"Plain-spoken" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... certain sense of unfitness or disinclination stopped me after a few sentences, and I did not again refer to my new friends; though I had been thinking a good deal of Constance Grey and her plain-faced, plain-spoken aunt. I felt strangely out of key with my environment in that glaring place, and the strains of an overloud orchestra, when they came crashing through the buzz of talk and laughter, and the clatter of glass and silver, were rather a relief to me as a substitute for conversation. ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... a loss to understand this confession of Paul and feel obliged to save his honor. That the chosen vessel of Christ should have had the law of sin in his members seems to them incredible and absurd. They circumvent the plain-spoken statement of the Apostle by saying that he was speaking for the wicked. But the wicked never complain of inner conflicts, or of the captivity of sin. Sin has its unrestricted way with them. This is Paul's very own complaint and the ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... a very sharp sense of the humorous, and in his enjoyment of a comical situation he liked company. His heart was stirred to put his expedition in its true light before this man who was so honest and plain-spoken. "Mr. Sadler," said he, "if you will take it as a piece of confidential information, and not intended for the general ear, I will tell you what sort of a holiday my wife and I are taking. We are on a wedding-journey." And then he told ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... want another batin'?" Samuel grinned. He stayed, and played with them all afternoon, in spite of Jane's plain-spoken requests for him to be off. Before he left he had a good tea in the kitchen, and got sixpence from Lull, who had a tender heart for the poor. After that he came frequently. He said his mother was dying, ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... with blue eyes, a somewhat stately walk, and a full beard, which he was the first in the society to wear. He was extremely industrious, and never wasted even a minute; knew admirably how to use every spare moment. He was cheerful, kindly, talkative; plain-spoken when he had to find fault; not very enthusiastic, but somewhat dry and very practical. In his earlier years, in Germany, he was witty; and to the last he was ready and apt in speech. His conversation centered always upon religion and the conduct of life; and no ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... His plain-spoken replies, however harshly they may have struck upon Gallic sensitiveness, at least left no room for any one to misunderstand him. "I know that officers, going to America for employment, will probably be disappointed," he wrote; "that our armies ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... run a rum-hole, Lem," said the plain-spoken doctor, "don't expect a woman in her condition to ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... right to promise your mother a hump," returned the plain-spoken and matter-of-fact hunter. "Nobody shud never go to promise wot they can't perform. I've lived, off an' on, nigh forty years now, and I've obsarved them wot promises most always does least; so if you'll take the advice of an oldish hunter, ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... plain as the sun at noon-day, plain as the nose on one's face, plain as the way to parish church. explicit, overt, patent, express; ostensible; open, open as day; naked, bare, literal, downright, undisguised, exoteric. unreserved, frank, plain-spoken &c. (artless) 703; candid (veracious) 543; barefaced. manifested &c. v.; disclosed &c. 529; capable of being shown, producible; inconcealable[obs3], unconcealable; no secret. Adv. manifestly, openly &c. adj.; before one's eyes, under one's nose, to one's face, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... innocent child's perambulator even; and, devil let loose that you are, your eye fills your heart on the spot with absolute hell-fire. Your presence and your progress poison the very streets of the city. And that, not as the short-sighted and the vulgar will read Solomon's plain-spoken Scripture, with the poison of lewdness and uncleanness, but with the still more malignant, stealthy, and deadly poison of social, professional, political, and ecclesiastical hatred, resentment, and ill-will. ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... alone with him before, except now and then for a few minutes, but he was such a sincere and plain-spoken man that she had always felt she genuinely knew him. To every one with whom he spoke he gave himself as he was. This unusual sincerity in Rosamund's eyes was a great attraction. She often said that she could never feel at home with pretense ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... meeting on the boat Mr. H. P. Davison, a member of the firm of J. P. Morgan & Co. He is a plain-spoken gentleman with a strong personality. He is one of the leading partners in the firm of J. P. Morgan & Co. and talks and ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... you in London at this time of the year?" said this plain-spoken old lady. "Your fancy about getting into the army? Nonsense, man! don't tell me such a tale as that. There's a woman in the case: a Trelyon never puts himself so much about from any other cause. To stop in town at this time of the year! Why, your grandfather, and your father too, would have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... girls, three in number, were left alone in New York City. Helen, who went in for art and music, kept the little flat uptown, while Margy just out of a business school, obtained a position as a private secretary and Rose, plain-spoken and businesslike, took what she called a ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... "Co." has been reading Ferrers Court, by JOHN STRANGE WINTER, author of Bootle's Baby and a number of other novelettes of like kind. He says that he is getting just the least bit tired of Mignon, and the plain-spoken girls, and the rest of them. By the way, he observes that it seems to be the fashion, judging from the pages of Ferrers Court, in what he may call "Service Suckles," to talk continually of a largely advertising lady's tailor. If this custom spreads, he presumes that the popular topic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... heart, is wholly yours!" he exclaimed ardently. "Command them, and if the devoted love of a faithful, plain-spoken man—" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... with it! You think it was silly! But, wife, you'd 'a' done the same thing;—you couldn't 'a' helped it, nohow. Providence seemed to 'a' cast him in my way o' purpose. I tell you, wife, it was as plain-spoken as it could be,—'Be ye warmed!' Why, you'd 'a' done the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... remarked his familiar and plain-spoken internal friend; "where was this grand sense of duty when you left home in a rage without 'by your leave' to father or mother?" Miles could make no reply. He had a tendency to silence when this friend spoke, and returned to barracks in ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... because least deceptive kinds of hypocrites. Mr. Malcolm, as acute as he was intellectually unscrupulous, well understood how to weaken or to ruin a just cause through these supporters. Sometimes he stood afar off, showering the poisoned arrows of raillery and satire. Again he was the plain-spoken friend of the cause and warned its honest supporters against these "fool friends" whom he pretended to regard as its leaders. Again he played the part of a blind enthusiast and praised folly as wisdom and urged it on to more ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... first place, a few specimens of the hatred which animates the champions of Swaraj—of Indian independence, or, at least, of Colonial self-government. The Hind Swarajya is nothing if not plain-spoken:— ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... formidable rival, Alwyn had formed one of those resolutions which occur only to men of his decided, plain-spoken, energetic character. His distinguishing shrewdness and penetration had given him considerable insight into the nobler as well as the weaker qualities of Hastings; and his hope in the former influenced the determination ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was very plain-spoken on the subject of all Clara's shortcomings very plain-spoken, and very inquisitive. 'She will never have one ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... effort I restrained my words, eager to proclaim my service, yet comprehending instantly that I dare not even trust this plain-spoken girl with the truth. She respected the men, sympathized with the sacrifices of Washington's little army, contrasted all they endured with the profligacy of the English and Hessian troops, and yet remained ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... doctors were as plain-spoken as you, I daresay they'd say pretty much the same kind of thing, Mrs. Thatcher,' she ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... and in addition to being overworked and over-burdened with responsibility, they were rarely men of adequate learning. In a letter from Bartolommeo de Valverde, chaplain to Philip II., under date 1584, we read plain-spoken complaints against these subordinates.[122] 'Unacquainted with literature, they discharge the function of condemning books they cannot understand. Without knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, and animated by a prejudiced hostility against authors, they take the easy course of proscribing what ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... tobacco-chewing, profanity, and other small vices. Cowperwood could tell from looking at him that he must have a fund of information concerning every current Chicagoan of importance, and this fact alone was certain to be of value. Then the old man was direct, plain-spoken, simple-appearing, and wholly unpretentious—qualities which Cowperwood ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... thanked him and, taking up the bottle, refilled their glasses. Then, catching the dull, brooding eye of Mr. Stobell as that plain-spoken man sat in a brown study trying to separate the serious from the jocular, he drank success to their search. He was about to give vent to further pleasantries when he was stopped by the mysterious behaviour of Mr. Chalk, who, first laying a finger on his lip to ensure silence, frowned ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... Bruno what he thinks, Beatrice," suggested Margaret, after a gentle "Hush!" to the somewhat too plain-spoken Marie. "Thou canst do it, but it would not come ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... the English flag flying from the central tower, and a gibbet erected in front of it. No wonder that the emperor expresses himself dissatisfied with a "prospect" of so lugubrious a character. An English sailor seated on a neighbouring gun, delivers the sentiments of the day after the plain-spoken fashion of his countrymen. This design, which is by no means in the artist's usual style, was etched by him from the design of some one whose name or initials are ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... select that plain-spoken little one you will have some temper to curb," suggested Mr. Grayson, somewhat amused by ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... McClure was not without plain-spoken remonstrance against his contemplated act of inhumanity. In the prosecution of his spiritual functions Neville Trueman had free access to the people of the town of Niagara, many of whom were members, of his church or congregation. ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... very plain-spoken young gentleman," said the Prince sternly. "You draw your sword to protect your mother, and now I suppose if your father is not pardoned you will turn rebel and draw ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... again, fighting for the Republican candidate, Benjamin Harrison. When Mr. Harrison was elected, he would have liked to put the young campaigner into the State Department. But Mr. Blaine, who became Secretary of State, did not care to have his plain-spoken opponent and critic under him. So the President offered Roosevelt the post of ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... the army of the Potomac are now obliged to sign their communications with their real name. This general order is of course intended to check the freedom of criticism, which has of late become rather too plain-spoken to be agreeable to the irascible Chief. But it is difficult to gag an undaunted "special;" so every morning the last intelligence streams forth—fresh, strong, and rather coarsely flavored—like new ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... histrionic remains! Think of it, ye managers who have to subdue the passions and limit the extravagant hopes of your players, and pity poor, unfortunate Mr. Rich. Do you wonder that Nance only contrived to get the plain-spoken Leonora? The wonder of it is that she obtained ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... Had the honey of Plato flowed from the tongue of Mrs. Hazeldean, it could not have turned into sweetness the bitter spirit upon which it descended. But Mrs. Hazeldean, though an excellent woman, was rather a bluff, plain-spoken one; and after all she had some little feeling for the son of a gentleman, and a decayed, fallen gentleman, who, even by Lenny's account, had been assailed without any intelligible provocation; nor could she, with her strong ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... importance. He strutted into the president's room and boasted of what he had done. The delighted head of the business gave him a cigar and invited him to tell the story. The salesman betrayed such egotism that his employer was disgusted. The president was plain-spoken. He warned the successful salesman against ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... "I had rather be with you. I am not afraid of plain-spoken people, if they are kind. Dora is very careful to tell me my faults, but then her manner is such that I can't help feeling that it is because she loves me so well; so I am neither pained nor vexed. I used to be very partial to funny people; but I feel serious ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... Merwyn parted from his plain-spoken companion, well content. Strahan's promise to return all the courtesy he received left a variable standard in Merwyn's hands that he could employ according to circumstances or inclination. He was satisfied that his neighbor, in accordance with a trait very common to young men, cherished ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... decent man notwithstanding.” But if he was puzzled before, he is still more puzzled when he hears the worthy Jansenist declare that it is no heresy to hold that “all the just have always the power of obeying the Divine commandments.” Confounded by such a reply, he felt that he had been too plain-spoken with both Jansenist and Molinist. {120} There must be something more in this dispute than he understood; and if not, there was no reason why there should not now be peace in the Church and the Sorbonne. He returned to the Molinist, whom he had first visited, with this assurance. The Jansenists, ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... at the words. She had been all her life a truthful plain-spoken girl. She held herself high above deceit. Yet, here came the necessity for deceit—a snare spread around her. She had not revolted so much from the deed which brought unpremeditated death, as she did ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... had listened open-mouthed to this plain-spoken homily. When he came to himself, he darted forward, and aimed a blow with his fist, which just failed to strike the back of his visitor, who was in the ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... indignation!—stigmatize as prostitution. I dont mean ever to be married, I can tell you, Marian. I would rather die than sell myself forever to a man, and stand in a church before a lot of people whilst George or somebody read out that cynically plain-spoken marriage service ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... of Merchiston, mathematician, born in Merchiston Castle, near Edinburgh; famed over the world as the inventor of logarithms; wrote a book on the Apocalypse, which contains some plain-spoken counsel to King James; believed in astrology, and was addicted to divination as well ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... before you get this story told, if you don't quit talkin'," said the plain-spoken Maggie. "Did the minister have ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... when the object is only to prevent my saying a bon mot, for there is not the least wit in my nature. I am a very matter-of-fact, plain-spoken being, and may blunder on the borders of a repartee for half an hour together without striking ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... they talk it to their husbands, to their daughters, and to their neighbors, and say that they have not seen a week's happiness since they became acquainted with that law, or since their husbands took a second wife."* The coarse and plain-spoken H. C. Kimball, in a discourse in the Tabernacle, November 9, 1856, thus defined the duty of polygamous wives, "It is the duty of a woman to be obedient to her husband, and, unless she is, I would not give a damn for all her queenly right or authority, nor for her either, if she will quarrel ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... declared that plain-spoken old lady, "we wimmen have made up our minds to clean out the flies, an' all other dirt, if we can. Poketown is unsanitary—so Dr. Poole says—and we know it's always been slovenly. There ain't a place, ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... in overhearing the good conversation that went on in the banquet-hall. Gordon could not understand all Rutherford's joy. He did not altogether like it. He did not answer the ecstatic letters so promptly as he answered those which were composed on a soberer key. He was a blunt, plain-spoken, matter-of- fact man; he immensely loved and honoured his minister, but he could not help reminding him after one of his specially enraptured letters that 'Hall-binks are slippery seats.' The golden mean lay somewhere between the hall-bink and the ash-pit; somewhere between Rutherford's ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... public invests the profession of arms; The Devil's Disciple was a shrewd criticism of the preposterous self-sacrifice on which melodrama, which is the most popular non-literary form of play-writing, is commonly based; Mrs. Warren's Profession made a brave and plain-spoken attempt to drag the public face to face with the nauseous realities of prostitution; Widowers' Houses laid bare the sordidness of a Society which bases itself on the exploitation of the poor for ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... would occupy too much space we content ourselves with the following passage from a journal published a few days subsequent to the melancholy intelligence of the death of Sir Walter Scott being received in Paris. The criticism is in every sense plain-spoken:— ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... absence of hesitation. Let us have the courage to give advice with candour. In friendship, let the influence of friends who give good advice be paramount; and let this influence be used to enforce advice not only in plain-spoken terms, but sometimes, if the case demands it, with sharpness; and when so used, let it ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... farming. So when a nation becomes poor and bankrupt, it is its own fault; that nation has broken the laws of political economy which God has appointed for nations, and its ruin is God's judgment, God's plain-spoken opinion again of the sins of extravagance, idleness, ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... husband. In most cases Greek marriage was a matter of convenience, a man considering it his duty to provide for the legitimate continuation of his family. The Doric tribe did not attempt to disguise this principle in its plain-spoken laws; the rest of Greece acknowledged it but in silence, owing to a more refined conception of the moral ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... well. He commanded a brigade in our garrison town of R. And a kindly chief he was, clear-minded, frank, and plain-spoken. I soon made up my mind to go to him and see what help I could get to enable me to rejoin my regiment. It would be a pleasure, too, to ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... that?—who gave it David? For He that gives it to one is most likely to be He that gives it to another. David says to God, "Thou teachest my hands to war, and my fingers to fight; by the help of God I can leap over a wall: He makes me strong, that my arms can break even a bow of steel:"—that is plain-spoken enough, I think. Who gave Samson his strength, again? What says the Bible? How Samson met a young lion which roared against him, and he had nothing in his hand, and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... knew his own inability to resist her. He knew that she spoke on the side of his secret hope. He knew that a debate which had long gone on within himself, to himself unavowed, had at length to find its plain-spoken issue. ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... inexpressible fondness of Pall Mall), "where your mother will receive the Mrs. Arthur that is to be, with perfect kindness; where the good people of the county won't visit you; and where, by Gad, sir, I shall be shy of visiting you myself, for I'm a plain-spoken man, and I own to you that I like to live with gentlemen for my companions; where you will have to live, with rum-and-water—drinking gentlemen—farmers, and drag through your life the young husband of an old woman, who, if she ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Mrs. Mayburn seemed her plain-spoken, cheery self, intent only on making the most of this genial hour in the autumn of her life, and yet she was watching over a hope that she felt might make her last days her best days. She was almost praying that the fair girl whom she had so learned to love might become the solace ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... just the book needed to teach what most people do not know how to teach, being scientific, simple and plain-spoken, yet delicate." ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... hear it—I am very glad to hear it; that is to say, if I can be glad at anything. I feel very ill, Mrs. Mainwaring, very ill, indeed; and this blunt, plain-spoken doctor of mine gives me but little comfort. Not that I care much about any doctor's opinion—it is what I feel myself that troubles me. You are not aware, perhaps, that my daughter has abandoned me—deserted me—and ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... a negative, or agnostic philosophy—in which men's minds must needs be limited to the superficialities of things, with a kind of narrowness amounting to a positive gift. What that mental attitude was capable of, in the way of an elegant, yet plain-spoken, and life-like delineation of men's moods and manners, as also in the way of determining those moods and manners themselves to all that was lively, unaffected, and harmonious, can be seen nowhere better than in Mr. Austin Dobson's Selections from Steele (Clarendon Press) prefaced ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... conquest and the subsequent behavior of the conquerors were true to the old Spanish nature, so succinctly characterized by a plain-spoken Englishman of Mary's reign, when the war-cry of Castile encircled the globe and even hovered ominously near the "sceptered isle," when in the intoxication of power character stands out so sharply defined: "They be verye wyse ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... been with her aunt, she had told herself that she was a broken-hearted woman, because she had given away all that she had to give and had received nothing in return. Had he said a word that might have given her hope, how happy could she have been in hoping. Now he had come to her with a plain-spoken offer, telling her that he loved her, and asking her to be his wife,—and she was altogether unable to answer. How could she consent to be his wife, knowing as she did that there was no certainty of an income on which they could live? How could she tell her father and ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... DONNIGES. [In Amazonian flush of success] No more of this foolishness—no more of it, I say! He is gone; I knew he could not withstand my plain-spoken truths. He could not look me in the eye. You heard me, Hilda; he could not answer—he dare not. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... his theology; I may differ from the preacher in some things, and listen doubtfully to others. But I know of no modern sermons at once so suggestive and so inspiriting, with reference to the whole range of Christian duty. He is fresh and original without being recondite: plain-spoken without severity; and discusses some of the exciting topics of the day without provoking strife or lowering his tone as a Christian teacher. He delivers his message, in fact, like one who is commissioned to call men ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... household goes, bearing out on a tray the empty glasses of the evening's entertainment, so she carried out on a platter the dissevered head of that good man, while all the banqueters shouted, and thought it a grand joke, that, in such a brief and easy way, they had freed themselves from such a plain-spoken, troublesome minister. ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... (Bannatyne Club, 1841). The doctor then grumbles that he does not know 'a syllable of the state of Lord Balcarres's health at the time'. The friend of Bayle and of Marlborough, an honourable politician, a man at once loyal and plain-spoken in dealings with his master, Lord Balcarres's word would go for much, if he gave it. {190} But Dr. Hibbert asks for no authority, cites none. He only argues that, 'agreeably to the well- known doctrine of chances,' Balcarres might as well have this hallucination at the time of Dundee's ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... are simple truth, as they always were, even before I lived in more plain-spoken countries than this," said the Comte. "And now let me ask your kindness for this little eldest girl of mine—the eldest child that I have here—you know ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... Avenel must be in his clutches. Now Randal did justice to that gentleman's practical shrewdness. Moreover, Avenel was by profession a man of business. He must know more of Levy than these men of pleasure could; and as he was a plain-spoken person, and evidently honest, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, Randal did not doubt that out of Dick Avenel ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bear none of your lip service. I'm a plain-spoken woman, that's what I am, and I like other people's tongues to be as plain as mine. My name's Miss Louisa Coleman; but I'm generally called Miss Coleman,—I'm only ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... in your mind, friend Griggs," he said, not in the least disconcerted at my attack. "You want me to speak plainly to you, because you think you are a plain-spoken, clear-headed man of science yourself. Very well, I will. I think you might yourself become a brother some day, if you would. But you will not now, neither will in the future. Yet you understand some little distant inkling of the science. When you ask your scornful questions of ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... not until my keen and curious eye began to penetrate the delicate mysteries surrounding their surprising week-end visit to Brighton that Rust again became tongue-tied. He reprehensibly slurred over the most entertaining details. Madame Gilbert, on the other hand, revealed everything with that plain-spoken frankness which, in any other woman, would appear to be brazen. Madame is thirty-two; Captain Rust no more than twenty-six. He is a modest young man in spite of his French training; she, I am afraid, is a hussy. But I would not have her other than ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... "You would not have me punish him for being man enough to say to my face what thousands say of me behind my back, would you? Now, I am so disinclined to punish him that I intend to increase his pension just because he is an honest, plain-spoken fellow. You need not make such a grimace, Gunther. If you feel badly, console ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... three in number, were left alone in New York City. Helen, who went in for art and music, kept the little flat uptown, while Margy, just out of business school, obtained a position as secretary and Rose, plain-spoken and business like, took what she called a "job" in a department store. The experiences of these girls make fascinating reading—life in the great metropolis is thrilling and full of strange ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... supposed he would see the folly of proceeding farther, conclude that I knew more about Jim Hosley than his man, Smith, return home and wait to see me again before going ahead. But he didn't seem to realize that I was only joking. I was so plain-spoken about it—put the thing so broadly—that I supposed any sane man would understand I was merely stating my loyalty to Jim in terms of sarcasm. All jokes to fathers-in-law of the Tescheron inflammable character should, however, be labeled in ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... light, white crust which was to cover the tender chicken boiling in the pot, while in the oven bubbled and baked the custard pie, remembered as Katy's favorite, and prepared for her coming by Helen herself—plain-spoken, blue-eyed Helen—now out in the strawberry beds, picking the few luscious berries which almost by a miracle had been coaxed to wait for Katy, who loved them so dearly. Like her mother, Helen had wondered how the change would impress her bright little sister, for she remembered ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... much too interfering, and she is frightfully stuck-up. Please forgive me, but I am always very plain-spoken; I always tell the truth. I don't want her. I like you, and wish that I lived with you, and that you'd have Ruth Craven instead of your own daughter in the house. Then I'd be perfectly happy. I always did say what I thought. Will you ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... Forget-Me-Not.' I am however still L2 in your debt, L7 being the sum I have set apart for you. How shall I forward you the remaining L2?" Mr. Alaric Watts frequently importuned Clare for contributions for the "Literary Souvenir" and the "Literary Magnet," but he was exceedingly fastidious and plain-spoken, and although he sent Clare presents of books he never said in his letters anything about payment. At length Clare hinted to him that some acknowledgment of that kind would be acceptable, and then Mr. Watts replied, ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... stuff that no one was anxious to pay for; mostly in essay form expressing my own opinions on various important subjects. But it didn't go. I was complaining of my bad luck to a plain-spoken woman in charge of a circulating library, and she gave me grand advice. 'No one cares a snap for your opinions. You must tell something that folks want ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... to think of the children's having it," he said to a plain-spoken neighbor who remonstrated with him on the ground that he could never live there. "The boys will be old enough to care for their sister, and the house on the hill will be just the place for a little ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... a translation. In the publications of the Irish Ossianic poetry we see what that poetry really was—rude, homely, plain-spoken, leagues removed from the nebulous ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady
... "Now, Spotty, I'm a plain-spoken man when there's occasion for it, and this is one of those times, I guess. You saved my life just now, I know that. Of course I realize I might just have been badly hurt, and perhaps have lingered on in a hospital for some years—but ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... plain-spoken man," added Dr. Scoville, still gazing intently into the face of the captain; who, however, returned the look as resolutely and as earnestly as ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... uncommonly plain-spoken," Phipps acknowledged, "but what's the odds? You're not a coward, Dredlinton; neither am I. Neither is Skinflint Martin, nor Stanley. Chuck letters like that on the fire, as they have, and keep cheerful. The streets ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it?" said Philly, who was a plain-spoken child, and given to questions. While John whispered to Dorry, "That's a real stupid girl. Let's go off somewhere and play ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... reason," says WILLIAM MURPHY, once mildest-mannered man that ever built a tram or railway, now transformed into exceedingly plain-spoken politician. "If PARNELL had taken corner seat, his comings and goings—especially his goings—would have been more easily marked. Sitting midway down the Bench, amongst the ruck of Members, he was not noticeable except when he wanted to be noticed. Could slink in and out ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various
... it would be nearer the mark to say, since you began by being so plain-spoken, that you came here to ask me to give you my husband," I retorted as quietly as I could, not because I preferred the soft pedal, but because I nursed a strong suspicion that Struthers' attentive ear was just below the ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... dialogue with the Prince, of that feeble, hysterical death-scene, and it irritated me that she, with her beauty, and with British Philistinism and British virtue to back her, should be trampling on Desforets and genius. But I was conscious of my audacity. If a certain number of critics have been plain-spoken, Isabel Bretherton has none the less been surrounded for months past with people who have impressed upon her that the modern theatre is a very doubtful business, that her acting is as good as anybody's, ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... simple-hearted, vigorous, plain-spoken, was the only woman within a dozen miles, and it was not long before Mrs. Roberts hated Mrs. Cummins as Jeremiah hated Babylon. For Mrs. Cummins was bent on spreading "culture," and Mrs. Roberts was determined that by no seeming ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... are curt, plain-spoken, practical-in everything antipodal to the knot of hapless men, who, unable from some defect or morbidity to help on the real movement of their nation, are fain to get their bread with tongue and pen, by retailing to 'silly women,' ...
— Phaethon • Charles Kingsley
... brave, plain-spoken St. James?—'Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.' 'From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... glassy crowd: When thus the table spoke aloud: "The virtues which you each would claim As yours, are virtues but in name. You, Concave, lessen what you see, Though well you know 't should larger be. While Convex, aye to flattery prove, Makes mounts of what are mites alone. Plain-spoken Plate, in wrong the least, Would tell a beast it was a beast, Forgetting 'tis not always right To judge from what appears in sight. Your faces ought to blush for shame, And yet you think you're not to blame! You know that men are slow to think, And will of any fountain drink; Who fear their brain's ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... Franklin in several points, especially in one of some moment, assimilated. Indeed, making due allowance for soil and era, history presents few trios more akin, upon the whole, than Jacob, Hobbes, and Franklin; three labyrinth-minded, but plain-spoken Broadbrims, at once politicians and philosophers; keen observers of the main chance; prudent courtiers; practical magians ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... capitalist; and he contrived that this trained bird should wheel down among the merchants just at noon one fine day in the Royal Exchange. The billet under its wing contained certain cabalistic characters, and the plain-spoken intelligence, "Louis Philippe est mort!" In a minute after these most revolutionizing news, French funds, then at one hundred and twelve, were toppling down below ninety, and our prudent John was buying stock in all directions: nay, he even made some considerable bargains at eighty-seven. ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... lamentably plain-spoken man, who said but little, and said that little strong. Lord Ferriby's affectionate grasp of the soldier's arm relaxed imperceptibly. One must, he reflected, be prepared to meet unpleasantness in the good cause of charity—but ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... soul, how profound is old Cole's remark about the humour of public affairs. To think of a Conservative Government—pride of the Church—going out of its way to honour one not only of the wicked, but of the notoriousest and plain-spoken wickedness. My wife and I drove over to Dolgelly yesterday—do you know it? one of the loveliest things in the three kingdoms—and every now and then had a laugh over this very quaint aspect of ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... the situation. At Gibraltar the Pacha confronted the party again. The commander had learned at Funchal that His Highness was a villanously bad character, and he positively refused to permit him to visit or to meet the lady passengers on board his ship. He was an honest, upright, and plain-spoken man. He stated that the Pacha was not a suitable person to associate ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... limited in that day, and we felt that we had found a real thesaurus in this old man of unique mold. His visits were refreshing to us, and his plain-spoken ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... exceptions, the native word is in general better known and more crudely powerful than the classic. Thus of the pair sweat-perspiration, sweat is the plain-spoken, everyday member, perspiration the polite, even learned member. The man of limited vocabulary says sweat; even the sophisticated person, unless there is occasion to soften effects, finds sweat the more natural term. No one would say that a horse perspires. No one would say that ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... most important instance we have of the deliberate application of a mechanical philosophy to human affairs. Leaving out all question of the Fathers' ideals, looking simply at the bias which directed their thinking, is there in all the world a more plain-spoken attempt to contrive an automatic governor—a machine which would preserve its balance without the need of taking human nature into account? What other explanation is there for the naive faith of the Fathers in the "symmetry" of executive, legislature, ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... His mother had rubbed him up the wrong way, as usual, but his good sense told him that it was no use resenting her plain-spoken remarks. ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Possibly it is this mermaid who, caught in a fisherman's net, is represented in bas-relief (as the fish that pleases all tastes) on one of the facades of Edam, with accompanying verses which must not be translated, embodying comments upon the nature of the haul by various typical and very plain-spoken members of society—a soldier and a schoolmaster, a monk ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... Cousin Bill! You don't say so? Well, there's no fool like an old fool," said Lord Essendine, who was a very matter-of-fact, plain-spoken peer. ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... breeding Jan was, as a matter of fact, unique among hounds. Apart from this, no hound of his size or splendid development had ever before been seen upon Regina station platform. The people of the West are a forthright, plain-spoken, and enterprising folk, and before he left the station Captain Arnutt was offered fifty dollars for Jan. Nothing damped by the captain's smiling refusal of his offer, the sporting ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... see what a plain-spoken John Bull I am, and how I come to the point at once. I want you to be my wife; and they say that perseverance is the best way when a man has such a ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... because those things occupied his mind, and because every one loved to hear him; but the hearer who made these disclosures the occasion for unmeaning compliment, as if he fancied a craving vanity to have prompted them, soon found himself rebuked by the straightforward and plain-spoken patriarch. Precious indeed were those seasons of outpouring, when one interesting recital suggested another, till the listener seemed to see the whole mystery of prison-life and obscure wretchedness laid open before ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... a polite letter?" asked inquisitive Maggy Ann, and Grizel assured her that it was most polite. "I hardly expected it," said the plain-spoken dame, "for I'm thinking by their manner it's more than can ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... John Swinton, pressing forward, 'if my Lord of Douglas be plain-spoken, bethink you that it is no cause for casting aside this one hope of freedom that we have sought so long. If you have the heart to strike for Scotland, this is ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge |
