"Plainness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... into a happy laugh. Hers was not the bitterness of plainness or insignificance, but something infinitely more suggestive. It was, indeed, not bitterness at all, but light-hearted contempt, which is, perhaps, the deepest contempt ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... our rooms furnished with the same Spartan plainness. Only in Mistress Craven I happened on a good one, and abode with her all the days of my stay at College, till the way opened out for me to wider horizons and a ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... court-house, more than seventy feet long, could not contain the people who thronged to hear their king. Every chief on the island and all the local preachers were present. The king led the singing. He preached with great plainness and simplicity, and in strict accordance with the teaching of God's word; dwelling on the humility and love of the Saviour, the cleansing efficacy of His atoning blood, and the obligations under which we are laid to serve and glorify Him. But a few years before part of ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... attend a mass-meeting at Springfield, "of unconditional Union men." The letter answered many objections urged against the President on account of the conduct of the war, his Emancipation Proclamation, and his purpose to enlist colored men as soldiers. For perspicuity, terseness, plainness, and conclusiveness of argument this letter stands among the best of all President Lincoln's writings. It came at an opportune time, and it did much to silence the caviler, to satisfy the doubter, and to reconcile honest people who ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... example and use equal plainness, Mr. Prynne. This wise man hath said that 'the simple believeth every word.' But if we should do likewise and believe every word that is told of you, we might say 'that Mr. Prynne was seduced by Sir Philip ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... shyness and modesty left nothing to be desired. Her clothes were simple even to plainness, her voice soft and deprecating, and her manner deferential in the extreme. She was always asking advice, and where that advice was given, she always followed it. Flattery could ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... great plainness and directness upon this great matter and to avow my convictions with deep earnestness. I have tried to know what America is, what her people think, what they are, what they most cherish and hold dear. I hope ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson
... consistency with the feelings towards you all, above described, we may and ought to tell you, and that with the greatest plainness, of anything that we deem improper in any part of your conduct, either in a civil, social, or religious view. This we feel it our duty to do and shall continue to do as long as we live; and it will ever be your duty to receive from us the advice, counsel, and reproof, which we may, from time ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... cordial a reception from the person to whom it was addressed, as if it had been couched in the most elegant terms that delicacy of passion and cultivated genius could supply; nay, I believe, was the more welcome on account of its mercantile plainness; because when an advantageous match is in view, a sensible woman often considers the flowery professions and rapturous exclamations of love as ensnaring ambiguities, or, at best, impertinent preliminaries, that retard the treaty they ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... tones of this juvenile Joan of Arc were very sweet and charming. During her discourse, which was frequently interrupted, Miss Dickinson maintained her presence of mind, and uttered her radical sentiments with augmented resolution and plainness. Those who did not sympathize with her remarks, provocative as they were of numerous unmanly interruptions, were softened by her simplicity and solemnity. 'We are told,' said she, 'to maintain constitutions because they are constitutions, and compromises ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... inconvenience of being without a knowledge of English, now send their children first to the german, and afterward to the english schools; by which means they acquire a tolerable idea of both languages. They still retain many characteristics of their ancestors; such as frugality, plainness in dress, &c. At our first concert, three clownish-looking fellows came into the room, and, after sitting a few minutes, (the weather being warm, not to say hot) very composedly took off their coats: they were in the usual summer dress of farmers servants in this ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... women of the frontier was suited to the plainness of the habitations where they lived and the furniture they used. Homespun, linsey-woolsey and buckskin were the primitive materials out of which their everyday dresses were made, and only on occasions of social festivity were they seen in braver robes. Rings, broaches, buckles, and ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... that great scheme of which this life is a part. It is an apparently essential element and fulfilment of the wonderful apparatus of retribution, reward, and discipline, intended to educate us as members of God's eternal family. Because from the little which we now understand we cannot infer with plainness and certainty the precise means and method by which we can discriminate our friends in heaven need be no obstacle to believing the fact itself; for there are millions of undoubted truths whose conditions and ways of operation we can nowise ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... than any I met in your favourite countries. Of course you'll come back to the cathedrals and Titians, but there's a thought that helps one to do without them—the thought that though there's an immense deal of plainness, there's little misery, little squalor, little degradation. There is no regular wife-beating class, and there are none of the stultified peasants of whom it takes so many to make a European noble. The people here are more conscious of things; ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... play-houses, sometimes six or seven open at once. Of these some were large, and in part open, where they acted by day light; others smaller, but better fitted up, where they made use of candles. The plainness of the theatre made the prices small, and drew abundance of company; yet upon the whole it is doubtful, whether the spectactors in all these houses were really superior in number, to those who have frequented the theatres in later times. If the spirit and judgment of the actors ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... was sad, almost mournful. As she grew older and happier, this settled into a gentle serenity, only changed as we have described, by that thrilling smile, which actually transfigured her. You forgot her plainness then, forgot her humble garments, her dull complexion, and wondered what power had, for the moment, rendered her ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... bold and candid reliance on the Nation was one which could never have been foreseen by so-called 'diplomatic' statesmen, who are accustomed to juggle with simple facts, and who strive to cover up and conceal the too distinct plainness of truth. An electric thrill of chivalrous enthusiasm pulsated through the entire country; and the unanimous vote of the people was returned to the King in entire favour of the Crown Prince and his chosen bride. Perhaps no one was more ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... creating, my friend," answered Mrs. Bland with the plainness of speech warranted by the intimacy of their friendship; "and my advice is to come out of it as ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... this priest a caricature of his profession, a figure to be copied for the curate of burlesque, so accurately did he reproduce the common signs of the ascetic school. His face would have been womanish in its plainness but for the gravity that had grown upon it, only occasionally dispersed by a smile of scholarliness and sweetness which had the effect of being permitted, conceded. He had the long thin nose which looked as if for preference it would be forever ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... no places of worship belonging to the Quakers in this Province. There are however, a few of these primitive worshippers scattered through the country, who joining sincerity and honesty with plainness, are excellent members ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... Marshman's table far exceeded his.' I have also often been at Lord Hastings's table (I mean his private table), and I do therefore most positively deny the truth of the assertion; though I confess there is much domestic plainness at the table of the Governor-General of India (though nothing of meanness; on the contrary, everything is marked with a dignified simplicity). I suspect the informant never was at Lord Hastings's table, or he could have not been guilty of such misrepresentation. Lord Hastings's table costs more ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... feared. In the first place, she was never misunderstood; in the second, however ironical and severe he might be to others and Ellen knew he could be both when there was occasion he never was either to her. With great plainness always, but with an equally happy choice of time and manner, he either said or looked what he wished her to understand. This happened, indeed, only about comparative trifles; to have seriously displeased him Ellen would have thought the last ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... experience in war and knowledge in the art of ruling people, and so tediously won our promotion. I am speaking in Tatho's private abode, that was mine own not two hours since, and I would have an answer with that plainness which we always then used to ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... and complexion and call her "a very fine girl," while those who were not inclined to flatter said her face was all mouth, and declared, probably untruly, that the young King was at first obviously repelled by the plainness of his wife's appearance. If she was plain, her plainness, as Northcote, the painter, said, was an elegant, not a vulgar plainness, and the grace of her carriage much impressed him. Walpole found her sensible, cheerful, and remarkably genteel, a not inconsiderable eulogy ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... their first rigid simplicity — falling into those habits of extravagance which in days to come caused their fall and ultimate suppression — the Cistercians still held to their early regime of austere simplicity and plainness of life; and though no longer absolutely secluding themselves from the sight or sound of their fellow men, or living in complete solitude, they were still men of austere life and self-denying habits, and retained the reputation for sanctity of life ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... was a democrat. The most learned man that ever sat in the president's chair, his tastes were the simple ones of a farmer. Surrounded by the pomp and ceremony of Washington and Adams' courts, his dress was homely. He despised titles, and preferred severe plainness of speech and the sober garb of ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... simplicity of the mansion and its inhabitants. We were introduced into the little family sitting-room, the floor of which was painted after the Yankee fashion; instead of being carpeted, the walls were of unornamented deal, and the furniture of the room of corresponding plainness. A large spinning-wheel, as big as a cart-wheel, nearly occupied the centre of the room, at which a neatly- dressed matron, of mild and lady-like appearance, was engaged spinning yarn; her little daughters were knitting beside the fire, while their ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... kind will take more developing for the completion of its idea, and may result in a greater beauty. I would therefore advise any young man of aspiration in the matter of beauty, to choose a plain woman for wife—IF THROUGH HER PLAINNESS SHE IS YET LOVELY IN HIS EYES; for the loveliness is herself, victorious over the plainness, and her face, so far from complete and yet serving her loveliness, has in it room for completion on a grander scale than possibly most ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... myself to discard inkstone and brush; Now and then I make a new poem. When the poem is made, it is slight and flavourless, A thing of derision to almost every one. Superior people will be pained at the flatness of the metre; Common people will hate the plainness of the words. I sing it to myself, then stop and ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... the poet whom I describe. We do not with sufficient plainness or sufficient profoundness address ourselves to life, nor dare we chaunt our own times and social circumstance. If we filled the day with bravery, we should not shrink from celebrating it. Time and nature yield us many gifts, but not yet the timely man, the new religion, ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... address was esteemed somewhat singular for its plainness and simplicity. It was conceived in these terms: "We are come to testify our sorrow for the death of our good friend Charles, and our joy for thy being made our governor. We are told thou art not of the persuasion of the church of England, no more ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... Hill would have the modern poet profit by another quality of Biblical style: its magic combination of a "magnificent Plainness" with the "Spirit of Imagery." This is the Hebrew virtue of concrete suggestiveness, so highly prized by 20th-century critics and so alien to the generalized abstractions and the explicit ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... very superior man to what I had conceived of him. He was frank and free, spoke of the intentions of the Allies in the most open manner, and censured the errors which they had already committed, with a plainness which I had not expected to find out of London. He had evidently made himself master of a great variety of knowledge, and with the happy but most unusual power of rendering it all applicable to the point in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... one of three brothers, all gentle cavaliers, of unblemished honor, remarkable for the plainness of their persons, the elegance and courtesy of their manners, and the magnificence of their style of living. This one, Alonso, he describes as a man of a singularly clear head. Quincuagenas, MS., bat. ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... was a woman of middle age, not good-looking in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but nevertheless she looked good. She was dressed with extreme plainness, in a cheap calico; but though cheap, the dress was neat. The children she addressed were six in number, varying in age from twelve to four. The oldest, Harry, the hero of the present story, was a broad-shouldered, sturdy boy, with a frank, ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... In smoothing down your palate with the charm Yourself concocted? There we issue take; And see! as thus across the rim I break This puffy paunch of glazed embroidered cake, So breaks, through use, the lust of watering chaps And craveth plainness: do I so? Perhaps; But that's my secret. Find me such a man As Lippo yonder, built upon the plan Of heavy storage, double-navelled, fat From his own giblet's oils, an Ararat Uplift o'er water, sucking rosy draughts From Noah's vineyard,—crisp, enticing wafts Yon kitchen now emits, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... contrives by a studied plainness of diction, by the simplicity and directness of his style, by his evident earnestness and kindliness, and a wealth of illustrative anecdotes, to minimise the difficulties which children have to encounter in grasping ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... black, but it had suffered some change O'Neill did not trouble to define. He saw that it no longer had the formal plainness of the gown she had worn earlier. It achieved an effect. But the main change was in the woman herself. It was impossible to think of her and her years in the same breath. She had cast the long restraint from her completely; all her sad days of quiet ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... is it with Shakspere's representations! He knows that no human being ever was like that. He makes his most peculiar characters speak very much like other people; and it is only over the whole that their peculiarities manifest themselves with indubitable plainness. The one apparent exception is Jaques, in "As You Like it." But there we must remember that Shakspere is representing a man who so chooses to represent himself. He is a man in his humour, or his own peculiar and chosen affectation. Jaques is the writer of his own part; for ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... condition of the wilderness, by his appearing in the wilderness, with the preaching of repentance, and with. the announcement, that now the introduction to the true Canaan was near at hand. By proclaiming himself as the voice crying in the wilderness, announced by Isaiah, he showed with sufficient plainness how false was that carnal view which, without being able to distinguish the thought from its drapery, understood, and still understands, by the wilderness spoken of in this prophecy, some piece of land, limited as to space, and then murmured that the actual ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... consider it an alliance with the Algerians, whom it is no disgrace to pay, or any impeachment of good sense to be cheated by." To the Austrian commander the Duke of York addressed himself with royal plainness: "Your Serene Highness, the British nation, whose public opinion is not to be despised, will consider that it has ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... else in Ballymoy doubted the truth of this. Nearly everybody had been spoken to plainly by Mrs. Ford at one time or another. Kerrigan, the butcher, was spoken to with uncompromising plainness once a ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... as she did in her spare moments, her heart was sore over the frivolity of life and the emptiness of fashion. She longed to make the world better, and without any priggishness she set it an example of simplicity and sobriety, of cheerful acquiescence in plainness and inconspicuousness. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... served up in earthen ware; It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand, Through the everydayness of this workday world, Baring its tender feet to every flint, Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray From Beauty's law of plainness and content; A simple, fireside thing, whose quiet smile Can warm earth's poorest hovel to a home; Which, when our autumn cometh, as it must, And life in the chill wind shivers bare and leafless, Shall still be blest with Indian-summer youth ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... and the Friends, each with their different costume of plainness and self-denial, and other noble-hearted women of no particular outward order, but kindred in spirit, have shown to womanhood, on the battle-field and in the hospital, a more excellent way,—a beauty and nobility before which all the common graces ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... family of the wearer. The sheep which bore the wool, belonged to his own flock, and all the operations, subsequent to the shearing, necessary to the ultimate result of shaping into a garment, had been performed by his wife or daughter. Many politicians have continued this affectation of plainness, even when the necessity has ceased, on account of its effect upon the masses; for people are apt to entertain the notion, that decent clothing is incompatible with mental ability, and that he who is most manifestly behind the improvements of the time, is ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... in great cordiality with each other. The fact is, I was much entertained by contrasting in my own mind, the open manner of the kind-hearted Joshua Geddes, with the abrupt, dark, and lofty demeanour of my entertainer on the preceding evening. Both were blunt and unceremonious; but the plainness of the Quaker had the character of devotional simplicity, and was mingled with the more real kindness, as if honest Joshua was desirous of atoning, by his sincerity, for the lack of external courtesy. On the contrary, the manners of the fisherman ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... to be done thus, after all: plainness and candor were best. She went back a third time; he did not see her now, and she lingeringly gazed up at his unconscious figure, loath to put an end to any kind of hope that might live on in him still. "Giles— ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... for the use of the church, and partly the exceeding great usefulness of the treatise, wherein, I am bold to say, that some fundamentals of the Christian religion, and great mysteries of faith, are handled with the greatest gospel simplicity and most dexterous plainness and are brought down to the meanest capacity and vulgar understanding, with abundant evidence of a great height and reach of useful knowledge in the author, who, had he lived to have perfected the explication of the grounds of religion ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... highly ornamental fringed and looped flounce waved grandly out behind from the waist to the level of the knees; and the stomacher recalled the ornamentation of the flounce; and both the stomacher and flounce gave contrasting value to the severe plainness of the skirt, designed to emphasise the quality of the silk. Round the neck was a lace collarette to match the furniture of the wrists, and the broad ends of the collarette were crossed on the bosom and held by a large jet brooch. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... behind the sunshine, and cast a glory upon men and even nature. To dine at the rude board table with the young officers of one of the companies of a battalion, perhaps in a bare hut, on the floor of which lay the lads' beds, was something sacred and sacramental. Their apologies for the plainness of the repast were to me extremely pathetic. Was there a table in the whole world at which it was a greater honour to sit? Where could one find a nobler, ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... service that we had rendered him. We gave him therein no little aid in carrying his burden of the many souls which are under his care, alone as he is, without any other assistance or instruction than ours. But Father Gabriel Sanchez, with his accustomed plainness, has written a more detailed account of some particular cases, while making a report of his labors to the superiors, as is the custom among us. In a letter to the father-visitor, dated in November of the year one thousand ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... although the expression of calm sense, and character, and the handwriting of life-work, and the dignity of mental calm, were unmistakeable now, and made her a person worth looking at. Charity was much younger, of course; but she had the plainness without the dignity; sense, I am bound to say, was ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... attempted an elaborate piece of irony. It is possible that he may have been exercising his genius with a paradox, but the subject is not of the sort in which we can patiently permit such exercises. It is hard work with all of us to keep ourselves straight, even when we see the road with all plainness as it lies out before us; and clever men must be good enough to find something else to amuse themselves with, instead of dusting our ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... Calvary Church people. They were learning to expect something radical, sweeping, almost revolutionary in Philip's utterances on Christ and Modern Society. Some agreed with him as far as he had gone. Very many had been hurt at his plainness of speech. This was especially true of the property owners and the fashionable part of the membership. Yet there was a fascination about Philip's preaching that prevented, so far, any very serious outbreak or dissension in the ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... Frederick Bridge. This book has freshness and plainness combined with thoroughness, and must commend itself to young students and teachers. 1 ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... the drama. In this, as in other things, the Homeric poems observe the mean: the extremes may be found in the heroic literature of other nations; the extreme of marvellous fable in the old Irish heroic legends, for example; the extreme of plainness and "soothfastness" in the old English lay of Maldon. In some medieval compositions, as in Huon of Bordeaux, the two extremes are brought together clumsily and without harmony. In other medieval works ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... the casket shaking beneath him. In some distant corner of his mind he knew that the earthquake shocks had turned. Then he heard with ear-splitting plainness the shrieking discord as the tremor shook the vibrating ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... said Barthorpe, with aggressive plainness. "There will be a public inquiry—I can't stop you from ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... unlike be of the same blood?" people said; "and what finds my lady in her that she does not lose patience at her plainness and poor spirit?" ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... (1791), Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), and Original Stories for Children, illustrated by W. Blake. Her Vindication received much adverse criticism on account of its extreme positions and over-plainness of speech. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... has found another creature with whom she seems to have an understanding—an idiot peasant girl, who once, in spite of her plainness and imbecility, fell in love with a mason. The mason thought of marrying her because she had a little bit of land, and for a whole year poor Genevieve was the happiest of living creatures. She dressed in her best, and danced on Sundays with ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... room, designed in one of the towers that looked out over the sea; panelled in painted wood and furnished with extreme plainness. On one side a door opened upon the three little parlours that were used when the party was small; at the back a lobby led into the old hall itself; on the third side was the door ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... of this style generally partake of late Norman character; and the zig-zag and semicylindrical mouldings on the faces of arches appear to predominate, though other Norman mouldings are common; but we also frequently meet with specimens in the Semi-Norman style in which extreme plainness prevails, and the character is of that nature as to induce us to ascribe such buildings to rather an early period. Single and double, and sometimes even triple-faced arches, with the edges left square, distinguish plain specimens of this style from the plain-pointed ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... I was holding my first meeting at Salisbury, Missouri, I saw a number of young ladies who were dressed so saintlike, and in a manner so becoming to holy lives, that I was convicted immediately for plainness of dress. Some of the sisters who were gospel teachers, came to me at the close of the service, saying that they would like to have a talk with me. I thought I knew what they wanted to say, because God had already been talking to me on the same subject. I was not mistaken. "As you profess ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... He had grown vastly particular, too, about his clothes, and very often grumbled about the way his food come on the table, what she had never before known him to do. The hatter's good lady was not very choice of her words, and, when she chose to speak out, generally did so with remarkable plainness of speech. The scheme of retiring from business in the very prime of life she never approved, but as her good man had set his heart on it for years, she did not say much in opposition. Her remark to a neighbour ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... a writer), though it was to this he owed his fame and fortune. He spoke of his works as of trifles that were beneath him; and hinted to me, in our first conversation, that I should visit him upon no other footing than that of a gentleman who led a life of plainness and simplicity. I answered, that had he been so unfortunate as to be a mere gentleman, I should never have come to see him; and I was very much disgusted at so unseasonable ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... Elegant in plainness, the classic poet would have said of her hair and dress. She was of the women whose wits are quick in everything they do. That which was proper to her position, complexion, and the hour, surely marked her appearance. Unaccountably this night, the fair fleshly presence ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... good; and wisdom could hardly choose a better road along which to lead mankind. Is not the mass of the people even to this day in leading-strings?—much like our boy. And has not the prophet from Medina left us an example of striking plainness how to bridle the rude nature of ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... express myself on this subject with earnestness and plainness of speech because I can not rid myself of the belief that there lurk in the proposition for the free coinage of silver, so strongly approved and so enthusiastically advocated by a multitude of my countrymen, a serious menace to our prosperity and an insidious temptation of our people to wander from ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... journey. When Cromwell put his state upon him, he did it with all dignity; there was no sparing of expense, no scant of attendants, no lack of guards—boldly and bravely were his arrangements formed; for he wisely knew that plainness and simplicity, although they may be understood and appreciated by the high-minded, are held in contempt by the low and the uneducated, because imagined to be within their own attainment. Had Cincinnatus ruled in England, he would never have abandoned ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... Marseillaise hymn; for what can be worse than to rake up the old ashes of Jacobinism, and what more necessary than to distinguish as much as possible this Revolution from that of 1789? Then he need not be more familiar as King than he ever was as Duke of Orleans, and affect the manners of a citizen and a plainness of dress and demeanour very suitable to an American President, but unbecoming a descendant of ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... Middle Ages. The race—depend on't—the race was unbeautiful; and not even the picturesque dress of the period (which, according to your theory, should have helped to make the wearers of it more attractive) could soften one jot of their plainness." ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... property should grow rapidly indeed, in order to keep pace with the increasing and incessant demands which are made upon it. We can borrow no more, and the knowledge of that fact alone, ought to set a limit to your extravagance. Excuse this plainness, my Lord, it is well meant and void ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... and I saw the shadowy faces, with increased frequency, also with greater plainness. Whether this was due to my soul having become more attuned to its surroundings, I cannot tell—probably it was so. But, however this may be, I am assured now, only of the fact that I became steadily more conscious of a new mystery about me, telling me that I had, ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... who are proof against those mysterious charms of superior rank, which do so much to foster unworthy conceptions of life in English society; and there are many people capable of accepting Mr. Mill's social principles, and the theoretical corollaries they contain, who yet would condemn his manly plainness and austere consistency in acting on them. The too common tendency in us all to moral slovenliness, and a lazy contentment with a little flaccid protest against evil, finds a constant rebuke in his career. The indomitable ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... of reaction with which they were sometimes seized from their love of popularity, issued a decree explanatory of their decision on the 24th of September. "The real intentions of the court," said the decree, "have been distorted in spite of their plainness. The number of deputies of each order is not determined by any law, by any invariable usage, and it depends upon the king's wisdom to adjudge what reason, liberty, justice, and the general wish may indicate." ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and corrupts so many minds among the opulent? Cannot the laboring class refuse to measure men by outward success, and pour utter scorn on all pretensions founded on outward show or condition? Sure I am that, were they to study plainness of dress and simplicity of living, for the purpose of their own true elevation, they would surpass in intellect, in taste, in honorable qualities, and in present enjoyment, that great proportion of the prosperous who are softened into indulgence or enslaved to ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... agree with me that the naive indecencies of the text are rather gaudis-serie than prurience; and, when delivered with mirth and humour, they are rather the "excrements of wit" than designed for debauching the mind. Crude and indelicate with infantile plainness; even gross and, at times, "nasty" in their terrible frankness, they cannot be accused of corrupting suggestiveness or subtle insinuation of vicious sentiment. Theirs is a coarseness of language, not of idea; they are indecent, not depraved; and the pure ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... interest which gives the illusion of life to a work of fiction, and fills us with delight or melts with woe, whether in the happiness or the suffering of some imagined being, uniting goodness with beauty, or virtue with plainness, or uncommon purity and intellect even with deformity; for even that may be so overpowered in the prominent harmony of superior intellect and moral worth, as to be virtually neutralized, at least, to become unobtrusive as a discordant ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... an appearance of petit-maitreship as of humanity. He has some of the sickly sensibility and pampered refinements of Pope; but then Pope prided himself in them: whereas, Cowper affects to be all simplicity and plainness. He had neither Thomson's love of the unadorned beauties of nature, nor Pope's exquisite sense of the elegances of art. He was, in fact, a nervous man, afraid of trusting himself to the seductions of the one, and ashamed ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... opinion of the wisdom of putting this question with his customary plainness of language. "When there's a rash thing to be done by a man and a woman together, sir, philosophers have remarked that it's always the woman who leads the way. ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... he contrived to draw my attention to himself, by his extreme impertinence; for he chose to express what he called his admiration of me, in terms so open and familiar, that he forced me to express my displeasure with equal plainness. ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... the close juxtaposition of the Hotel Mouton d'Argent with its smooth plastered front and the almost overpowering mass of detail that faces it on the other side of the road. There is something curious, too, in the severe plainness of the tower that almost suggests the unnecessarily shabby clothing worn by some men whose wives are always to be seen in the most elaborate and costly gowns. Internally the church shows its twelfth century origin, but all the intricate stone-work ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... were other faults against which she was powerless: what could she do against her plainness? There was no doubt about it. The certainty of her misfortune had suddenly been revealed to her one day when she was looking at herself in the mirror; it came like a thunderclap. Of course she exaggerated the evil, and saw her nose as ten times larger than it ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... wonder whence came all the wealth that was displayed before my eyes. My own poor preparations lost all their charm, and I had not been above half an hour in the place before I was seeking a quiet corner in which to hide the poverty of my coat and the plainness of my cloak. But the desire for privacy thus bred in me was not to find satisfaction. Darrell, whom I had not met all day, now pounced on me and carried me off, declaring that he was charged to present ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... spiral turrets, but in the many decorations which incrust them. This decoration has an extremely rich look, from the quantity of breaks, and the absence of bare wall or long straight lines. Thus, to save the uniform plainness of the straight gable-line, it is broken into small gradations called 'crow-steps.' Every one who looks at old houses in Scotland must be familiar with this feature, and must have noticed its picturesqueness. It appears to have been derived from the Flemish houses, where, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... was no less so. The refined outline sketches proffered by him were unenthusiastically surveyed and languidly discarded like so many wall-papers. It was evident that both the mother and daughter were disappointed, and Littleton presently divined that their chief objection was to the plainness of the several designs. This was made unmistakably obvious when Mrs. Parsons, after exhibiting a number of photographs of foreign public buildings with which she had armed herself, surveyed the most ornate, holding ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... up her mind what to do. She saw that he hid it from her assiduously. He did so more because he wished not to pain her than from furtiveness. By nature he was open and brave, and had always had a reputation for plainness and sincerity. She was in no sense his equal in intelligence or judgment, nor even in instinct. She was a woman of more impulse and constitutional good-nature than depth. It is probable that he knew that, and refrained from letting her into the knowledge of this vice, contracted in the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... that must constantly be preached to the sisters is proper modesty and plainness of apparel. How often do we meet with those who once were plain who now dress almost as the world! Why is it that these thing's are put on? Because there is a longing in the heart. They do not understand what this longing really is nor what will satisfy ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... were fewer wrinkles and a sweeter look than usual in the old face, and wondered that her aunt had never married. Youth looking at an old maid traces spinsterhood to man's neglect. It is so hard to read in sixty's plainness the beauty of sixteen—to think that underneath the placidity of advancing years may lie buried, yet unforgotten, the memory of suits urged ardently, and quenched long ago ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... presented a development that indicated a powerful imagination. His eyes were small, deep-set, bright, intelligent, and full of fire. His hair, of a warm color bordering on red and curling naturally, may possibly have indicated a Jewish extraction. His head had great character, in spite of the plainness of his features; a large flat nose, high cheek-bones, and a copper-colored complexion imparted to his face a vulgarity which, however, was relieved by the form of his mouth, the haughty outline of his eyebrows, and the brilliancy of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... very nice; but Robert and Arthur were neither of them invited to a single taste. Their longing eyes were fixed upon them; but their father, instead of taking any notice of them, continued conversing with Sophia, whom he advised never to despise a person merely for the plainness of his dress; "for," said he, "were we to behave politely to those only who are finely clothed, we should appear to direct our attention more to the dress than to the wearer. The most worthy people are frequently found under the plainest dress, and of this we have an example in Farmer ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... partly no doubt because it was really, at first, the captain I was after. I found this personage and found him highly scandalised, but he gave me no hope that we were in error, and his displeasure, expressed with seamanlike plainness, was a definite settlement of the question. From the deck, where I merely turned round and looked, I saw the light of another summer day, the coast of Ireland green and near and the sea a more charming colour than it had been at all. When I came below again ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... many misgivings as to what I ought to say, and as to the impression that my address would make. While I cannot recall in detail what I said, I remember that I tried to impress upon the committee, with all the earnestness and plainness of any language that I could command, that if Congress wanted to do something which would assist in ridding the South of the race question and making friends between the two races, it should in every proper way encourage the material and intellectual growth of both races. I said ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... with pedigree. Sydney Smith, though he was as whole-hearted a reformer as ever breathed, knew that sternness towards crime was an essential part of government, and after the Bristol Riots of 1831 he warned Lord Grey against flaccidity with great plainness of speech. "Pray do not be good-natured about Bristol. I must have ten people hanged, and twenty transported, and thirty imprisoned. You will save lives ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... different: that I had never failed to receive a civil reply to my questions—often communicating the information requested: and that I could not help suspecting that their failure to receive similar answers arose, in part at least, if not entirely, to the plainness, not to say the bluntness, of their manner in making their inquiries. The correctness of this charge, however, they sturdily denied, asserting that their manner of asking for information was good enough for those to whom they addressed ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... involves, is a disagreeable piece of sentimentality. The members of the trio fall on each other's necks with unpleasant frequency and fervor. But the picture of that home itself, with its well-ordered housekeeping, its liberality and its plainness, is interesting and attractive. "Since the masters of this house have taken it for their dwelling, they have turned to their use all that served only for ornament; it is no longer a house made to be seen, but to be lived ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... Bickford's plainness of speech. He walked away moodily, with his hands in his pockets. He could not help contrasting his penniless position with the enviable position of the two friends, and the devil, who is always in ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... plainness of these words and the excited ring of the angry voice, the sculptor could scarcely recognise his gentle courteous friend, to whom mere living used to be a joy. The absent expression in his eye, the anxious wrinkle on his brow, and the heat of the hand which grasped Vedrine's, all ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... of tears from her cheeks, but her eyes were red and swollen. The cheap mirror exaggerated her plainness, while memory pitilessly emphasised the beauty of the other woman. As she dressed, the thought came to her that, no matter what happened, she could still go on loving him, that she might always give, whether or not she received anything at ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... of Vallois and Lucerne, both in the garb of shepherdesses, serve as mere foils to those I have mentioned: there was something; even in this plainness that shewed the elegance ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... this line will be seen in the context, which, for plainness as well as curiosity, I quote from a metrical version of the first book of the poem,[51] entitled, "The Sphere of Marcus Manilius made an English Poem, by Edward Sherburne," which was dedicated to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... so much absorbed in the work of his life that he could not form and express strong opinions upon the great events passing around him. His view of the Russian war and of the French alliance was set forth with much plainness of speech in a letter to ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... whole structure. No elaborate carving, or beadwork should be permitted on the outside work of a country house at all; and only a sufficient quantity of ornamental tracery of any kind, to break the monotony of a plainness that would otherwise give it a formal, or uncouth expression, and relieve it of what some would consider a pasteboard look. A farm house, in fact, of any degree, either cheap or expensive, should wear the same appearance ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... fancy, some quick stroke of repartee, some ludicrous way of putting a thing. But whether she told of the grumbler who could find nothing to complain of in heaven except that "his halo didn't fit," or said in her quick way, when the plainness of a lady's dress was commended, "Why, I didn't suppose that anybody could go to heaven now-a-days without an overskirt," or wrote her sparkling impromptu rhymes for our children's games, her mirth ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... latter was drawn tightly down upon his head, so as to make his ears protrude in an unnatural manner on either side, a custom which had earned for his party the title of 'prickeared,' so often applied to them by their opponents. His attire was of studious plainness and sombre in colour, consisting of his black mantle, dark velvet breeches, and silk hosen, with velvet bows upon his shoes instead of the silver buckles then in vogue. A broad chain of gold around his neck formed the badge ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... language and bearing were directly the reverse of soldierlike, his tawdry uniform of green and gold, with massive epaulets and a profusion of lace, were no less absurd in our eyes, accustomed as we were to the almost puritan plainness of military costume. His rank, too, seemed as undefined as his information; for while he called himself "General," his companions as often addressed him by the title of "Captain." Upon some points his counsels, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... already mentioned that she had been near when Gladwyne made his attempt to come up with Lisle, but she had not explained that she had seen hatred stamped in hideous plainness on his face. ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... you see, was laid down by Erasmus, as my father wished it, with the utmost plainness; but my father's disappointment was, in finding nothing more from so able a pen, but the bare fact itself; without any of that speculative subtilty or ambidexterity of argumentation upon it, which Heaven had bestow'd upon man on ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... Doctrine of Instituted Churches, in which he advocated the converting power of the Lord's Supper; Charles Chauncy (1705-1787), a great-grandson of President Chauncy, celebrated as a stickler for great plainness in writing and speech, and one of the founders of Universalism in New England, whose Seasonable Thoughts was in opposition to the preaching of Whitefield; and Aaron Burr (1716-1757), father of the political ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... parties were in high social position and very well known. Mr. Choate's client, who was the wife, was charged with adultery. I did not hear the closing argument, but my classmates who did reported that Mr. Webster spoke of the woman with great severity and argued the case with a scriptural plainness of speech. He likened the case of the husband bound to an adulterous wife to the old Hebrew punishment of fastening a living man to a corpse. "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" But Judge Fletcher, who held ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... Seward, Hale, Trumbull, and Chase spoke from a more conspicuous forum; but Lincoln's were more philosophical, while as able and earnest as any, and his manner had a simplicity and directness, a clearness of statement and felicity of illustration, and his language a plainness and Anglo-Saxon strength, better adapted than any other to reach and influence the common people,—the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... red in the face, large-nosed, scrupulously neat in dress, clean shaven, and closely-cropped hair—all this the observing Miss Archer saw at a glance as she bowed to him in response to Quimby's introduction. But the second glance showed her that the expression of his face was so jovial that its plainness vanished as if by magic on ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... whom Percival ushered in was young and petulantly, decidedly, freshly, consciously, and intentionally pretty. She was dressed with such expensive plainness that she made you consider lace and ruffles as mere tatters and rags. But one great ostrich plume that she wore would have marked her anywhere in the army of beauty as the wearer of the merry helmet ...
— Options • O. Henry
... I don't blame you for liking her. It makes my old blood stir faster when she comes purring around me with her soft ways and winsome face, and so I don't wonder at you; but when you say you've no intentions, I blame you greatly. You orter have—excuse my plainness. I'm an old man who likes my minister, and don't want him to go wrong, and then I feel for her, left alone by all her folks—more's the shame to them, and more's the harm for you to tangle up her affections, as you are doing, if you are not in earnest; and I speak for her ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... the walls are scrolls bearing in golden letters the name of the Prophet and the first four Caliphs, or a chapter of the Koran, the Arabic script being especially suitable for this kind of ornamental writing. [325] The severe plainness of the interior of a mosque demonstrates the strict monotheism of Islam, and is in contrast to the temples and shrines of most other religions. The courtyard of a mosque is often used as a place of resort, and ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... Northamptonshire, which saw his lowly birth, together with a school and college, about the year 1475. The building is still in existence and shows a good roof and fine Perpendicular window, but the twelve bedesmen and the one sister, who was to be chosen for her plainness, no longer ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... spite of myself the colour flooded my face. He looked at me from head to foot—my plainness, my miserable physique, my lameness, my feeble frame—everything was comprehended in ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... in his chair he could watch Caroline without her perceiving where his gaze was fixed. Her cheek had a colour, her eyes a light, her countenance an expression this evening which would have made even plain features striking; but there was not the grievous defect of plainness to pardon in her case. The sunshine was not shed on rough barrenness; it fell on soft bloom. Each lineament was turned with grace; the whole aspect was pleasing. At the present moment—animated, interested, touched—she might be called ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... had nothing in common with a vineyard; it was built upon arid land as bare and barren as a rock; not even a blade of grass grew within a hundred yards of its doors. The grim plainness of the old drab building was relieved only by a rickety bell-tower so stuffed with sparrows' nests that the bell within gave forth only a dull and muffled note. The chapel was surrounded with the framework of a fence only, so the chapel ground was the chief rendezvous ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... self-abnegation, which was the ruling principle of this reformed congregation of the Benedictine order, extended itself to the churches and other buildings erected by them. The characteristic of the Cistercian abbeys was the extremest simplicity and a studied plainness. Only one tower—a central one —was permitted, and that was to be very low. Unnecessary pinnacles and turrets were prohibited. The triforium was omitted. The windows were to be plain and undivided, and it was forbidden to decorate them with stained glass. All needless ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of his majesty was known, his next brother, William Henry, Duke of Clarence, was proclaimed by the title of William IV. The new monarch in a short time rendered himself very popular by the plainness of his habits and manners, and by the condescension, or rather the familiarity of his intercourse with his people—qualities which rendered him more popular by a comparison with the secluded life of his predecessors. No immediate change took place in the government, for ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the twelfth century. Beneath the Johnson window there is another Norman relic, of about the same date, in the outline of the old Canons' Doorway, formerly connecting the aisle with the cloisters. The extreme plainness of the moulding will be contrasted with the elaborate work in the Prior's entrance further east, on the exterior of the same wall. The next window contains a memorial to Alexander Cruden, compiler of the Scripture Concordance, who died on 1st November, 1770, and ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... to the swift directness of the arrow, as the duplicity of Mr. Hastings's ambition to the simple steadiness of genuine magnanimity. In his mind all was shuffling, ambiguous, dark, insidious, and little: nothing simple, nothing unmixed: all affected plainness, and actual dissimulation; a heterogeneous mass of contradictory qualities; with nothing great but his crimes; and even those contrasted by the littleness of his motives, which at once denoted both his baseness and his meanness, and ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... tragic end, when the tension was tightening up to the snapping point, the bitter hatred of the leaders yet more bitter, the crowds yet denser, the terms of discipleship yet more plainly put with loving, faithful plainness, that a characteristic incident happened.[49] A young man of gentle blood and breeding, and influential position, came eagerly, courteously elbowing his way through the crowd that gathered thick about. Our Lord had just risen from where He had been sitting teaching, when this young man, in his eagerness, ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... utmost plainness, what she thought of the Emperor's instructions. If he, his confidant, then showed him that there was one person at least who did not bow before his pitiless power, and that hatred steeled her courage to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... came. We are all plain people here. If any of us forget our plainness there are plenty who are glad enough to remind ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... storeys high, was just now all the more imposing in appearance as it stood alone in an unfinished street-block, and as, opposite, hoardings still shut in all that had yet been raised of the great library, which would eventually overshadow it. The severe plainness of its long front, with the unbroken lines of windows, did not fail to impress the unused beholder, who had not for very long gone daily out and in; it suggested to him the earnest, unswerving efforts, imperative on his pursuit of the ideal; ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... Notwithstanding the plainness of the Saracen leech's dress, and his inferiority of size when contrasted with the tall prelate and gigantic English baron, there was something striking in his manner and countenance, which prevented the Bishop of Tyre from expressing strongly ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... excellencies in preaching (which were many) this was none of the least, that he could so order his subject as to make it relish every palate. He could so dress a plain discourse as to delight a learned audience, and at the same time preach with a learned plainness, having so learned to conceal his art. He had such a clear notion of high mysteries, as to make them stoop to the meanest capacity. He had so learned Christ, and being a man of a most zealous temper, the great bent of his spirit and that which he did spend himself ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... was quite equal to the occasion. "His plainness is lost in what Mr. Logger calls his power of countenance," said she. "And I'm sure he has a fine eye, and the ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... Plainness and clearness without shadow of stain! Clearness divine! Ye heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign Of languor, though so calm, and, though so great, Are yet untroubled and unpassionate; Who, though so noble, share in the world's toil, And, though so task'd, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... reasons, we look only for perspicuity; when he describes, we expect embellishment; when he divides, or relates, we desire plainness ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... tell. I worked on as rapidly as the necessary care would permit; and when I had uncovered the whole mass, and rising from my knees, had retreated a little way, so that the effect of the whole might fall on me, I saw before me with sufficient plainness—though at the same time with considerable indistinctness, arising from the limited amount of light the place admitted, as well as from the nature of the object itself—a block of pure alabaster enclosing the form, apparently ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... first time she was conscious of the plainness of the garment that folded her form, and she held up her arms and looked at them, ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe |
