"Simple" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... expected to find in my bag I could not imagine. If his mission was robbery pure and simple, why had he not selected some one who looked richer than myself? There was, I am certain, nothing about me to make him believe I had anything of ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... its aspect. Las Cases was soon sent for. As he ascended the winding path leading to the pavilion he saw Napoleon standing at the threshold of the door. His body was slightly bent, and his hands behind his back: he wore his usual plain and simple uniform and the well-known hat. The Emperor was alone. He took a fancy to walk a little; but there was no level ground on any side of the pavilion, which was surrounded by huge pieces of rock. Taking the arm of his companion, however, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... only the life of the nation. This is not a joke, this is a very serious situation. I should feel ashamed to stand here and not say that this is a subject which deserves your serious consideration and ought to keep some of you awake to-night. This is not a simple gratulatory occasion, this is a place where public duty should be realized and public purposes formed, because public purpose is a thing for which our Puritan ancestors stood, yours and mine. If this race should ever lose that capacity, if it ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... given us a volume of verse chosen from that (p. 105) which is "most simple, most hearty, most truly characteristic of the people, their tradition, history, and spirit; ... poetry sometimes by, and sometimes not, but always for, the people; poems that were household words with our fathers and mothers, and lay close ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... walked into the hotel. The eyes of more than one man followed the slim, graceful figure admiringly. Much water had run down the Rio Blanco since the days when she had been the Cinderella of Piceance Creek. The dress she wore was simple, but through it a vivid personality found expression. No longer was she a fiery little rebel struggling passionately against a sense of inferiority. She had come down from the hills to a country filled with laughter and the ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... outside alone until they should return from their devotions. So he seated himself at the back, and after a brief, jaunty glance at the sunburnt, shaggy congregation, made himself as comfortable as might be. He had not seen a face worth keeping his eyes open for. The simple choir and simple fold gathered for even-song, and paid him no attention on their part—a rough American bound for the mines was no longer anything but an object ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... we viewed the Transportation Building, exquisitely refined and simple in architectural treatment, although very rich ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... of those in the higher ranks, made them the creatures of the army that protected them. In some cases, the Emperor himself was selected by the army, or by the Pretorian Guard in Rome; and sometimes the guard removed an Emperor of whom it disapproved by the simple ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... at once, though, for he saw that Bracy was eating the piece of cake with better appetite, breaking off scraps more frequently; while the food, simple as it was, seemed to have a wonderfully reviving effect, and he turned at last to ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... have more honor, having this— Men's hearts and loves and the sweet spoil of souls Given you like simple gold to bind your hair? Say you were king of thews, not queen of souls, An iron headpiece hammered to a head, You ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... like all true Hermetists and Theosophists imbued with mysticism, a wonderful power of continued abstraction in the contemplation of the Supreme Power. His mentality, described by one of his critics as essentially Greek, "simple, not complex, imaginative rather than fanciful, abstract not concrete, intellectual not emotional," contributed its share to his belief in a pantheistic philosophy, making him find Supreme Intelligence permeated through the whole of infinite and interminable Nature. Regarding the ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... the simple and uniform life of all the Scythians; but this simplicity renders them formidable to all their neighbours, and irresistible in war. Unsoftened by ease or luxury, unacquainted with the artificial wants of life, these nations ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... very simple reason," replied Leonora coolly. "You know how fond I am of sweets, and what an abominably mean rule there is here about our not buying them. Well, I just couldn't stand doing without my chocolates, so I used to dodge out whenever I dared to that little shop in Mansfield Road, and ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... unsuspicious at the time, untroubled by one doubtful thought; but it appeared to him now that there had been a change in Marian from the time of his friend's coming—a new joyousness and vivacity, a keener delight in the simple pleasures of their daily life, and withal a fitfulness, a tendency to change from gaiety to thoughtful silence, that he had not remarked in ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... as blue, or green, or red, or yellow, no effort should be made to secure even dyeing; in fact, the more uneven the colour is the better will be the rug. Dark and light and spotted colour work into a shaded effect which is very attractive. The most successful of the simple rugs I possess is of a cardinal red woven upon a white warp. It was chiefly made of white rags treated with cardinal red Diamond dye, and was purposely made as uneven as possible. The border consists of two four-inch ...
— How to make rugs • Candace Wheeler
... fondest hopes cherished by enlightened liberals was to clear away the confusion and discrepancies of the numerous legal systems of the old regime and to reduce the laws of the land to a simple and uniform code, so that every person judicial who could read would be able to know what was legal and what was illegal. The constitution of 1791 had promised such a work; the National Convention had ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... trial of his wings in the arduous regions of dramatic creation, was the short but exquisite tale entitled "The Gipsies." This tale, which is esteemed by the Russians a masterpiece of grace and simplicity, is a poem in dialogue; the persons being only four in number, and the action a wild yet simple catastrophe of love, jealousy, and revenge. The dramatis personae are gipsies; and it is difficult to select what is most admirable in this exquisite little work—the completeness and distinctness of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... as I could bring it about, did I choose to do so. Pshaw! my dear boy, the simple, honest people in this world are so many puppets, and it needs but the master-mind ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... business of government is foreshadowed in the Constitution, that it is to secure justice between man and man by allowing no intrusion of any on the rights of others. This principle is large in application although simple in statement. The first words, "We, the people," contain the foundation of our claim. If we limit the application of the word "people," all the rest falls to the ground. Whatever work of government is referred to, it all rests on its being managed by "We, the people." If ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... command filled a need, the interface design was clearly a prank. The jargon usage is now very rare outside Unix sites and now nearly obsolete even there, as 'dd(1)' has been {deprecated} for a long time (though it has no exact replacement). The term has been displaced by {BLT} or simple ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... looked on the face of the Bore, of the Bore; The voice of the Simple I know; I have welcomed the Flat at my door, at my door; I have sat by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... The facts were simple enough. Macdonald was the original promoter of the Kamatlah coal-field. He had engaged dummy entrymen to take up one hundred and sixty acres each under the Homestead Act. Later he intended to consolidate ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... and Principe Sao Tome and Principe's army is a tiny force with almost no resources at its disposal and would be wholly ineffective operating unilaterally; infantry equipment is considered simple to operate and maintain but may require refurbishment or replacement after 25 years in tropical climates; poor pay and conditions have been a problem in the past, as has alleged nepotism in the promotion of officers, as reflected in the 1995 ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... this class of mysteries, and I see nothing more incredible in the apocalypse of the wreck and other marvels of clairvoyance, than in that singular adaptation of another person's senses, which is a common phenomenon of the simple forms of mesmerism. If it is credible that a person in a mesmeric sleep can taste the sourness of the vinegar on another person's palate, I am ready to go the whole length of the transmigration of senses. But after all, except from hearing so much, I am as ignorant as you are, in my own experience. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... no easy one. His character, in the first place, is not one to be defined by a single epithet. 'Surely,' said his friend Sir Henry Taylor to him upon some occasion, 'the simple thing to do is so and so.' He answered doubtfully, adding, 'The truth is I am not a simple man.' 'No,' said Taylor, 'you are the most composite man that I have met with in all my experience of human nature.'[31] Taylor entered the Colonial Office in the beginning ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... condition, whether apparently hopeless or not, can be called incurable unless all these different healing factors, properly combined and applied, have been given a thorough trial. It is no charlatanic boasting, but the simple truth, when we affirm that the different natural methods of treatment, as we of the Nature Cure school apply them, can and do cure so-called incurable diseases, such as tuberculosis, cancer, locomotor ataxy, epilepsy, ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... tune (an old French chime which my father used to sing) is very simple and touching; and the old French ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... that the discontent and infelicity of man generally increase in an exact ratio with his intelligence and his knowledge, I am often tempted to envy the ignorant and the simple.' ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... spoken quietly, but there was a new note in it, strange to her. Just as she could not have said what it was that had happened to her, so now she could not have said what had happened to Tom. He, too, had changed, but how she did not know. Yet the explanation was simple. He also had, in a sense, grown up. He was no longer afraid ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Murphy secretly packed Gramma's belongings and dressed her in her best, under the pretext that she was to be taken in a carriage to a Christmas party to have supper with her husband. The old woman was in a happy flutter at the prospect. Granpa was prepared for the journey by the same simple strategy. ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... himself devoutly, as if confessing to some earthliness. "I measure not my simple mind with that of a genius, my brother; for so God hath endowed our lad. Yet it may be that He meaneth man to garner other blessings besides knowledge. We received him as a child into our fold, and we are responsible for his development. But ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... shape (or form) of the vibrations which give rise to the tone. A series of simple vibrations will cause a simple (or colorless) tone, while complex vibrations (giving rise to overtones of various kinds and in a variety of proportions) cause more individualistic peculiarities of quality. Quality is affected also by the shape and size of the resonance body. ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... simple in its nature, and as level to the most ordinary understanding, as it is powerful in affecting the most languid passions: ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... closed, the dormitory became the scene of ablutions, arrayings and bedizenings curiously elaborate. To me it was, and ever must be an enigma, how they contrived to spend so much time in doing so little. The operation seemed close, intricate, prolonged: the result simple. A clear white muslin dress, a blue sash (the Virgin's colours), a pair of white, or straw-colour kid gloves—such was the gala uniform, to the assumption whereof that houseful of teachers and ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... the grandeur of the mountains, and the limpidity and freshness of the running streams. New delight springs up for him in every scene. He extols each new discovery as more beautiful than the last, and each as the most beautiful in the world; until, with his simple earnestness, he tells the sovereigns, that, having spoken so highly of the preceding islands, he fears that they will not credit him, when he declares that the one he is actually describing surpasses them ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... worry Miss Hitchcock; how the neat Swedish maids and the hat-stand in the hall must offend young Hitchcock. The incongruities of the house had never disturbed him. So far as he had noticed them, they accorded well with the simple characters of his host and hostess. In them, as in the house, a keen observer could trace the series of developments that had taken place since they had left Hill's Crossing. Yet the full gray beard with the broad shaved upper lip still gave the Chicago merchant the air of ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... given, every one turns, as if on pivot, and touches elbows with those on each side of him, in a straight, firm wall of men, without any shambling "closing up," or "side-stepping" to the right or left,—to do all this at word of command, looks very simple and easy to the non-military spectator, as many other very difficult things look simple and easy to the inexperienced. But really it is only possible to a thoroughly drilled company, held well in hand by a competent commander. It is something that, if done well, is simply done well, but ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... returned Ludlow—"Alida and Eudora will instruct him in the opinions of this simple and fortunate country, and he seemeth one likely to do early ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... He understood the ancient war between the simple life and the strenuous. He wished he had left the subject unopened, but Pettibone had ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... the reality of these cures is overwhelming. As a simple matter of fact, there are no miracles of healing in the history of the human race more thoroughly attested than those wrought by the touch of Henry VIII, Elizabeth, the Stuarts, and especially of that chosen vessel, Charles II. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... for us, that under our American Constitutions the Remedy is at hand, & in the Power of the great Body of the People. Due Circumspection & Wisdom at the next Elections will set all right, without the Aid of any self Created Conventions or Societies of Men whatever.2 While we retain those simple Democracies in all our Towns which are the Basis of our State Constitutions, and make a good Use of them, it appears to me we cannot be enslaved or materially injured. It must however be confessd, that ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... John Prather!" he concluded, as he took the next elevator to the top floor. "Yes, I liked Pete Leddy better at our first meeting. I had rather a man would swear at me than smile in that fashion. It is much more simple." ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... lawyer, "and I won't have it ready, either. To draw a mortgage in that way, so the property will fall into your hands quickly and Bittles will lose everything, is simple rascality, and I'll have ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... the matter seems to be that consideration for others is not a primitive instinct like hunger or thirst; nor is it a simple, inborn quality or impulse, like affection or sympathy. It requires a certain amount of thoughtfulness, reflection and control of self, in order to transfer one's attention from one's own inclination and interest to the welfare of another, ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... consideration that lends a certain air of futility even to all the inspired simplicities and thunderous veracities of Tolstoy. We feel that a man cannot make himself simple merely by warring on complexity; we feel, indeed, in our saner moments that a man cannot make himself simple at all. A self-conscious simplicity may well be far more intrinsically ornate than luxury itself. Indeed, ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... clothing we were obliged to have sent on to us to some railway station, to be afterwards arranged, and soiled clothes were to be returned in the same box. This seemed a very simple arrangement, but it did not work satisfactorily, as railways were few and there was no parcel-post in those days, and then we were always so far from our base that we were obliged to fix ourselves to call at places ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... Corte Suprema (according to the Constitution, new justices are elected by the full Supreme Court; in December 2004, however, Congress successfully replaced the entire court via a simple-majority resolution) ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... (Vol. i., p. 415.; Vol. ii., p. 61.).—There have been several suggestions as to the origin of the use of these letters in the services of the church, but I do not think that any correspondent has hit upon the very simple one which I have always considered to be most probably the true explanation; which is, that as these services were compiled when algebra stood much higher in the rank of sciences than it does at present, it is by no means unlikely that these two letters should ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various
... who then lived, and far more than either Washington or Napoleon, he gave direction and color and tone to all public events, and to not a little of private life, and much of his work will have everlasting endurance. He did not supersede the House of Commons, but he would not be the simple vizier of that many-headed sultan, which for the most part became his humble tool. Yet he was not a popular sovereign until he had long occupied the throne, and had perpetrated deeds that should have destroyed the greatest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... nevertheless, for reasons which are fairly obvious, this rule does not hold when the contract is one whose obligation is alleged to have been impaired by State law.[1589] Otherwise, the challenged State authority could be vindicated through the simple device of a modification or outright nullification by the State court of the contract rights in issue. Likewise, the highest State court usually has final authority in construing State statutes and determining their validity in relation to the State constitution. ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... of witchcraft will not serve your turn, Madam," said Lord Roos derisively. "The explanation is simple. Your eyes ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... mistress's jewelry, had purchased her way out of one difficulty at the risk of getting into another. The advertisement would seem to indicate that she was trusted. The disappearance of the ring was apparently not connected with her. The matter was very simple. He would hand over the ring and take the eight hundred dollars and need say nothing that would implicate the young woman, be she daughter of the house and kleptomaniac, or serving-maid and common thief. But one thing puzzled him. ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... the Federal Government, and more particularly of that portion which had been assigned to the executive branch. There were in it features which appeared not to be in harmony with their ideas of a simple representative democracy or republic, and knowing the tendency of power to increase itself, particularly when exercised by a single individual, predictions were made that at no very remote period the Government would terminate in virtual monarchy. It would not become me to say that the fears ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... with the head man of the village of Ooregum, that he was aware of this tradition, and that grains of gold were said to have been seen on the rice plants at a village about fifteen miles distant from his own. The explanation of this is extremely simple, as the rice plants are usually grown in nurseries and transplanted in bunches of several plants, after which the fields are flooded, and in heavy floods (and this accounts for the gold having been found in the years which are prosperous from the abundant rain) the ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... Nathan first burst upon the astonished Bruce, where he lay with his vanguard encamped in the woods, his appearance and demeanour were rather those of a truculent madman than of the simple-minded, inoffensive creature he had so long appeared to the eyes of all who knew him. His Indian garments and decorations contributed somewhat to this effect; but the man, it was soon seen, was more changed in spirit, than in outward attire. The bundle of scalps in his hand, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... by a young person who waited upon the table at the hotel where he took his meals. One morning he said something to her which caused her to smile not unkindly, to somewhat coquettishly break a plate of toast over his upturned, serious, simple face, and to retreat to the kitchen. He followed her, and emerged a few moments later, covered with more toast and victory. That day week they were married by a justice of the peace, and returned to Poker Flat. I am aware that something more might be made of this episode, but I prefer to tell it ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... amused with the information. When, in after years, he became weak and languid, and was called upon to go to lecture, it was a favorite joke with him to inquire, "Hingston, have you got any raw dog?") It don't agree with me. I prefer simple food. I prefer pork-pie—because then I know what I'm eating. But as raw dog was all they proposed to give to me —I had to eat it or starve. So at the expiration of two days I seized a tin plate and went to the chief's daughter—and ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 6 • Charles Farrar Browne
... that living naked in a cavern would have satisfied him. Obviously he was the creature of the conditions to which he was born. No doubt self-preservation meant also the preservation of these conditions. But essentially it meant something much more simple, natural, and powerful. How shall I express it? It meant the preservation of the five senses of his body—let us say—taking it in its narrowest as well as in its widest meaning. I think you will admit before long the justice of this judgment. However, as we stood there together in the dark verandah ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... after the bath-houses, and came in contact with the guests at so many points that he was on easy terms with them all. This ease tended to an intimacy which he was himself powerless to repress, and which, from time to time, required their intervention. He now wore a simple costume of shirt and trousers, the latter terminated by a pair of broken shoes, and sustained by what he called a single gallows; his broad-brimmed straw hat scooped down upon his shoulders behind, and in front added to his congenital difficulty of getting people in focus. "How do you do, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... most of the population, the queen took Kotzebue to the church, a vast but simple building, not nearly so crowded as that at Otaheite. Nomahanna seemed to be very intelligent, she knew how to read and was specially enthusiastic about writing, that art which connects us with the absent. Being anxious to give the commander a proof alike ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... when he saw Josephine again, he wanted to reach out his arms to her. He wanted to make her understand how completely his wonderful love possessed him, and how utterly lost he was without her. She was dressed in simple white—again with that bank of filmy lace at her throat. Her hair was done in those lustrous, shimmering coils, so bright and soft that he would have given a tenth of his mica mountain to touch them with his hands. And she was glad to see him. Her eagerness ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... drawback of an extra expenditure of muscular effort. The fact of the lady exerting a strong downward pressure on the gentleman's left shoulder, makes the lift much easier for him than if he had to do it entirely by his arms. It is most important for the beginner to understand this extremely simple method of mounting, so that, if failure results, she may know who is in fault. Her only serious error is that of neglecting to straighten her knee. His crimes in this respect are many. First, he may catch hold of the heel of her boot in the preliminary ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... we claim for thee another fief, An upland where a glamour haunts the meadows, Snow peaks arise enrobed in rosy shadows, Fairer the under slopes with vine and sheaf And shimmering lea; The paradise of a simple old belief, That flourished in the ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... neighbouring village. He was a plain, blunt man, as he himself used to say, "with no false bottom, nothing in my hands, nothing up my sleeves;" just a few moral ideas to guide his course through life, ideas as old and simple as could be. And those few ideas themselves were subject to a principle that governed his whole existence and ruled all his actions, the love of his country, which, in Morestal, stood for regret for the past, hatred of the present ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... in point of fact they fish to you?-They all fish to me, for the very simple reason that there is no other one there ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... fall, Deserve those plaudits—study Nature's page, And sketch the striking traits of every age; While varying Man and varying years unfold Life's little tale, so oft, so vainly told; 220 Observe his simple childhood's dawning days, His pranks, his prate, his playmates, and his plays: Till time at length the mannish tyro weans, And prurient vice outstrips ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... who looked more evil than she really was. She sat down at my table, and while I told her and the piano jangled away again, she kept patting my arm and saying, 'Yes, yes, I know.' What did she know? Why, the simple fact that Rosa was no longer a little girl to be petted, but a grown-up girl to be insulted. I learned a similar thing had happened once or twice in the last few months. You see, the girl was neither in one class ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... "Well," said Jim, "the simple truth is that that fellow who was here this morning offered Joe sixty-five thousand dollars for ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... But though he was well aware that neither on earth nor in heaven, nor anywhere in the universe, did she any more exist, that knowledge was quite without effect upon the devotion which she had inspired. The matter indeed, presented itself in a very simple way to his mind. "If I had never seen her picture," he said one day to Miss Ludington, "I should never have known that my love was dead, and I should have gone seeking her through all the world, and wondering what was the reason I ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... the frank and boyish lover of adventure. Life troubled him now, conduct was become less simple, actions each day less easily determined. These women now made him ponder. Cora, who was accustomed to the range and whose interests were his own in many ways, the princess, whose money and influence ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... sentimental: a Lady, as her Painter was a Gentleman. Faded as it is in the face (the Lake, which he would use, having partially flown), it is one of the most beautiful things of his I have seen: more varied in colour; not the simple cream-white dress he was fond of, but with a light gold-threaded Scarf, a blue sash, a green chair, ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... the year 1585, at Hawkshead in Lancashire. Hawkshead is a small market-town in the vale of Esthwaite, about a third of a mile northwest of the lake. Here Wordsworth passed nine years, among a people of simple habits and scenery of a sweet and pastoral dignity. His earliest intimacies were with the mountains, lakes, and streams of his native district, and the associations with which his mind was stored during its ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... Bannon's authority, but had not expected him to make so frank an avowal of it. That was almost as much in his favor as the necessity for hurry. These, with the hoist accident to give a color of respectability to the operation, ought to make it simple enough. He had wit enough to see that Bannon was a much harder man to handle than Peterson, and that with Peterson restored to full authority, the only element of uncertainty would be removed. And he thought ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... if my staying longer would be of any use? He answered with a simple negative. Whilst the Utangani remained the Mbunji (spell) would still work, but it would at once be broken by our departure, and he would prove it by sending down the first-fruits. This appeared to me to be mere Mpongwe "blague," but, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... were kept in a fragile vase, a marble bust of Dante guarded the filing cabinet, and despite the general cleaning she used a special little silk duster for her own knicknacks. On a table was a very simple tea service with a brass samovar for days when the luncheon hour proved too stormy ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... if you wish to carry off your little Moor, there is but one way, and that is a very simple one; leave her a dress of Miss Hicks's when you go there to-morrow night, and tell her to slip down at dusk, and come out of the house: all the danger will be in her own house, for as soon as she is out she will be supposed to ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... both, madame,' I answered, collecting myself by an effort. 'I ascended these stairs and opened your door in error—that is the simple fact—hoping to find a friend of mine here. I was mistaken, it seems, and it only remains for me to withdraw, offering at the same time the humblest apologies,' And as I spoke I bowed low and prepared ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... I might secure her entrance into the hospital. Our way was short, and she said little; except interrupted ejaculations of reproach that he had left her, exclamations on the unkindness of some of his friends, and hope that she would find him alive. There was a simple, natural earnestness about her that interested me in her fate, especially when she assured me that her husband was the best of men,—had been so, till want of business during these unhappy times had thrown him into bad company. "He could ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... because, in nine instances out of ten, they had not attempted to read them. As for those who did make a half-hearted effort to do so, in the majority of cases their minds were so rusty and stultified by long years of disuse, that, although the pamphlets were generally written in such simple language that a child might have understood, the argument was generally too obscure to be grasped by men whose minds were addled by the stories told them by their Liberal and Tory masters. Some, when Owen ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... thoughtfulness of her leisured sisters, and the leisured sisters were too apt to forget. They invited their own well-off friends, exhausted themselves in organising entertainments which were often regarded as bores pure and simple, and cast no thought to the lonely women sitting night after night in lodging-house parlours. "If I am ever rich—if I ever have a home, I'll remember!" Claire vowed to herself. "I'll take a little trouble, and find out! I couldn't do a hundredth ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... have no distinct mental image of the "dark lady" or of Cleopatra, or they would never talk of "daring conjecture" in regard to this simple identification. The points of likeness are numberless. Ninety-nine poets and dramatists out of a hundred would have followed Plutarch and made Cleopatra's love for Antony the mainspring of her being, the causa causans of her self-murder. ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... all his contemporaries. In no religious discourses can be found more sound good sense, more happy and forcible views of the immediate subject. The reasoning is not only irresistible, but managed in a mode so simple and clear, that its force is obvious to the most ordinary capacity. Upon all subjects of morality, the preacher maintains the character of a rigid and inflexible monitor; neither admitting apology for that which is wrong, nor softening the difficulty of adhering to that which is right; ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... guides and the hotel clerks and porters but even the simple gondolier has a secret understanding with all branches of the retail trade. You get into a long, snaky, black gondola and fee the beggar who pushes you off, and all the other beggars who have assisted ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... his face and sobbed, completely overwhelmed by the simple dignity of the humility of such a man as Edward. He held the Prince's hand to his lips, and exclaimed, "Oh, how—how could I have ever felt discontent, or faltered? not in truth—oh, no—but in trust and patience? Oh! my Lord, that ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this. Style I have not. Would that I had! I write just what wanders into my brain, in the hope that I may cheer you up a little. Of course, had I had a good education, things might have been different; but, as things were, I could not have one. Never did I learn even to do simple sums!—Your faithful and ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... said, 'and as Christ is my Saviour, I saw and make deposition that these poor simple women did no such thing but loved the King as he had been their good father. I have seen them at their prayers. Before God, I say to you that they were as folk astonished and dismayed; knowing so little ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... rather than Elizabethan or Jacobean, for the sake of verbal convenience, if not for the sake of literary decency; and such knowledge or understanding no sane man will expect to find in any such quarter. Even in the broad coarse comedy of the period we find here and there the same sweet and simple echoes of the very cradle-song (so to call it) of our drama: so like Shakespeare, they might say who knew nothing of Shakespeare's fellows, that we cannot choose but recognise his hand. Here as always first in the field—the genuine and golden harvest-field of Shakespearean ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... that simple answer she seemed to sum up the whole philosophy of one on whom the world had ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... condescend to use me further in this way, He could so order it that even a still larger field of labour were intrusted to me, which would require still greater sums. Truly, it must be manifest to all simple hearted children of God, who will carefully read the accounts respecting this Institution, that He is most willing to attend to the supplications of His children, who in their need cry to Him; and to make this manifest is the great object I aim at, through ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... the beer-garden and the Kaffeekranzchen, of the Christmas-tree and the Whitsuntide merry-making; it is the land of country inns and of student pranks. What more need be said to bring before one's mind the wealth of hearty joyfulness, jolly good-fellowship, boisterous frolic, sturdy humor, simple directness, and genuinely democratic feeling that ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... Juli was proud, and she had always had the courage to live with her own mistakes. When I first saw her, I knew this wouldn't be anything so simple as the complaint of an abused wife or even an abandoned or deserted mother. I took a chair, watching her ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... Mr Allwick, their interpreter, and of Mr Evergreen, who had begged leave to join them. Cousin Giles would rather have had a more sensible companion; but he was so good-natured and so ready to sacrifice his own convenience to that of others, while his quaint and simple observations afforded so much amusement, that he was more desirable than many persons with ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... all I have heard to the contrary, there will be something "doing" in Heaven when these saint-pecked sinners are all herded in. They will wear the holy seal of His tender forgiveness through all eternity and get most of the high offices in Paradise, just as a matter of simple justice. ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... fact that 4000 men were fed with the loaves and fishes; but what produced the most intense attention was the account of our Lord's mockery, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. Their sympathy with the suffering Saviour was most marked, and their simple astonishment most evident when I came to the part about the stone rolled away and the angels telling the women that Jesus was risen ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... out that I could not obtain a passport, for the simple reason that the authorities of the city persisted that it was not necessary; but I knew better, and it was not for me to tell them why. I resolved to write to the French officer who had treated me so well at the guardhouse. I begged him to enquire at the war office whether ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... did not keep up the chaffing. The atmosphere of Mrs. Richie's house dominated him as completely as when he was a boy. He looked at her serene face, her simple, feminine parlor, the books and flowers and pictures,—and thought of his mother and his mother's house. Then, somehow, he was ashamed of his thoughts, because this dear lady said in ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... the rock first chance he got. Then I reckon he stuck the whisky bottle in Frank's pocket and heaved him out. He dropped the handkerchief out of his hip pocket when he jumped out of the rig. It's right simple, and if folks didn't get to wondering about it, it'd be safe as any killing can be. As safe," he added meaningly, "as dragging Fred Thurman, or unhooking Brit's chain-lock before he started down the canyon with his ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... succeeded in presenting in a manner such that they prove likewise of value to others. The author is most grateful for the good, kind words that have come so generously from so many hundreds of readers of this simple little volume from all parts of the world. He is also grateful to that large company of people who have been so good as to put the book into the hands ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... remarkable but seemingly little-known treatise,[12] Kant expounds a complete cosmogony, in the shape of a theory of the causes which have led to the development of the universe from diffused atoms of matter endowed with simple attractive ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... to himself as greatly annoyed by this simple message, and for the rest of that evening ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... of Edward McLaren and Alice Albertson was not of the usual character. In this instance love did run smoothly. It was such a union of souls as needed no rapturous expressions. It was made up of esteem, appreciation, and confidence, resulting in simple, sincere affection that was unselfish ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... modified their judgment. They almost bore a grudge against the girl for not having surreptitiously gone to the Prussian Officer to afford a pleasant surprise to her companions when they awoke. Nothing more simple! Beside, who would have suspected it? She might have saved appearances by having the Officer say that he had taken pity on their distress. To her it would ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... He argued, according to Peron, that the route which he favoured was nearer, and as a matter of mileage he was right. But winds and currents should have been considered rather than bare distance; and the simple result of bad seamanship was that Baudin's vessels occupied one hundred and forty-five days on the voyage from Havre to Mauritius, where they stayed to refit, whilst Flinders brought out the Investigator from Spithead the whole way to Cape ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... conclude that perhaps it is due to the fact that Miss de la Roche lives in Toronto, that delightful city where the virtues of both England and America are said to be subtly and consummately blended. Her story, as simple and refreshing as the tune of an old song, and yet so richly spiced with humour, perhaps presents a blend of qualities and imaginations that we would only find in Canada; for the Canadians, after all, are the true Anglo-Americans. Perhaps they do not like to be called so? But I mean it well: ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... one sees fields of graves marked each with a simple wooden cross. Here and there a soldier's cap has been nailed ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of Mary Louise's black dresses while Mary Louise sat opposite, listlessly watching her. The door into the hall was closed, but the glass door to the rear porch was wide open to let in the sun and air. And this simple scene was the setting for the drama ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... sagaciously perceived that his only chance of victory rested in the superiority of the personal fortitude and activity of his countrymen, and to bring them face to face, and arm to arm, with their opponents, was the simple object of his tactical dispositions. He formed his troops into three divisions, with two wings. The centre, in which he stationed himself, he planted to act against the main body of the French, and he placed ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... down, and pictures that provoke the sense; I am no haughty noble, with spacious halls, and galleries that awe the echo. But so much the greater is my merit if I disdain these excesses of the ease or the pride, since I love the elegant, and have a taste! Others may be simple and honest, from the very coarseness of their habits; if I, with so much refinement and delicacy, am simple and ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the road that leads to his location has been neglected, and how much he wants to find a real complete hand that can build a bridge over his brook, and axin' him if HE ever built one. When he gets the hook baited with the right fly, and the simple critter begins to jump out of water arter it, all mouth and gills, he winds up the reel, and takes leave, a-thinkin' to himself 'Now you see what's to the eend of my line, I guess I'll know where to find you when I ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... 'at the mild and benevolent tone in which, under the common misconception, a little anecdote, simple and harmless in itself, was uttered. Indeed, we smiled—but we trust the smile was that of a Christian—on hearing our respected and respectable contemporary doling out the mistake of a child, with such an air of solemn interest in the reputation of a gentleman whose name and character are ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... it tuned to a shade now," Quest declared. "Equipped with this simple little device, you can speak to me from anywhere up to ten or a dozen miles. What are you ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... felt the flattered importance that they always felt about anything and everything concerning the truly great and simple-minded man whom they were so proud to know ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... little group was gathered in a beautiful, secluded spot, on the mountain side, overlooking the station. Houston and Van Dorn were there, and a clergyman from a little parish in a small town a few miles distant, to whom the sad story had been told, read the simple but impressive words of the burial service and offered a brief prayer. And, as the weary body was lowered to its final resting place, at the foot of the murmuring pines, there came to the minds of Houston and Van Dorn the memory of the burial of ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... all, as Arthur Kane, the young schoolmaster at Burnt Brook Cross-Roads, began dimly to surmise, the solution was quite simple. A lucky gold-miner, returning from the Klondike, had brought with him not only gold and an appetite, but also a lank, implacable, tameless whelp from the packs that haunt the sweeps of northern timber. The whelp ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... pretend careful study of the menu. Although his preferences in food were simple, he was extraordinarily hungry and knew exactly what he wanted. For long months he had dreamed of a porterhouse steak smothered in mushrooms, and now, finding that appetizing viand listed on the menu, he ordered it without giving mature deliberation to the possible consequences ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... were simple in the extreme, being merely ratifications of what the President had done and approvals of what he said he purposed to do. To the somewhat bored group of representative financial figureheads around the table ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... is not far distant until the Protestant world will wake up to the realization that they have been humbled before this Italian pontiff for the simple reason that our officials are willing to cater to Catholicism in Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands for the sake ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... W. Coventry, I hear, did this day make a speech, in apology for his reading the letter of the Duke of Albemarle, concerning the good condition which Chatham was in before the enemy come thither: declaring his simple intention therein, without prejudice to my Lord. And I am told that he was also with the Duke of Albemarle yesterday to excuse it; but this day I do hear, by some of Sir W. Coventry's friends, that they think he hath done himself much injury by making this man, and his interest, so much his ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... above, where doubtless there is a cavity prepared to receive it. The mass was of the width of a good-sized door, about ten feet high and not less than five feet thick. It must have weighed at least twenty or thirty tons, and was clearly moved upon some simple balance principle of counter-weights, probably the same as that by which the opening and shutting of an ordinary modern window is arranged. How the principle was set in motion, of course none of us saw; Gagool was careful to avoid this; but I have little doubt that there was some very ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... painted banner swelling in the breeze outside, you know. It shows the wild man in all his untamed ferocity, in his native jungle, armed with a simple but rather promising club. A dozen intrepid tars from a British man-of-war—to be seen in the offing—are in the act of casting a net over him. It's an exciting picture, I assure you, Miss Lansdale. ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... about it is, that its structure is polysynthetic, like the languages of America. Like them, it forms its compounds by the elimination of certain radicals in the simple words; so that ilhun, the twilight, is contracted from hill, dead, and egun, day; and belhaur, the knee, from belhar, front, and oin, leg. . . . The fact is indisputable, and is eminently noteworthy, that while the affinities of the Basque roots ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... changed; divorce made simple and non-scandalous as it should be; all rights safeguarded for the woman; and still have something legal and recognised by one of those necessary conventions ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... We are shipping a great many of them to England this season, where they are greedily snapped up and devoured by the crowned heads. It is a good hot weather joke, devoid of mental strain, perfectly simple and may be laughed at or not ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... cold, false world is not for thee. At the proud court, with thy true heart, thou wilt For ever feel a stranger among strangers. The world asks virtues of far other stamp Than thou hast learned within these simple vales. But go—go thither,—barter thy free soul, Take land in fief, be minion to a prince, Where thou might'st be lord paramount, and prince Of all thine own unburden'd heritage! O, Uly, Uly, stay among thy people! Go not to Altdorf. Oh, ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... led the barbarian invaders of the Empire to accept the Arian form of Christianity are not yet fully disclosed to us. The cause could not be an uncultured people's preference for a simple faith, for the Arian champions were at least as subtle and technical in their theology as the Athanasian, and often surpassed them in these qualities. It is possible that some remembrances of the mythology handed down to them by their fathers made them willing to accept a subordinate Christ, a spiritualised ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... kraals!" and adding, that his sole satisfaction during his residence there was having pared off some pounds of flush. Notwithstanding, in the small but select society of this inland watering-place he passed on the whole a pleasant time—listening to the music of the simple ballads in which he delighted, taking part in the performances of the local theatre, making excursions, and writing verses. This otherwise quiet time was disturbed by exhibitions of violence on the part of Mrs. Byron, which suggest the idea of insanity. ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... can be benefited by certain sensible suggestions, like taking simple food, and breathing and exercising properly, and sleeping with open windows or out-of-doors, so all husbands can be aided toward perpetual affection by the observance of some general laws, on the ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... important to me that I should not risk being punished. I knew where a revolver was kept; after I had shot him, I would dress the body up and put flour on the face like a man that had been acting as a ghost. It would be very simple. I would say that he had frightened me—and the servants had heard us talking about ghosts. There were one or two trivialities that would have to be arranged, but nothing escaped my mind. Yes, it seemed to me very good that I should kill my brother as I ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... Story (1503) who built Chichester Market Cross, and of Bishop Day (1556). The columns of Purbeck marble which grace this part of the cathedral are of great beauty. The screens of native iron have already been noticed, they are of simple but effective design. ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes |
