"Simplicity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... generally superseded wood; steel is being more and more used, especially on the North Western. There is less use of brasswork for domes and fittings, although it is claimed for brass that it looks brighter and can easily be kept clean. There is greater simplicity of design generally, and the universal substitution of coal as coke for fuel, with its consequent economy; and last, but not least, the adoption of standard types of engines, are among the changes which have taken place in locomotive practice ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... have seen her!' exclaimed my beautiful companion. 'Though so long dead, her simple story of household goodness and trustful simplicity still lingers in the hearts of all who have ever heard of her; and the country-people about here say that seeing that phantom-child on this anniversary brings good luck for the year. Let us hope that we shall share in the traditionary good fortune. Ah! here is Madame de Retz—she retains the name ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Shih-yin continued; "I have just heard the conversation that passed between you, on causes and effects, a conversation the like of which few mortals have forsooth listened to; but your younger brother is sluggish of intellect, and cannot lucidly fathom the import! Yet could this dulness and simplicity be graciously dispelled, your younger brother may, by listening minutely, with undefiled ear and careful attention, to a certain degree be aroused to a sense of understanding; and what is more, possibly find the means of escaping the anguish of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... younger brother of the celebrated John Wesley: he was born in 1708, and died in 1788. He was the author of many of the hymns in his brother's collection, which are distinguished for their elegance and simplicity. I am not able to find out, for certain, whether he had another name; if he had, it was probably the occasion of the initials ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various
... vehement protest against the Talmud as the regulator of life and thought. It proclaimed the creators of this vast encyclopedia to be usurpers of spiritual power, and urged a return to the Biblical laws in their unadulterated simplicity. The weakness of its positive principles hindered the spread of Karaism, keeping it forever within the narrow limits of a sect and consigning it to stagnation. What gave it vogue during the first century of its existence was its negative strength, its violent opposition to the Talmud, which aroused ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... perfect model of neatness and simplicity. A simple framework, of a rich dark coloured wood, is thrown up, and roofed over with rice straw. There is but one story, the requisite number of apartments being made by means of sliding wooden frames, covered with snow-white ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... CAVENDISH BENTINCK, Who, during seven years, ruled India with eminent Prudence, Integrity, and Benevolence: Who, placed at the head of a great Empire, never laid aside The simplicity and moderation of a private citizen: Who infused into Oriental despotism the spirit of British Freedom: Who never forgot that the end of Government is The happiness of the Governed: Who abolished cruel rites: Who effaced humiliating distinctions: Who gave liberty ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the "Vision" has been so frequently reproduced, as a specimen of the poet's style, that it is probably familiar to many readers, but its exquisite naturalness and simplicity tempt us ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... of spurious gospels have come down to us, which are full of stories, most of them absurd and some of them worse, about the infancy of Jesus Christ. Their puerilities bring out more distinctly the simplicity, the nobleness, the worthiness of this one solitary incident of His early days, which has been preserved for us. How has it been preserved? If you will look over the narratives there will be very little difficulty, I think, in answering that question. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of the extraordinary organising powers displayed in the insurrection, but in truth there was nothing extraordinary in it. The real essence and singularity of the rising exists in its simplicity, and, saving for the courage which carried it out, the word extraordinary is misplaced in ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... I have given with regard to the melon, will be found to explode all that difficulty which gardeners have usually imagined exists in the production of this choice fruit. The description given of my method of culture, will at once evince the simplicity of its process, and show the ...
— The art of promoting the growth of the cucumber and melon • Thomas Watkins
... my simplicity, that he was thus expressing a sublime pity for the ignorance which my demand implied, ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... residence with friends. The man conversant with Emancipation should every day do all his acts with pure water. Such a man should always perform his ablutions with water that has been fetched up (from the river or the tank).[140] Abstention from harm, Brahmacharyya, truth, simplicity, freedom from wrath, freedom from decrying others, self-restraint, and habitual freedom from backbiting: these eight vows, with senses restrained, he should steadily pursue. He should always practise a sinless mode of conduct, that is not deceptive and not crooked. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... have consulted my dressmaker, Madame le Rouge, and she suggests white bengaline, simply made and suitable to a young girl. Yours, my dear Florence, will be the simplest dress in the school, and yet far and away the most elegant, for what we have to aim at now is the extreme simplicity of graceful youth. Nothing costs more than simplicity, my dear girl, as you will discover presently. But more of that when we meet. One last word, dear Florence; of course, you will not fail. Were I to see you dishonored, I should never hold up my head again, and, as far as you ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... out a comfortable existence. Their cozy home while unmistakably plain and unadorned with the finer appointments indicative of opulence, nevertheless was not without charm and cheeriness. It was delightful in simplicity and ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... likely to be injured by the milk of a married woman who will desert her own child for the sake of gain. The misfortune which has happened to this young woman is not always a proof of a bad heart, but of strong attachment, and the overweening confidence of simplicity." ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... and snakes. It does not often fall to the lot of the white man to behold the wild people of the earth, engaged in their daily avocations, completely unconscious that the gaze of a superior class of beings is upon them. We have seen savages exhibited to us professedly in all the simplicity of the woods; but how can the children of nature retain their freedom of action and manners under the curious gaze of a civilized multitude? We may depend upon it that we gather nothing but erroneous ideas ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... "One method is simplicity itself: a hair noose is fastened to a lump of clay well worked together; a number of these appliances are scattered about the lucerne fields, which the quails are fond of frequenting; the bird caught in the noose is prevented from flying away owing to the weight of the lump of ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... captivating salons and congenial occupations, what had become of the apostle of popular music? He was not asleep; only digesting and preparing a system which should, by its simplicity and clearness, bring scientific music within the reach of the humblest as well as the highest classes of society. At last it was matured, and the working-classes were invited to come and test it—gratuitously of course. A few accepted the invitation; but their success and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... fine-spun abstractions of the Platonists and their kin, unchecked by a natural science which had not yet the appliances necessary for its growth; the orthodoxies of the various churches, so singularly differentiated in the course of development from the simplicity of their nominal founder—these were based upon assumptions for which the seeker after reasoned evidence could find no valid support. Ten years before he coined the word "Agnostic" to label his attitude towards the unproved, whether likely or unlikely, ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... Hartington and Dovedale. Hartington was a famous resort of fishermen and well known to Isaak Walton, the "Father of Fishermen," and author of that famous book The Compleat Angler or the Contemplative Man's Recreation, so full of such cheerful piety and contentment, such sweet freshness and simplicity, as to give the book a perennial charm. He was a great friend of Charles Cotton of Beresford Hall, who built a fine fishing-house near the famous Pike Pool on the River Dove, over the arched doorway of which he placed a cipher stone formed with the ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... perpetuity to us, don't you see?" She makes her points with a directness and simplicity that should disarm even the diplomatic suavity of Uncle Sam when he meets her in Washington. "Year after year the Cherokees waited for the Government to pay. And at last, three years ago, it came to us—$133.19 to each Indian, ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... gable-ends are quite entire, though portions of them are evidently modern restorations. Never was there a plainer little church, or one with smaller architectural pretension; no New England meeting-house has more simplicity in its very self, though poetry and fun have clambered and clustered so wildly over Kirk Alloway that it is difficult to see it as it actually exists. By-the-by, I do not understand why Satan and an assembly of witches should hold their revels ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of the true Indian. And yet Astumastao would not admit even to herself that she was deeply in love with Oowikapun. She had treasured the fond conceit in her heart that the one all-absorbing passion with her was that which she had freely revealed to him, and she in her simplicity had honestly believed that no other love could take its place, or even share ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... the ambition of traders and planters to send their sons to finish their studies. The rudiments of education only are taught in the primary schools, and it is surprising how quickly and well the little lads, both coloured and white, learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. But the simplicity of the Portuguese language, which is written as it is pronounced, or according to unvarying rules, and the use of the decimal system of accounts, make these acquirements much easier than they are with us. Students in the superior school have to pass an examination before they can be ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... mathematical point of view, it may be considered that the two hypotheses are equivalent; all has lengthened around us, or else our standard has become less. But it is no simple question of convenience and simplicity which leads us to reject the one supposition and to accept the other; it is right in this case to listen to the voice of common sense, and those physicists who have an instinctive trust in the notion of an absolute length are perhaps not wrong. It is only by choosing our unit from ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... of it, first digested the most material customs of this kingdom into writing, without having adopted anything from the Roman law, and only adding some regulations for the support and encouragement of the new religion. These laws still exist, and strongly mark the extreme simplicity of manners and poverty of conception of the legislators. They are written in the English of that time; and, indeed, all the laws of the Anglo-Saxons continued in that language down to the Norman Conquest. This was different from the method of the other Northern nations, who made use only of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... among the other set—the people who have no reserve—the marriage, when it comes, is customarily an affair of much less outward ceremony. They are married without blast of trumpet, with very little profit to the confectioner, and do their honeymoon, if they do it at all, with prosaic simplicity. ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... primordial forests. An unheard-of ferociousness, a brutal obstinacy, but also a regard for the sanctity of an oath; a complete ignoring of our laws, our customs, our dress, our modern coins, our language, but withal a patriarchal simplicity and virtues that are heroic,—unite in keeping the inhabitants of this region more impoverished as to all intellectual knowledge than the Redskins, but also as proud, as crafty, and as enduring as they. ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... presence, his influence, and his personal character to this very deserving Institution. As his private friends we ventured to urge upon him to do us this gracious act, and I beg to assure you that the perfect simplicity, modesty, cordiality, and frankness with which he assented, enhanced the gift one thousand fold. I think it must also be very agreeable to a company like this to know that the President of the night is not ceremoniously pretending, "positively for this night only," to have an interest in ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... writers, Mr. Stanley imagines that, with a sufficiency of matter, it is only necessary to refrain from striving after picturesque effects or ornate embellishments in order to attain the qualities of clearness and simplicity. Happily, the impulsiveness that betrays itself in his style seems to have been kept well under control in the management of his enterprise. It is always, indeed, apparent as a leading characteristic, but it breaks loose only ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... allies, an old Castilian, named Lopez, moved by my youth and simplicity, rescued me in the battle and led me to the town of St. Augustin, which his countrymen had recently built. My benefactor took me to his home, and he and his sister adopted me as their son, and tried to teach me their knowledge and religion. But after ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... child's and a shy smile curved her pink lips adorably as she spoke. Such mere simplicity would not in itself have cast a spell over Maxwell, but it came to him as a new, surprising phase of the eternal feminine in her; and it had the additional charm that it caused that subjugated feeling resembling fear, with which Mildred could inspire him, to disappear entirely. He was ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... might perhaps be enough to say that it was nursed in the same cradle with Eloquence, Philosophy, and Freedom, and that it was so favourite a child of their common parents, that they contended, each for an exclusive right to it. The credit of having first given simplicity, rational form, and consequent interest to theatrical representations has, by the universal concurrence of the learned, been awarded to Attica, whose genius and munificence erected to the drama that vast monument the temple of Bacchus, the ruins of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... is a woman in the world, endowed with such qualities that to say I passionately love her is a most impotent expression of what I feel: for to tenderness and ardour of affection must be added all that simplicity, purity, and grandeur of soul can inspire. To think of life without her is to think of a world sterile, desolate, and joyless: of a night to which day shall never succeed: and of existence arrested ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... write; and do presently call you to the exercise of that noblest, and manliest virtue; as coveting rather to be freed in my fame, by the authority of a judge, than the credit of an undertaker. Read, therefore, I pray you, and censure. There is not a line, or syllable in it, changed from the simplicity of the first copy. And, when you shall consider, through the certain hatred of some, how much a man's innocency may be endangered by an uncertain accusation; you will, I doubt not, so begin to hate the iniquity ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... the first of whom, in the reign of Saul, was author of annals, beginning at the earliest time which were distinguished by genealogical and chronological details as well as systematic minuteness, by archaic simplicity, and by legal prescriptions more theoretical than practical. The long genealogical registers with an artificial chronology and a statement of the years of men's lives, the dry narratives, the precise accounts of the gradual ...
— The Canon of the Bible • Samuel Davidson
... felt himself addressed, through the sermon being delivered in a room, and partly to the logical consistency, freedom from exaggeration, and profound air of conviction with which Mr Hawke had spoken. His simplicity and obvious earnestness had impressed them even before he had alluded to his special mission, but this clenched everything, and the words "Lord, is it I?" were upon the hearts of each as they walked pensively home ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... identical in principle with Versmann's, and in construction differs simply in the fact of the interior cone having spiral grooves instead of spiral knives. This gives greater simplicity and durability to the machine. It appears, however, to require too much power to work it, and can hardly equal other machines in the quantity of product it will deliver for a given expenditure. The ground peat yielded by it, must ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... of Mr. Tilley commenced relieved him of any embarrassment in regard to dispensing with military guards and sentries; but all pretentious accompaniments of authority were foreign to his nature, and he always showed, by the severe simplicity of his life, that he felt he was one of the people, and that it was his duty as well as his pleasure to permit all who had any occasion to see him to have free access to him, without the necessity of going through any ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... what I thought the extreme simplicity and real nobility of the man. 'Why,' said he, 'I had no thought of being nominated. I had bought me some new books, and was ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... of—of the milk of human kindness, is my father," he said, with a touch of simplicity which was one of the thousand and fifteen reasons ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... illuminated the long vista of the past, and cast a gloomy shadow into that of the future, alluding to a people driven from their haunts, never to find another resting-place on earth. That this young warrior so meant to express himself—not in an abject attempt to extort sympathy, but in the noble simplicity of a heart depressed by the fall of his race—Fuller could not doubt; and every generous feeling of his soul was enlisted in behalf of this ...
— The Lake Gun • James Fenimore Cooper
... of affairs, especially if he will abandon his order."[677] At Easter, 1529, Lutheran books were circulating in Henry's Court, advocating the (p. 238) confiscation of ecclesiastical property and the restoration of his Church to its primitive simplicity. Campeggio warned the King against them and maintained that it had been determined by councils and theologians that the Church justly held her temporalties. Henry retorted that according to the Lutherans "those decisions were ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... astonishment of Doctor Bianchon and the waggish journalist when they beheld, on the garden steps of Anzy, a lady dressed in thin black cashmere with a deep tucker, in effect like a riding-habit cut short, for they quite understood the pretentiousness of such extreme simplicity. Dinah also wore a black velvet cap, like that in the portrait of Raphael, and below it her hair fell in thick curls. This attire showed off a rather pretty figure, fine eyes, and handsome eyelids somewhat ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... betrayed into a greater injustice than in the case of Mr. Wordsworth—the touching sentiment, profound wisdom, and copious harmony of whose loftier writings we left unnoticed, in the desire of burlesquing them; while we pounced upon his popular ballads, and exerted ourselves to push their simplicity into puerility and silliness. With pride and pleasure do we now claim to be ranked among the most ardent admirers of this true poet; and if he himself could see the state of his works, which are ever at our right hand, he would, perhaps, receive the manifest evidences ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... elaborated; constructed with the proverbial art that conceals, but yet allows itself to be enjoyed by readers to whom fine literary method is a keen pleasure; true without cynicism, subtle without affectation, humorous without strain, witty without offence, inevitably sad, with an unmorose simplicity.'—The World. ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... by nature or education, in which this rebellion doth more evidently appear, reason in them contends with religion, and they will believe no more than they can give a reason for. There is a wisdom in some men, that despiseth the simplicity, or the inevidence(185) of the gospel, and accounts it foolishness, the carnal mind will needs start out from implicit trusting of God, when once it is possessed with some imagination of wisdom, therefore how many are the insurrections of men's spirits against God's absolute ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... to bear out his remark, though later in date, with its powdering of geometrical inlays and curiously-designed sprigs, which might almost have been produced by the latest art craze, which apes archaic simplicity. It belonged to the knightly poet Oswald von Wolkenstein, who died in 1445; the colours used are two browns, black, white, and green. The oriental inlays of ivory upon wood, elaborate and beautiful geometrical designs, are still produced in India in much the ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson
... the company of these gentlemen displayed in dress, bearing and manner alike, less emphasis and more intricacy. Some affected a classical simplicity of robing and subtlety of fold, after the fashion of the First French Empire, and flashed conquering arms and shoulders as Graham passed. Others had closely-fitting dresses without seam or belt at the waist, sometimes with long folds falling from the shoulders. The delightful ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... more general accord concerning the precise object of university training. In place of the confusion of views in regard to ideals and systems and methods which exist in the present-day college, we find in the university a calmness of conviction touching essentials that results from the comparative simplicity of its functions and aims. A conspicuous tendency in our universities is toward specialization; their spirit and methods are largely derived from the professional and graduate schools which give them their tone and prestige. They look ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... Landino refers this to the smallness of the city: Vellutello, with less probability, to the simplicity of the people in naming one of the gates after a ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... wore red-heeled shoes, carried muffs, and seemed only to live to make themselves talked about; and later on—in the days when he sympathised with the Republican movement in France—Fox affected great simplicity in dress, and at last became such a sloven that he did ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... still, the beautiful in the world and humankind, attract me. I would have seclusion rather than bustle and turmoil, the pen rather than the sword, the sweet whispers from a woman's lips and not the shouts of warriors. Thou dost not understand me, but I understand thee, and love thee for thy simplicity and directness. Thou art a better man than I, Frank, and the world will honour thee more than me. But let us quit this self-analysis. How art thou faring in thy mission to prevent ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... two chief reasons why Mr. Allen seems to me one of the first of our novelists to day. He is most exquisitely alive to the fine spirit of comedy. He has a prose style of wonderful beauty, conscientiousness and simplicity.... He has the inexorable conscience of the artist, he always gives us his best; and that best is a style of great purity and felicity and sweetness, a style without strain and yet with an enviable aptness for the sudden inevitable ...
— James Lane Allen: A Sketch of his Life and Work • Macmillan Company
... at one with God is to be at peace. The child simplicity is the greatest agency in bringing this full and complete realization, the child simplicity that recognizes its true relations with the Father's life. There are people I know who have come into such a conscious realization of their oneness ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... staring with child-like simplicity at the immaculate figure of the stranger in puttees. Pat turned to follow the gaze of his companion just as the plainsman drawled softly: "And you've brought us that." The Irishman's heavy jaw dropped. He gasped and gulped like an uncouth ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... — N. artlessness &c. adj; nature, simplicity; innocence &c. 946; bonhomie, naivete, abandon, candor, sincerity; singleness of purpose, singleness of heart; honesty &c. 939; plain speaking; epanchement[Fr]. rough diamond, matter of fact man; le palais de verite[Fr]; enfant terrible[Fr]. V. be artless &c. adj; look one in the face; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... present camp, a mounted stranger dropped in late one evening. The man was riding a good horse, but was quite alone; so also was Big Bill. The camp of the skin-hunter was then the same in appearance as when I saw him and his partner Bob Stewart—simplicity itself; a long spruce pole was lashed at either end to two spruce firs; against this, leaning at an angle of about 45 degrees, were sixty or seventy straight poles laid close together, and upon these were arranged ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... dignified shabbiness of the house. It was, for example, very different from the prettiness of the Edinburgh tea-room, and he thought it hinted of the character of the Borderers. For all that, the society of his companion had the greatest charm. Alice was plainly dressed, but simplicity became her. The girl had the Border spirit, with its reserves of strength and tenderness. Now she was quietly friendly, but Foster knew her friendship was not lightly ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... is diffuse and turgid, marked in an eminent degree with the prevailing faults of the sixth century, an age of literary decay, when the language of Cicero and Virgil was falling into its dotage. There is much ill-timed display of irrelevant learning, and a grievous absence of simplicity and directness, in the "Various Epistles". It must be regarded as a misfortune for Theodoric that his maxims of statesmanship, which were assuredly full of manly sense and vigour, should have reached us only in such ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... Bretons (1845) he found his inspiration in the folklore and legends of his native province, and in Telen-Aroor (1844) he used the Breton dialect. His Histoires poetiques (1855) was crowned by the French Academy. His work is small in bulk, but is characterized by simplicity and sincerity. Brizeux was an ardent student of the philology and archaeology of Brittany, and had collected materials for a dictionary of Breton place-names He died at Montpellier on the 3rd of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... at their nicety*, *simplicity And thought, "All this is done but for a wile. They weenen* that no man may them beguile, *think But by my thrift yet shall I blear their eye, For all the sleight in their philosophy. The more *quainte knackes* that they make, *odd little tricks* The more will I steal ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... refined society, and requiring leisure and polished manners for its growth.... He believed that in country people, what is permanent in human nature, the essential feelings and passions of mankind, exist in greater simplicity and ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... is no denying that. They cannot be controverted; nothing can overturn them, or modify them, or set them aside. There they stand in naked simplicity: mildly contemptuous alike ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... fresh-coloured old man, with very protruding eyes, attired in plain, old-fashioned, snuff-coloured clothes and brown stockings, his only ornament the blue ribbon of his Order of the Garter. He speaks in a German accent, but with ease, shrewdness, and simplicity, addressing those individuals whom he has a mind to notice, or passing on with a bow. He knew Mr. Lambert well, who had served under his Majesty at Dettingen, and with his royal son in Scotland, and he congratulated him good-humouredly on ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rejects all recompense. The price of money is so usurious that he thinks it ought to be extorted from none but those who aim at profitable speculations. To a necessitous delegate he gratuitously spares a supply out of his private stock." It is a pretty picture of the simplicity of the early days of the Republic. Between the average modern member and the money-broker, under such circumstances, there would lurk, probably, a contract for carrying the mails ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... with my ward-companion a tin of salmon which I bought from a Jew along the line. But, strange to say, after a few days of this regime, which in its chronological sequence of meals and its strange simplicity recalled the memories of early childhood, my internal economy seemed to have adapted itself to the changed environment, and after five o'clock with its tea and bread I no longer wished for more food. Exactly the ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... she talked with her hands. Yet, in her mouth, English was a new and beautiful language, softly limpid, with an audacity of phrase and tellingness of expression that conveyed subtleties and nuances as unambiguous and direct as they were unexpected from one of such childlikeness and simplicity. He woke up of nights and on his darkened eyelids saw bright memory-pictures of the backward turn of ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... born and die with us. My faults, alas! have been many and great. In my youth I knew but one virtue: to love my friend; and that was strong within me. How fortunate for us it would be if we could begin our life in wisdom and end it in simplicity, instead of the ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... working. Also the obtaining of a working impulse in the cylinder for each revolution of the crankshaft should give a great advantage in regularity of rotation—which it undoubtedly does—and the elimination of the operating gear for the valves, inlet and exhaust, should give greater simplicity ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... a cavalier and a worldly person. They heard—though there was no truth in the report—that he had set up a military company in Pennsylvania. They saw with their own eyes that he lived in a style which must have seemed to them altogether inconsistent with simplicity, and that he consorted with courtiers. And they did not like it,—they said ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... marvel of ease. Louisa had incontestably blenched, for the bizarre Sarah, who conserved in Brighton the inmost spirit of the Five Towns, had thought fit to tell the servants nothing whatever. But the trained veteran in Louisa had instantly recovered, and she had replied "Yes, sir," with a simplicity which proved her to be the equal of George Cannon.... The worst was over for Hilda. And the next moments were made smooth by reason of a great piece of news which, forcing Sarah Gailey to communicate it at once, monopolized attention, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... be true. It has this merit in common with the opposite theory of no inspiration. Both are simple, precise, and very easy of application. But simplicity is not always a sign of truth. The facts of nature and life are more apt to be complex than simple. Theories distinguished by their simplicity most commonly ignore or omit a part of the facts. Simplistic theories are generally one-sided and partial. Materialism, Atheism, ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... love of brevity and simplicity, call these proud seats the Dukeries, but our affair was not with them, and I shall not be able to follow the footmen or butlers or housekeepers who would so obligingly show them to the reader in my company. I had a fine consciousness of ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... deal of curious and interesting intelligence; and however Scioppius (De Orig. Domus Austriac.), Brower (Vit. Fortunat. Pictav., p. 18.), and Possevinus (Apparant sacr. p. 945), may carp at his simplicity and want of judgment, yet, as Baillet (from whom I have borrowed the foregoing authorities) has justly remarked—"since the time of Trithemius there have been many libraries, particularly in Germany, which have been pillaged or burnt in the destruction of monasteries; so that the books which ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... peace," Joanna put in addressing her husband; and before Rufinus could retort, Paula had asked him with frank simplicity: ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Mrs. Hayden's letters are not exhaustive, they are valuable for their very simplicity, and are thoroughly practical, complete instructions for the beginning and continuance of the study ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... incomprehensible intensity of this alarm? For those young men were the bravest, purest, and most talented of the band both in dress and habits: they were distinguished by a magnanimous recklessness and a noble simplicity. A divine command bound them together to seek harder and more pious superiority: what could be feared from them? To what extent this fear was merely deceptive or simulated or really true is something that will probably ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... and custom was in the bare arms and the two hands crossed on the chest and throat, with fingers spread in vain attempt to cover the whole; and in the plaintive simplicity of the voice ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... part of his profession.) The other saddle was the kind most favored on the northern range. Short, round skirts, open stirrups, narrow and rimmed with iron. Stamped with a two-inch border of wild rose design, it pleased Luck by its very simplicity. The rope was a good "grass" rope worn smooth and hard with ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... to the renowned personage of whom we are speaking. There was great simplicity about him, and much loyalty and veneration. The truly great are apt to believe in the greatness of others, and so to be loyal in their relations here; while, for what is beyond here, a large measure of veneration belongs to them, as having a finer and more habitually present ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... Rooney Machowl, with great simplicity of aspect, "he does it by drawin' in an' puffin' out the air ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... little country girls like you were all sweetness, and freshness, and simplicity," says Luttrell, with sudden vehemence. "What lies one hears in one's lifetime! Why, you might give lessons in coquetry and cruelty to ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... to make it my aim in life to see you drink at that pool." His directness and simplicity stimulated her like some mediaeval elixir. He made her forget her pain. They did not talk much until they were seated on one of the benches near ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... statuesque beauty of her appearance and the classic grace of all her movements and attitudes, as the Greek statue suddenly endowed with life, have received general recognition; but not less remarkable were the simplicity, the tenderness, and, on due occasion, the passionate impulse of her acting, though the impersonation is no doubt in the chastened classical vein. It is difficult to imagine how a realization of Mr. Gilbert's conception ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... unavoidable to Europeans. They are therefore enabled at once to undersell the European retail merchants, and to secure a handsome profit to themselves; a consummation the more easily attained, aided as it is by the extreme simplicity and abstemiousness of their mode of living, which contrast so favorably for them with the expensive and almost necessary luxuries of European life. Many of this grade possess huge canoes, with which ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... mixers than for machine mixers, and the power required to raise the concrete materials the excess height may easily be greater than the power required to operate a machine mixer. On the other hand the simplicity of the gravity mixer ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... outlet in brow and eyes; in every curve by which the face conforms itself to that which genuinely animates it, that hers was now a countenance truly radiant of life, hope, purpose. The small, thin, clear cut nose,—the lip corners dropped with untutored simplicity into a rest and decision that were better than sparkle and smile,—the coolness, the strength, that lay in the very tint and tone of her complexion,—these were all details of character that had asserted ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... that it was in Emile's power to fulfil all his wishes in a few hours. The simplicity of his life was worthy of one of Plutarch's men. In the evening he looked over his cases; next morning he worked among his flowers; and all day long he gave decisions on the bench. The pretty maid-servant, now of ripe age, and wrinkled like ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... and magnificence, but the work is now being better laid out and the course of the proceeding is on more modern lines. Changes in practice acts will revolutionize trials. People smile at the dignity of their courts and judges. The modern spirit is for greater frankness, simplicity, and directness. ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... Pelisson, I have paid it," said the surintendant, with a simplicity that went to the ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in the island of Bohol, I shall avail myself of two letters from Fathers Alonso de Umanes and Gabriel Sanchez, who were in that region; for in my opinion their account is given minutely and with pleasing and enjoyable simplicity. Both of them, writing to the father-visitor, give him a detailed account of their labors, as is the custom in our Society. The superior, Father Alonso de Umanes, writes as follows: "As soon as we had returned from Sebu in last year, ninety-nine, as it was the season of Lent we busied ourselves ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... to the subsequent age of decadence. Manilius indeed composed a considerable portion of his work during the lifetime of Augustus, while Phaedrus, though somewhat later in date, showed a sobriety of thought and an antique simplicity of style that place him at least a generation away from his contemporaries. The authorities to whose works I am indebted are duly acknowledged in the course of the work. I owe a special debt, however, ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... chant, throbbing as if it were made of musical flame, until it cast a bright illumination through the whole apartment, revealing its simplicity and splendour. ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke
... and navies, and the Kaiser's crime consists mainly in turning back the movement of the world which through the Hague Conferences was approaching brotherhood, or at least a mitigation of the horrors of war. His blasphemies are no less archaic. He repeats Oliver Cromwell, but with less simplicity, while his artistic aspiration complicates the Puritan with the Cavalier. "From childhood," he is quoted as saying, "I have been under the influence of five men—Alexander, Julius Caesar, Theodoric II, Frederick the Great, and ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... father was a pioneer. Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia" reveal clearly his conception that democracy should have an agricultural basis, and that manufacturing development and city life were dangerous to the purity of the body politic. Simplicity and economy in government, the right of revolution, the freedom of the individual, the belief that those who win the vacant lands are entitled to shape their own government in their own way,—these are all parts ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... Chukches with mistrust. An old man who came, as it were by chance, from the interior of the country past the place where we worked, remained there a while, regarding our labours with apparent indifference, until he convinced himself that from simplicity, or some other reason unintelligible to him, we avoided touching the blubber-stores, but instead rooted up in search of old ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... mise en scenebefore which play the actors that attract our attention and applause. The set may be as modernly elaborate as Peacock Alley of the Waldorf or the templed lobby of the St. Francis; or it may present the severe and Elizabethan simplicity of the stone-paved veranda of the Norfolk at Nairobi—the matter is quite inessential to the spectator. His appreciation is only slightly and indirectly influenced by these things. Sunk in his arm-chair—of velvet or of canvas—he puffs hard and silently at his ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... this proved still unsatisfactory, the whole story has been written afresh. The few English fairy tales extant, such as Jack the Giant Killer, Tom Thumb, etc., whose authorship is lost in obscurity, but whose charming Saxon simplicity of style, and intense realism of narration, make for them an ever-green immortality—these have been left intact, for no later touch would improve them. All modern stories have ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... elsewhere, Mr. Raleigh saw his acquaintance with the pale young stranger fast ripening into friendliness. It was an agreeable variation from the monotonous routine of his voyage, and he felt that it was not unpleasant to her. Indeed, with that childlike simplicity that was her first characteristic, she never saw him without seeking him, and every morning and every evening it became their habit to pace the deck together. Sunrise and twilight began to be the hours with which he associated her; and it was strange, that, coming, as she did, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... But it is not merely a charming piece of fiction. Ethical in its nature, the underlying thought shows throughout the lofty purpose and high ideals of the author, and exhales a wholesome atmosphere, while the element of romance pervading it is both elevated and enriched by its purity and simplicity. ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... and misplaced passion. He was indeed utterly incapable of availing himself of the opportunities afforded by his situation, to involve his pupil in the toils of a mutual passion. Honour and gratitude alike forbade such a line of conduct, even had it been consistent with the natural bashfulness, simplicity, and innocence of his disposition. To sigh and suffer in secret, to form resolutions of separating himself from a situation so fraught with danger, and to postpone from day to day the accomplishment of a resolution so prudent, was all to which the tutor found himself equal; and it ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... as the ballad of "Jogadhya Uma." The poetess seems in these verses to be chanting to herself those songs of her mother's race to which she always turned with tears of pleasure. They breathe a Vedic solemnity and simplicity of temper, and are singularly devoid of that littleness and frivolity which seem, if we may judge by a slight experience, to be ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... gowns looked prim and plain to the Tideshead girls, who thought their colors very strange, to begin with, and had not the sense to be envious when their wearer went by, as light-footed and graceful as they were awkward. They could not understand the simplicity that was natural to Betty, but everybody liked her, and felt as much interested as if she were an altogether new variety of human being. Perhaps we shall understand the situation better if we read a letter which our heroine wrote ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... engagement, covering him with petals of flattery and good wishes. Mr. Prohack could scarcely recognise his wife, and he was not sure that he liked her new worldiness quite as much as her old ingenuous and sometimes inarticulate simplicity. At any rate she was a changed woman. He steadied himself, however, by a pertinent reflection: she was ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... been able to guess just how well the handsome young spy did understand, and how much she had hoped to learn through appealing to his interest in her, he would have been furious at the thought of his own great simplicity. ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... thought can be valuable of which good sense is not the groundwork. Boileau has endeavoured to inculcate the same notion in several parts of his writings, both in prose and verse. This is that natural way of writing, that beautiful simplicity which we so much admire in the compositions of the ancients, and which nobody deviates from but those who want strength of genius to make a thought shine in its own natural beauties. Poets who want this strength of genius to give that majestic simplicity ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... "Cornelia," replied Santisteban. Down stairs at once went the page who had discovered the hidden woman, and who was not much of a friend to Santisteban, and entered the room where sat the duke, Don Juan, and Lorenzo, and, either from simplicity or malice, began to talk to himself, saying, "Well caught, brother page! by Heaven they have made you give up your Lady Cornelia! She was well hidden, to be sure; and no doubt my gentleman would have liked to see the masters remain ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... watchfulness against every attempt that may be used, either violently and suddenly, or gently and imperceptibly, to effect a revolution in the spirit and genius of our government; and should there be among us characters to whom the simplicity of it is offensive, let our attention and perseverance be such as to preclude ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... praised the Italian women for the simplicity of their church-attire: their black dresses and lace veils make a picturesque contrast with the gorgeous ceremonials of the high altar. But there was something in this quiet toilet, so fresh and simple and girl-like, that struck me as the one touch of grace that the American ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... latest of these attractive issues is one from Tonga, which includes a picture of a wonderful work of the pre-historic inhabitants of those islands, a tri-lithon, believed to have been erected as a burial place and monument of a chieftain. In its arrangement and massive simplicity it is suggestive of the Druidic ruins of ...
— What Philately Teaches • John N. Luff
... world to make their mark, and often their fortunes, too, yet still retain the charm of their up-bringing, the traditions of their families, and their intense love of "the home back yonder." Whose daughters, though brought up, "raised," they often say, in the simplicity of country life, and more often than not having very limited financial resources, are in the truest sense of that beautiful old word, the gentlewomen we picture, prepared to grace their homes, or the outer world and reflect credit upon the land of their ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... the result of a sudden gust of passion caused by his victim's acrimonious pursuit of his debtor. But there are circumstances in the case which tell powerfully against such a view. The character of the murderer seems curiously contradictory; both cunning and simplicity mark his proceedings; he makes a determined attempt to escape from the horrors of his situation and shows at the same time a curious insensibility to its real gravity. Webster was a man of refined tastes and seemingly gentle ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... originates the first of the vital functions which becomes established in the simplest organism, i.e., nutrition. The environing containable fluids are, then, for the living body of very great simplicity, a veritable chyle entirely prepared ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... it to work in the mills of society. Let it be said of this woman, that, without wealth of talent or any exact culture, she possessed the sweetest accompaniments of the highest masculine genius,—enthusiasm and simplicity. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... my Jew. Yes, in that odd figure, so strangely seated on the pavement, I had chanced on the very features, the haunting sadness and mystery of which I had been so long in quest. I wondered at the simplicity with which he was able to maintain a pose so essentially undignified. I told myself I beheld the East squatted broodingly as on a divan, while the West paraded with parasol and Prayer-Book. I wondered that the beadles were unobservant of him. Were they content with his abstention from the holy ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... exhibited nevertheless the cut of a fashionable tailor. He seemed about fifty; his face, which was very broad, was of a deep bronze colour; the features were rugged, but exceedingly manly, and, notwithstanding they were those of a Jew, exhibited no marks of cunning, but, on the contrary, much simplicity and good nature. His form was about the middle height, and tremendously athletic, the arms and back were literally those of a Hercules squeezed into a modern surtout; the lower part of his face was covered with a bushy beard, which depended half ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... had its perfect work, history cannot afford to lose this portion of its record. There is no parallel instance of an oppressed race thus sustained by the religious sentiment alone. These songs are but the vocal expression of the simplicity of their faith and the sublimity ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... had told me that in the Prince I should meet one of the noblest of men, who would fully understand me. After a most arduous drive of many hours, I reached his modest dwelling, and was received with patriarchal simplicity at his family mid-day dinner, but I found it exceedingly difficult to convey to him any particulars as to myself and my plans. With regard to any impressions I might be expected to gather respecting himself, he seemed to rely on the effect produced by the contemplation of a large instrument ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... nearer and nearer; every day was a pain past and a nearer joy. Welcome to the nipping frost and the northern winds; welcome the hail, the rain, the sleet—it brought him nearer. How she prayed for him with the loving simplicity of a child. If Heaven would but spare him, would save him from all dangers, would send him sunny skies and favorable winds, would work miracles in his behalf, would avert all accident by rail and ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... duck of a frock for dinner—one of the sweetest, chastened simplicity, in black, showing peeps of skin through the thin part at the top. Nothing could be more demure or becoming, and my hair would not behave, and stuck out in rebellious waves ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... man's head without brains, and his bosom without a heart, these are important articles to supply. Young as you are, Anhalt, I know no one so able to restore, or to bestow those blessings on his fellow-creatures, as you. [Anhalt bows.] The Count wants a little of my daughter's simplicity and sensibility.—Take him under your care while he is here, and make him something like yourself.—You have succeeded to my wish in the education of my daughter.—Form the Count after your own manner.—I shall then have what I have sighed ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald
... the literature of such times? Popular poetry preserved some of its indestructible charms. The Meistersaenger went on composing according to the rules of their guilds, but we look in vain for the raciness and honest simplicity of Hans Sachs. Some of the professors wrote plays in the style of Terence, or after English models, and fables became fashionable in the style of Phaedrus. But there was no trace anywhere of originality, truth, taste, or feeling, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... "The Marechal de Richelieu understood something of gallantry, and he settled an allowance of a thousand louis d'or on Mme. de la Popeliniere after that affair of the hiding-place behind the hearth. Agnes Sorel, in all simplicity, took her fortune to Charles VII., and the King accepted it. Jacques Coeur kept the crown for France; he was allowed to do it, and ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... this apparent simplicity disappears. Commercial printing is never done quickly or cheaply by amateur methods. The printing-house that undertakes to print miscellaneous books for publishers must be provided with tons of type ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... connections of the telegraph are shown in Figure 217. If the key K is pressed down by an operator in Philadelphia, the current from the battery (only one cell is shown for simplicity) flows through the line to New York, passes through the electromagnet M, and thence back to Philadelphia. As long as the key K is pressed down, the coil M acts as a magnet and attracts and holds fast the armature A; but as soon ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... high and wide, with many lofty windows whose closed blinds let through soft green-lit air; a beautiful room, in proportion, in color, in smooth simplicity; a scent ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... existence, like bubbles, and in another sense it had been very much the reverse. She might, so far as one side of her character was concerned, have been born and brought up in East Westland, as her mother had been before her. She had a perfect village simplicity and wonder at life, as to a part of her innermost self, which was only veneered by her contact with the world. In part she was entirely different from all the girls in the place, and the difference was really in the grain. That had come ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Pope's verbiage. Dignity of a kind is gained at the cost of energy. If such changes admit of some apology as an attempt to preserve what is undoubtedly a Homeric characteristic, we must admit that the "dignity" is often false; it rests upon mere mouthing instead of simplicity and directness, and suggests that Pope might have approved the famous emendation "he died in indigent circumstances," for "he died poor." The same weakness is perhaps more annoying when it leads to sins of commission. Pope never scruples to amend Homer by little epigrammatic ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... held. In traveling through the surrounding country you will see many rough log houses, with only one room and often without windows, two doors opposite each other, one door always kept open winter and summer. A huge fire-place is in one end of the room. If you would have a view of humanity in its simplicity, visit one of these mountain homes. You will find everything of the most primitive kind. The hum of the spinning-wheel and the heavy thud of the loom will greet your ears. In one room you will very often ...
— American Missionary, Volume 50, No. 8, August, 1896 • Various
... angel can discern Hypocrisy—the only evil that walks Invisible, except to God alone, By His permissive will, through heaven and earth, And oft, though Wisdom wake, Suspicion sleeps At Wisdom's gate, and to Simplicity Resigns her charge, while Goodness thinks no ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift |
