"Frankness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... replied with her usual gentle frankness and simple logical consistency. "It pleases you to say 'we' and 'ours' whenever you can so seem to make me part of yourself; and I love to hear you, for it assures me each time that you still hold me tightly as I cling to you. But you know those are only ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... admiration. Do you know, there is one of 'em who I know has not moved from the inn in eight days, and this morning I said to her, 'These long walks in the clear mountain air are doing you a world of good.' And I keep continually saying, 'Your frankness is so charming!' Because of the great law of universal balance, I know that this illustrious corps will believe good of themselves with exactly the same readiness that they will believe ill of others. So I ply them with it. ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... of his duty. Somewhat lacking in imagination though he was, Alexander Mackenzie had in him the stuff out of which party leaders are made. He was a man of vigour and ability, a hard-hitting debater, a thoroughgoing democrat, and he had a well-earned reputation for downright frankness and unswerving honesty which could easily have rallied the country's trust and affection. But while prime minister he gave to the details of departmental administration the care and thought and time which should have gone in part to his other duties ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... made answer, surprised by the words she had spoken, "Pleasant to me are thy converse, thy ways, thy meekness of spirit; Pleasant thy frankness of speech, and thy soul's immaculate whiteness, Love without dissimulation, a holy and inward adorning. But I have yet no light to lead me, no voice to direct me. When the Lord's work is done, and the toil and the labor completed He hath appointed to me, I will gather ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Cary's arms were around the shaking little figure, whose face had grown white with the effort of her frankness. ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... certainly had no foundation at all in fact. He had been liked, loved, and made much of, not for anything he had ever taken the trouble to do, but partly for his own sake, and partly on account of his position. Such charm as he had for women lay in his frankness, good humour, and simplicity of character. That he had appeared to be changeable in his affection was merely due to the fact that he had never been in love. He vaguely recognised the fact in his inner consciousness, though he ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... ill-educated or unpolished. It is quite as necessary, my dear son, that a young man should not undervalue himself, as that he should not think of his deserts too highly. Now that you have some merits is certain—for the rest I desire frankness of you just now, and beg that you will speak out plainly. I think you love this young girl. Is it not ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... interests to seek further conquests for her arms: the more territory they conquered, the thinner would be their lines and the greater the difficulty of maintaining them. But patriotic imagination detected behind this apparent frankness a design to conquer Egypt and India, or at least to dominate the Persian Gulf, and averted attention from the probability that it implied a desire to substitute a solid decision in the West for territorial speculation in the East. Nothing, ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... to deteriorate and to contract their meaning, just as bright metal rusts by exposure, or coins become light and illegible by use. So it comes to pass that any decently respectable man, especially if he has an easy temper and a dash of frankness and good humour, is christened with this title 'good.' The Bible, which is the verdict of the Judge, is a great deal more chary in its use of the word. You remember how Jesus Christ once rebuked a man for addressing Him so, not that He repudiated the title, but that the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... respect I felt for Madame Pierson sealed my lips. If she had been less frank in permitting me to become her friend, perhaps I would have been more bold, for she had made such a strong impression on me, that I never quitted her without transports of love. But there was something in her frankness and the confidence she placed in me, that checked me; moreover, it was in my father's name that I had been treated as a friend. That consideration rendered me still more respectful and I resolved to prove ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... considerably," he said quietly, "if you told me all about it. You can't cache that booze you've got in the car—I won't let you, for one thing; for another, that would be merely dodging the issue, and if you'll forgive my frankness, dodging doesn't seem to ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... said Milly, with a quiet frankness, free from any haste or confusion, "that William had said anything about it, or I wouldn't have come. I asked him not to. It's a sick young gentleman, sir—and very poor, I am afraid—who is too ill to go home this holiday-time, and lives, unknown to any one, in but a common kind ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... with Cressida was, that more than any woman I have ever known, she appealed to the acquisitive instinct in men; but this was not easily said, even in the brutal frankness of a ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... his enemies. Arraigned before a Virginia court, the authorities hurried through his trial for treason, conspiracy, and murder, with an unseemly precipitancy, almost calculated to make him seem the accuser, and the commonwealth the trembling culprit. He acknowledged his acts with frankness, defended his purpose with a sincerity that betokened honest conviction, bore his wounds and met his fate with a manly fortitude. Eight years before, he had written, in a document organizing a band of colored people in Springfield, Massachusetts, to resist the fugitive-slave law: "Nothing ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... "Such frankness as yours is repulsive, forbidding, demoniac! You speak of woman as being the noblest subject of contemplation for man, but interpreted by your book and your experiences this seems in the last analysis to lead you right into sensuality, and what I should ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... hypocrite, Sibyl," said Hugh with brotherly frankness. "I am not good at splitting hairs, but there is no more comparison between Mr. Leslie and Graham Marr, than there is between an eagle and a ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... very summary manner, or to treat him with haughty reserve, the graceful dignity of Mr. Humphreys' manners made either expedient impossible. Mr. Lindsay felt constrained to meet him on his own ground the ground of high-bred frankness, and grew secretly still more afraid that his real feelings should ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... can inspire me with love, and at the same time form the dreadful plan of tyrannising over the victim of your charms. Such a project is monstrous, and unhappily for us poor men, you do not look a monster. Nevertheless, I am obliged to you for your frankness, and I shall ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... States sentiments of good will continue to be mutually cherished. Our minister recently accredited to that Court has been received with a frankness and cordiality and with evidences of respect for his country which leave us no room to doubt the preservation in future of those amicable and liberal relations which have so long and so uninterruptedly existed between the two countries. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren
... at perfect rest. He was always clean shaven, so that nothing was lost of the changes of expression which animated his mobile face in conversation. He had a hearty way of meeting men, a little bustling, and an emphatic frankness of manner which Bryant says startled him at first, but which he came at last to like and to admire. Cooper was a great talker. His voice was agreeably sonorous. He talked well, and with infinite resource. He could dash into animated conversation ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... of the communication with the bold frankness of the inartificial son of nature, scorning to conceal his just self-estimate beneath a veil of affected modesty. He knew his own worth, and while he over-valued not one iota of that worth, so did he not affect to disclaim a consciousness ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... into the war, and all that is happening, makes me feel so very, very old and sad at times;" and so she continued in low tones to tell about herself and Henry and her father, of their hopes of final victory, and all that made up her life. This she did with a guileless frankness, and yet with a refined reserve that was indescribable in its simple pathos and beauty. In spite of himself Graham was charmed and soothed, while he wondered at the exquisite blending of girlhood and womanhood in his guide. She also questioned him about the North and ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... the walk at a short distance from them. He shuffles along with his heavy gait and home-spun dress, but there is a good honest frankness in his face that commends him to the passers-by. He has almost reached them, and is about to give some token of recognition, when they whisk across the street with averted looks. Didn't I tell you so, Captain Flin? The twelvemonth lacks a week, and Jerry Doolan has gone ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... idiom of the neighboring Si Fan speech of Sze-Chuan and contained many Chinese expressions. He found also a modification of manners, customs, and costumes in this peripheral Tibet; the natives showed more of the polish, cunning, and covetousness of the Chinese, less of the rudeness, frankness, and strong religious feeling characteristic of the western plateau man.[380] Just across the political boundary in Chinese territory, the border zone of assimilation shows predominance of the Chinese element with a strong ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... that shall constitute an epoch in the mind of the reader, that no one, after he has read it, shall ever be exactly the same man that he was before."—I put these things down just as they happened, and with the most entire frankness. I know that it will sound like the most pitiable degree of self-conceit. But such perhaps ought to be the state of mind of an author when he does his best. At any rate, I have said nothing of my vainglorious impulse for nearly ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... was so generous in supplying its sailors as the government of the United States. They appeared to be happy, and contented with their condition and service, and animated with a patriotic pride for the honour of their country, and the flag under which they sailed. The open frankness and honest patriotism of these single-hearted and weather-beaten tars gave a spice and flavour to our entertainment which I shall not ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... to you only an uninteresting stiff figure. But Sir Walter's Franchise, Diana Vernon, interests you at once in personal aspect and character. She is no symbol to you; but if you acquaint yourself with her perfectly, you find her utter frankness, governed by a superb self-command; her spotless truth, refined by tenderness; her fiery enthusiasm, subdued by dignity; and her fearless liberty, incapable of doing wrong, joining to fulfil to you, in sight and presence, what the Greek could ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... escape the quick eye of the mother. It was evident to her that something was kept back. But what that something was she was wholly unable to conjecture. It was so unusual for her son to show any lack of frankness that the circumstance disturbed her, and, though she knew not exactly why, sent a boding chill over her heart, which caused her also to become thoughtful and silent. And Mr. Elwood, who possessed none of those mental sympathies which, in some, will often be found ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... see that Lincoln ruled his own spirit; and we also behold the fact that he could rule others. 5 The letter shows frankness, kindliness, wit, tact, wise diplomacy, ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... herself, thank him for his kindness in such a way as to make him believe she did not need his information? She was aware that already she was not so suspicious of him as she had been a few moments before. The friendly sincerity of his look and the blunt frankness of his manner compelled her into a less wary, less hostile feeling. Reminding herself again that she must be on her guard she motioned him to a ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... personal preoccupation I remember being struck by the fact that, though she talked foolishly, she didn't talk like a fool. She was not stupid; she was not obtuse; one felt that her impassive surface was alive with delicate points of perception; and this fact, coupled with her crystalline frankness, flung me back on a startled revision of my impressions of her father. He came out of the test more monstrous than ever, as an ugly image reflected in clear water is made uglier by the purity of the medium. Even then I felt a pang ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... unprejudiced reader peruse the original, and he will be no more deeply affected by it than by any touching story of treachery, jealousy, and hapless innocence. The wily subtleties of Iago, the soldierly frankness of Cassio, the turbulent and volcanic passions of Othello, the charm of Desdemona, and the whole tissue of vivid incidents which make 'Othello' one of the most tremendous extant tragedies of characters in combat, are Shakspere's, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... smile came back to his face, so that as he looked at her he seemed a sun-god. But again there was something in his gaze that was not the frankness of a comrade, some smoldering fire that strangely stirred her blood and yet ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... say," cried the young man, abashed at his uncle's frankness, "I don't call that a diplomatic remark ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... virtue suffer, and vice triumph: for not only Cato is vanquished by Caesar, but the treachery and perfidiousness of Syphax prevail over the honest simplicity and the credulity of Juba; and the sly subtlety and dissimulation of Portius over the generous frankness and ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... are speaking of, M'Clise was about six-and-twenty years of age; he was above the middle size, elegant in person, and with a frankness and almost nobility in his countenance, which won all ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Aramis while he uttered these words, which displayed so much true respect, so much warm devotion, such entire frankness and sincerity, that even he, D'Artagnan, the eternal doubter, he, the almost infallible in judgment, was deceived by it. "A man who lies cannot speak in such a tone ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he could give a good account of himself no matter in what tight place he found himself. His clean cut features and strong chin denoted strength of character, his deep set blue eyes, a blue of a shade so light rarely seen except in the peasants of Normandy, beamed with frankness and honesty, a kindly smile hovered about his smooth, firm mouth. What at once attracted attention was his hair which was dark and unusually thick and bushy and a peculiar characteristic was a solitary white lock in the center of his forehead. Such a phenomenon of the capillary glands was ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... Hudson's fourth voyage—until his mutinous conduct caused him to be deposed. What rating he had on board the "Half Moon" is not known; nor do we know whether he had, or had not, a share in the mutiny that changed the ship's course from east to west. With a suspicious frankness, he wrote in his log: "Because it is a journey usually knowne I omit to put downe what passed till we came to the height of the North Cape of Finmarke, which we did performe by the fift of May (stilo novo), being Tuesday." To ...
— Henry Hudson - A Brief Statement Of His Aims And His Achievements • Thomas A. Janvier
... no objection whatever to this; on the contrary, she had enough romance in her disposition to admire all generous and chivalric qualities, and her cousin's patriotism only made her like him the better; but in spite of his frankness in most things, she had no idea that this affection for his native country was linked to and deepened by another kind of love. Lucia's name had never passed his lips, and she had no means of guessing how daily and hourly thoughts of one fair young Canadian girl were inseparably joined to the very ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... secret service agents, and value them in proportion to the degree of skill with which they manage to deceive their fellows, while limiting the exercise of professional good faith to their intercourse with their paymaster? The secret service agent of transparent frankness, who could not bear to deceive his neighbor, would not hold his post for a day. He would be a subject for ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... together, after the notion of this thing came into his mind, and about the sentiments of one of them he felt no shadow of doubt. He was not quite so clear about the feelings of the other. There was a perfect frankness and ease about Marian that seemed scarcely compatible with the growth of that tender passion which generally reveals itself by a certain amount of reserve, and is more eloquent in silence than in speech. Marian seemed always pleased to see Gilbert, always ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... picturesque. She was struck by her perfect self-possession, and by the ease and grace of her manner, which was rather that of a mature woman than of a girl of nineteen. But most of all she was interested in her odd talk and opinions, which she expressed with such absolute simplicity and frankness. Was it, Lady Evelyn asked herself, that the girl had been brought up so much in the society of men—that she had neither mother nor sisters—that she spoke of politics and such matters as if it the most natural thing ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... struck dumb with astonishment. But his supposed nephew's start of terror had not been lost upon the judge, also much impressed by the straightforward frankness of Carbon Barreau. He caused fresh investigations to be made, and other inhabitants of Sagias were summoned to Rieux, who one and all agreed in identifying the accused as the same Arnauld du Thill who had been born and had grown ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARTIN GUERRE • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... brilliancies of Attic conversation; but power and fortune, which ever soften nature, afterward rendered his habits intellectual and his tastes refined. He had not the smooth and artful affability of Themistocles, but to a certain roughness of manner was conjoined that hearty and ingenuous frankness which ever conciliates mankind, especially in free states, and which is yet more popular when united to rank. He had distinguished himself highly by his zeal in the invasion of the Medes, and the desertion of Athens for Salamis; and his ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... censure Gouverneur Morris's frankness one may quote a short passage from Boswell's "Johnson." "To discover such weakness," said Mrs. Thrale to Doctor Johnson, speaking of the autobiography of Sir Robert Sibbald, "exposes a man when he is gone." "Nay," said the pious and great lexicographer, ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... from pretension. Owen is a first-rate comparative anatomist, they say the greatest since Cuvier; lives in London, and lectures there. On the whole, he interested me more than any of them,—by an apparent force and downrightness of mind, combined with much simplicity and frankness. ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... along," said Eurie, with her usual frankness. "No, Nell, we don't want you to call with ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... Court of Preliminary Enquiries, which had Viscount Miura and his assistants before it after the murder, reported all the facts up to this point with great frankness. I have used its account solely in the above description. The Court having gone so far, then added a final finding which probably ranks as the most extraordinary statement ever presented by a responsible ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... made pledges of a new frankness in our public statements and worldwide broadcasts. In the face of a climate of falsehood and misinformation, we've promised the world a season of truth—the truth of our great civilized ideas: individual liberty, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... described. If her expositions were not according to the ordinary canons of exegesis, they had the merit of being simple, fresh, and unconventional. Her language was as candid, often as pungent, as her remarks in conversation, its very frankness and force indicating how real to her were the life and conditions she was studying. When one Bible was finished she began another, and repeated the process, for she found that new thoughts came as the years went by. On one occasion we find her interested in a recent ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... on account of this frankness that St. Sulpice represents all that is most upright in religion. No attenuation of the dogmas of Scripture was allowed at St. Sulpice; the fathers, the councils, and the doctors were looked upon as the sources of Christianity. Proof of the divinity of Christ was not sought in Mohammed or the ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... not even defend herself. She had been too short a time at court and in society to be versed in the strategic arts of love or coquetry. Almost in their first conversation she had confessed, with charming frankness, that everybody was warning her against him, she had been told that he was an extremely dangerous man, she was really a little afraid of him; but a certain slight shiver in the presence of a handsome monster was a new ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... justice, have been much maligned for imputed qualities not theirs. For whoso has touched flagons with monarchs, bear they their back bones never so stiffly on the throne, well know the rascals, to be at bottom royal good fellows; capable of a vinous frankness exceeding that of base-born men. Was not Alexander a boon companion? And daft Cambyses? and what of old Rowley, as good a judge of wine and other matters, as ever sipped ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... however, were of still more interest to me than the house. Lady Shuttleworth is a little woman, thirty-two years old, with a pretty, smooth, lively face. Of pretension to aristocratic airs she may be entirely acquitted; of frankness, good-humour, and activity she has enough; truth obliges me to add, that, as it seems to me, grace, dignity, fine feeling were not in the inventory of her qualities. These last are precisely what her husband possesses. In manner he can be gracious and dignified; his tastes and feelings are capable ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... as that of Columbus. His sympathies were aroused by the tales of the exceeding brutality of many of the early Spanish voyagers in their relations with the natives. He went out to see for himself, and wrote voluminously of his experiences. He also wrote with exceeding frankness, and often with great indignation. He writes about Hatuey. The inference is that this Cacique, or chieftain, fled from Haiti to escape Spanish brutality, and even in fear of his life. There are other translations of Las Casas, but for this purpose choice has been made of one published in London ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... case of all others," Mirabel answers, with the engaging frankness that has won him so many friends, "which can never happen in my unhappy experience. Waltzing, I blush to own it, means picking me up off the floor, and putting smelling salts to my nostrils. In other words, dear Miss Emily, it is the room that waltzes—not I. I ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... tell, they thought, to what the Lord might not have subjected him; and when his troubled spirit was more tranquil, they hoped that his former frankness might be restored. ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... about St. George's Pier until nearly midnight; but before we parted, with uncommon frankness, he told me many strange ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... it real—"Never," says Mrs. Towers, who is still a single lady, "did I see, before, a lady so much advantaged by her residence in that fantastic nation" (for she loves not the French) "who brought home with her nothing of their affectation!"—She says, that the French politeness, and the English frankness and plainness of heart, appear happily blended in all we say and do. And she makes me a thousand compliments upon Lord and Lady Davers's account, who, she would fain persuade me, owe a great deal of improvement (my lord in his conversation, and my lady in her temper) to living in ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... standing where he had left me, with my eyes fixed upon him, vainly endeavouring to find out some means of appeasing him. Nothing but openness and frankness could reinstate me in his favour: and how could I be open and frank? What could I tell him that would justify my intimacy with Henry? or account for the agitation which his words had caused me? Nothing; nothing short of the truth; and that—oh! how wearied I was with ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... attribute to society the precise convictions and spirit he feels within himself, and so to expect impossibilities, by impossible means. But there is a power of reasoning in Mazzini, an unsullied moral purity, a chivalrous veracity and frankness, an utter abnegation of self, and a courage that has stood the severest trials, which command not only respect but veneration. He belongs to the martyr age of Italian liberalism, and possesses himself the highest ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... was for a time, his anger soon cooled, and was converted into sincere respect. Indeed he afterwards provided for her, and married her at his own cost and expense to a rich and good husband, on account of her frankness and loyalty. ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... aware of a nearer view than he had yet quite had of those circumstances on his companion's part that made least for simplicity of relation. He saw above all how she saw them herself, for she spoke of them at present with the last frankness, telling him of her visit to her father and giving him, in an account of her subsequent scene with her sister, an instance of how she was perpetually reduced to patching up, in one way or another, ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... in the following pages. He has told the story of his early life in a bright, natural, and touching style, in one of his best poems, entitled, "My Recollections" (Mes Souvenirs), written in Gascon; wherein he revealed his own character with perfect frankness, and at the same time with ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... and Confessors of the Faith, stricken with horror at the blasphemy, cry out and stop their ears. The indignation is universal. Eusebius and his party are in consternation. Arius has been too outspoken. He has stated his opinions too crudely; such frankness will not do here; he is no longer among the ignorant. Eusebius himself rises to speak and, with the insinuating and charming manner for which he is famous, tries to gloss over what ...
— Saint Athanasius - The Father of Orthodoxy • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... the active exertions both of body and mind; and I have always remarked that sailors, I mean those among them who are men of education, and are stimulated by motives of honour or ambition, have a generosity of temper, a frankness and manliness of character, which is much more seldom seen ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... "What she thought of her behaviour?" Miss Woodley, who could not approve of the duplicity she had betrayed, still wished to reconcile her as much as possible to her own conduct, and replied, she "Highly commended the frankness with which she had, ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... upon the brave heart of this loving friend and mother. Never had she known her child to be so silent, so strange, as now. Ever since Friday night she seemed to avoid all mention of the affair, to shrink from the subject—she who had ever been frankness itself—she who had never had a thought the mother did not share. She had become fitful and nervous. She seemed oppressed with some secret. In the long hours of their enforced confinement, with the lamps ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... not so sure, the young lady was certainly kind and friendly and almost confiding with Harry, and treated Philip with the greatest consideration. She deferred to his opinions, and listened attentively when he talked, and in time met his frank manner with an equal frankness, so that he was quite convinced that whatever she might feel towards Harry, she was sincere with him. Perhaps his manly way did win her liking. Perhaps in her mind, she compared him with Harry, and recognized in him a man to whom a woman might give her whole soul, recklessly and with little care ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... accomplished orator put together. He understood, as it were instinctively, the character of every man he met, and dealt with him accordingly. This tact, coupled with a smile full of sweetness and apparent frankness, gave to his vivid personality a charm which only those could ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... nature, modelled by art to the usual rules of courtesy, yet so far frank and honest, that they seemed as if they disclaimed to conceal the natural workings of the soul. Such an expression is often mistaken for manly frankness, when in truth it arises from the reckless indifference of a libertine disposition, conscious of superiority of birth, of wealth, or of some other adventitious advantage, totally unconnected with personal merit. To those who ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... feelings of a friend who is doubtless beyond your conception interested in your health and happiness, I take liberty to address you with a frankness which nothing but the purest friendship and affection can palliate,—know, then, that the charms I first read on your visage brought a passion into my bosom for which I could not account. If it was from the thing called LOVE, I was before mostly ignorant ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... the maid," she said instantly, with disconcerting penetration and frankness. "Well, I know no more than you. She will tell me nothing but what she has told you. She has some fiddle-faddle in her head, as maids will, but she will have her way with ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... with an unreasoning pleasure, yet her movement had been neither temperamental nor sentimental; it was instinctive—one of those honest impulses that knows no sex. Did she realize, by some divine insight, that this frankness, this absence of finical conventions, this whole-hearted camaraderie, would hold me more sternly to my path of duty than anything else she might have done? Did the instinct of her sex whisper that each man's heart, however light and worldly, is the possessor of a trusty loadstone which ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... at this frankness, and then proceeded to show him how the shake was done. Josef after a few trials was able to perform the shake to the entire satisfaction of his teacher. After testing him on a portion of a mass the Capellmeister was willing to take him ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... for the intellectual men and women of the community. Occupying an enviable position in his profession, he still found leisure to devote much of his attention to strictly literary topics, and the honest frankness and cordiality of his manners, blended with the instructive tone of his conversation, rendered him a general favorite. Mrs. Asbury merited the elevated position which she so ably filled as the wife of such a man. ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... reciprocal compliments and observations from Cardinal Bissy, appropriate to the subject. Then followed protestations from Dubois and replies from the Marechal. Thus far, the sea was very smooth. But absorbed in his song, the Marechal began to forget its tune; then to plume himself upon his frankness and upon his plain speaking; then by degrees, growing hot in his honours, he gave utterance to divers naked truths, closely akin ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... hair and a flowing tie, turned the corner by Saint James' Church, and passed over the earthen roadbed in front of the green lattice. As the young man went by, he looked up quickly, smiled with the engaging frankness of a genial nature, and lifting his hat with a charming bow, revealed to Miss Priscilla's eyes the fact that his hair was thick and dark as well as long and wavy. While he looked at her, she noticed, also, that he had a thin, high-coloured face, lighted ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... bold exposure of devout abuses in holy things, in The Holy Fair and other similar satires, on a broad view of the matter we cannot but think that the castigation was reasonable, and the man who did it showed an amount of independence, frankness, and moral courage that amply compensates for the ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... Moreover, it should suggest that it is possible that your playlet lacks the required punch—because you have kept something secret that you ought to have disclosed. Therefore, go through your playlet carefully and try to discover just what you have not treated with dramatic frankness. ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... this time the Spanish ambassador in England; a man whose flattery was the more artful, because covered with the appearance of frankness and sincerity; whose politics were the more dangerous, because disguised under the mask of mirth and pleasantry. He now made offer of the second daughter of Spain to Prince Charles; and, that he might render the temptation irresistible to the necessitous monarch, he gave hopes of an immense ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... green eyes. About all that Harry was to see and do on his first visit to London, his female relatives had of course talked and joked. Both of the ladies knew perfectly what were a young gentleman's ordinary amusements in those days, and spoke of them with the frankness which characterised those ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Hamilton's frankness had taken part of the wind out of my sails, and his open confession had at least paved the way for absolution, which I feared might be followed by disastrous results, since to forgive always makes the heart ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... was, the man was much impressed with the sincerity and honesty of Nat before he got half through his explanation. He admired his frankness, and his manly, straight-forward way of telling his story. He went into the house and brought out the caps, just as he took them from the ground, full of cherries, and gave them caps, ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... the "E. E." came to her knowledge was never made plain. Before three months were past, she had quarreled with every one in the house except Mrs. Mason and myself; though, to her credit be it said, she always apologized for her temper when they were over, with a frankness that disarmed resentment. Nevertheless, she was so frequently in a hostile attitude toward one or another in the family, that the mere mention of Miss Jorgensen's name was sure to arrest attention and excite expectations. Thus, when I only chanced ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... there are no journals in St. Petersburg which publish anything other than that which is permitted by the emperor, Souvarow's successes were spread abroad, but his reverses were ignored. Foedor described the former with modesty and the latter with frankness. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... weird enthusiasm, almost an obsession. It was taken up over the land, and repeated in a thousand books and on as many platforms. One of these propagandists was General von Bernhardi, who entered in more detail into the technical and strategical aspects of the programme. The rude and almost brutal frankness of both writers may be admired; but the want of real depth and breadth of view cannot be concealed and must be deplored. The arguments in favour of force, of unscrupulousness, of terrorism are—especially in Bernhardi[14]—casuistical to a degree. ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... did, unpopular opinions on religion, or on any other of the great subjects of thought, would now either practise or inculcate the withholding of them from the world, unless in the cases, becoming fewer every day, in which frankness on these subjects would either risk the loss of means of subsistence, or would amount to exclusion from some sphere of usefulness peculiarly suitable to the capacities of the individual. On religion in particular the time appears to me to have come ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... the representative of a nation, which has no views that it does not avow, and which asks no favor which it does not hope to return, and, as in the present happy state of his Majesty's affairs, they can conceive no reason for disguising his designs, they are satisfied, that your frankness will meet from his Ministers ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... has the slightest suspicion. I have not mentioned it to a living soul," said the banker—"except to my wife," added he with a frankness which drew a smile from Pierre. "But my wife and I ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... fine the right choice, the vigorous resistance, the honest perseverance might have been; but the worst faults of boyhood have something exciting and even romantic about them—they would not be so alluring if they had not—while the homely virtues of honesty, frankness, modesty, and self-restraint appear too often as a dull and priggish abstention from the more daring and adventurous joys of eager living. If evil were always ugly and goodness were always beautiful at first sight, there would be little of the trouble and havoc ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... by adoption, Mercer's answer was given with true soldierly frankness. "If the lower counties give up, the back counties will do the same," was his ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... good terms with the whole family. The woman sees that there is nothing impertinent in our cursory inquiry into her domestic concerns, but, I fancy, knows that we are genial travelers, with human sympathies. So the people universally are not quick to suspect any imposition, and meet frankness with frankness, and good-nature with good-nature, in a simple-hearted, primeval manner. If they stare at us from doorway and balcony, or come and stand near us when we sit reading or writing by the shore, it is only a childlike curiosity, and they are quite ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... beauties, just to show what they could do if they chose, then stopped suddenly. I wrote anxiously to former owners of this vaunted stock to explain such disappointing behavior. Some guessed the hens were just moulting, others thought "may be they were broody"; a few had the frankness to agree with me that it was mighty curious, but hens ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... evils, such as infanticide, are steadily combated by the Chinese themselves. Even on the most delicate point, the actual condition of missionary enterprises, the good man tells the precise truth with the most admirable frankness. To make a single convert cost seven years' labor at Canton, and nine at Fuhchan, and it was twenty-eight years ere a church was organized. Out of four hundred million souls, there are as yet less ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... reading it to his friends, repeated the words of one of the characters, in a solemn tone, "Drip! drip! drip!" adding, "Why, here's nothing but dripping:" but the story is told by Coleridge himself, in the preface to his tragedy, with that good humour and frankness becoming one sensible of his powers, and conscious that the witty use of an unfortunate expression (were it such) could but little affect the real and numerous beauties ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... suspicious glances of the foresters bore hardly more welcome, till they heard that the stranger belonged to the settlers on Cedar Pond, and had simply lost his way. They informed him in return, with exceeding frankness, that they were squatters, taking possession of this strip of bush without anybody's leave, and determined to hold their own against all comers. An apparently well-used rifle lying against a log close by gave ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... her ears. He rises and moves away from the piano, saying) No, my dear: I've been kind; I've been frank; I've been everything that a goodnatured man could be: she only takes it as the making up of a lover's quarrel. (Grace winces.) Frankness and kindness: one is as the other—especially frankness. I've tried both. (He crosses to the fireplace, and stands facing the fire, looking at the ornaments on the ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... frankness with which Kennedy spoke, but absolutely amazed at the coolness of Jermyn. At first he said absolutely nothing. He seemed to be as set in his reticence as he had ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... fragment of fictitious history.[1] The 'Memoirs of a Cavalier' is a very amusing book, though it is less fiction than history, interspersed with a few personal anecdotes. In it there are some exquisite little bits of genuine Defoe. The Cavalier tells us, with such admirable frankness, that he once left the army a day or two before a battle, in order to visit some relatives at Bath, and excuses himself so modestly for his apparent neglect of military duty, that we cannot refuse to believe in him. A novelist, we ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... she was a "nature," and each time she met his eyes it seemed to come to him straighter that her beauty was rare. You had to get the good view of her face, but when you did so it was a splendid mobile mask. And the wearer of this high ornament had frankness and courage and variety—no end of the unusual and the unexpected. She had qualities that seldom went together—impulses and shynesses, audacities and lapses, something coarse, popular, and strong all intermingled with disdains and languors and nerves. And then above ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... sooner appeared than it was rejected. In the Anglo- Saxon, especially the Anglo-Saxon of the Southern United States, abides no such Gallic frankness as moved a Jean-Jacques. Southern memoirs always sound like the conversation between two maiden ladies,—nothing intimate, simply a few general remarks designed to show from what nice ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... of the front row of the stage box, much dressed, with a profusion of white bugles and plumes, to receive the public homage due to her sex and loveliness.... It was amazing to see so young a woman entirely possess herself; but there is such an integrity and frankness in her consciousness of her own beauty and talents, that she speaks of them with a naivete as if she had no property in them, but only wore them as gifts of the gods. Lord Craven, on the contrary, was quite agitated by his fondness for her, and with impatience at the bad performance of the ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... of your way, indeed, if you are going to Humboldt, for it is a good ten miles from here. Come in—come in out of the pouring rain, and we will discuss what will be best for you to do," returned his host, in a hearty tone, for he was won by the man's frankness ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... February the Danite reappeared. He came under the cover of night, but showed himself only when the household was awake. He was much thinner, more gaunt than before, but in frankness and quietude the same. His first words to Susannah had an ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... morning, he met his guide with frankness, and the best of feeling seemed to prevail day after day, until suddenly one evening before night had fairly set in, and the day before he had anticipated any such attempt, the negroes suddenly fell upon him, and pinned his arms, and otherwise disabled him, so ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... furnishes no examples of that cowardice, treachery, and baseness which dishonour the annals of all nations, and scarcely can an instance be adduced of a Creole having committed a disgraceful action. Untainted by the mean vices of dissimulation, artifice, and suspicion, they possess great frankness and vivacity of character, joined to a high opinion of themselves, and their intercourse with the world is not stained by that mysterious reserve so common in Europe, which obscures the most amiable characters, depresses the social spirit, and chills ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... take offense; rather she liked this frankness. In truth, she liked any one who spoke to her on equal footing; it was a taste of the old days when she herself could have chosen a vintner and married him, with none to say her nay. Now she was ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... continued that train of reasoning, which, backed as it is with four hundred thousand bayonets, always appears the soundest. A man at Geneva said to me, "Do not you think that the prefect declares his opinion with a great deal of frankness?" "Yes," I replied, "he says with sincerity that he is devoted to the man of power; he says with courage that he is of the strongest side; I am not exactly sensible of the merit of such ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... Convention, had done good in the country. This was admitted by the Grand Master of the Orange Order, Colonel Wallace, in a speech which led to an important illustration of the mutual process of education, for it raised with great frankness the issue of religious differences and alluded specially to the recent Papal decrees over which so much controversy had raged. The Bishop of Raphoe rose to reply and expounded, as an ex-professor of Canon Law, the true bearing of these documents. ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... he went on, "is having to watch her making herself ridiculous. Yet what am I to do? If I explain things to her she will be miserable and ashamed of herself; added to which her frankness—perhaps her greatest charm—will be murdered. The trouble runs through everything. She won't take my advice about her frocks. She laughs, and repeats to me—well, the lies that other women tell a girl who is spoiling herself by dressing absurdly; especially when she is a pretty ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... would talk of his own writings with a wonderful frankness and candour, and would even criticise them with the closest severity. One day, having read over one of his Ramblers, Mr. Langton asked him, how he liked that paper; he shook his head, and answered, "too wordy." At another time, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... as one of the world's great powers before the close of the twentieth century, is a mathematical certainty. That M. Zola, in order to combat those evils, and to do his duty as a good citizen anxious to prevent the decline of his country, should have dealt with his subject with the greatest frankness and outspokenness, was only natural. Moreover, absolute freedom of speech exists in France, which is not the case elsewhere. Thus, when I first perused the original proofs of M. Zola's work, I came to the conclusion that any version of it ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... by the censors of the Smart Set that Miss St. Clair's frankness and honesty were a trifle old-fashioned, and that she was a shadowy bit of a Puritan; and perhaps it was of these same qualities that Samuel Walcott received his hurt. At any rate the hurt was there and deep, and the new actor stepped up ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... might be expected, waxed very indignant when I made a clean breast of the whole matter. With their usual frankness they quite admitted that I might have pilfered the shilling. That sort of thing, they remarked, was quite in my line, and in keeping with my character generally; and they hoped to live to see me hung. But as to caving in to Crofter as the cost of my shelter, they drew the line at that. He had ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... much piqued because the London public received his wife, to whom he was devotedly attached, with coldness. Notwithstanding the beauty of her face and figure, and the greatness of her style both as actress and singer, she was pronounced passee alike in person and voice, with a species of brutal frankness ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... their entire satisfaction. He was adored by the people, to whom he acted as a father and friend, and his memory is still green among the older inhabitants, who never speak of him but in the warmest terms for his generosity, urbanity, and frankness, and for the kind and free manner in which he always mixed with and addressed his tenants. He was considered by all who knew him the most sagacious and intelligent man in the county. He employed no factor after he came of age, but dealt directly and ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... longer than was necessary before proceeding on his journey. Directly the burgomaster, accompanied by Van der Elst, arrived at his house, the repast, which had long been ready, was placed on the table, and Jaqueline appeared to preside at it. She received the young captain with less frankness than she might generally have bestowed on her father's friends. There was a slight timidity in her manner, which, in spite of herself, she could not help exhibiting, and a blush rose for a moment to her cheek as she ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... near her, L'Isle ran his eye round the well-remembered room. Perhaps he was thinking of his last visit here—perhaps remarking its dismantled, comfortless condition. It was not more changed than he was. All his earnest frankness of manner was gone. He seemed to have borrowed a leaf from Colonel Bradshawe's book; and his air of cool self-possession, his imperturbable manner, under the present trying circumstances, would have excited that gentleman's ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... cheerful talk. In society Mr. Whittier had the reputation of being very shy, and he was so among strangers; but at times, in the companionship of his friends, no one could be more genial. He had even a boyish frankness of manner, a natural love of fun, a keen appreciation of the humorous, which the sorrows and poor health of many years failed to subdue. That night he talked to us freely of his childhood, of the life on the old farm in Haverhill, which he has so vividly described in ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb |
