"Downright" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tell me," he (Gangler) continued, "did it ever happen to Thor in his expeditions to be overcome either by spells or by downright force?" ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... in it, for all that, than you'd think. It ain't literal fact, but it is figurative truth. But now I'll shew you sunthin' in this town, that's as false as parjury, sunthin that's a disgrace to this country and an insult to our great nation, and there is no jeest in it nother, but a downright lie; and, since you go for to throw up to me our naval button with its 'eagle and anchor,' I'll point out to you sunthin' a hundred thousand million times wus. What was the name o' that English admiral folks made ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... sleep, and their huge remains lie embedded in the deep morasses of Chambers and Anderson. We wonder at the length of face and general atrabilious look that mark the portraits of the men of that generation, but it is no marvel when even their relaxations were such downright hard work. Fathers when their day on earth was up must have folded down the leaf and left the task to be finished by their sons,—a dreary inheritance. Yet both Drayton and Daniel are fine poets, though both of them in their ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... immediate neighbourhood had, many of them, but little enjoyment of the exquisite sunny days and the calm nights of August and September. To several of the older people—Dr. Ayloff, among others, as we have seen—the summer proved downright fatal, but even among the younger, few escaped either a sojourn in bed for a matter of weeks, or at the least, a brooding sense of oppression, accompanied by hateful nightmares. Gradually there formulated itself a suspicion—which ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... the constable. I perform some of the duties of the town-clerk by promulgating public notices when they are posted on my front. To speak within bounds, I am the chief person of the municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother-officers by the cool, steady, upright, downright and impartial discharge of my business and the constancy with which I stand to my post. Summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain, for all day long I am seen at the busiest corner, just above the market, stretching out my arms to rich and poor alike, and at night ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Master Nic—wooden guns, as we call quakers out at sea or in a fort. Strikes me, sir, as a real, downright, good, gen-u-wine trouble, such as losing all his money, would be the making of the Captain; and after that he'd be ready to laugh at losing a few salmon as he don't want. I say, Master Nic, you aren't offended at me ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... to our modern world, the first unfurling of her standard on the rocky pinnacle of Europe, is here celebrated in the style which it deserved. There is no false timsel-decoration about Tell, no sickly refinement, no declamatory sentimentality. All is downright, simple, and agreeable to Nature; yet all is adorned and purified and rendered beautiful, without losing its resemblance. An air of freshness and wholesomeness breathes over it; we are among honest, inoffensive, yet fearless peasants, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... in the base-court fought he with his sword, Using his left hand much, more than the wont Of most knights now-a-days; our men gave back, For wheresoever he hit a downright blow, Some one fell bleeding, for no plate could hold Against the sway of body and great arm; Till he grew tired, and some man (no! not I, I swear not I, fair lady, as I live!) Thrust at him with a glaive between the knees, And threw him; down he fell, sword undermost; Many fell ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... I find it difficult to say what distress the sudden removal of this amiable and accomplished Scholar occasions me, just as I am finishing my task. I consign these pages to the press with a sense of downright reluctance,—(constrained however by the importance of the subject,)—seeing that he is no longer among us either to accept or to dispute a single proposition. All I can do is to erase every word which ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... remains a duty when you go home, but it is very hard to reconcile it with the many things that clash—not the least of these being our own laziness when the help of external pressure is taken away. You have had intellectual advantages, and you will be downright sinful if you fritter all your time away over flowers and tennis, and never read because you do not like to be thought unsociable: you are bound to improve your talents, but take it as your motto, that rules should be iron when they ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... problem of the freedom of the seas, but when admonished by the British government that it would not even brook its mention, he at once gave it up and, presumably drawing the obvious inference from this downright refusal, applied it to the Irish, Egyptian, and other issues, which were forthwith eliminated from the category of open or international problems. But France's insistent demand, on the other hand, for the Rhine frontier met ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... instigation, to prove him a knave and myself an honest man; and touching the Duke of York, I will take my death, I never meant him any ill, nor the king, nor the queen;—and therefore, Peter, have at thee with a downright blow! ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... do! There's weakness—there's downright ruin in all this. However," he added, dropping his voice, "the frenzy is quite temporary. I know it very well; I have had it before. It ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... it came to downright combat, they must be overwhelmed. Carlsen's gun again assumed proper proportions. Lund might not be afraid of it, but Rainey was, very frankly. He should have snatched it from the cabin cushions. But Tamada? He could not dismiss Tamada as an important factor. There ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... (upon p. 128) the tradition of St. Patrick which all modern research has come to accept. He says downright (upon pp. 186-187) that the Ancient world did not inquire into the problem of evil. On p. 214 he will have it that the ordinary man rejects, "without hesitation," the interference of will with material causes. In other words, ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... living by delighting a Southwark audience nightly with his fine baritone voice, good enough for a ballad in those latitudes, and good enough indeed for something much better if it had been properly exercised under a master. He was not downright dissolute, but his experience with his father, who was weak and silly, had given him a distaste for what he called religion; and he was loose, as might be expected. Still, he was not so loose as to have lost his finer instincts altogether, for he had some. He read a good deal, mostly ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... thousand. His stories varied; there was a measure of vitality and a sort of instinctive in all of them, but none attained the personality of "The Demon Lover," and there were several that Anthony considered downright cheap. These, Dick explained severely, were to widen his audience. Wasn't it true that men who had attained real permanence from Shakespeare to Mark Twain had appealed to the many as well as ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... many years. Nobody else seemed to want to take the job, and so I took it, and I flatter myself that I made a pretty good job of it. The Germans have an inhuman way of cutting up their verbs. Now a verb has a hard time enough of it in this world when it's all together. It's downright inhuman to split it up. But that's just what those Germans do. They take part of a verb and put it down here, like a stake, and they take the other part of it and put it away over yonder like another stake, and between these ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Gerfaut done to you? Is it not downright ungrateful to be afraid of him so soon after the service he ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... off the edge of his displeasure. Being of an easy and tractable disposition he soon found the fashions of the court, and obtained a general love and notice of the nobility; for he was no carry-tale, nor flattering insinuator to breed discord and dissension, but an honest, plain, downright [man], that would speak home without halting, and tell the truth of purpose to shame the devil—so that his plainness, mixed with a kind of facetiousness, and tartness with pleasantry, made him acceptable into the company of all men." There cannot, perhaps, be a greater ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... time can only be measured by space, space by time; they are true universals and contraries; their synthesis is motion, a conception which requires them both and is completed by them. Or again, the philosophical extremes of downright materialism and idealism are each wholly true, yet but half the truth. The insoluble enigmas that either meets in standing alone are kindred to those which puzzled the old philosophers in the sophisms relating to motion, as, for instance, ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... single step in life without previously receiving his orders; and Mr. Fitch, a baronet's son, having expressed an admiration of Lucy, Sir George had determined that his suit should be accepted, and really considered Lucy's preference of another as downright treason. ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... no work which gives a fairer measure of Mr. Maurice's intellect, both political and exegetic, and a fairer measure likewise, of the plain downright common sense which he brought to bear on each of so many subjects, than his Commentary on the very book which is supposed to have least connection with common sense, and on which common sense has ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... right in that impression, and figure as the herald, if not an active inaugurator, of a new era of taste in verse. He cannot remain the only practical asserter of the theory that it is better to steal good poetry than to write bad. Should his followers, however, shrink from downright theft, they might consent to shine as adapters. Some who are masters of English undefiled might help the cause by translating some of the best bits of Browning, Swinburne and Rossetti, to say nothing of Tennyson, who has gradually constructed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... atmosphere which belongs only to certain women; as indescribable as the afterglow; as impalpable as an Indian summer mist; and non-existent except to people who feel rather than reason. Sybil had none of it. The imagination gave up all attempts to soar where she came. A more straightforward, downright, gay, sympathetic, shallow, warm-hearted, sternly practical young woman has rarely touched this planet. Her mind had room for neither grave-stones nor guide-books; she could not have lived in the past or the future if she had spent her days ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... sighed softly. Oakes was entitled to a certain amount of gloating, but there could be no doubt that his way of telling a story was downright infuriating. ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... ermined hand, as on his scutcheon, shining with sincerity. That secret once penetrated, all is clear. We can comprehend the depth of convictions that are not thoughts, but living principles,—clear, distinct, downright, and as immaculate as the ermine itself. We understand that sale made to his sister before the war; which provided for all, and faced all, death, confiscation, exile. The beauty of the character of these two old people (for the ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... the books I have seen only the Hindoo K[a]masutr[a]m, the literal version of the Arabian Nights, and the American Indian stories collected by Dr. Boas, can compare with this "sweet and beautiful" romance of Longus in downright obscenity or deliberate laciviousness. I have been able, without going beyond the latitude permissible to anthropologists, to give a fairly accurate idea of the love-affairs of savages and barbarians; but I find it impossible, after several ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Kt. to R's 4th would be much stronger, the importance of halting the advancing Rook Pawn duly considered. Going from bad to worse, the downright blunder two moves later caps the climax—and more ...
— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"
... downright sophistry. To any sane man it could not but be evident that this was an "unmistakable disregard of rights secured by the Supreme law of the land." The school authorities had separated white and Negro children for purposes of education on account of race and had, moreover, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... sighs happily, and takes her hands in his, looking quaintly at her.) That must positively be my last kiss, Grace, or I shall become downright silly. Let us talk. (Releases her and sits a little apart from her.) Grace: is this ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... open space all around the point where the boy stood gazing at his fallen game. He fired, almost at random, at the nearest of the flying buffalo; but the buckshot whistled hurtlessly among the herd, and Sandy thought to himself that it was downright cruelty to shoot among them, for the scattering shot would only wound without killing ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... misstatement. The folly of such procedure is made apparent by merely calling attention to the fact that the original argument has been garbled but in no wise refuted, An opponent can convict the one who has "answered himself" either of unpardonable ignorance about the subject or of downright dishonesty. ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... attacked by a host of demons. I could not seek safety in flight, for I should have broken my neck, as I dared not for a moment move my left arm from before my face, while my right was fully occupied in dealing blows on every side at my fierce enemies. I shrieked out at the top of my voice with downright terror, but I was too far from the camp, I fancied, to have any hope of being heard. Even my right arm began to get weary with striking at the empty air, and at the same time the boldness of my ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... there are wine-vaults under the chapel!" answers downright Charles. "I saw the name, Sherrick and Co.; offices, a green door, and a brass plate. It's better to sit over vaults with wine in them than coffins. I wonder whether it's the Sherrick with whom Kew and Jack Belsize had that ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Feudalism, also, my dear sir, was a benefit and a progress in its day, but that which was a benefit yesterday may it not become an evil to-morrow—a danger? That which is progress to-day, may it not one hundred years hence have become mere routine, and a downright trammel? Is not that the history of the world? And if you wish to know, Monsieur, by what sign we may recognize the fact that a social or political system has attained its end, I will tell you: it is when it is manifest only in its inconveniences and abuses. Then the machine has finished its work, ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... thirsting for liberty, as was evinced by Lear Green, made the efforts of the most ardent friends, who were in the habit of aiding fugitives, seem feeble in the extreme. Of all the heroes in Canada, or out of it, who have purchased their liberty by downright bravery, through perils the most hazardous, none deserve more praise than ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... news from him about how things are going in the world-news, I tell you, girl! My heart is fairly dancing in my body. And, besides, a little puss like you is always glad to hear of an admirer, and only a short time ago you praised him loudly enough as a splendid dancer. A downright good fellow, child, just as I was myself at his age. An uncle of his, a captain of arquebusiers, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... brought up by sisters. I grew to hate what she called 'the right,' I wanted pleasure, a free time, and a good drink whenever the fancy took me. You know what I am, Dr. Perry, and everybody in town knows; but the impulse which has always ruled me was not a downright evil one; or if it was, I called it natural independence, and let it go at that. But Adelaide suffered. I didn't understand it and I didn't care a fig for it, but she did suffer. God ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... nonsense," he said, when we mooted the subject to him. "How on earth can we get up a decent eleven to play chaps like those, who have been touring it all over the country, and licking professionals even on their own ground? It's impossible, and a downright absurdity. ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... they are. What I say is quite honest. That's a fine lad of yours: he's as nervous now as a girl, and no wonder, seeing how weak and delicate he is, but I watched him this morning, and he's fighting it all down like a fellow with true grit in him, at a time too when he's feeling downright bad. You won't hardly ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... author's verse shows a hearty, wholesome, human spirit, sometimes overflowing into downright fun, and a straightforward directness always. It is a pleasant book, sure ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... the interior; they were only three feet high, and had horns growing out of their heads; they lived in a large town and had plenty of food. The Makololo pooh-poohed this story, and roundly told the narrator that he was telling a downright lie. "We come from the interior," cried out a tall fellow, measuring some six feet four, "are we dwarfs? have we horns on our heads?" and thus they laughed the fellow to scorn. But he still stoutly ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... is nothing about it laid down in our geography; and, in fact, the people who seem to be expecting to spend their lives there are unaccountably mum about it. I don't at this moment remember hearing any one ever express a downright opinion, and I have always thought it rather queer. I asked Nellie Wheden about it one day when she was going on about her expected tour in Europe. She had bored me to death, making me produce all my geographic ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... thus full of fancies, the boys singly or in groups kept passing me, smiling, full of delighted excitement and chatter, all intent on themselves and their companions. I heard scraps of their talk, inconsequent names, accompanied with downright praise or blame, unintelligible exploits, happy nonsense. How odd it is to note that when we Anglo-Saxons are at our happiest and most cheerful, we expend so much of our steam in frank derision of each other! Yet though I can hardly remember a single conversation ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... that she would scruple in the least to declare to Mr. Moss the very opposite to the truth in a matter in which he had, she thought, no business to be inquisitive; but when she did so she had no power to look the lie. You might say of her frequently that she was a downright liar. But of all human beings whom you could meet she was the least sly. "My dear child," the father used to say to her, "words to you are worth nothing, unless it be to sing them. You can make no impression with them in any other way." Therefore it was that Mr. Moss felt that he could learn ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... evidently had no idea that a time would come when women would ask this question in downright seriousness. Meanwhile the preference for the words "male person" in the new enactments still continued. It was employed in the Municipal Corporation Reform act, 1835; and in the Irish poor-law act of 1838, women, as well as clergymen, were expressly excluded from election as poor-law guardians. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... enemies made as free with his person as with his poetry, and there is little doubt that he felt the former attacks the more bitterly of the two. Dennis, his first critic, called him "a short squab gentleman, the very bow of the God of love; his outward form is downright monkey." A rival poet whom he had offended hung up a rod in a coffee house where men of letters resorted, and threatened to whip Pope like a naughty child if he showed his face there. It is said, though perhaps not on the best authority, ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... shilly-shally, so I ast 'em downright if I should do it, and 'Oh, dear no,' says they, they couldn't think of such a thing; and little Dix says, 'Of course, as we promised, if we had succeeded in buying the mine for our company through your reports we should have given you the situation of ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... a hill, so steep as the ridge of a house, where the way was rocky, and not above a yard broad in some places, so fearful and horrid it was to look down into the bottom, for if either horse or man had slipped, he had fallen without recovery a good mile downright; but I thank God, at night I came to a lodging in the Laird of Edzell's land, where I lay at an Irish house, the folks not being able to speak scarce any English, but I supped and went to bed, where I had not laid long, but I was enforced to rise, I was so stung ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... a fortune-teller among them, too," he continued. "Say, she's a shrewd one. Of course, she's one of the fakers, but she's downright smart—told me a lot of things about myself that were true. Suppose she looked me over sharp. Say, I tell you what I'll do; I'll get her to tell your fortunes. How'd you like to have your fortunes told? ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... that country for the S. and C. last year. He was born in the camp and his mother died when he was a baby. God knows how he pulled through! You know what those mining places are. His father, Frank Lee, was killed in a drunken row while I was there, and Abe showed so much cool nerve and downright manliness that I offered him a place with my party. He has been ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... was downright cruel to us. Not a dozen feet away was liberty; and now we were back at the beginning again, with the end ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... me to say, that, I believe, for the want of a condensed class, that are accustomed to sustain each other in a high tone of feeling and thinking, and perhaps from ignorance of the world, no other people, above the illiterate and downright debased, are so easily practised on and cajoled, as the great mass of our own. I hope I have never been addicted to the vice of winning golden opinions by a sacrifice of sentiments or principles; but this dinner has given me a surfeit of what is called "popularity," among ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... found that the cloud had swept onward toward the sea, leaving the rocks on the nearest hillside all glittering wet in the brief burst of sunlight. It was but a glimmer. Heavier clouds came sweeping over; downright rain began to pour. But Ogilvie kept manfully to his work. He climbed over the stone walls, gripping on with his wet hands. He splashed through the boggy land, paying no attention to his footsteps. And at ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... can think of things to say that will be the truth and yet not give the whole thing away!" sighed the downright Cynthia. "I wish I were as quick ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... to lead him and try to help him along, while the pedant, de Sigognac, and Scapin put their shoulders to the wheels at every inequality in the road and whenever he paused or stumbled badly, and Leander cracked the whip loudly to encourage the poor beast; it would have been downright cruelty to strike him. As to Matamore, he had lingered behind, and they were expecting every moment to see his tall, spare figure emerge from the gloom with rapid strides and rejoin them. Finally the storm became so violent that it was impossible to face it any longer; ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... "Yes, downright swearing; employing strong expletives,—actual oaths! Oh, it helps me more than you can believe. But just imagine the result if I were to harangue Mademoiselle Bertha in this style! ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... controls the breeding of them. The general will of the community, administered under diffused public opinion and through the educated judgment of the individual himself, will decide. Only in cases of what are agreed to be downright crimes will the law step in to condemn and prevent, and then only through agents who are directly accountable to an enlightened and alert public opinion. The retaining of this new mastery of man over the quantity ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit
... of his old passion for Madame Arnoux, uttering in his new flame's hearing all those amorous sentiments which the other had caused him to feel in downright earnest, and pretending that it was Madame Dambreuse herself who had occasioned them. She received these avowals like one accustomed to such things, and, without giving him a formal repulse, did not yield in the slightest degree; ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... utter combustion, desolation, and destruction to all buildings and trees in the neighborhood; and lastly, a multitude of five, though watched with a little jealousy, was not called an intolerable, unparalleled violation of everything approaching the name of order, absolute, downright shamelessness, worthy capital mark-punishment, alias the loss of 87-3/4 digits!—Harvardiana, Vol. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... of Dickens, as you may read the greatest part of Hawthorne or Tolstoy, and not once be reminded of literature as a business or a cult, but you can hardly read a paragraph, hardly a sentence, of Thackeray's without being reminded of it either by suggestion or downright allusion. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... never be great; but I shall work as hard as any of them," he continued. "To tell you the honest truth, however, this would be the happiest Christmas Eve of my life if I had a downright suit on my hands. Why can't I be frank with you and say I'd like to begin the chief suit of my life now and here—a suit for this little hand? I'd plead for it as no lawyer ever pleaded before. I settled that ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... have not had to manage them? You do as I tell you, and just be round with her. You tell her that you don't desire any change yourself, and that after what has passed you can't allow her to think of such a thing. You speak as though you had a downright claim, as you have; and all will come right. It's not that she cares for him, you know. You must remember that. She has never even said a word of that kind. I haven't a doubt on my mind as to which she really likes best; but it's that stupid promise, and the way that George ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... I'm downright proud to be your sister, and if you can look me in the eye as fearlessly and unashamed when you come home, I shall be still prouder. I want to tell you something I overheard in a store the other day ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... more than sorry. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, downright ashamed. But, there, I won't say any more now. Now, can't ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... Max, unable to hide his annoyance, "that if I were to tell you it was not a joke at all, but that I spoke in downright earnest, you would laugh ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... household at a crisis, and there was a deal of downright humanity in that same. A bad, wicked dress-maker had promised the maiden a dress in time for a to-morrow's rail-way journey, and though the barefooted Georgy, who stood in very wholesome awe of his sister, had scoured the woods ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... ways that I did not understand in the least; she used to amuse herself by little machinations, was inventive and intriguing. One day she demanded that I should play the school children, small, white-haired boys and girls, all of whom we had long learnt to know, a downright trick. I was to write a real love-letter to a nine-year-old little girl named Ingeborg, from an eleven or twelve-year-old boy called Per, and then Henrietta would sew a fragrant little wreath of flowers round it. The letter was completed and delivered. But the only result of it was that next day, ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... in a way, but it wasn't much of a way. She liked the fine clothes and the trinkets he gave her, but, after he went blind, she could hardly tolerate him. Lots of times, she would have been downright cruel to him if I ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... the general's years, he evidently is a little vain of his person, and ambitious of conquests. I have observed him on Sunday in church, eyeing the country girls most suspiciously; and have seen him leer upon them with a downright amorous look, even when he has been gallanting Lady Lillycraft, with great ceremony, through the church-yard. The general, in fact, is a veteran in the service of Cupid, rather than of Mars, having signalized himself in all the ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... people who don't come out all at once, and he is only just beginning to make my acquaintance, but he'll find I've some good qualities—excellent ones! The Hunsdens were always unrivalled at tracking a rascal; a downright, dishonourable villain is their natural prey—they could not keep off him wherever they met him; you used the word pragmatical just now—that word is the property of our family; it has been applied to us from generation to generation; we have fine noses for abuses; we scent a scoundrel ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... from the brow, lacking which no male person, unless bald, fulfilled his definition of a man of the world. But there ensued a period of vehemence and activity caused by a bent collar-button, which went on strike with a desperation that was downright savage. The day was warm and William was warmer; moisture bedewed him afresh. Belated victory no sooner arrived than he perceived a fatal dimpling of the new collar, and was forced to begin the operation of exchanging it for a successor. ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... day; candid, ingenuous, guileless; unsuspicious, honest &c 939; innocent &c 946; Arcadian^; undesigning, straightforward, unreserved, aboveboard; simple-minded, single-minded; frank-hearted, open-hearted, single-hearted, simple-hearted. free-spoken, plain-spoken, outspoken; blunt, downright, direct, matter of fact, unpoetical^; unflattering. Adv. in plain words, in plain English; without mincing the matter; not to mince the matter &c (affirmation) 535. Phr. Davus sum non Oedipus [Lat.] [Terence]; liberavi animam meam ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... however wild and irresponsible a rascal he may have been, yet by his own lights he was a man of honour, incapable of falsehood, even though it were calculated to save his skin. I do not deny that Sir Thomas Picton has described him as a "thieving blackguard." But I am sure that this was merely the downright, rather extravagant manner, of censure peculiar to that distinguished general, and that those who have taken the expression at its purely literal value have been lacking at once in charity and in knowledge of the ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... "Oh, she was wicked—downright wicked!" declared Mary, with some passion—"Any girl who would plan and scheme to marry an old man for his money must be a worthless creature. I wish I had been ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... perverse air, because she was young, with the incomparable, the unique charm of comely adolescence; it simply excited the imagination to conceive the exquisite treasures of contour and tint and texture which it veiled. Do not infer that Rachel was a coquette. Although comely, she was homely—a "downright" girl, scorning and hating all manner of pretentiousness. She had a fine best dress, and when she put it on everybody knew that it was her best; a stranger would have known. Whereas of a coquette none but her intimate companions can say whether she is wearing best or second-best ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... strong drink on this occasion; be that as it may, the fact remains that I could out-drink any man I ever met in the cattle country. I could drink large quantities of the fiery stuff they called whiskey on the range without it affecting me in any way, but I have never been downright drunk since that time in the sweet corn patch. Our plantation was situated in the heart of the black belt of the south, and on the plantations all around us were thousands of slaves, all engaged in garnering the dollars that kept up the so-called aristocracy of the south, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... where pepper grows if you are to become pale and nervous on its account! Promise me now next post-day to be reasonable, and not to look like the waning moon, else I promise you that I shall be downright angry, and will keep ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... right." For myself, I could scarcely eat any breakfast. Lupin came down dressed quietly, and looking a perfect gentleman, except that his face was rather yellow. Carrie, by way of encouragement said: "You do look nice, Lupin." Lupin replied: "Yes, it's a good make- up, isn't it? A regular-downright-respectable-funereal-first- class-City-firm-junior-clerk." He ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... tears from me and wetted my paper. These tears came again into my eyes almost as often as I looked at the description,—they may again. You do not believe this fact, nor that these are my real feelings; but that the whole is affected, or as you express it, downright foppery. My friend, I tell you it is truth; and that it is true and will be truth when you and I are no more; and will exist as long as men with their natural feelings shall ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the skipper, "I guess I'm raal downright glad to see you both ag'in, thet I am—all thet, I reckon. It's a sight for sore eyes to see you lookin' so slick ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... them had in their view to better themselves by the treaty; but before I enter upon the particular motives of each nation, I must inform this honorable house that since I can remember, the two nations have altered their sentiments upon that affair, even almost to downright contradiction—they have changed headbands, as we say; for the English, till of late, never thought it worth their pains of treating with us; the good bargain they made at the beginning they resolve to keep, and that which we call an incorporating ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... boy was ridiculous. In what bucolic school of fence he had been taught was beyond imagining. He was downright clownish. "Short work and simple" was my judgment, while his red hair seemed a-bristle with very rage and while he pressed me like ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... to accept the statement of his trainers, Mr. and Mrs. McArdle, that Peter's proficiency is not so much the result of training as of downright self-education." ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... medias res upon a sketch of De Quincey's life; were it not a rudeness amounting to downright profanity to omit the important ceremony of prelibation, and that at a banquet to which, implicitly, gods are invited. The reader will assuredly unite with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... himself: he was at times gauche, blunt, awkwardly infelicitous in speech or silence, when he would have wished, as he knew perfectly how, to be considerate, gentle, sympathetic, responsive. On the other hand, his shyness and reticence were seemingly contradicted by a downright bluntness, a deliberate frankness in matters of opinion in which his convictions were involved; for his views were most positively held and his convictions were often passionate in intensity, and he declared ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... some states (notably those of New England and New York), under careful regulation and held to strict standards by public sentiment, for the most part maintained a high credit; but many banks, under lax laws and regulations, were guilty of great abuses of credit and of downright dishonest practices. The evils were more especially evident in connection with excessive issues of ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... leaders along the Rio Grande during this period there sprang up many factional differences from various causes, some personal, others political, and some, I regret to say, from downright moral obliquity—as, for example, those between Cortinas and Canales —who, though generally hostile to the Imperialists, were freebooters enough to take a shy at each other frequently, and now and then even to join ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... your 'Seven Stars' I do," he said. "In fact, I want for 'The Tiger' to swallow the 'Seven Stars,' in a poetical way of speaking. I'm a downright man and never take ten minutes where five's enough, so there it is. It came over me last night as a thing that must be—like the conversion of Paul. And I'll go further; I won't have you beat about the bush, Nelly. You're the sort of woman that ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... a stranger in New France or you would not express such hasty, honest sentiments upon the Intendant's hospitality. It is not the fashion, except among plain-spoken habitans, who always talk downright Norman." Master Pothier looked approvingly at Colonel Philibert, who, listening with indignant ears, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... lost so much lately at Trimble's," he was saying, "that it is long past the stage of being merely interesting. It is downright serious—for me, at least. I've got to make good or lose my job. And I'm up against one of the cleverest shoplifters that ever entered a department-store, apparently. Only Heaven knows how much she has got away with in various departments so far, but when it comes to lifting ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... that admirable character was a downright theft from Dr. Johnson. Look at "The Rambler," and you will find Suspirius is the man, and that not merely the idea, but the particulars of the character, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... Cornelius spitefully. "I hope you may have what you want. For my part I don't desire to be better than my neighbor. I think it downright selfish." ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... diffused assumption that even in antiquity educated and unbiased persons held the same view of the religion of their people as we do. In reality both assumptions are erroneous: our "atheism" in regard to ancient paganism is of recent date, and in antiquity itself downright denial of the existence of the gods was a comparatively rare phenomenon. The demonstration of this fact, rather than a consideration of the various intermediate positions taken up by the thinkers of antiquity in their desire to avoid a ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... of a kind unadapted to mundane uses, and needs the ether for its display. Father Antonio could create the beautiful; he could warm, could elevate, could comfort; and when a stronger nature went before him, he could follow with an unquestioning tenderness of devotion: but he wanted the sharp, downright power of mind that could cut and cleave its way through the rubbish of the past, when its institutions, instead of a commodious dwelling, had come to be a loathsome prison. Besides, the true artist has ever an enchanted island of his own; and when this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... gorgeous cheesecloth robes. And can you guess who the fat lady is up on the very tip-top of all, on the tip-top where the wobble is the worst? Our own Columbia! It must be fine to ride around that way all dressed up in a flag. But a sourer lot of faces you never saw in your life. No. I am wrong. For downright melancholy and despondency you must wait till the funny old clown comes along in his little bit of a buggy drawn by a ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... "Sir Rohan" attempts character in Redruth the butler, and in the villain and heroine of her story. We are inclined to think the villain the best hit of the three, because he is downright scoundrel without a redeeming point, as the Nemesis of the story required him to be, and because he is so far a purely ideal character. But there is no such thing possible as an ideal butler, at least in the sense our author assumes in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... and Willie did their best for mutual consolation, while Albinia undertook to preside over her niece and a still smaller partner in red velvet, in a quadrille. It was amusing to watch the puzzled downright motions of the sturdy little bluff King Hal, and the earnest precision of the prim little damsel, and Albinia hovering round, now handing one, now pointing to the other, keeping lightly out of every one's way, and far more playful than either of the small performers ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was plain but almost as rich as himself, and in his distress he very nearly succumbed; but Clara swooped in to save him, and found that her position was made almost impossible by whispered tittle-tattle, cold looks, and downright rudeness. She was distinctly left out of picnic and boating parties, and almost in contempt she was partnered with Sir Henry who, after Lady Bracebridge's arrival, was no longer master in his own house.... When the Cabinet Ministers arrived the situation became ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... But what he proceeds to argue is that the effect must be discernible in the cause, which is a different statement altogether. When he says that an effect cannot be greater than its cause, what he means is that an effect cannot be different from its cause, which is downright nonsense. He asks, How can that which has not life produce life? as though the question were on all fours with the necessity for a man to possess twenty shillings before he can give change ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... as Madame de Brinvilliers, kill off numbers of respectable relations in the first four acts; and, at the last, be actually burned at the stake, to which she comes shuddering, ghastly, barefooted, and in a white sheet. Sweet excitement of tender sympathies! Such tragedies are not so good as a real, downright execution; but, in point of interest, the next thing to it: with what a number of moral emotions do they fill the breast; with what a hatred for vice, and yet a true pity and respect for that grain of virtue that is to be found in us all: our bloody, daughter-loving Brinvilliers; ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... there hath been thrown Wit able enough to justify the town For three days past—wit that might warrant be For the whole city to talk foolishly Till that were cancelled; and when that was gone, We left an air behind us, which alone Was able to make the two next companies Right witty; though but downright ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... savage satisfaction in admitting every accusation which he could bring against himself, in recalling the light irony with which Winifred Anstice had witnessed his blunders, and the direct, downright anger with which she had dealt out her judgments there at the Point. Only one drop of comfort could Flint extract from the memory of that interview, and he smiled cynically as he remembered the warmth which marked her description of ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... males, I imagine, at some seasons of the year, find occupation, when the ghaseb is sown and when reaped. But, nevertheless, what powerfully solicits the observation of the European in looking into these villages is the downright livelong ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... strong," pursued Mary, who had a blunt downright sort of manner; "I wonder if India will agree with you; I wonder if you will really ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... over his astonishment. He has tried to explain it by saying he was unlucky, for out of a hundred governors not one would have acted as Gallieni did, throwing his whole available force nearly forty miles from his stronghold. It was downright imprudence." ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... Drew a Decidedly Delightful Drawing, Depicting a Dictating, Domineering Despot; a Desperate Despoiling Demogogue; a Disdainful Duchess Dowager; a Dainty, Dressy Dandy, and a Downright Double-Dealing Dodger. Which drawing can be inspected at Cole's Book Arcade by anyone who can ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... we have to consider on the part of servants are, briefly, ignorance, wastefulness, untidiness, pertness, or downright impudence, and what is called 'independence,' a term which all housekeepers thoroughly understand. I leave out of the category the vices of intemperance and dishonesty, which, although lamentably ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... with due effect; some are musical, and others can sing. Concerts, lectures, theatricals, and dances are got up; while, as there is generally a due admixture of the sexes, not a little flirting and downright courting is carried on; and, lastly, if there is any quarrelling and bickering, the differences of those who engage in it afford much amusement ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... had long ago been swept of heroics, and from her arched gray hair, worn la Pompadour, to her pretty foot in its small neat boot, she was a practical soul who had as little use for religious ecstasy as she had for downright infidelity. There seemed to her something positively unnatural in Gabriella's manner—a hint of that "sudden conversion" she associated with the lower ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... past, his thoughts would question the future and the outcome of his experiences. In accordance with his simple, downright nature, he muttered, "I might as well face the truth and have done with it. I don't know whether I'll ever see my wife again or not; I don't know whether God is for me or against me. Sometimes, I half think there isn't any God. I don't know what will become of me when I die. I'm ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... Well, after I'd looked at the box we set down an' she told me the hide an' hair of the whole thing. She says at first she got letters from everybody under the sun askin' her her opinions an' views, some about things as she never heard of before an' others as to things as she considers a downright insult to consider as she might know about. But she says views an' insults don't really matter much, after you reach her age, so she let those all go into the box together an' thought she'd think no more about it. She says there was only just one as she really ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... opportunity or chance that may occur, by practising against an imaginary foe by hammering with a mace at a corn-sack swinging from a beam. Methinks I hit it as hard as of old, but in truth I know but little of the tricks of these Frenchmen. They availed nothing at Poictiers against our crushing downright blows. Still, I would gladly see ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... the "awful interest of the universal problems with which it deals." This obsession of the critic to discover "problems" in the works of Ibsen has been one of the main causes of that impatience and even downright injustice with which his writings have been received by a large section of those readers who should naturally have enjoyed them. He is a poet, of fantastic wit and often reckless imagination, and he has been travestied ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... that I finally yielded a reluctant consent to the project, cautioning them under no circumstances, to remain away from the train more than two or three hours. This they faithfully promised not to do, and departed; notwithstanding Jerry pronounced it as downright foolish a proceedin' as ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... on every second page. This fact constitutes one of the counts in the orthodox indictment of him: it is cited as proof that his capacity for consecutive thought was limited, and that he was thus deficient mentally, and perhaps a downright moron. The argument, it must be obvious, is fundamentally nonsensical. What deceives the professors is the traditional prolixity of philosophers. Because the average philosophical writer, when he essays to expose his ideas, makes such inordinate drafts upon the parts of speech that the dictionary ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... idealizes a scene. How much less romantic the town looked now than when I saw it floating, as it seemed, upon the sky-blue water in a haze of gold-dust fired by the slanting rays! It was then like the Castillon of some troubadour's song; now it was a mean-looking little sun-baked town modernized to downright plainness, with no remnant of its ramparts remaining save a sombre old Gothic gateway near the river, and no ecclesiastical architecture deserving notice. Its site, however, is the same as that which it occupied in the Middle Ages, namely, close to the ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... Mrs. Woods then that stopped at Dexter's Oak one Friday morning with her donkey-cart and a small piece of the neck of mutton in it. She was not an entirely bad woman, though a downright cunning virago, and perhaps some inkling of the nature of the blow that was about to fall on Miss Dexter's head caused her to come prepared by an acceptable present to somewhat mitigate ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... when the country comes into the town in the shape of a downright storm of wind and rain, which shakes the tiles on the roofs, and now and then flings one after you, while the streets become rivers, and every corner an ambush from which the whirlwind makes a sudden attack upon your umbrella, and, after a more or less prolonged and adroit struggle, tears ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... the bluff stranger by the sad tale that he made no effort to check the tears which filled his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. "Well, the past is passed," he said when the story was done, "and we can't do anything now to change it. I've been downright sorry at the way we treated your mother, but she effaced herself pretty well. We never got a trace of her whereabouts, though years afterwards we heard that she was dead. We never knew there was a child, but never mind, you shall not want again as long as I live. Being a rover and unmarried, I have ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... stand in the yard, and approaching to see what was going on, found that a preacher was pouring forth anathemas against the king and the Royal party, and inciting the citizens to throw themselves heart and soul into the cause. Especially severe was he upon waverers, who, he said, were worse than downright enemies, as, while the one withstood the Parliament openly in fair fight, the others were shifted to and fro with each breeze, and none could say whether they were friends or enemies. Passing through the cathedral, where regular services were no longer held, but where, in different ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... the beans an mug o' flip. Call it a thousand dollars, an fork over, but by gosh, I don' git caught that way again. It's downright robbery, that's wot it is. I say ain't ye got no cleaner bills ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... of those primitive times, inordinately long. In the hundred encounters between Mr. Gladstone and Bethell, polished phrase barely hid unchristian desire to retaliate and provoke. Bethell boldly taunted Mr. Gladstone with insincerity. Mr. Gladstone, with a vivacity very like downright anger, reproached Bethell with being a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water to the cabinet who forced the bill into his charge; with being disorderly and abusing the privileges of speech by accusations of insincerity, 'which have ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley |
