"Plainness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... importance of this question, he said many things which cannot be set before the eyes of a generation sensitive to plainness of speech, and only tolerant of it in ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... which exists there, involving white men and colored women, is something upon which the papers of that region are silent as a rule. Not so the grand jury that met recently at Madison, Ga., which thus spoke out in its presentment with all plainness of ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... was graceful enough but perfectly cool. So cool, that it rather excited Lady Brierley's curiosity, who was accustomed to be a person of great importance wherever she went. Her eye took in swiftly the neatness of the room, its plainness, and yet its expression of life and mental activity; the work and workbasket on the chair, the bunch of ferns and amaranthus in one vase, the roses in another, the violets on the table, the physiognomy of the books, ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... her ease. She sat in the front room with all the external symptoms of being at home. This was what chiefly surprised James Ollerenshaw in his grand guests—they all took his front room for granted. They betrayed no emotion at its smallness or its plainness, or its eccentricities. He would somehow have expected them to signify, overtly or covertly, that that kind of room was not the kind of room to which they ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... Parliament, in which we debated with much vigour the "burning questions" of the day. We organised a compact Socialist party, defeated a Liberal Government, took the reins of office, and—after a Queen's Speech in which her Majesty addressed her loyal Commons with a plainness of speech never before (or since) heard from the throne—we brought in several Bills of a decidedly heroic character. G. Bernard Shaw, as President of the Local Government Board, and I, as Home Secretary, came in for a good deal of ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... "chestard" the high "chest of drawers" that had won its name from the children's contracted pronunciation. This bleak article of furniture contained the smaller pieces of Malcolm Monroe's wardrobe, which matched in plainness and ugliness that of his wife. Stiff white collars caught and rasped when the shallow upper drawer was opened; the middle drawers were filled with brownish gray flannels, and shirts stiff-bosomed and limp of sleeves. But if ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... poultry raisers than any other pest or disease. The great difficulty in destroying mites on many farms is that chickens are allowed to roost in too many places. If the chicken-house proper is the only building infected with mites the difficulty of destroying them is not great. Plainness in the interior furnishings of the chicken-house is also a great advantage when it comes to fighting mites. The mites in the daytime are to be found lodged in the cracks near the roosting-place ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... this command he was to pass on to the second, and the second to the third, and so on till the last. [5] And while they saw to this he went in to Cyaxares himself, wearing his simple Persian dress without a trace of pomp. Cyaxares was well pleased at his celerity, but troubled by the plainness of his attire, and said to him, "What is the meaning of this, Cyrus? How could you show yourself in this guise to the Indians? I wished you to appear in splendour: it would have done me honour for my sister's son to be seen ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... in your eyes—a profitable member within the same. Yea, Madam, to me it appertains no less to forewarn of such things as may hurt it, if I foresee them, than it does to any of the nobility; for both my vocation and conscience craves plainness of me. And therefore, Madam, to yourself I say that which I speak in public place: whensoever that the nobility of this realm shall consent that ye be subject to an unfaithful husband, they do ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... were ill-matched, her ornaments awkwardly worn; even her hair sought more freedom than was consistent with grace. The youngest girl, Zillah, who was about nineteen, had been less kindly dealt with by nature; like Barbara, she was of very light complexion, and this accentuated her plainness. She aimed at no compensation in attire, unless it were that her sober garments exhibited perfect neatness and complete inoffensiveness. Zillah's was a good face, in spite of its unattractive features; she had a peculiarly earnest look, a reflective ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... and influence to their opinions, such as cannot possibly belong to mine. But, Sir, I have met the occasion, not sought it; and I shall proceed to state my own sentiments, without challenging for them any particular regard, with studied plainness, and as much ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... 'I wish this conference to be a short one, and to end where it begins. I guess the subject upon which you are about to speak, and I'll not hear you. You like plainness, I believe; there it is. Here is the door as you see. Our way lies in very different directions. Take yours, I beg of you, and leave me to pursue mine ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... had fallen off, and revealed a young German lad of nineteen or twenty, hardly conscious, and groaning pitifully at intervals. As he lay crouched on his face, the red patches on his back, intended to guide the aim of an armed guard in case of any attempt to escape, showed with a sinister plainness. ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... each other, and Nora went to look after the tea. She was a slim, pale-faced school-girl, with yellow-brown eyes, and yellow-brown hair, not as yet very attractive in looks, but her mother was convinced that it was only the plainness of the cygnet, and that the swan was only a few years off. Nora, who at seventeen had no illusions, was grateful to her mother for the belief but did not ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... legislate, if there were any possibility of obtaining from Him an ordinance about it. But seeing that divine aid is not to be had, there appears to be a need of some bold man who specially honours plainness of speech, and will say outright what he thinks best for the city and citizens—ordaining what is good and convenient for the whole state amid the corruptions of human souls, opposing the mightiest lusts, and having no man his helper but ...
— Laws • Plato
... of his plainness he was a pleasant, well-bred young fellow, with a fund of good humor and drollery, and a pair of honest eyes that people learned to trust. Every one liked him, and no one ever said a word in his dispraise; and for the rest, he could tyrannize ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... was by no means good-looking,—the meaning of which was that no other man would probably want her. Then she remembered her father's words,—"To me your face is the sweetest thing on earth to look upon." This she did believe. Her plainness did not come against her there. Why should she rob her father of the one thing which to him was sweet in the world? And to her, her father was the one noble human being whom she had ever known. Why should she rob herself of his daily presence? Then she told ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... down your palate with the charm Yourself concocted? There we issue take; And see! as thus across the rim I break This puffy paunch of glazed embroidered cake, So breaks, through use, the lust of watering chaps And craveth plainness: do I so? Perhaps; But that's my secret. Find me such a man As Lippo yonder, built upon the plan Of heavy storage, double-navelled, fat From his own giblet's oils, an Ararat Uplift o'er water, sucking rosy draughts From Noah's vineyard,—crisp, enticing wafts Yon kitchen now emits, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... design of this edition of the Sacred Volume, which, from the various objects it embraces, the freedom of its pages from all sectarian peculiarities, and the beauty, plainness, and correctness of the typography, that it cannot fail of proving acceptable and useful to Christians ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... the months roll by. The call for men to join our fighting forces, which is our primary need, has been and is being nobly responded to here at home and throughout the empire. That call, we say with all plainness and directness, was never more urgent or more imperious than today. For this is a war not only of men but of material. To take only one illustration, the expenditure upon ammunition on both sides has been on a scale and at a ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... exist only in minds pure and strong, braced up to virtue, virgin of evil, with a certain childlike power of wonder; minds to whom it appears that to be wicked requires a powerful rebellion; minds accustomed to nature and nature's plainness, to whom the unnatural can be no subject of sophistication and cynicism, but only of wonder. While, in Italy, Giraldi Cinthio prattles off to a gay party of ladies and gentlemen stories of murder and lust as frightful as those of "Titus' Andronicus," of "Giovanni and Annabella," ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... resided a good deal in England, and his address was free both from country rusticity and professional pedantry; so that he had considerable powers both of address and persuasion, joined to an unshaken effrontery, which he affected to disguise under plainness of manner. Confident, therefore, in himself, he appeared at Woodbourne about ten in the morning, and was admitted as a gentleman come ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... broke off into a happy laugh. Hers was not the bitterness of plainness or insignificance, but something infinitely more suggestive. It was, indeed, not bitterness at all, but light-hearted contempt, which is, perhaps, ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... in a like spirit of eloquent plainness, to denounce the violation of that beneficent change which both Washington and Jefferson had devised for the red man of the forest, and had assured to him by solemn treaties pledging the faith of the ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... there in her night attire, poised like a brown wood-nymph on the edge of a pool, she asked herself for the first time if it were possible that she could have any pretensions to beauty. It was not in the least likely, of course. Her mother had always railed at her for the plainness of her looks. Did Eustace—did Scott—think her plain? She wondered. ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... and Sir Robin, springing on Ajax's back, trotted him up and down for Mary's inspection. He had a good seat in the saddle, and he looked his best on horseback. To be sure, Mary had not discovered that Sir Robin was plain, his mother's plainness militating in him against what share of beauty he might have inherited from his father. There was something so exhilarating to Mary in the afternoon's experience, after its beginning so badly, that she forgot what had gone before. She thought Sir Robin a kind and delightful boy. They saw the ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... expression of true and holy gladness was in old time statedly offered up by men for a part of worship to God their Father, so the expression of false and unholy gladness is in modern times, with as much distinctness and plainness, asserted by them openly to be offered to another spirit: "Chain of the Devil," and "Cancan of Hell" being the names assigned to these modern forms ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... The conclusion of this letter is as follows: "Sir, for the things of my soul, I have these many years hung upon your lips, and ever shall; and in civil things am desirous you may know with all plainness my reasons of procedure, and that they may be satisfactory to you. I am, sir, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... Dr. Leigh, who were literally giving their lives without the least expectation of reward. Even the refined ethical-culture groups had no sneer for Father Damon. The little chapel of St. Anselm was well known. It was always open. It was plain, but its plainness was not the barrenness of a non-conformist chapel. There were two confessionals; a great bronze lamp attached to one of the pillars scarcely dispelled the obscurity, but cast an unnatural light upon the gigantic crucifix that hung from a beam ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... thirty-five, although his smooth-shaven face and fair hair made him look younger than his years. It was a commonplace countenance, shrewd and intelligent enough, but not very attractive. There was a certain honesty in his eyes, however, which redeemed the plainness of his ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... signorina is hoping for a miracle of plainness she will be unpleasantly surprised," said the old woman, and her shrivelled face was as mischievous as a monkey's as she drew the key of Olive's room from her pocket. "I am going to take her some soup now, and you shall ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... can arrange. In part, he was interested in the talk of his son and daughter, who always looked well. The vanity of Mrs. Hurstwood caused her to keep her person rather showily arrayed, but to Hurstwood this was much better than plainness. There was no love lost between them. There was no great feeling of dissatisfaction. Her opinion on any subject was not startling. They did not talk enough together to come to the argument of any one point. In the accepted and popular phrase, she ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... mortgage of his property. It is the defect of these townships that the houses are all as like one another as peas in a pod—four-roomed squares or six-roomed oblongs built of red brick, and with every detail exactly the same; but their plainness and similarity does not detract from their ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... you hear, in spite of yourself, the stealthy step upon the stair. If he watches for a pal at the street end, you share his anxiety lest that pal should be intercepted by the watchful detective. And he produces his effects without parade or ornament. He tells his story with a studied plainness, and by adding detail to detail keeps your interest ever awake. Like many other great men, he takes his skill and enterprise for granted. He does not write of his exploits as though he were always amazed at his own proficiency. Of ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... to be done thus, after all: plainness and candor were best. She went back a third time; he did not see her now, and she lingeringly gazed up at his unconscious figure, loath to put an end to any kind of hope that might live on in him still. "Giles— Mr. Winterborne," ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... (which see). In the Church there is no such thing as "Preaching a Funeral," as it is called, but the reverent and devout committal of the "body to the ground," "looking for the General Resurrection in the last day and the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ." Plainness and simplicity should ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... sentimentality. The members of the trio fall on each other's necks with unpleasant frequency and fervor. But the picture of that home itself, with its well-ordered housekeeping, its liberality and its plainness, is interesting and attractive. "Since the masters of this house have taken it for their dwelling, they have turned to their use all that served only for ornament; it is no longer a house made to be seen, but to be lived in. ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... daily bread." Yet a great number of persons, I may say, nearly all men, are not content with enough, they are not satisfied with sufficiency; they wish for something more than simplicity, and plainness, and gravity, and modesty, in their mode of living; they like show and splendour, and admiration from the many, and obsequiousness on the part of those who have to do with them, and the ability to do as they will; they like to attract ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... be lamented, that melancholy should have preyed upon a person so young and so distinguished by fortune, or that you should have sighed amidst all the magnificence of Naples for the uncultivated plainness of Palermo. So long as I reside here, your absence will constantly make me feel an uneasy void, but it is my earnest wish that not a particle of that uneasiness ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... in the head by a rude hatchet—the tops of all the teeth having apparently been lopped off by the same clumsy blow. They laugh too, with a demoniacal "Ha! ha! ha!" as if they rejoiced in their excessive plainness, and knew that we—you and I, reader—are regarding them with disgust, not ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... to the figure. It had no pretensions whatever to ordinary beauty. The features were good; there was not an ugly line about them; and yet, each one just missed the beautiful; and the general effect was of a good-looking plainness; unadorned, unconcealed, and unashamed. But the longer you looked, the more desirable grew the face; the less you noticed its negations; the more you admired its honesty, its purity, its immense strength ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... very pleasant. It is placed among meadows, washed by a clear trout-stream, and flanked on both sides with downs. His house, indeed, would not much attract the admiration of the virtuoso. He built it himself, and it is remarkable only for its plainness; with which the furniture so well agrees, that there is no one thing in it that may not be absolutely necessary, except books, and the prints of Mr. Hogarth, whom ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... governments, in hamlets, in villages, in smaller towns, in greater towns, as we gained experience in war and knowledge in the art of ruling people, and so tediously won our promotion. I am speaking in Tatho's private abode, that was mine own not two hours since, and I would have an answer with that plainness which we always ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... out in the city, the plainness and urgency of the case compel all to see in the sickness of one the danger of all. Wants and discomforts, which charity had been too cold to attend to, now considered as sources of contagion, are administered to with a ready alacrity. ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington
... discuss this question with a proper regard for the most sensitive feelings of our brethren of the slave States, but also, sir, with a plainness commensurate with its profound importance. The legislatures of thirteen of the States of the Union, including Delaware, which still has two thousand slaves, have passed resolutions instructing their ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... stairs leading to the higher floors bulked largely. Two or three dark prints—one a portrait of Calvin—with a framed copy of the Geneva catechism, and a small shelf of books, took something from the plainness and added something to the comfort of the apartment, which boasted besides a couple of old oaken dressers, highly polished and gleaming, with long rows of pewter ware. Two doors stood opposite the entrance and appeared to lead—for one of them stood open—to a couple ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... dollar an inch and wee slippers clasped with a simple emerald buckle. Therein, of course, the child only obeys the reigning fashion. Simplicity,—so I am informed by the last number of La Mode Parisienne,—is the dominant note of Parisian dress to-day,—simplicity, plainness, freedom from all display. A French lady wears in her hair at the Opera a single, simple tiara bound with a plain row of solitaire diamonds. It is so exquisitely simple in its outline that you can see the single diamonds sticking out from it and can ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... hospital at Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire, which saw his lowly birth, together with a school and college, about the year 1475. The building is still in existence and shows a good roof and fine Perpendicular window, but the twelve bedesmen and the one sister, who was to be chosen for her plainness, no ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... is an embodiment,—the other a substance; the one transcribes the actual by the personal,—the other is a return to the simplest originality; the one exalts its subjects by poetic freedom,—the other adheres to prosaic plainness. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... essential element and fulfilment of the wonderful apparatus of retribution, reward, and discipline, intended to educate us as members of God's eternal family. Because from the little which we now understand we cannot infer with plainness and certainty the precise means and method by which we can discriminate our friends in heaven need be no obstacle to believing the fact itself; for there are millions of undoubted truths whose conditions and ways of operation we can nowise fathom. Upon ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... to perceive the difference, or you would find nothing less alike. If, however, my plainness will not offend you, before it is quite too late, I will point out to you a few of the evils,—for there are some I cannot even mention, which at this instant do not merely ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... a pretty one. I hear the gentlemen who come to my shop say that it is not to be named to ears polite; and I am sure your ears are very polite.' He said this with the most offensive laugh, and I turned upon him and answered him, without mincing matters, with a plainness of speech which startled myself, but did not seem to move him, for he only laughed again. 'Are you not afraid,' I said, 'that I will leave your shop ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... feelings, it would be difficult to keep any measure with Prussia. We must consider it an alliance with the Algerians, whom it is no disgrace to pay, or any impeachment of good sense to be cheated by." To the Austrian commander the Duke of York addressed himself with royal plainness: "Your Serene Highness, the British nation, whose public opinion is not to be despised, will consider that it has been bought ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... and to the Society for this service that we had rendered him. We gave him therein no little aid in carrying his burden of the many souls which are under his care, alone as he is, without any other assistance or instruction than ours. But Father Gabriel Sanchez, with his accustomed plainness, has written a more detailed account of some particular cases, while making a report of his labors to the superiors, as is the custom among us. In a letter to the father-visitor, dated in November of the year one thousand six hundred, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... almost a colloquial plainness of language may accord with the public taste I am doubtful. They have been subjected to able criticism and revised with care. I have endeavoured to make them ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... disappeared; yet somehow never had she seemed to Katy half so lovely as now in the plain black gown which she wore all day long, with her hair tucked into a knot behind her ears. Her real beauty of feature and outline seemed only enhanced by the rigid plainness of her attire, and the charm of true expression grew in her face. Never had Katy admired and loved her friend so well as during those days of fatigue and wearing suspense, or realized so strongly the worth of her sweetness of temper, her unselfishness and ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... Crampade, Louis de l'Estorate's residence in Provence. The foolish, annoying jealousy of Madame de Macumer embittered his life and was responsible for his physical break-down. Idolized by his wife, in spite of his marked plainness, he died in 1829. ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... that duty shall have dread to speak, When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour's bound, When majesty stoops to folly. Reverse thy doom, And in thy best consideration check This hideous rashness: answer my life my judgment, Thy youngest daughter ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... usual when he got there: she had a genius for the obvious; commented on the weariness of living in one room, the distress at the thought that one was fastened in at the will of another; deplored the plainness of the prison fare, and the folly of her husband in refusing an oath that she herself and her children and the vast majority of the prominent persons in England had found so simple in accepting. She left ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... reasons, we look only for perspicuity; when he describes, we expect embellishment; when he divides, or relates, we desire plainness and ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... a pure air; every circumstance points out the country as the proper place for their education; the purity of the air, the variety of rustic sports, the plainness of diet, the simplicity and innocence of manners, all concur to recommend it. It is a melancholy fact, that above half the children born in London, die before they ...
— A Lecture on the Preservation of Health • Thomas Garnett, M.D.
... literature, L'Enfant's astonishing performance, "Poggiana"—in which the pages and the blunders contend for supremacy in number, and the blunders get it,—nor from that bald, cold business, entitled "Vita Poggii," which Recanati, flinging aside brilliancy and clinging fast to fidelity in facts and plainness of speech, prefixed to his edition of Bracciolini's "Historia Florentina," published at Venice in 1715, and which Muratori, sixteen years after, reprinted at Milan along with the said "History of Florence, in the 20th volume of his "Rerum Italicarum Scriptores;"—nor from the Rev. ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... Belonging to a great order of things, she patronised the young stranger who was ready to sit all day at her feet and listen to anecdotes of the bon temps and quotations from the family chronicles. Madame de Mauves was a very honest old woman; she uttered her thoughts with ancient plainness. One day after pushing back Euphemia's shining locks and blinking with some tenderness from behind an immense face-a-main that acted as for the relegation of the girl herself to the glass case of a museum, she declared with an energetic shake of the head that she didn't know ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... its plainness is beauty, Science itself is a charm, But the frown of a tyrant tutor Puts both ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... clearness insists on the great truth that bad education is responsible for bad life, and expresses with equal plainness the complementary truth that education, from the cradle upwards, is something which acts on the whole intellectual and moral nature, and that its object is the production of ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... spiritual organ in the West, what would have become of Western development? It was the energy and resolution of the Pontiffs which resisted the heresies of the East, and preserved to the Christian religion that plainness and intelligibility, without which it would never have made a way to the rude understanding and simple hearts of the barbarians from the North. It was their wise patriotism which protected Italy against Greek oppression, and by acting the part of mayors of the palace to the decrepit ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... square, smooth, wooden structure painted a light gray, sandstone color. It was made of smooth, matched boards, and had a large, flat cornice or flange that surrounded it near the top, which saved it from extreme plainness. Yet it was pleasing to the eye, and it had low, French windows that open like doors out on ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... by chance is the all-but-Quixotic romance of "Palamon and Arcite," taken by Chaucer from Boccaccio's "Teseide," related by the "Knight"; not by chance does the "Clerk," following Petrarch's Latin version of a story related by the same author, tell the even more improbable, but, in the plainness of its moral, infinitely more fructuous tale of patient Griseldis. How well the "Second Nun" is fitted with a legend which carries us back a few centuries into the atmosphere of Hrosvitha's comedies, and suggests with the utmost verisimilitude the nature of a Nun's lucubrations ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... all kinds of amassings, stored up boundlessly more than, with the best trained senses, I could have found the life to enjoy. Of course I had a first advantage, of dangerous facility, in my unhappy plainness of person—the alarm-guard that surrounds every beautiful woman in every country of the world—letting sleep at my approach the cautionary reserve which presents bayonet so promptly to the good-looking. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... removed the traces of tears from her cheeks, but her eyes were red and swollen. The cheap mirror exaggerated her plainness, while memory pitilessly emphasised the beauty of the other woman. As she dressed, the thought came to her that, no matter what happened, she could still go on loving him, that she might always give, whether or not she received ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... always mature and successful, as I have hitherto regarded him. He may be unsuccessful in a worldly sense; but from my present point of view I do not much care whether he is unsuccessful in that sense. I know that plain men are seldom failures; their very plainness saves them from the alarming picturesqueness of the abject failure. On the other hand, I care greatly whether the plain man is mature or immature, old or young. I should prefer to catch him young. But he is difficult to catch young. The fact is that, just ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... reluctantly; "he said that to me privately, with still greater plainness than he said it to the Council. But I answered ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... B.C. 880 the Assyrians swept over the various Semite lands. Loud were the laments of the Hebrews; terrible the tales of cruelty; deep the scorn with which the Babylonians submitted to the rude conquerors. We approach here a clearer historic period; we can trace with plainness the devastating track of war;[5] we can read the boastful triumph of the Assyrian chiefs, can watch them step by step as they adopt the culture and the vices of their new subjects, growing ever more graceful and more enfeebled, until they ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... "well, this is royally ill played!" The lesson was thrown away upon her, for never did she sacrifice to the opinion of another that which she thought permissible. When she was told that her extreme plainness in dress, the nature of her amusements, and her dislike to that splendour which ought always to attend a Queen, had an appearance of levity, which was misinterpreted by a portion of the public, she replied with Madame de Maintenon: "I am upon ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... Society is to be that of root-and-branch Socialism, it will mean the proletarian condition for all of us, and for a long time to come. There is no use in flattering ourselves and painting the future better than it is; the truth must be spoken with all plainness. If we work hard, and under capable guidance, each of us will at most have an effective income of 500 marks in pre-war values, or, say, 2000 marks for the family. This average will be higher if we proceed on the principles of the New Economy,[7] but again will be reduced by the necessity ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... body by train to Windsor for burial provoked, as being derogatory to the dignity of a Royal Duke, it was Lady Cork who rapped out, "I presume in those days, a novel apposition of the quick and the dead." A certain peer was remarkable alike for his extreme parsimony and his unusual plainness of face. His wife shared these characteristics, both facial and temperamental, to the full, and yet this childless, unprepossessing and eminently economical couple were absolutely wrapped up in one another; after his death she only lingered on for three ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... the decorations bestowed on the first and second temples, and remarked, that when the Saviour of the world predicted the ruin of the latter, he threw no censure on the munificence of those who had adorned it. He shewed, that the plainness and poverty which of necessity attached to an afflicted church in its infancy, destined to make its way, not by the usual assistances of worldly wisdom, but in opposition to principalities and powers, were no rule for her government in future ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... bordering on ecstasy, and all that he had drunk seemed to fly to his head with redoubled effect. He stood with the two ladies, seizing both by their hands, persuading them, and giving them reasons with astonishing plainness of speech, and at almost every word he uttered, probably to emphasise his arguments, he squeezed their hands painfully as in a vise. He stared at Avdotya Romanovna without the least regard for good manners. They sometimes pulled their hands out ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... had unwittingly backed up her entreaty by the strongest argument she could have used outside words, with this man of moods, glooms, and superstitions. Her figure in the midst of the huge enclosure, the unusual plainness of her dress, her attitude of hope and appeal, so strongly revived in his soul the memory of another ill-used woman who had stood there and thus in bygone days, and had now passed away into her rest, that he was unmanned, and his heart smote him for having attempted reprisals ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... falls short of all these promises, he will sink into the class of the predestined. On the other hand, a husband who is plain in features but has a face full of expression, will find himself, if his wife once forgets his plainness, in a situation most favorable for his struggle against the genius ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... in these affairs demands inquiry, And much, illumination—if we crave With plainness to exhibit facts. And first, Why doth the mind of one to whom the whim To think has come behold forthwith that thing? Or do the idols watch upon our will, And doth an image unto us occur, Directly we desire—if heart prefer The sea, the land, or after all the sky? Assemblies of the citizens, parades, ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... respect to rudimentary organs. In reflecting on them, every one must be struck with astonishment: for the same reasoning power which tells us plainly that most parts and organs are exquisitely adapted for certain purposes, tells us with equal plainness that these rudimentary or atrophied organs, are imperfect and useless. In works {454} on natural history rudimentary organs are generally said to have been created "for the sake of symmetry," or in order "to complete the scheme of nature;" but this seems to me no explanation, merely a re-statement ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... speak with great plainness and directness upon this great matter and to avow my convictions with deep earnestness. I have tried to know what America is, what her people think, what they are, what they most cherish and hold dear. I hope that some of their finer passions are in my own heart,—some of the great ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson
... Let me say with plainness, I who am no longer in a public character, that if by a fair, by an indulgent, by a gentlemanly behaviour to our representatives, we do not give confidence to their minds, and a liberal scope to their ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... nature, daughter of the plains, with thee alone the queen of beauty dwells! What is it that adorns and enhances all the wild and uncultivated scenes of nature? It is plainness and artless simplicity. What is it that renders lovely and amiable her most favourite productions in the animal creation: the tender lamb, the cooing dove, and the vocal nightingale? It is simplicity; it is, that all ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... gods, and of men. "If they are guilty," continues he, "of any scandalous offence, they should be censured or degraded by the superior pontiff; but as long as they retain their rank, they are entitled to the respect of the magistrates and people. Their humility may be shown in the plainness of their domestic garb; their dignity, in the pomp of holy vestments. When they are summoned in their turn to officiate before the altar, they ought not, during the appointed number of days, to depart from the precincts of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... it so,' she said, looking musingly at the fire. 'So,not in precise colour, of course, nor exact pattern,but in general qualityand plainnessand' ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... the shining parts of your character; which, if you neglect, upon my word you will render the solid ones absolutely useless; nay, such is the present turn of the world, that some valuable qualities are even ridiculous, if not accompanied by the genteeler accomplishments. Plainness, simplicity, and quakerism, either in dress or manners, will by no means do; they must both be laced and embroidered; speaking, or writing sense, without elegance and turn, will be very little persuasive; and the best figure in the world, without air and address, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... dressed with equal simplicity, for silken garments are worn in Morocco only by musicians, boy-dancers and other hermaphrodite fry. With his ceremonial raiment the Sultan had put off his air of superhuman majesty, and the expression of his round pale face corresponded with the plainness of his dress. The favourites fluttered about him, respectful but by no means awestruck, and the youngest began to play with the little Prince. We could well believe the report that his was the happiest harem in ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... we read of in full-length descriptions by some folks, but equally comprehensive, though shortly done by others, under the simple name of John Bull—as ungarnished in his dress, as in his speech and action; whereas Mrs. Cheeseman, as I have just told you, is the counterpart of plainness; she has trinkets out of number, brooches, backed with every kind of hair, from "the flaxen-headed cow-boy" to the deep-toned "Jim Crow." Then her rings—they are the surprise of her staring acquaintances; she has them from the most delicate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various
... merely the absence of colour and beauty in dress, or the want of national character and distinction—a plainness that would afflict even a Russian peasant from the Ukraine or a Tartar from the further Caspian. It was the uncleanliness of the garments themselves that would most horrify the peoples not reckoned in the foremost ranks ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... There may be a greater variety of fabrics woven to-day, but none is more splendid in texture and colour than those worn by the stately ladies of colonial times. The teachings of the strict Puritans advocated plainness and simplicity of dress; even the ministers in the churches preached against the "sinfulness of display of fine raiment." Notwithstanding the teachings and pleadings of the clergy, there was great rivalry in dress among the inhabitants of the larger colonial towns. "Costly thy habit ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... just edged about with little thin plaits of the purest cambrick, received great advantages from the shade of her black hood: as did the whiteness of her arms from that sober-coloured stuff in which she had clothed herself. The plainness of her dress was very well suited to the simplicity of her phrases, all which put together, though they could not give me a great opinion of her religion, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... governor and his companions, leaving their horses, advanced towards the meeting-place. His tall and graceful figure was especially distinguished by the light-blue sash he wore, as a simple mark by which the natives of the forest might recognise him. He had never affected ultra-plainness in dress, preferring rather to simplify the costume which he had hitherto worn. His outer coat was long, covered, as was the custom, with buttons. An ample waistcoat of rich material, with full trousers, slashed at the sides and tied with ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston
... extreme decollete style, as if to aid the unsuccessful elongation of nature. Her sallow complexion was dark, almost bistre, and the strongly marked irregular features were only redeemed from positive plainness by the large fiery black eyes, whose beauty was somewhat marred by the intrusive boldness of their expression. Bowing to some one opposite, her very full lips parted smilingly over a set of sound strong teeth, rather uneven in outline, and of the yellowish cast often observed ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... reproaches us, let us look on him as an impartial relator of our faults; for he will tell us truer than our fondest friend will, and we may forgive his anger, whilst we make use of the plainness of his declamation. The ox, when he is weary, treads truest; and if there be nothing else in abuse, but that it makes us to walk warily, and tread sure for fear of our enemies, that is better than to be flattered ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... the gloomy passage, that the bears were also compelled to slacken their pace and climb over intervening rocks as he had done. And it was plural, for the second one had joined the first, and they were coming steadily on, their light coats showing with terrible plainness in the gloom among ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... would have the modern poet profit by another quality of Biblical style: its magic combination of a "magnificent Plainness" with the "Spirit of Imagery." This is the Hebrew virtue of concrete suggestiveness, so highly prized by 20th-century critics and so alien to the generalized abstractions and the explicit clarity of much ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... railing against which she sat. The jury, who for six weeks had had her described to them by the plaintiffs as an arch, wily enchantress, who had sapped the failing reason of Jim Byways, revolted to a man. There was something so appallingly gratuitous in her plainness that it was felt that three millions was scarcely a compensation for it. "Ef that money was give to her, she earned it sure, boys; it wasn't no softness of the old man," said the foreman. When the jury retired, it was felt that she had cleared her character; when ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... heaven hid behind the sunshine, and cast a glory upon men and even nature. To dine at the rude board table with the young officers of one of the companies of a battalion, perhaps in a bare hut, on the floor of which lay the lads' beds, was something sacred and sacramental. Their apologies for the plainness of the repast were to me extremely pathetic. Was there a table in the whole world at which it was a greater honour to sit? Where could one find a nobler, knightlier body of ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... common expression of her eyes was sad, almost mournful. As she grew older and happier, this settled into a gentle serenity, only changed as we have described, by that thrilling smile, which actually transfigured her. You forgot her plainness then, forgot her humble garments, her dull complexion, and wondered what power had, for the moment, ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... like Mr. Bickford's plainness of speech. He walked away moodily, with his hands in his pockets. He could not help contrasting his penniless position with the enviable position of the two friends, and the devil, who is always in wait for such moments, thrust an evil suggestion ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... verse to the effect that her mother was in the next room, and that if I liked she would come in. I replied in Latin prose that I did not care about seeing her mother, telling her my reasons with great plainness. She replied with four Latin lines, but as they were not to the point I could see that she had learnt them by heart, and repeated them like a parrot. She went on-still in Latin verse—to tell me that her ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... room I arrayed me in clothes more fitted to the palace in which I found myself, though, after all was done, their plainness made a poor contrast to the mailed warriors on the pedestals and the scarlet ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... out. If we had not ordered the Saint-Bartholomew, the Guises would have done the same thing by the help of Rome and the monks. The League, which was powerful only in consequence of my old age, would have begun in 1573.' 'But, madame, instead of ordering that horrible murder (pardon my plainness) why not have employed the vast resources of your political power in giving to the Reformers those wise institutions which made the reign of Henri IV. so glorious and so peaceful?' She smiled again and shrugged her shoulders, the hollow wrinkles of her pallid ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... before the monarch's chair, And stood with rustic plainness there, And little reverence made: Nor head, nor body, bowed nor bent, But on the desk his arm he leant, And words like these he said, In a low voice—but never tone So thrilled through vein, and nerve, and bone:- 'My mother sent me from afar, Sir King, to warn thee not to war - Woe waits ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... it, that the most sceptical among them should have no room left for suspicion. This he effected in the following manner. He one day invited several of the nobles to his palace, and showed them the plainness of the apartments, where no rich furniture was to be seen, nor any thing like an attempt at splendour; and how even the most ordinary necessaries were wanting for anything like a great entertainment; after which, he dismissed them ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... but, withal, a dignity in his large person, and a consciousness of high position and importance, which give him ease and freedom. Very simple and frank in his address, he may be as crafty as other diplomatists are said to be; but I see only good sense and plainness of speech,—appreciative, too, and genial enough to make himself conversable. He talked very freely of himself and of other public people, and of American and English affairs. He returns to America, he says, next October, and then retires forever ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... vaulting, with its oak ribs, which were decayed and threatening to fall. The spaces between them, which had been formerly boarded, he found filled only with lath and plaster. To the organ screen he gave back its original plainness, which made it rather an eyesore, as there was now no further screen in front of it, on the other side of the transept, as there had been when St. Nicholas' altar stood at the east end of the nave. For the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... plainly telling of the wear of time. The two lofty towers are hung with many bells, which daily call with their brazen tongues to matins and vespers. Some of these bells are very ancient. The church is not elaborately ornamented,—it rather strikes one with its unusual plainness. It contains a few oil paintings of moderate merit, and also the tomb where the ashes of Columbus so long reposed. All that is visible of this tomb, which is on the right of the altar, is a marble tablet six or eight feet square, upon ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... the transfer. So, if to Mrs Grove's surprise and disgust, he remained silent when she made known the munificent intentions of Fanny's father, it was not for a reason that he chose to discuss with her. His remarks were reserved for Mr Grove's private ear, and to him they were made with sufficient plainness. ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... the maternal character takes woman out of her sphere." The education which she demanded was the co-education of men and women in common schools. She attacked the dual standard of sexual morality with a brave plainness of speech. She demanded the opening of suitable trades and professions to women. She exposed the whole system which compels women to "live by their charm." But a less destructive reformer never set out ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... here the same rule that was of old given to the Jews for church government, is clear, 1. From the censure of the obstinate, who was to be reputed a heathen and a publican; wherein is a manifest allusion to the present estate of the Church of the Jews; and, 2. From the familiarity and plainness of Christ's speech, Tell the church, which church could not have been understood by the disciples had not Christ spoken of the Jewish judicatory; besides which they knew none for such offences as Christ spake of to them, there being no particular church ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... about to say—I mean in chimney-pot hat and pomade, en route to its various creeds, some to one bell, some to another, some to ding dong, and some to dong ding; but the most of them directed their steps towards a silent chapel. This great building, plain beyond plainness, stood beside a fir copse, from which in the summer morning there floated an exquisite fragrance of pine. If all the angles of the architects could have been put together, nothing could have been designed more utterly opposite to the graceful curve of the fir tree than this red-bricked ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... ushered in was young and petulantly, decidedly, freshly, consciously, and intentionally pretty. She was dressed with such expensive plainness that she made you consider lace and ruffles as mere tatters and rags. But one great ostrich plume that she wore would have marked her anywhere in the army of beauty as the wearer of the merry ...
— Options • O. Henry
... much alike, our rooms furnished with the same Spartan plainness. Only in Mistress Craven I happened on a good one, and abode with her all the days of my stay at College, till the way opened out for me to wider ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... not succeeded in making a wealthy match in Petersburg, so with the same object in view he came to Moscow. There he wavered between the two richest heiresses, Julie and Princess Mary. Though Princess Mary despite her plainness seemed to him more attractive than Julie, he, without knowing why, felt awkward about paying court to her. When they had last met on the old prince's name day, she had answered at random all his attempts to talk sentimentally, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Elegant in plainness, the classic poet would have said of her hair and dress. She was of the women whose wits are quick in everything they do. That which was proper to her position, complexion, and the hour, surely marked her appearance. Unaccountably this night, the fair fleshly presence over-weighted ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... indicate a seat rather than a tomb, and the date as about the end of the twelfth century. Beneath the Johnson window there is another Norman relic, of about the same date, in the outline of the old Canons' Doorway, formerly connecting the aisle with the cloisters. The extreme plainness of the moulding will be contrasted with the elaborate work in the Prior's entrance further east, on the exterior of the same wall. The next window contains a memorial to Alexander Cruden, compiler of the Scripture Concordance, who died on ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... Christ, he said death, so as to confirm the fact that Christ had actually suffered death; in speaking of us, he said sleep, in order to impart consolation. For where resurrection had already taken place, he mentions death with plainness; but where the resurrection is still a matter of hope, he says sleep, consoling us by this very expression, and cherishing our valuable hopes. For he who is only asleep will surely awake; and death is no more than ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... in order to keep pace with the increasing and incessant demands which are made upon it. We can borrow no more, and the knowledge of that fact alone, ought to set a limit to your extravagance. Excuse this plainness, my Lord, it is well meant and void ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... strong and robust: his manners rustic, not clownish; a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity, which received part of its effect perhaps from one's knowledge of his extraordinary talents. His features are represented in Mr. Nasmyth's picture, but to me it conveys the idea that they are diminished as if seen in perspective. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... heart") congenial roles for tragic actresses—Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Oldfield, Mrs. Cibber, Mrs. Siddons and Miss O'Neill. Otway was buried in the churchyard of St. Clement Danes, but a tablet to his fame is in Trotton church, which is of unusual plainness, not unlike an ecclesiastical barn. Here also is the earliest known brass to a woman—Margaret de Camoys, who lived ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... his other features, though they could scarce be termed handsome, expressed sense and acuteness; he bore, in his aspect, that ease and composure of manner, equally void of awkwardness and affectation, which is said emphatically to mark the gentleman; and, although neither the plainness of his dress, nor the total want of the usual attendants, allowed Meg to suppose him a wealthy man, she had little doubt that he was above the rank of her lodgers in general. Amidst these observations, and while she was in the course of ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... in,' I said, and there came to me, hesitating, backward, abashed, a middle-aged woman, dressed with distressing plainness, when one thinks of the charming costumes to be seen on a Parisian boulevard. Her subdued manner was that of one to whom the world had been cruel. I rose, bowed profoundly, and placed a chair at her disposal, with the air I should have ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... the room a little uncertainly. Its plainness troubled him, but its cleanliness was unquestionable. Both he and Buck had spent over two hours, earlier in the day, setting the place to rights and ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... philosophic Turgot, with a whole Reformed France in his head. By whom whatsoever is wrong, in Finance or otherwise, will be righted,—as far as possible. Is it not as if Wisdom herself were henceforth to have seat and voice in the Council of Kings? Turgot has taken office with the noblest plainness of speech to that effect; been listened to with the noblest royal trustfulness. (Turgot's Letter: Condorcet, Vie de Turgot (Oeuvres de Condorcet, t. v.), p. 67. The date is 24th August, 1774.) It is true, as King Louis objects, "They say he never goes to mass;" but liberal France likes ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... stinging rebuke in the conduct of Uriah, who, Hittite as he was, has a more chivalrous, not to say devout, shrinking from personal ease while his comrades and the ark are in the field, than the king has; the mean treason, the degradation implied in getting into Joab's power; the cynical plainness of the murderous letter, in which a hardened conscience names his purposed evil by its true name; the contemptuous measure of his master which Joab takes in his message, the king's indifference to the loss of his men so long as Uriah is out of the way; the solemn platitudes ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... himself face to face with the real Madame Desvarennes; and no politeness held good on her part when it was a question of business. From his first words, she had found a weak point in the plan, and had attacked him with such plainness that the financier, seeing his enterprise collapse at the sound of the mistress's voice-like the walls of Jericho at the sound of the Jewish trumpets—had beaten a retreat, and ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... The fact is, I was much entertained by contrasting in my own mind, the open manner of the kind-hearted Joshua Geddes, with the abrupt, dark, and lofty demeanour of my entertainer on the preceding evening. Both were blunt and unceremonious; but the plainness of the Quaker had the character of devotional simplicity, and was mingled with the more real kindness, as if honest Joshua was desirous of atoning, by his sincerity, for the lack of external courtesy. On the contrary, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... becomes, under such circumstances, my inevitable duty to speak of the existing conditions of Art with plainness enough to guard the youths whose judgments I am intrusted to form, from being misled, either by their own naturally vivid interest in what represents, however unworthily, the scenes and persons of their own day, or by the cunningly devised, and, without doubt, powerful ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... from the plainness of the servant and carriage, Mrs. Fairfax is not a very dashing person: so much the better; I never lived amongst fine people but once, and I was very miserable with them. I wonder if she lives alone except this little girl; if so, and if she is in any degree amiable, I shall surely be able ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... predominant, and contrast the genial courtesy, the warm and graceful freedom of that region, with what they call (though I utterly disagree with them) the frigidity of our Northern manners, and the Western plainness of the President. They have a conscientious, though mistaken belief, that the South was driven out of the Union by intolerable wrong on our part, and that we are responsible for having compelled true patriots to love only half their country instead ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... lounged up the path, lifting his head to nod in patronising fashion to his adorers. He was no Apollo of beauty, no Samson of strength, but just an ordinary-looking young man in an ordinary grey suit, with ordinary irregular features redeemed from plainness by an expression of quizzical good humour; yet each of the eight beholders gave a gasp of adoration as she beheld him. His mother's eyes swam with tears as she embraced her boy; Maud felt a ray of pure, unselfish happiness; even Lilias overlooked the fact that his collar ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of middle age, not good-looking in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but nevertheless she looked good. She was dressed with extreme plainness, in a cheap calico; but though cheap, the dress was neat. The children she addressed were six in number, varying in age from twelve to four. The oldest, Harry, the hero of the present story, was a broad-shouldered, sturdy boy, with a frank, open ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... constitutions. The little table—two feet by sixteen inches—was in all respects worthy of the chairs. At one end of the hut there was a bed-place, big enough for two; it was variously termed a crib, a shelf, a tumble-in, and a bunk. Its owner called it a "snoosery." This was a model of plainness and comfort. It was a mere shell about two and a half feet broad, projecting from the wall, to which it was attached on one side, the other side being supported by two wooden legs a foot high. A plank at the side, and another ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne |
