"Plain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to travel over a swampy plain for about a mile, our animals plunging all the time through about three feet of mud. This plain was covered with thousands of guayava trees, laden with sufficient fruit to make guava jelly for all the world. After floundering through the swamp, we reached more savannahs, and then entered a beautiful ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... bear the burden of a heavy heart,— This weary minstrel-life that once was girt To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail To pipe now 'gainst the valley nightingale A melancholy music,—why advert To these things? O Beloved, it is plain I am not of thy worth nor for thy place! And yet, because I love thee, I obtain From that same love this vindicating grace To live on still in love, and yet in vain,— To bless thee, yet ...
— Sonnets from the Portuguese • Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
... 'If your mind is made up, seek her out wherever she is. I know she is at a V.A.D. Hospital not far from her home; so your way is plain. You can go to her on more equal terms now. You are a distinguished man now. In a few months you have risen from obscurity ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... seemed to another ordinary and trivial enough, carried her forward a stage on an emotional pilgrimage. The half-veiled warnings of Count Anteoni and of the priest, followed by the latter's almost passionately abrupt plain speaking, had not been without effect. To-night something of Europe and her life there, with its civilised experience and drastic training in the management of woman's relations with humanity in general, crept back under the ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... he had no redundance of the article, and his senior curate had just started on a vacation ramble with a brother; but a sort of misgiving crossed him as he heard Herbert Bowater's last comic song pealing out, and beheld the pleasingly plain face of a Miss Strangeways on either side of him. Had he not fought the Eton and Harrow match over again with one of them at dinner? and had not a ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... let us remark one thing which is very plain: That whatever be the uses and duties, real or supposed, of a Secretary in Parliament, his faculty to accomplish these is a point entirely unconnected with his ability to get elected into Parliament, ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... preached sound orthodox doctrine. The text selected had a special application to his audience: 'Depart from me ye accursed, into everlasting torment prepared for the Devil and his angels.' There were eight hundred prisoners, and the minister assured them, in plain language, that such would surely be ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... steps and took her stand on the lowest. She was still looking northwards. Her skirt slipped from her left hand which she raised half mechanically to let a single magnificent jewel, that guarded the plain circlet of gold on her fourth finger, flash in the moonlight. She held it raised so for a moment, watching the play of light from the facets. Suddenly she clinched her delicate fist spasmodically; ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... great man, and historians have recorded much about him, but of his earlier life, when he was plain Master Montezuma, comparatively little is known of this ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... alone he employs more than a score of characters, and hardly a romantic hero among them; rather does he delight in plain men and women, who reveal their quality not so much in their action as in their dress, manner, or tricks of speech. For Chaucer has the glance of an Indian, which passes over all obvious matters to light ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... economic point of view. The western part, up to the line Cormons-Gradi[vs]ca-Monfalcone, is economically self-supporting. If we estimate the population on a language basis, there are about 72,000 Italians and 6000 Slovenes. Geographically it is simply the prolongation of the Venetian plain. We do not claim this territory called Friuli, which belongs ethnologically to the Italians. The rest of this province to the east and the north of the Cormons-Gradi[vs]ca-Monfalcone line, which comprises the mountainous region, is inhabited by 148,500 Slovenes ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... is no fact in history so directly clear and plain as that secession was a foregone conclusion in the South, from the moment that the possibility of Lincoln's election was conjectured. We are told that it was entirely the fault of the North that this diabolical rebellion burst out! It is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... discard the Parenthesis. Also the reparenthesis, the re-reparenthesis, and the re-re-re-re-re-reparentheses, and likewise the final wide-reaching all-enclosing king-parenthesis. I would require every individual, be he high or low, to unfold a plain straightforward tale, or else coil it and sit on it and hold his peace. Infractions of this law ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... inquired what he said to the King of France when he went abroad—if it was "parley vous de donkey." If there is anything the average school-boy can turn into ridicule he does it. When Jim wanted to be exasperating he gave him his whole name. And then Ben wished he had been called plain John, even if there had ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... throwed; and I want to throw it good! I couldn't feel like I'd done right if I didn't. I've give my word that they'll git a majority of sixty-eight votes, and that'll be jest twicet as much in my pocket as a plain majority. And I want them seven Dagoes! I've give up on votin' 'em; it can't be done. It'd make a saint cuss to try to reason with 'em, and it's no good. They can't be fooled, neither. They know where the polls is, and they know how to vote—blast the Australian ballot system! The most ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... She wore no denim uniform, such as Amy had mentioned on a previous occasion as being the mark of the usual "orphan." But it was quite plain that the freckle-faced girl had nobody to care much for ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... shades of the evening gather slowly around, The twilight it thickens and darkens the ground, Night's sombre mantle is spreading the plain. And as I turn round to look on thee again, To take one fond look, one last fond adieu, By night's envious hand thou art snatched from my view; But Oh! there's no darkness—to me—no decay, Home of my boyhood, can chase ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... the Rules of the House, forbade debate upon the motion, put it to a stand-up vote instead of ayes and noes, and then gravely claimed that it had been adopted; whereas, to even the dullest witness—if I without immodesty may pretend to that place—it was plain that nothing legitimately to be called a vote had ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to Railsford, far more forcibly than the lugubrious warnings of his officious friends, that the task before him at Grandcourt would tax his powers considerably. But, on the whole, he rejoiced that all would not be plain-sailing at first, and that there was no chance of his relapsing immediately into the condition ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... boss of his department. He just holds down one of the stools in the audit branch, where he has about as much show of gettin' a raise as a pavin' block has of bein' blown up Broadway on a windy day. We got a lot of material like that in the Corrugated,—just plain, simple cogs in a big dividend-producin' machine, grindin' along steady and patient, and their places easy filled when one wears out. A caster off one of the rolltop desks would ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... writer of the following pages has personally visited many of the towns and rural districts of Ireland; and, in obedience to those who instructed him to perform the task, has drawn up a plain statement of facts, for the benefit of persons interested in the welfare of Ireland, and who cannot visit that country ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... plain ordinary dust, but dust of the lightest kind," was the reply. "If you could go up in the air a hundred miles, the sky above you in the middle of the day would be jet black and the sun would shine down on you like ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... with little figures; wherein the Angel, appearing to Christ, illumines Him with the splendour of his light, with such truth to nature, that nothing better can be imagined or expressed. Below, on a plain at the foot of the mountain, are seen the three Apostles sleeping, over whom the mountain on which Christ is praying casts a shadow, giving those figures a force which one is not able to describe. Far in the background, over a distant landscape, there is shown ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... Whicher, a Pinkerton detective from Chicago, who had been sent out to arrest Frank and Jesse James at Kearney, was found dead in the road near Independence, and W. J. Allen, otherwise known as Capt. Lull, a St. Louis plain-clothes cop who passed by the name of Wright, and an Osceola boy named Ed. Daniels, who was a deputy sheriff with an ambition to shine as a sleuth, rode out to find Jim and Bob at ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way." According to the plain construction of the sentence, the words "domestic institutions" have a direct, as they have an appropriate, reference to slavery. "Domestic institutions" are limited to the family The relation between master and slave and a few others ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... harmonious opposites in this;—that every old ruin, hill, river, or tree, called up in his mind a host of historical or biographical associations, ... whereas, for myself, notwithstanding Dr. Johnson, I believe I should walk over the plain of Marathon without taking more interest in it than in any other plain of similar features."[467] We might perhaps say that Coleridge's affection was given to ideas, Scott's, to objects; hence Coleridge was a critic ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... say "We are not under the law (of Moses,) but under (the law of) grace, the New Testament, and now all we want to know is, does the NEW TESTAMENT either by precept or example require us to keep ANY day as a SABBATH?... We do not want your inferences, but plain, direct NEW TESTAMENT testimony; nothing else will do in a case of this character and importance." Your term, law of Moses, according to all your teachings on this subject, includes the law of commandments. We have given it to you in our work on the Sabbath, and again ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates
... change of countenance, had simply stood and watched her. God! how beautiful she was! The sunlight, gleaming through the tops of the trees in long slanting rays, played like fire upon her red-gold hair; and the plain black gown, which yielded easily to her graceful movements, seemed to show every line of her supple yet delicate figure. She came nearer still, so near that he could trace the faint blue veins in her forehead, and once more recall the peculiar color of her eyes. Then he spoke ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... learned Professor, the other day, At the Royal Institution, Explained, in a quite scientific way, How, helped by a contribution From the Goldsmiths' Company, he'd prepare Some liquid oxygen—you're aware This is what plain English folks call "air" Unspoilt by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 18, 1893 • Various
... It is plain that the Me spoken of in the First Com- mandment, must be Mind; for matter is not the Chris- [15] tian's God, and is not intelligent. Matter cannot even talk; and the serpent, Satan, the first talker in its behalf, lied. Reason and revelation ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... powers, Mr Courtenay, I hope you may be right," answered Hennesey. "Ay, there she is," he continued, "as plain as mud in a wineglass! And if she isn't French her looks belie her. Mr Hudson, you spalpeen, slip down below and tell the captain that there are a brace of suspicious-looking craft within a mile of us. And ye may call ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... but never have I seen such ultra-Turkish looking fellows as those who received me on the banks of the Save. They were men in the humblest order of life, having come to meet our boat in the hope of earning something by carrying our luggage up to the city; but poor though they were, it was plain that they were Turks of the proud old school, and had not yet forgotten the fierce, careless bearing ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... and wainscotting which, up to the latter part of the last century, covered the lower walls of the more comfortable houses, and has been revived in our own day. The decorator may use panelling, or wainscotting, or a simple chair-rail above plain painting, wall-paper, dado, or stencilling, or a dado of matting, as methods of covering, and at the same time decorating, the ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane
... imperial bad faith following on years of a policy inspired by malevolence and tempered by stupidity, brought matters to a climax. A heated scene in the Council Chamber of the Castle of Prague ended in what is described as the "Act of Defenestration." In plain English, the Emperor's lieutenants, who, by the way, happened to be a couple of Czech gentlemen bringing evidence of the sovereign's treachery, were thrown out of the window. A midden in the moat ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... couldn't see it that way. So while Barry's bein' walked off to police court, I jumps into a taxi and heads for McCrea's hotel. If he'd been in bed I meant to rout him out. But he wasn't. I finds him in his room havin' a confab with two other plain clothes gents. He seems surprised to see me ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... very beautiful. Sometimes she is quiet and gentle as a child; sometimes her fits of frenzy are frightful to witness; but the only word she utters is 'Revenge,' and on her hand she always wears a plain gold band with a cross ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... the hopeless wish For Life, and Peace.... Alas! it cannot be: To advance is to encounter dreadful danger; But to recede, inevitable death; His own associates would deal the blow: Thus led by Fate, behold upon the plain, The adverse bands in view, and in advance. Now Fear, Self-pity, and affected Courage, Speak in their hideous shouts with voice scarce human; Like that which issues from his hollow throat Who sleeping bellows in a frightful dream. More near their glaring eye-balls flashing meet; Terror ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... Herrick," he said, "take a marine and one man with the signal flags, and go up to the ridge yonder. Place your marine where he can command the plain, and he will fire if he sees the enemy approaching. The man is to signal for ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... the place where you men of affairs scheme, plan, and execute," she smiled. "It looks close and hot. Well, I couldn't stand it. I must have open air, sunshine, mountains, streams, and people— real, plain, honest, ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... The days of the sea-kings are gone by; and at this moment, rowing out of one of these same sequestered bays, comes the boat of a custom-house officer. Yes, there is no doubt whatever about it. There he comes, a plain-looking unromantic man in a foraging-cap, with a blue surtout and brass buttons, about as like to a sea-king as a man-of-war is ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... they couldn't bear to leggo. They wuz first-rate lookin' men, too, and you could see plain by their liniments how much store they sot by ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... said, "perhaps to-morrow morning would be better. There's no need to get shirty with these fellows. As a matter of fact, I don't think that I should have dared to receive it without making some special preparations. I can get some plain clothes men here upon whom I can rely, ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... style of speaking is what might be expected from his character, plain, simple, straightforward. His sentences are short and pithy, his language clear and lucid; his delivery abrupt. When he makes a point, it falls on the mind with the force of a sledge-hammer. His voice reminds one of that of an officer giving the ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... watercourses and lagoons, but upon riding down even the deepest of them, we invariably found them break off into several insignificant channels, which again subdivided, and in a short distance dissipated the waters, derived from what had appeared the dry bed of a large river, on the absorbing plain; returning in disappointment to the camp, I sent my lightest man and Harry on other horses to look into the channels still unexamined, but they also returned unsuccessful. We had seen late fires of the natives at which they had passed the night without water, and tracked them on their ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... woman ahead of us!—the one in the little bonnet, and so distressingly neat. She has been surveying us. She doesn't approve of me, but she commiserates me. That's plain enough. Well, I am a sinner, no doubt, and she has found me out! If she looks around again do see ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... particular fact is there the object of belief. Its idea is modified differently from the loose reveries of a castle-builder: But no distinct impression attends every distinct idea, or conception of matter of fact. This is the subject of plain experience. If ever this experience can be disputed on any occasion, it is when the mind has been agitated with doubts and difficulties; and afterwards, upon taking the object in a new point of view, or being presented with ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... flowing garments I behold Inspir'd with purple, pearl and gold, I think no other, but I see In them a glorious leprosy That does infect and make the rent More mortal in the vestiment. As flowery vestures do descry The wearer's rich immodesty: So plain and simple clothes do show Where virtue walks, ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... no train of symptoms too severe, for them to contend with; they only meet the foe to conquer, and confer an immortality on suffering humanity and themselves. Thus they flourish, the quacks of the day, the impostors of the multitude, and, perhaps, the dupes of themselves! But if Reason, that plain and simple attribute, in its uncontrouled state, unfettered either by prejudice or wilfulness, can be brought to bear on the question between them and mankind, how little will their claims appear! Reason, in the exertion ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... to the fact that when a man retires from his political party he is a traitor—that he is so pronounced in plain language. That is bold; so bold as to deceive many into the fancy that it is true. Desertion, treason—these are the terms applied. Their military form reveals the thought in the man's mind who uses them: to him a political ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... It is plain there is here but a restricted use for formulas. In this sort of practice, the engineer has need of some transcendental sense. Smeaton, the pioneer, bade him obey his 'feelings'; my father, that 'power of estimating obscure forces which ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... |Just plain ordinary geese and a few ganders held up | |a train on the Milwaukee road to-day and forced | |their owner, Nepomcyk Kucharski, 1287 Fourth Avenue,| ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... plain query has not been answered, it is best to follow copy. If the copy is hard to read, the compositor will set ...
— Punctuation - A Primer of Information about the Marks of Punctuation and - their Use Both Grammatically and Typographically • Frederick W. Hamilton
... carried into, the cliff. The temple of the sphinx at Gizeh, and the temple of Seti I. at Abydos, may be cited as two good examples. I have already described the former; the area of the latter (fig. 93) was cleared in a narrow and shallow belt of sand, which here divides the plain from the desert. It was sunk up to the roof, the tops of the walls but just showing above the level of the ground. The staircase which led up to the terraced roof led also to the top of the hill. The front, which ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... for the mere sake of rhetorical effect. He rather makes every figure of speech to arise as it were by a natural sequence in the course of his reasoning, and few men have a greater facility for making "crooked paths straight, and rough places plain." The most abstruse and knotty points he makes so obvious and clear that his hearers are inclined to wonder why they did not think of them in that light before—giving to themselves, or to the merits of the question in hand, a credit that is only due ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... one advantage over others that were now hunting Lucy. Mrs. Wilson had unwittingly given him pretty plain directions how to find her farmhouse; and as Eve, in the exercise of her discretion, or indiscretion, had shown David Lucy's letter, he had only to ride to Harrowden and inquire. But, on the other hand, ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... indiscretion, and thus obtain over him a double advantage. No matter how intrinsically trifling the indiscretion might be, it would be just such a one as would be sure to weigh heavily in the balance of Sophie's pure judgment. So plain would this be to Bressant himself, that Cornelia would be able to rule him (as she argued) merely with the threat of accusation. And, since his desertion of Sophie would appear to her causeless, the indignation she would feel thereat would save her from ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... both officers and crew, at this unexpected news. All hands were at once set to work, the pumps were rigged and, with buckets and all sorts of gear, they strove manfully and hard to get rid of the water. It soon, however, became plain that it entered faster than they could pump it forth, and that the vessel must ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... Another plain fault of our women, and one which in a measure is the cause of the fault above noticed, is the wild chase after and copying of European fashions. We are accused of being a nation of copyists. This is more than half true. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... from this simple cause, received enormous accessions of vigor. While at home with plain, sober John, trying to walk in the quiet paths of domesticity, how did her spirits droop! If you only could have had a vision of her brain and spinal system, you would have seen how there was no nervous fluid there, and how all the fine little cords ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... church fer a school-house an' Bre'er 'Liab fer de teacher! 'Clar fer it, Bre'er'Liab, you hez got ahead-piece, dat's a fac'. Now I nebber tink of all dat togedder. Mout hev come bimeby, little to a time, but not all to wonst like, as 'tis wid you. Lord, how plain I sees it all now! De church an' school-house up dar on de knoll; Nimbus' house jes about a hundred yards furder on, 'cross de road; an' on de side ob de hill de 'backer-barn; you a teachin' an' ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... and construction to be given to this advertisement will be discussed infra, but it is perfectly plain that the master was fully justified in sailing on the appointed day from a neutral port with many neutral and non-combatant passengers, unless he and his company were willing to yield to the attempt of the German Government to terrify British shipping. No one familiar with the British ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... chance passers, in the early morning of the 7th of December 1815, saw a small body of troops waiting by the wall of the garden of the Luxemburg. A fiacre drove up, out of which got Marshal Ney in plain clothes, himself surprised by the everyday aspect of the place. Then, when the officer of the firing party (for such the spectators now knew it to be) saw whom it was he was to fire on, he became, it is said, perfectly ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... the skull and of the brain is greatly modified. The presence of a crest influences in some unknown way the development of the ascending branches of the premaxillary bone, and of the inner processes of the nasal bones; and likewise the shape of the external orifice of the nostrils. There is a plain and curious correlation between a crest of feathers and the imperfectly ossified condition of the skull. Not only does this hold good with nearly all crested fowls, but likewise with tufted ducks, and as Dr. Guenther informs me with ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... A whole million of books have got to be written. In this sense there are hardly a dozen of them done, and these mere primers. The thoughts of man are like the foraminifera, those minute shells which build up the solid chalk hills and lay the level plain of endless sand; so minute that, save with a powerful lens, you would never imagine the dust on your fingers to be more than dust. The thoughts of man are like these: each to him seems great in his day, but ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... B. Capillitium plain, papillose, or spinulose, often scanty, not netted, the threads sometimes attached by one end to ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride
... unctuous joy, that the present Lady Bazelhurst in babyhood had extreme difficulty in mastering the eighth letter of the alphabet, certainly a most flattering sign of natal superiority, notwithstanding the fact that her father was plain old John Banks (deceased), formerly of Jersey City, more latterly of Wall street ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... all dark, but one thing is plain to me and thee, Gethin did not do this shameful thing. Let me be, child, and perhaps it will all come before me again, or perhaps Gethin will come back. I know, whatever, that my message to thee is Gethin is ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... little dearer. Salt butter was eightpence to one-and-threepence. Cheese was tenpence; potatoes from five to ten shillings a bushel. 'A reasonable loaf of good soft Bread' cost sixpence. Soap was a shilling a pound. Tea was prohibitive for all but the officers. 'Plain Green Tea and very Badd' was fifteen shillings, 'Couchon' twenty shillings, 'Hyson' thirty. Leaf tobacco was tenpence a pound, roll one-and-tenpence, snuff two-and-threepence. Sugar was a shilling to eighteen pence. Lemons were sixpence apiece. The non-intoxicating 'Bad Sproos ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... my son, for London, and we only stopt a little by the way to view Stonehenge[116] on Salisbury Plain, and Lord Pembroke's house and gardens, with his very curious antiquities at Wilton. We arrived in London the ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... behind him sloped sharply up to the ridge, which we call the Race-Plain in those parts, and had nourished, when he first took up his rest below it, little but nettles, mulleins, and scrub of elder. A few fair trees—ash, thorn, spindle, service—struggled with the undergrowth which should live. He was for the trees, needing their shade; cleared the ground, ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... with which his coronation was observed, this truth is clear to us. That the solemnity was carried out in good faith is shown by the reverence which you gave him and the favours asked from him, which you have used in all sorts of ways. You cannot deny this truth except with plain lies. ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... transubstantiation, he adds[599], "And because what is spiritual among the Jews is called real, the terms really, substantially, and essentially, are used in the Protestant Confessions, and by their Doctors." It is plain from what he subjoins, that he sought rather to unite different sentiments by means of equivocal expressions, than by an exact Creed, which might be susceptible of only one sense. "We must not condemn, says he, those who assure us that the Eucharist is but the ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... fault-scarped cliffs run across the landscape and that then, for a while, the forces of elevation cease their work. Little by little, the mountains will be worn down to a surface of less and less relief, approaching a plain as a hyperbola approaches its asymptote—a surface which W. M. ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... "Well, to be plain, the moon and the dog's played us false, an' you'd best to knaw the truth fust as last. Mr. Grimbal's writ you two straight, fair letters 'bout this job, so he've explained to me, an' you never so much as answered neither; so, seem' this here's a right ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... strong enough, but it takes some trouble to build in the manner of Stonehenge: and Stonehenge itself is not so strong as an arch of the Colosseum. You could not raise a circle of four Stonehenges, one over the other, with safety; and as it is, more of the cross-stones are fallen upon the plain of Sarum than arches rent away, except by the hand of man, from the mighty circle of Rome. But I waste words;—your own common sense must show you in a moment that this is a weak form; and there is not at this instant a single ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... a less public road. You shall go with me as far as the boundaries. We can pass the night at Rocroy, and part on the morrow: you to retrace your steps. I to continue my flight in a plain carriage, with two ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... to throw down their arms and surrender," Major Warrener said to him, "or we will put you and every soul here to the sword. The place is surrounded, and there is no escape. Do you not hear our bugles on the plain?" ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... before any part of the machinery is put in, the keelsons should be dubbed fair and straight, and be looked out of winding by means of two straight edges. The art of placing engines in a ship is more a piece of plain common sense than any other feat in engineering, and every man of intelligence may easily settle a method of procedure for himself. Plumb lines and spirit levels, it is obvious, cannot be employed on board a vessel, and the problem ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... it, and then if you don't know just how to word yours, you can use this for a pattern. I've read law books enough to know this will get by, all right. It's plain, and it tells what I want, and that's sufficient to hold ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... use here, though experiments were being made with a field wireless installation some miles away, but the Scouts did not need it. They were spread out within plain sight of one another, and with their little red and white flags they sent messages by the Morse alphabet, and in a special code, as fast as wireless could have done. They also were prepared to use, ...
— The Boy Scout Automobilists - or, Jack Danby in the Woods • Robert Maitland
... we demand and exhort you, by our federal compact and the Landfriede, of which you yourselves are parties, to aid and support us in teaching the Zurichers and their adherents, that they must observe these treaties, according to their plain letter, and let a majority be a majority, as they are bound to do by all law, human and divine, and that you proceed therein with such earnestness, as becomes good Confederates; for we will no longer endure any more violence of this sort. If no improvement takes place, we will ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... Tuxford waiter;[6] finds Bournemouth "a very stupid place"—which is distressing; it is a stupid place enough now, but it was not then: "a great moorland covered with furze and low pine coming down to the sea" could never be that—and meets Miss Bronte, "past thirty and plain, with expressive grey eyes though." ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... been killed. It appears also from the official records that the trees were unexpectedly, some years afterwards, succeeded by a wire grass which spread over the whole surface. (21/3. Beatson's "St. Helena" Introductory chapter page 4.) General Beatson adds that now this plain "is covered with fine sward, and is become the finest piece of pasture on the island." The extent of surface, probably covered by wood at a former period, is estimated at no less than two thousand acres; at the present day scarcely a single tree ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... such a little smattering of the Latin as helped me at a pinch in some of the Secret Dealings of my later career. But Salt Water has done its work upon my Lily's Grammar; and although I yield to no man in the Faculty of saying what I mean, ay, and of writing it down in good plain English ('tis true that of your nominatives and genitives and stuff, I know nothing), I question if I could tell you the Latin for a pair ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... It is plain that earlier American writing interests us only in a local and guarded sense. The critical microscope discovers certain merits; but the least shifting of the eye-piece throws the object out of field. We value ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... Thessaly, in Greece; stands in a sandy plain; is the seat of a Greek archbishop; has ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... rates complained of was reasonable at common law, because it was said that the statute was directed against all contracts and combinations in restraint of trade whether reasonable at common law or not. It was plain from the record, however, that the contracts complained of in those cases would not have been deemed reasonable at common law. In subsequent cases the court said that the statute should be given a reasonable construction and refused to include within ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... in this solution till the required tint is obtained, when it is to be placed in plain hypo. two ounces to the pint, and in about a quarter of an hour transferred to a basin of pure water, and well washed in several waters. The other detail of MR. POLLOCK's process is so admirably and clearly ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various
... discriminates quantity so exquisitely as to make four degrees of shortness in the penultimates of [Greek: —hodos hr odos, tz opos] and [Greek: —stz ophos], and this expressly [Greek: —eu logois psilois], or plain prose, as well as in verse; and on the other hand declares, according to the evidently correct interpretation of the passage, that the difference between music and ordinary speech consists in the number only, and ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... a horse and went forward. And he came to an open, level plain, and put spurs to his horse; and the more he urged his horse, the further was she from him. And he returned to the place where Pwyll was, and said, "Lord, it will avail nothing for any one to follow yonder lady. I know of no horse in these realms swifter ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... undisturbed indulgence of her own reflections, Eve's mood was no enviable one—the more difficult to bear because she had to control the various emotions struggling within her. She felt it was time for plain speaking between her and Adam, and rightly judged that a proper understanding come to at once would be the safest means of securing future comfort. Turn and twist Adam's abrupt announcement as she would, she could assign but one cause for it, and that cause was an overweening ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... unknown in this section. The pipe was laid so that the top was about 1 ft. below the surface of the ground. The trenching was a simple matter. Part of the work between Bonito and the railway on the Carrizozo plain was done by Buckeye ditchers. All other ditching was done by a railroad plow followed by pick and shovel, or by the two latter tools only. The ditcher could open 2,000 ft. of trench per day, but averaged about 500. The plow and 35 men could open ...
— The Water Supply of the El Paso and Southwestern Railway from Carrizozo to Santa Rosa, N. Mex. • J. L. Campbell
... there has been painting upon the wall, a steeple, I suppose, where a bell hung, and regular pillars. The river winding about makes a fortification to it, for it comes at both ends of the cliff, leaving a plain in the middle. The way into it was by a gate cut out of the rock, and with an oblique entrance for more safety. Without is a plain with three niches, which I fancy their place of judicature, or the like. Between this and the castle is a hermitage of ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... man back from the path, prevents his stepping forward, for various very plain reasons. First it makes the vital mistake of distinguishing between good and evil. Nature knows no such distinction; and the moral and social laws set us by our religions are as temporary, as much a thing of our own special mode ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... two forms, both with beautifully executed relief (embossed)—the cheaper ones of plain stiff paper similar to drawing paper (these are to be substituted for and used as outline map blanks), the others covered with a durable waterproof surface, that can be quickly cleaned with a damp ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 17, March 4, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... houses and estates. It must be plain to any one who has observed the rise in the value of land through its cultivation that the Company will be bound to gain on its landed property. This can best be seen in the case of enclosed pieces of land in town and country. ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... this: 'What I do not understand, I reject as worthless and false;' so said one of the most learned men of Boston to me. 'Why occupy the mind with that which is incomprehensible? Have we not enough of that which appears clear and plain around us?' ... The greater part of the Bostonians, including every one of wealth, talents, and learning, have adopted this ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... "This, then, is all the indulgence my friends are willing to give me, That at the close of the day the most unpleasant thing happens! For there is nothing I hate so much as the tears of a woman, And their passionate cries, set up with such heat and excitement, Which a little plain sense would show to be utterly needless. Truly, I find the sight of these whimsical doings a nuisance. Matters must shift for themselves; as for me, I think it is bed-time." So he quickly turn'd round, and hasten'd to go to the chamber Where the marriage-bed stood, in which he slept for the ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... so, with as little ceremony as possible, the body was buried at the close of the day, in an inclosure which had been set apart as a family burying-ground; and when again the night shadows fell Hagar Warren sat in her silent room, brooding over her grief, and looking oft at the plain pine cradle where lay the little motherless child, her granddaughter. Occasionally, too, her eye wandered towards the mahogany crib, where another infant slept. Perfect quiet seemed necessary for Mrs. Miller, and Madam Conway had ordered her baby to be removed from ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... whose nest, in the crotch of an elm on the intervale meadow, the crow had been so ill-advised as to investigate. The crow was comparatively inexperienced, or he would have known enough to keep away from the nests of the king-birds. But there it was, in plain sight; and he loved eggs or tender nestlings. Before he had had time to find out which it was that the nest contained, both the parent birds had fallen upon him with a swift ferocity which speedily took away his appetite for food or fight. Their beaks were sturdy and burning sharp. Their ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... But it is plain that this continuity of forms is a mere idea, to which no adequate object can be discovered in experience. And this for two reasons. First, because the species in nature are really divided, and hence form quanta discreta; and, if the gradual progression through their affinity were continuous, ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... gondoliers, the gondola contained a young man, so simply dressed, that he could not have been anybody of distinction, for he wore a brown doublet with plain buttons. Mademoiselle concluded that the lying-to of the gondola was accidental; he was too insignificant to have interested ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... when she was announced to speak on a subject of which the very title seemed questionable, namely, "On the Corruption of the State." The police had been notified of the impending meeting, and a few stalwart emissaries of the law in plain clothes mixed with the in-pouring throng. The crowd, however, was very orderly;—there was no pushing, no roughness, and no coarse language. All the members of Sergius Thord's Revolutionary Committee were present, but they came as stragglers, several and apart,—and among ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... matrimony? Surely it must be some cunning wile of old Dame Nature's—whose chief concern is, after all, the continuation of the species. She it is who knows how to deck the peacock in fine feathers to the undoing of the plain little peahen, to crown the stag with the antlers of magnificence so that the doe's velvet eyes melt in adoration. And shall not the same wise old Dame know how to add a glamour to the sons of men when one of them goes forth to ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... pelisse, Mrs. Lorraine!" said Vivian. "Nay, I hardly wonder at it, for surely, a prettier pelisse never yet fitted prettier form. You have certainly a most admirable taste in dress; and this the more surprises me, for it is generally your plain personage that is the most recherche in ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... dat fery Heldenbuch - how voonderful it ron, Dat I shdole de Song of Hildebrand, or der Vater und der Sohn, Und dishtripude it to Breitemann for a reason vhitch now ish plain, Dat dis Sagen Cyclus full-endet, pring me round to der ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... The plain truth is, boilers have of late become gigantic foes to human life. Explosions have increased, are increasing, and should be diminished; and they are, in many instances, caused by boilers being strained and weakened by sudden contraction from ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... I both laughed; we were then crossing a plain as flat and even as this room—no obstacles in the way, nothing that could frighten a horse, yet at that moment my pony gave a bound which shook me from my seat, then he reared violently, and threw me off; my uncle laughed, ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... purpose is to assist the brake valve in venting brake pipe air when an emergency application of the brake is made, and is located on the brake pipe side of the distributing valve in place of the plain cap. (See Figs. ...
— The Traveling Engineers' Association - To Improve The Locomotive Engine Service of American Railroads • Anonymous
... artists used to sell to farmer's wives to keep lamps from exploding. Nothing hut plain, ordinary sand, but the directions that came with it said to always keep the lamp clean, not to put too much oil in it, trim the wick, and so forth. Then put the sand in and the lamp would never explode. Of course it wouldn't, if the directions were followed. But the sand didn't help ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker
... it?" Morris cried. "Why, if a feller goes to work and pays three thousand dollars for a fiddle, Abe, while he only got a business rated twenty-five to thirty thousand, credit fair, ain't it as plain as the nose on your face he must got ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... were at the windlass, easing out the cable as the vessel rose on the tide. Corliss was at the wheel, tugging and turning,—to what purpose was not very evident. But they were doing their level best to save the vessel: that was plain. Capt. Mazard stood with clinched hands watching them, every muscle and nerve tense ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... say—full of money. That was Miss Louisa, who came next. But, Lord love you, Mr. Graham, he's so crammed with gout as he can't ever put a foot to the ground; and as cross;—as cross as cross. We goes there sometimes, you know. Then the girls is all plain; and young Mr. Oliphant, the son,—why he never so much as speaks to his own father; and though they're rolling in money, they say he can't pay for the coat on his back. Now our Mr. Augustus, unless it is ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... talking plain, matter-of-fact English about a thing has a value that we are growing to appreciate more and more every day. It is only too easy for an undercurrent of ill to make headway under cover of a false name, a false silence, or misleading ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... were at best uncertain, and every consideration urged me not to leave anything in my power undone here, to avoid the catastrophe I had so much reason to apprehend. I therefore concluded to wait on the Minister, and in a plain and pointed manner enter into a detail of the reasons given us to expect supplies from this Court, and the impolicy ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... and they also undertook that the influence of the government should be promptly exerted to obtain such an amelioration of their condition as would secure them from the possibility of disturbance. Construed in its plain and natural sense, interpreted as every treaty should be by men of honour, the Treaty of Limerick amounted to no less than this."[2] The Treaty was ratified by the sovereigns in April 1692, and its contents were communicated to William's Catholic ally, the Emperor Leopold I. (1657-1705) as a ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... a wise teacher. Going apart the youth grows great. Emerson speaks of sailing the sea with God alone. The founders of astronomy dwelt on a plain of sand, where the horizon held not one vine-clad hill nor alluring vista. Wearying of the yellow sea, their thoughts journeyed along the heavenly highway and threaded the milky way, until the man became immortal. ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... of sin led him to long for a further word from God; and so he called these attendants named in verse 20, and sent them to 'enquire of the Lord ... concerning the words of the book.' What more did he wish to know? The words were plain enough, and their application to Israel and him indubitable. Clearly, he could only wish to know whether there was any possibility of averting the judgments, and, if so, what was the means. The awakened ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... affluent, well-to-do, moneyed; abundant, copious, bountiful, plentiful; fecund, fertile, luxuriant, prolific, exuberant, teeming, productive; sumptuous, luxurious; delicious, luscious, hearty, nutritive gorgeous, elegant, beautiful; vivid, bright, intense. Antonyms: poor, infertile, indigent, plain. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... annoyance, this necessity at length won attractiveness, till she gazed at herself far oftener than she need have done. As for her face she believed it pas sable, perhaps rather more than that; but the attire that had possessed distinction at Bartles looked very plain, to say the least, in the light of her new experience. One day she saw herself standing side by side with Cecily, and her eyes quickly ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... rebuked. Nam garrulus idem est, as our friend Horace would say. Yet one moment. Ere we part let us complete our interrupted ceremony. Marmaduke Diggle, sir—plain Marmaduke Diggle, ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... made a remarkable impression on her. She made that impression on all her friends. Wherever she went she was a leader, and no one could quite discover where her special charm or magnetism lay; for she was decidedly plain, and not specially remarkable for cleverness—that is, she was not remarkable for what may be termed school-cleverness. She was indifferent to prizes, and was just as happy at the bottom of her form as at the top; but wherever ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... country. The line which bounded the royal prerogative, though in general sufficiently clear, had not everywhere been drawn with accuracy and distinctness. There was, therefore, near the border some debatable ground on which incursions and reprisals continued to take place, till, after ages of strife, plain and durable landmarks were at length set up. It may be instructive to note in what way, and to what extent, our ancient sovereigns were in the habit of violating the three great principles by which the liberties of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay |
