"Plain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Phil. Mag. Dutch would be clear English if it were properly spelt. For example, learn-master would be seen at once to be teacher; but they will spell it leermeester. Of these they write as van deze; widow they make weduwe. All this is plain to me, who never saw a Dutch dictionary in my life; but many of ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... their feelings. So engrossed are they in their feelings that they neglect duties and ignore obligations. That is why the religion of so many is such sad rubbish. God gave man reason to rule over his actions. But it was plain that, in the great mass of the Negro, reason is yet a child, ruled over by its playmates—the feelings, passions, and appetites. This is not the kind of foundation upon which to build a true ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... but all at once he heard a move below him, as of somebody unscrewing an air-port, and then he heard a voice say, 'Well, here goes a ghost that will stay laid!' and then a plash, a pl-m-p! and looking over quickly, he saw plain as could be the phosphorus hole in the sea, then a quarter of a second later something white as a man's face, and then it was gone ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... description of a girl of fourteen, otherwise well constituted and healthy, who had neither external genital organs nor anus. There was a plain dermal covering over the genital and anal region. She ate regularly, but every three days she experienced pain in the umbilicus and much intestinal irritation, followed by severe vomiting of stercoraceous matter; the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... old story of a double life, the wreckage of a promising career. "Just a plain, ordinary thief was Mr. Randall Clayton," said one acute observer; "his case is only extraordinary from the amount taken. And it seems that he robbed for the lucre itself, as the most careful inquiry divulges no ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... no condition. I never knew anyone so foolish as not to want to be in the good land; they want to be in, of course, and they would go in and get the honey and the milk, but there are the conditions! Now then, here you have it plain, and you have it in numbers of other passages ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... The canon seems to think that it was specially unfortunate for Bunyan to be told to keep his heart and to weigh well every thought of it; but I must point out to you that Evangelist puts as above all other things the most important for the pilgrims the looking well to their own hearts; and our plain-spoken author has used a very severe word about any minister who should whisper anything to any pilgrim that could be construed or misunderstood into putting Christ in the place of thought and word and deed, and the scrupulous weighing of every one of them. ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... sin, as I understand, against God. Is God infinite? He is, so they say; He is infinite; absolutely conditionless? Can I injure the conditionless? No. Can I sin against anything that I cannot injure? No. That is a perfectly plain proposition. I can injure my fellow-man, because he is a conditioned being, and I can help to change those conditions. He must have air; he must have food, he must have clothing; he must have shelter; but God is conditionless, and I cannot by any possibility ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... The plain stone slab and simple inscription seemed at first a curious contrast to the gorgeous magnificence of her home and dress and surroundings. Yet I am inclined to think that they represented a side of her character which was quite as ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... bound the western horizon, though not without misgivings, that thereafter no visible fairy land would exist for us. But we will not leap at once to our journey's end, though near, but imitate Homer, who conducts his reader over the plain, and along the resounding sea, though it be but to the tent of Achilles. In the spaces of thought are the reaches of land and water, where men go and come. The landscape lies far and fair within, and the deepest thinker is the ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... which belongs to to-day is that men are wearing corsets more than ever. A well-known corsetiere has opened a special branch for her male customers alone. Their corsets, too, are of a most beautiful and elaborate description—ranging from the plain belt of the famous athlete to the brocade, rosebud-embroidered "confection" of a well-known general. Perhaps—say fifty years hence—my grandson will be writing of male lingerie, and men will rather lose their reputations ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... moustache and pointed beard, good carriage and a touch of levity not in keeping with the dignity and austerity of a prince of the Church. The beretta and cape, of a fine red colour, the latter painted in a uniform tone and without a crease, harmonise with the roseate hue of the features, and the plain gray background. Every detail reveals the hand of Velasquez, and it can be classed without hesitation among the characteristic works of his second style. It is on that ground that I make mention of it here. However, in Rome, at the ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... explains the limitations of Suggestion and deals in a different way with the mental laws that control this powerful factor for your success. No matter what thought you have given to this interesting subject—no matter how much you studied Suggestion, you will be surprised and delighted with the plain everyday way in which Dr. Bush explains ...
— The Silence • David V. Bush
... until 1844, fully a year after he began the attempt to invent the machine, that he came to the conclusion that the movement of a machine need not of necessity be an imitation of the performance by hand. It was plain to him that there must be another stitch by the aid of a shuttle and a curved needle with the eye near the point. This was the triumph of his skill. He had now invented a perfect sewing machine, and had discovered the essential principles of every subsequent ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... musical development, even those apparently transient and superficial, testify to a necessity of human nature, an unappeasable thirst for self-expression. In view of the relationship of musical art to the individual and the collective need, it is plain that musical history and musical appreciation must be taught together as a supplementary phase of one great theme. And, furthermore, this phase is one that is not only necessary in a complete scheme of musical culture, but ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... borders the famous terrace. Once there all was well, and they could wander from alley to alley in a green shade, the white blossom-spikes shining in the sun overhead, and to their right the blue and purple plain, with the Seine winding and dimpling, the river polders with their cattle, and far away the dim heights of Montmartre just emerging behind the great mass of Mont Valerien, which blocked the way to Paris. Such lights and shades, such ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... mount, and the Arab was on the point of uttering a few words of gratitude, when he suddenly exclaimed, "The magic maiden!" and, swift as the wind, he flew over the dusty plain. Heimbert, however, turning round, saw close beside him in the now bright moonlight a shining figure, which he at once perceived ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... they pitched their camp down in the plain fields amidst tall elmtrees, and had their banners still flying over the tents to warn all comers of what they were. But the next morning the chapmen and their folk were up betimes to rummage their loads, and to array their wares for the market; ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... having to walk all the way. His mother was much distressed to see him so exhausted; but he managed not to tell her what he had been about. He had some tea and went to bed, and there remained all the next day. And while he was in bed, it came to him clear and plain what he must do. It was certain that for a long time he could do nothing for Arthur and Alice out of his own pocket. Even if he got to work at once, he could not take his wages as before, seeing his parents had spent upon him almost ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... heads and far away, clouds turned the rolling mountains to snowpeaks that dazzled in the sun, and under our eyes seemed to lie all Scotland, spread out like a vast brocaded mantle of many colours: the plain of the Forth, the Ochil hills and the hills of Fife; the purple peaks round Loch Lomond, and here and there a glitter of water like broken glass on a floor of gold. Ten counties we could see, and eight great battlefields which ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... for, and these two will make a hard combination. He's got the papers, or claims to have, and they must be the ones stolen from your father. I have been trusting you might know something in your family history which would make it all plain." ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... constantly coming nearer the object of their curiosity. The darky finally became alarmed for fear they would gore his oxen, and unearthed an old Creedmoor rifle which he carried in the wagon. The gun could be heard for miles, and when the cook opened on the playful denizens of the plain, a number of us hurried back, supposing it was an Indian attack. When within a quarter-mile of the wagon and the situation became clear, we took it more leisurely, but the fusillade never ceased until we rode up and it dawned on the darky's mind that rescue was at hand. He had halted ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... hours of leisure I had given no little thought to this matter, and finally enlisted the assistance of Miss Dorothea Peebles, who is well known as a member of our parish, and also does plain sewing and dressmaking. I called on Miss Peebles and explained to her the situation; and after an hour spent in conference we devised a garb that seemed to both of us eminently suited to the needs to which ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... plain to Magdalen that Fay's peace of mind had been shaken by her interview with Michael. She had vouchsafed no word concerning it on her way home. But in the days that followed she appeared ill at ease, and a vague and increasing unrest seemed to possess her. Magdalen ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... Leonie Leon maintained their intimacy, though it was carefully concealed save from a very few. She lived in a plain but pretty house on the Avenue Perrichont in the quiet quarter of Auteuil; but Gambetta never came there. Where and when they met was a secret guarded very carefully by the few who were his close associates. But meet they did continually, ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... whither she wished me to send a part of her portion, as her husband was not wealthy. I could understand Inez's character perfectly, and could readily see that she preferred a titled but poor Englishman to a wealthy, but plain American, so ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... Southern writers who were left after the deluge. The words found in two editorials, calling for a more vigorous and original class of writers, must have appealed to Lanier. An editorial, May 12, 1866, entitled a "Plain Talk with American Writers", said: "In fact the literary field was never so barren, never so utterly without hope or life. . . . The era of genius and vigor that seemed ready to burst upon us only a few months ago has not been fulfilled. ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... plain grape-fruit salad. When you have it ready to serve, cover the top thickly with finely chopped almonds or pecans mixed. ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... further prospect of a fight and "B" and "D" Companies began the more prosaic business of digging in on a line some way in front of Mansura. The support companies were removed from the wadies round Hill 230, as it was plain that the Turks had these most accurately registered, and moved up under shelter of the Mansura cliffs, where they were free from direct observation though bothered by 5.9s neatly dropped just over the edge. Parties took tools out to the advanced companies, Sergt. Paterson of "A" Company being ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... one and the same fish, called by different names according as he is caught off the Cornish coast or in Breton, Portuguese, or Mediterranean waters. Such aliases are by no means uncommon among his class. To say the plain truth, fish are the most variable and ill-defined of animals; they differ so much in different habitats, so many hybrids occur between them, and varieties merge so readily by imperceptible stages into one another, that only an expert ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... chestnut woods, the temperance of the hill country after the heat of the cities, the country ways after the ways of the town? And there are songs there too. But to-day my way lies through the valley, Val di Nievole, towards Lucca, lost in the plain at the gate of the Garfagnana. Serravalle, with its old gateway and high Rocca, which fell to Castruccio Castracani; Monsummano, far on the left, with its old church in the valley; Montecatini, with its mineral springs; Buggiano, and Pescia with ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... That they should both agree to refer the whole subject of controversy between them to the pope, and abide by his decision. 3. That they should settle the dispute by single combat, the two claimants to the crown to fight a duel on the plain, in ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... strategically located astride some of oldest and most significant land routes in Europe; Moravian Gate is a traditional military corridor between the North European Plain and the Danube in ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... is very hospitable, and delights in having three or four friends to dine with him, but his appetite, though healthful, is neither very great nor very dainty: he prefers plain food and drinks only light claret habitually. He is a very early riser, and on fine spring or summer mornings he may often be met at six o'clock taking a stroll in the Champs Elysees. Of his fondness for riding on the tops of omnibuses ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... ice? Was it a miracle that carried us where there wasn't worse than a flow banking on the slope of this valley? Was the mercy of it all sent to have us quit now, with the end of things coming right to our hand? I just guess not. It's there ahead. Somewhere down this valley. We can smell it so plain we'll need the poison masks in a day's journey. There's going to be no quitting. The sleds'll have to stop right here. And the dogs. You boys, too. Guess I'm going on afoot. When I've located the stuff," he went on, his eyes lighting, and his words coming ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... still not inappropriate. The only thing jarring was a pretentious modern town-hall, in the style of one of our own vestry buildings, 'erected out of the rates,' and which must have cost a huge sum. It was of a genteel Italian aspect, so it is plain that French local administrators are, in matters of taste, pretty much as such folk are with us. One could have lingered long here, looking at this charming and graceful work, which its surroundings became quite as much as it did ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... possessed powers admirably adapted for holding the popular ear and inspiring his auditors with a kind of robust confidence in himself. Ready, acute and witty,[824] he possessed the happy faculty of taking the Comitia, under the guise of the plain and honest man, into his confidence. The very ignorance of his auditors became a respectable attribute, when it was figured as ingenuous simplicity which needed protection against the tortuous wiles ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... because I used to bring him little gifts from foreign parts—by way, I suppose, of a private atonement for grievous wrong. I took upon myself the removing of that boy to save him from a worse fate, for I loved him as my own child; and there he stands, and can say whether my plain speech be true or false. I was myself a father but a little while before I spirited him away from a dangerous home to a safe ship. Sir Robert believed they were both dead, and sorrowed not; although he compassed only the removal of the brother, yet ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... Harriet! Why, Jasper, I never saw a bead on her neck! You know how poor she is, and how plain she dresses. I always give ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... what I want to know. I'd look fine, wouldn't I, circularizing a dead story? Wouldn't that be a laugh on me? No, Mr. Anderson, author, artist, and playwright, I'm getting damned tired of being pestered by you, and you needn't come back here until you bring the goods. Do I make myself plain?" ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... not get up and leave him as I very easily might have done. I had had, since the night when Nikitin had spoken to me so frankly, a desire to know the little man's side of that affair. In some curious fashion that silent plain wife of his had been very frequently in my thoughts; there had not been enough in Nikitin's account to explain to me his passion for her, and yet her ghost, as though evoked by the memories both of Nikitin and her husband, had seemed to ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... tour through the greatest part of the city, Whitelocke found it to be pleasantly situated in a plain low country, fertile and delightful, also healthful and advantageous for trade; and notwithstanding the great quantity of waters on every side of it, yet the inhabitants do not complain of agues or other sicknesses to be more rife among ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... across the roadway, and now it was plain that the shapeless thing that had looked in the dim light like paper blown to a corner by the wind, was a dead man. He, too, was lying on his back, with his legs stretched straight out and slightly parted ... and while Henry looked at him, it seemed to him that the man was familiar ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... specimens of ivory, speaking eloquently of the peaceful life which the elephants must once have lived, in order to produce such tusks. The ornamentation to which the large tusks have been subjected while preserving their form is in two grades: the one is severely plain, and the other extremely ornate and decorative in effect. The former consists of a series of three to five incised bands of a plait pattern, a design very common in West Africa, placed at intervals, the bands diminishing in width as they approach the tip of the tusk. The embellishment ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... year ago we were initiated into the Lesser Mysteries at Agrae. ("Certamen enim,—et praeludium certaminis; et mysteria sunt quae praecedunt mysteria.") We must have been mystae (veiled) before we can become epoptae (seers); in plain English, we must have shut our eyes to all else before we can behold the mysteries. Crowned with myrtle, we enter with the other mystae into the vestibule of the temple,—blind as yet, but the Hierophant within will soon open ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... abstract this contemplation of circumstances went well. A plain duty lay in her way. And then a disembodied thought flew round her, comparing her with Vernon to her discredit. He had for years borne much that was distasteful to him, for the purpose of studying, and with his poor income helping the poorer than himself. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the exact equivalent to the manana of the Spaniard, the kul hojaiga of Upper India, the yuroshii of the Japanese, and the long drawled taihod of the Maori. The only person who 'gets around' in this weather is the summer boarder—the refugee from the burning cities of the Plain, and she is generally a woman. She walks, and botanizes, and kodaks, and strips the bark off the white birch to make blue-ribboned waste-paper baskets, and the farmer regards her with wonder. More does he wonder still at the city clerk ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... the church inside. At first you will be shocked and disappointed by the hideous modern restoration of the west front, with its side aisles, that are but poor specimens of pointed architecture. But go boldly inside and you will see the church of good, plain Norman work, dedicated by King Henry to the memory of the murdered English archbishop, and built by his chamberlain, Roscelin. The original building had the simple nave with its apse beyond, that we shall see on the other side of the ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... the low hills downwards the country ran in low, sweeping curves, as though some green primeval sea had congealed in the midst of a ground swell and set for ever into long verdant rollers. At the bottom, just where the slope borders upon the plain, there stood a comfortable square brick farmhouse, with a grey plume of smoke floating up from the chimney. Two cowhouses, a cluster of hayricks, and a broad stretch of fields, yellow with the ripening ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... here, madam," protested Roger. "To tell you the truth, I wouldn't have him about the place. He's just plain crazy." ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... after having successively inhabited the four corners of the globe and the twelve wards of Paris, seems to have definitely transferred his domicile to the midst of an isolated plain in the outskirts of Ville-d'Avray; he occupies a house which he has had built there for his own particular accommodation by a direct descendant of the marvellous architect to whom the world owes the cathedral of Cologne. This house, ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... good friends as ever; but, from an occasional remark which they drop in my presence, I perceive that they think they have the laugh on me. Unfortunately for them, we will part company before we reach the settlements, and I will have no opportunity to liquidate my obligations. Hard work and plain living have already reduced my superfluous flesh, and "my clothes like a lady's loose gown hang about me," as the ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... may be asked, were not these reproaches, whether true or false, heard sooner? As a matter of fact, they were heard at a very early period, but the effect they produced was insignificant, for the plain reason that men were far too dependent on the scholars for their knowledge of antiquity—that the scholars were personally the possessors and diffusers of ancient culture. But the spread of printed editions of the classics, and of large and well-arranged handbooks and dictionaries, went ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... introduction of Master St. Lawrence Coppinger, as an honorary member of the club, partook of the nature of a shock to those of the faithful who were present at his first appearance in the club room, a severely plain apartment, that offered no impediment in the matter of luxury to high thinking. But the faithful of the "Sons of Emmet" Club had nothing to fear from this half-fledged young Carrion Crow. The English school to which Larry had been sent had ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... answer to a visitor's request—'The pew swept and lined! My husband would think it downright popery!'[870] One can understand, without needing to sympathise with it, the strong Protestantism of Hervey's admiration for a church 'magnificently plain;'[871] but in the eighteenth century, the excessive plainness, not to say the frequent dirtiness, of so many churches was certainly owing to other causes than that ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... may be considered as indigenous to the forest. Hardgrove's is perhaps the handsomest prairie in Illinois—before us lay a rich green undulating meadow, and on either side, clusters of trees, interspersed through this vast plain in beautiful irregularity—the waving of the high grass, and the distant groves rearing their heads just above the horizontal line, like the first glimpse of land to the weary navigator, formed a combination of ideas peculiar to the scene which lay ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... young feller," Palmer Billy said, as he swung his swag to the ground and faced Gleeson. "Let's have a plain talk about this. What's your ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... restricted their men to 275 bricks per day on work of this character when working for the city, and 375 per day when working for private owners. The members of this union are probably sincere in their belief that this restriction of output is a benefit to their trade. It should be plain to all men, however, that this deliberate loafing is almost criminal, in that it inevitably results in making every workman's family pay higher rent for their housing, and also in the end drives work and trade away from their city, instead of ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... Madam, to your shame: Now your Perfidiousness is plain, false Woman, 'Tis well your Lover had the dexterity of escaping, I'ad spoil'd his making Love else. [Goes from ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... fingers of the morn melt and the broad day fares forth, the vision fades, and I who saw and heard must go and sit down to my plain saltless tale. Once I wrote a book, every word of it, in the open air. It was full of the sweet things of the country, so at least as they seemed to me. I saw the hens nestle sleepily in the holes of the bank-side where the dry dust is, ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... a situation more healthy and commodious than that of Navidad, and having ordered the troops and the various persons to be employed in the colony to be immediately disembarked, together with the stores, ammunition, and all the cattle and live-stock, he traced out the plan of a town in a large plain near a spacious bay; and obliging every person to put his hand to the work, the houses were soon so far advanced as to afford them shelter, and forts were ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... death sighs of a thousand flowers The fervent day has slain Are wafted through the twilight hours, And perfume all the plain. ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... was coming to a close. Complete silence in the room. A plain night lamp was burning, the flame scarcely flickering. The clock, like a poor soul, was ticking faintly. There was hardly a thing near the bed. It was as in a ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... trying to console him. They suggested every possible topic of hope; but it was too plain that there was nothing to be said, and that Eric had real cause to fear the worst. Yet though their arguments were futile, he keenly felt the genuineness of their affection, and it brought a little alleviation ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... she could see the flat, marshy ground through which the train had taken them the day before, and though of this she could not be certain, for a light mist veiled the distant view, she even thought she could descry the long white road leading upwards to the downs from the plain beneath them. ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... searchingly, curious to find where this power lay. Her face had grown white and set. The features and the figure were those of a large woman. Her hair, bronzed in the sunlight as he remembered, was dark in the gloom of this room. The plain, symmetrical arrangement of the hair above the large brow and features made her seem older than she was. The deep-set eyes, the quivering lips, and the thin nostrils gave life to the passive, restrained face. The passions of her life ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... It was plain that having once permitted me to learn his occupation, Mr. Parsons could not, for the sake of his own safety, afford to let me go, lest I should give information to the police. At any cost he would keep me under observation, and as far ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... on turning the gobbledygook of Federal regulations into plain English that people can understand. But we know that we still have a long way ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... But, it is plain that the seeds of disease were in me. There is no telling how much worse I would ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... Don't let me keep you waitin'. I'm surprised you're not pushin' a wheelbarrow in a labor battalion, the way you set that Nieuport down a few minutes ago. Clear out, soldier! This squadron is gettin' ready to do some plain and fancy flyin'. I don't want you to ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... singular in my taste as an Englishman, when I tell you that I prefer Shakespeare for the closet and Racine or Voltaire or Corneille for the stage: and with regard to English tragedies, I prefer as an acting drama Home's Douglas[46] to any of Shakespeare's, Macbeth alone excepted; and for this plain reason that the interest in Douglas never ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... function of our republican government was being arrested. The radical and the agitator were getting the ear of the nation, for the faith of the nation was shaken. Then came President Roosevelt to take up a task of greatest difficulty, and for nearly eight years, amidst the applause of the plain people, he administered the affairs of the nation firmly, honestly, and with efficiency. The Republican convention in Chicago by its nomination of Mr. Taft had put the stamp of its approval upon the Roosevelt administration, and turned ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... absolute correctness of the foregoing proposition, will naturally ask, "Can such a thing be accomplished, and how?" We beg to assure the reader, most emphatically, that it can, but not by the means usually employed. It is perfectly plain that the cleansing process cannot be effected by cathartics, for at the best, they only afford temporary relief (witness the growth of the cathartic habit), while on an impacted mass such as is commonly ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... been enabled to recommend your son for a Studentship this Christmas. It must be so much more satisfactory to you that he should be nominated thus, in consequence of the recommendation of the College. One of the Censors brought me to-day five names; but in their minds it was plain that they thought your son on the whole the most eligible for the College. It has been very satisfactory to hear of your son's uniform steady and ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... student quite realises the noble ideal of plain living and high thinking nowadays. Our admirable examination system admits of extremely little thinking at any level, high or low. But the Kensington student's living is at any rate insufficient, and he makes occasional signs of recognition towards ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... sooner, but better now than never. Here we took her before she was up, which I was sorry for, so only saw her, and away to chapel, leaving further visit till after sermon. I put my wife into the pew below, but it was pretty to see, myself being but in a plain band, and every way else ordinary, how the verger took me for her man, I think, and I was fain to tell him she was a kinswoman of my Lord Sandwich's, he saying that none under knights-baronets' ladies ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Rhine was assigned the offensive-defensive role of advancing to the barrier fortresses of Epinal and Belfort to check any French advance that might be directed against the communications of the Armies of the Moselle and the Meuse to the north. The railroad communications through the Belgian plain were splendidly adapted to this plan, backed as they were by the military railroads which Germany had constructed several years before, running through the industrial districts in the north of the German Empire ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... and twenty other places, not a word is said by the editor. —I am ashamed of taking up the time of my readers in discussing such points as these. Such plain and direct imitations as Chatterton's, could scarcely impose on a boy ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone
... needs. It was three o'clock before this pleasantry was given over, and with a small waterproof bag of India rubber strapped on his shoulders Dick returned to the hotel. And then he sprang to the saddle, and dashed down the lonely street and out into the lonelier plain, where presently the lights, the black line of houses, the spires, and the flagstaff sank into the earth behind him again and were ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... Francesco per Monte-Acuto prendendo la via di Monte-Arcoppe e del foresto. This road from the Verna to Borgo San-Sepolero is far from being the shortest or the easiest, for instead of leading directly to the plain it lingers for long hours among the hills. Is not all ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... waiting for him at unsuspected bookstalls; the numismatist has but to stretch forth his palm to have priceless coins drop into it. My own weakness is odd people, and I am constantly encountering them. It was plain that I had unearthed a couple of very queer specimens at Bayley's Four-Corners. I saw that a fortnight afforded me too brief an opportunity to develop the richness of both, and I resolved to devote my spare time to Mr. Jaffrey alone, instinctively ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... indeed, could have been known distinctly, where rumour ascribed to each separately the most contradictory acts and motives. Us it surprises, that Lord Keane has not publicly explained himself under such gloomy insinuations. But, in the mean time, this is plain, that the Shah is entitled to benefit by the doubts hanging over the case, not less than our own officer. The writer suggests as one reason for a favourable judgment on the Shah, "previous acts of humanity in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... "It was plain to me that they were a gang of men who had made use of the empty Manor, perhaps for years, for some purpose of their own; and now that Wentworth was attempting to take possession, they were acting up the traditions ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... report of the rifle, far away in the wilderness, as it was softly borne through the miles of intervening space, told the whole story to Deerfoot the Shawanoe; it solved the mystery; it made clear that which was hidden; he no longer saw through a glass darkly; the history of Otto Relstaub was as plain as if it had fallen from ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... beating of the reveille— considerably shorn of its wonted proportions, as the occasion demanded—the bivouac had been abandoned, and the little army again upon their march. What remained to be traversed of the space that separated them from the enemy, was an alternation of plain and open forest, but so completely in juxtaposition, that the head of the column had time to clear one wood and enter a second before its rear could disengage itself from the first. The effect of this, by the dim and peculiar light reflected from the snow ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... queer psychological process of his own, brought Lynn Severn's mind and Mark Carter's mind together to bear upon the matter and gained a new perspective. He was pretty well satisfied in his own soul that the thing he had set out to do was not "on the level." It began to be pretty plain to him that that "rich guy" might be in the way of getting hurt or perhaps still worse, and he had no wish to be tangled up in a mess like that. At the same time he did not often get a chance to make ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... experience. In regard to their work, they learn it, and grow dexterous enough in a short time. Many of them have learned trades and manufactures, which they perform well, and with sufficient ingenuity:—whence it is plain they are not unteachable; do not want natural parts and capacities.—Most masters and mistresses will complain of their art and cunning in contriving to deceive them.—Is it reasonable to deny then they can learn what is good, when it is owned ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... compatible with the circumstances of the country and the character of the people. Two political bodies, a council of state and a council of finance were instituted. These were designed as temporary institutions, whose object it should be to remedy the fearful evils caused by the revolution—in plain terms, to bring order out of anarchy and chaos. M. de Rayneval has shown that in this they were successful, and that they also put an end to the disorder and difficulty caused by the issue of forty millions of worthless paper which ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... of the Tuileries. He still had his magnificent eyes, but his poor face looked very worn. He had shaved the whole of his head, which was usually covered with an astrakhan cap; he was dressed in a long, plain coat and amused himself by unconsciously twisting his thumbs inside the sleeves; but his mind was quite clear, and he told me his story with ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... cutting us off from all the world, but the "world of waters'' ! I separated myself from the rest, and sat down on a rock, just where the sea ran in and formed a fine spouting horn. Compared with the plain, dull sand-beach of the rest of the coast, this grandeur was as refreshing as a great rock in a weary land. It was almost the first time that I had been positively alone— free from the sense that human beings were at my elbow, if not talking with me— since ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... at the neat, strong figure arrayed in the plain khaki uniform of a private soldier, at the clean-shaven, square-jawed face, at the fearless grey-blue eyes, could doubt either his honesty or earnestness. Courage was imprinted by Nature's never-erring hand on every lineament of his Saxon features. So might one of Cromwell's stern-browed ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... Brook—"plain-looking, whitewashed plaster front, and a small garden before and behind"—next door to the former Providence (Baptist) Chapel, now the Drill Hall of the Salvation Army, is a very humble and unpretentious ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... ye polar bears, Waltz around the pole in pairs. All ye icebergs make salaam, You belong to Uncle Sam. Lo, upon the snow too plain Falls his ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... live to get there." "Why what's the matter with the west?" I asked. "Oh nothing, only it's too blamed fur from God's country and I got to hankering fer codfish—and I'm agoin' where it is. Go lang!" and he moved on. I guess he was homesick. He looked, and he talked it and the whole outfit said it plain enough. You can't argue ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... know that there would be any special harm in speaking of Non's idea—of just doing as you would be done by—in more moral or religious language, but it is not necessary. And I find I take an almost religious joy in looking at the Golden Rule at last as a plain business proposition. All that happened was that Non was original, saw something that everybody thought they knew, and acted as if it were so. Theoretically one would not have said that it would be original to take an old platitudinous law like the law of supply and demand, and ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... very sweet, but rather pensive this morning," said Mr. Romaine, noticing a shadow on the bright and beautiful face of Jeanette, whose color had deepened by the plain remarks of her cousin Belle. "What is ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... canvases—most ambitious of all, in the setting of honor, all in sad grays, a twilight Mexican scene by Xavier Martinez, of a peon, with a crooked- stick plow and two bullocks, turning a melancholy furrow across the foreground of a sad, illimitable, Mexican plain. There were brighter pictures, of early Mexican-Californian life, a pastel of twilight eucalyptus with a sunset-tipped mountain beyond, by Reimers, a moonlight by Peters, and a Griffin stubble-field across which gleamed ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... that the tracts were neither designed nor announced to be 'reprints' of the originals [design is only known to the designers; as to announcement, the title is ''Tis all for the best, The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, and other narratives by Hannah More']; and much less [this must be careful not; further removed from answer than not careful] can I occupy your space by a treatise on the Professor's question: 'May any one alter the works of the dead at his ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... without occupation does not find, and neither of us is accustomed to deceive the other. Besides, it would be of little avail. So, to cut the matter short, I am unwilling to see Barbara again and awaken false hopes in her mind! But even these plain words do not ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... U.S. 53, 68-69 (1940). Dissenting from the conclusion, Justice Roberts declared that the plain effect of the Virginia law is to compel a nonresident to pay a Virginia resident for services which the latter ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... sincere believer in the divine authority of the scriptures reasonably hesitate concerning this conclusion? Or rather, does not such an interpretation justly expose revelation to reproach? The plain dictates of the best philosophy are, that nothing is more simple, regular, and uniform than the ordinary course of nature; and that this course can neither be suspended nor altered, but by its author, nor can by him be permitted to be interrupted by any inferior ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... Previous Great Disasters of the Sea, Descriptions of the Developments of Safety and Life-saving Appliances, a Plain Statement of the Causes of Such Catastrophes and How to Avoid Them, the Marvelous Development of ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... Grenville left them. His last look at Julie made it miserably plain that since the moment when sympathy revealed the full extent of a tyrannous passion, he did well to ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac |
