard. They won't hear of it. 'We've done it times and times,' they says to me, 'and we won't do it no more. That's flat,' and so indeed it is flat, sir, as you may say downright Dunstable; but that ain't no advantage ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... belief, and this centered around Christ as the Redeemer and Saviour of the world. But, in process of time, Christianity was forced to contend with Judaism, with Orientalism, and with Greek speculation, as these entered into the church itself, and were more or less embraced by its members. With downright Paganism there was a constant battle; but in this battle all ranks of Christians were united together. They were not distracted by any controversies whether idolatry should be or should not be tolerated. But when Gnostic ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... first downright charge of an African elephant that I had seen, and instinctively I followed my old Ceylon plan of waiting for a close shot. She lowered her head when within about six yards, and I fired low for the centre of ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... certainly it is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them. Generally, also, a downright fact may be told in a plain way; and we want downright facts at present more than anything else. And though I often hear moral people complaining of the bad effects of want of thought, for my part, it seems to me that one of the worst diseases to which the human creature is liable is its ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... "It's 'opeless, downright 'opeless, Doctor," said Quick to me, dropping his h's, as he sometimes did in the excitement of the moment. "What can one do with a crowd of pigs, everyone of them bent on bolting to his own sty, or anywhere ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... assertions, suggestive of individual ways of looking at things; here are headings that signalize particular events in the authors' experience,—moments' monuments. Beside them, Johnson's title, "The Vanity of Human Wishes", looks very dogged and downright. ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... Mayor Packard? Any real and downright enemy capable of a deep and serious attempt at destroying ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... business was not a pretty or a romantic one—it had something to do with leather—but it was extremely profitable, and as I looked forward to one day sharing all Jack's worldly goods I did not grumble at the leather. Not that Jack had ever yet said a word to me which I could construe into a downright offer. He had looked, certainly, but then with eyes like his there is no knowing what they may imply. They were dark blue eyes, and his hair was bright brown, with a touch of yellow in it, and his moustache was tawny, and his skin was sunburnt to a healthy red. We had been introduced in quite ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... heels he had explained to them, before entering the woods, the mode of operation to be carried out. In order to pipe tunes as bullfinches so marvellously do, they have to go through a period of training, and downright severe training the hapless mites find it. But, as Jerry tersely put it to his hearers, one of whom winced secretly, what is training but 'keeping the body under subjection'—a period of toilsome effort that any ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... hate her. I do indeed. It isn't love for me now so much as downright malice against Palliser, because he baulked her project before. She is a wicked old woman. Some of us fellows are wicked enough—you ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... twelve letters at a downsitting. And what letters they are, all sealed with the name of JESUS—she will seal now with no other seal. What letters of a strong and sound mind go out under that seal! What a business head! What shrewdness, sagacity, insight, frankness, boldness, archness, raillery, downright fun! And all as full of splendid sense as an egg is full of meat. If Andrew Bonar had only read Spanish, and had edited Teresa's Letters as he has edited Rutherford's, we would have had that treasure in all our houses. As it is, ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... world, the first unfurling of her standard on the rocky pinnacle of Europe, is here celebrated in the style which it deserved. There is no false timsel-decoration about Tell, no sickly refinement, no declamatory sentimentality. All is downright, simple, and agreeable to Nature; yet all is adorned and purified and rendered beautiful, without losing its resemblance. An air of freshness and wholesomeness breathes over it; we are among honest, inoffensive, yet fearless peasants, untainted by the vices, undazzled by the theories, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... answer me so readily when I spoke to you; your daughter being, I suppose, hard by; for you looked round you, as if not willing to be overheard. So I resolved to write: that my writing may stand as upon record for my upright meaning; being none of your Lovelaces; you will mark that, Madam; but a downright, true, honest, faithful Englishman. So hope you will not disdain to write a line or two to this my proposal: and I shall look upon it as a great honour, I will assure you, and be proud thereof. What can I say more?—for ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... Landscape gardeners who I think once carried a true principle to an absurd excess. I dislike, as much as any one can, the old topiary style of our remote ancestors, but the talk about free nature degenerated at last into downright cant, and sheer extravagance; the reformers were for bringing weeds and jungle right under our parlour windows, and applied to an acre of ground those rules of Landscape gardening which required a whole county for their proper exemplification. It is true that Milton's ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... get into trouble through ignorance. Indeed this was why the Four Hundred neither wished the Five Thousand to exist, nor to have it known that they did not exist; being of opinion that to give themselves so many partners in empire would be downright democracy, while the mystery in question would make the people afraid of ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... would not give ear to a downright word? But to mend is better. Who would not be pleased by a guiding word? But to think it out is better. With such as are pleased but do not think out, or who listen but do not mend, I can ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... 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
... famous; there is everywhere the most perfect ease and skill of handling. The observation shown throughout is nothing short of wonderful. Things are painted literally as they are, and, whatever the picture, whether of every-day vulgar, shabby-genteel, or downright low, with neither the condescending air which is affectation, nor the too familiar one which is slang. The book altogether is a perfectly unaffected, unpretentious, honest performance. Under its manly, sensible, straightforward vein of talk there is running at the same time a natural flow ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... The bright tusk whetting in his crooked jaws: They press him on all sides, and from beneath Loud gnashings hear, yet firm, his threats defy; Like them the Trojans on all sides assail'd Ulysses dear to Jove. First with his spear 510 He sprang impetuous on a valiant chief, Whose shoulder with a downright point he pierced, Deiopites; Thooen next he slew, And Ennomus, and from his coursers' backs Alighting quick, Chersidamas; beneath 515 His bossy shield the gliding weapon pass'd Right through his navel; on the plain he fell Expiring, and with both hands clench'd the dust. Them slain he ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... tell him. One who asks silly questions. [GLS observes: This is slightly unfair. It is true that users ask questions (of necessity). Sometimes they are thoughtful or deep. Very often they are annoying or downright stupid, apparently because the user failed to think for two seconds or look in the documentation before bothering the maintainer.] See {luser}. 3. Someone who uses a program from the outside, however skillfully, without getting into the ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... at Cappy Ricks with the closest approach to downright affection he considered quite dignified to ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... possessions whatever, either in N(orth) America or in the W(est) Indies, remain under the British Empire. Our affairs in Ireland go on pretty well, and that is the only place where they do. (The) Lord Advocate made a downright, open speech, but Lord Geo(rge) did not understand it; though parts of it, by what the Advocate has said in debate, were most probably levelled ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... said Linda scornfully. "I am not a pretty girl. I am lean and bony and I've got a beak where I should have a nose. Speaking of pretty girls, my sister, Eileen, is a pretty girl. She is a downright beautiful girl." ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... be tempted to do as other fellows, and take to bad ways, your face 'ud come before me, and somehow I couldn't. I always knew when I was out on the waves that you was to be my lawful wedded wife one day. You can't go agin a thing like that, my dear. Why, when you come to think of it, it seems downright wrong even to name a promise you made only to yourself when you knowed ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... be owned is downright nonsense, and a contradiction in terms: Amongst others captain Radcliff has ridiculed this blunder in the following lines ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... tenderness towards the dying and the dead became known the entire country re-echoed the tribute. For it was the soldiers of Uncle Sam, untiring and unafraid amidst horrors and dangers seen and unseen, that stood between half-crazed refugees from the quake and the fire and downright starvation and anarchy. ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... the middle of the sermon, and snore very comfortably; which made several women in the church think the bridegroom not quite so ugly as they did before. Envious people say 'twas all counterfeited to please him, but I believe that to be scandal; for I dare swear, nothing but downright necessity could make her miss one word of the sermon. He professes to have married her for her devotion, patience, meekness, and other Christian virtues he observed in her; his first wife (who has ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... The contest reminded me of a dog and a wild cat, so nimble were the boy's springs, and so fierce his attacks. Lucinus fairly lost his temper at last, and I stopped the fight, for although they fought with blunted weapons, he might well have injured the lad badly with a downright cut, and that would have meant ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... had not then arrived, and they were, in truth, anxious that she should go;—but one cannot tell one's visitor to depart from one's house without a downright rupture. Not even the rector himself dared to make such rupture, without express sanction ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... Vetch!" muttered Joe, looking troubled. "I be afeared 'twill make him a downright enemy to you, lad. But you'll grow, and captain will learn you how to ply your fists, and when it comes to a fight, mind of my fighting name, and ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... cause and effect, or only what logicians call a "mere coincidence," the fact remains that in Rome, Russia, France, and England, political corruption, cruelty of government, sexual immorality—nay, downright, impudent, open, boastful indecency—have culminated, for the most part, in the eras of the influence of viragints on government ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... snowing downright hard. I had thought it not possible that we should venture forth, and was surprised to find her waiting for me ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... It is not a dream," interrupted downright, determined Mary; "it is not a dream; it shall be a reality. How glorious it will be! I can see our little house now nestling among the hills, shaded by great spreading trees with flowers and vines and golden fruit all about it, rich plumaged ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... "'I'm downright glad ye came,' she said heartily. 'I do so like folks to be neighborly and sociable. Ye ain't stuck up, nuther, like most city folks; no airs, nor the like o' that. Pap'll be home soon, and he'll be glad to see ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... image of death or weariness. So the concomitants should be distinctly marble, severe and monumental in their lines, not shroud, not bedclothes, not actual armor nor brocade, not a real soft pillow, not a downright hard stuffed mattress, but the mere type and suggestion of these: a certain rudeness and incompletion of finish is very noble in all. Not that they are to be unnatural, such lines as are given should ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... just the same as the others, Maggie; once there is a young man to flirt with, you don't care what he is or where he comes from. When there are no young men, you will snub the old ladies fast enough; and as for Sally, she is downright rude. I didn't want to see the haberdashers, but while they were in my house ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... fortune-teller among them, too," he continued. "Say, she's a shrewd one. Of course, she's one of the fakers, but she's downright smart—told me a lot of things about myself that were true. Suppose she looked me over sharp. Say, I tell you what I'll do; I'll get her to tell your fortunes. How'd you like to have your fortunes ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... 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
... difficult to say what distress the sudden removal of this amiable and accomplished Scholar occasions me, just as I am finishing my task. I consign these pages to the press with a sense of downright reluctance,—(constrained however by the importance of the subject,)—seeing that he is no longer among us either to accept or to dispute a single proposition. All I can do is to erase every word ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... the man, coolly; "I know pretty well every noise as is to be heard out here but that one, and it downright puzzles me. First time I heard it I was sitting by my fire cooking my dinner—a fat, young turkey I'd shot—and I ups and runs as hard as ever I could, and did not stop till I could go no further. ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... downright,—but you beat me hollow. Yes, the three months are over. And now what have you got to say?" He put down his cue, and stretched out his arms as though he were going to take her and hold her to his heart. "No;—no; not that," she said laughing. ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... is. So's Gray, and more of 'em too; but there's a difference between them and the downright murdhering Tory set. Poor Tom doesn't throuble the Church much; but you'll be all for Protesthants now, Martin, when you've your new brother-in-law. Barry used to be one of ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... answer to this question. The comic, we said, appeals to the intelligence, pure and simple; laughter is incompatible with emotion. Depict some fault, however trifling, in such a way as to arouse sympathy, fear, or pity; the mischief is done, it is impossible for us to laugh. On the other hand, take a downright vice,—even one that is, generally speaking, of an odious nature,—you may make it ludicrous if, by some suitable contrivance, you arrange so that it leaves our emotions unaffected. Not that the vice must then be ludicrous, but ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... Bright in the song," said Phyllis. "I should like to look at her if it wasn't so awful. She looks so beautiful when she's really downright furious." ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... not courage to shake them off. Her mistress is her next-door neighbor, Mrs. Colisle, a coarse, vulgar, half-bred woman, whose husband acquired a sudden wealth from contracts and petroleum speculations, and who has in consequence set herself up for a leader of ton. A certain downright persistence and energy of character, acquired, it may be, in bullying the kitchen-maids at the country tavern where she began life, a certain lavish expenditure of her husband's profits, the vulgar display and profusion at her numerous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... granting him nearly six months' leave, and with that message the question of his alleged insubordination may be treated as finally settled. There can be no doubt that among his many remarkable achievements not the least creditable was this mission to China, when by downright candour, and unswerving resolution in doing the right thing, he not merely preserved peace, but baffled the intrigues of unscrupulous ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... us to distinguish their actions, I could see first one and then another glancing aloft and over his shoulder at the sky, the action being invariably followed by the exhibition of increased energy at the oar. They were clearly doing their utmost, one and all; in fact the boats were making a downright race of it for the brig; the men bending their backs and throwing their whole strength into every stroke, churning the oily-looking surface of the water into foam with their oar-blades, and leaving a long, wedge-like ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... stood and looked 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 ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... this kind of life, he began to want some more fierce excitement. He had tried making downright love to Elsie, with no great success as yet, in his own opinion. The girl was capricious in her treatment of him, sometimes scowling and repellent, sometimes familiar, very often, as she used to be of old, teasing and malicious. ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to arrive, perhaps for the reason that he is a downright suitor, who has left the city and business, in order to further the interests nearest his heart. He is a keen-eyed, strong-looking fellow, well equipped for success by knowledge of the world and society; resolute, also, in attaining his desired ends. ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... "I had downright love and affection. They were just so many dear friends. I don't suppose any governess was ever so treated before. It was just like being at home. The more I laughed, the ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... to talking such nonsense," said Tavia with as much severity as she could summon on short notice, "I think we should do something for it—get busy at something you know. It is plainly the result of downright idleness." ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... proceeded to enjoy ourselves. Oh, the luxury of having clean clothes and being able to keep them clean: to sleep in real beds and eat from regular dishes and at white-clothed tables. It seemed almost worth the price we had paid to be able to get so much downright enjoyment out of the merest "necessities" of ordinary civilian life. The theaters were all running and we took in some show every night, but I derived the most satisfaction from taking my young companion around to see the museums and many old historical places in and about London. He ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... can think of things to say that will be the truth and yet not give the whole thing away!" sighed the downright Cynthia. "I wish I were as ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... children, from six to ten years of age, a girl, and two impudent-looking boys, who ranged themselves in front of Mrs. Lyndsay, with open mouths, and eyes distended with eager curiosity, in order to attract her observation, and indulge themselves in a downright stare. ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... pike staff, plain as the sun at noon-day, plain as the nose on one's face, plain as the way to parish church. explicit, overt, patent, express; ostensible; open, open as day; naked, bare, literal, downright, undisguised, exoteric. unreserved, frank, plain-spoken &c. (artless) 703; candid (veracious) 543; barefaced. manifested &c. v.; disclosed &c. 529; capable of being shown, producible; inconcealable[obs3], unconcealable; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget |
