"Plain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... took the goddess in his arms, and set her as she sobbed upon his knee, and rose from the peak of Kailas, and shot like a falling star down into the plain below. And coming to Haradwara, where Ganga issues from the hills, he began to follow the holy stream down its course, gliding along just above it like a cloud that was unable to refrain from watching its own beautiful reflection in the blue mirror of her wave. And so they went, until ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... me to speak plain," he said, with evident effort, "though it's hard work. You see, sir, this isn't a trifle to me, whatever it may be to you. I'm none o' them men as can go making love first to one woman and then t' another, and don't think it much odds which of 'em I take. What I feel for ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... a funeral procession; I saw it from a mountain peak; I saw it crawling along and curving here and there, serpentlike, through a level vast plain. I seemed to see a hundred miles of the procession, but neither the beginning of it nor the end of it was within the limits of my vision. The procession was in ten divisions, each division marked by a sombre flag, and the whole represented ten years ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... The case is plain; the issue is distinct; You either answer now or out you trot (And kindly make that answer quite succinct): Have all the dumps been sold, or have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920 • Various
... Russia, and have to make his living at the expense of all this sort of tom-foolery? Who would abide even for a day in a bazar of curiosity-shops, bothered out of his wits by servants and soldiers, and the flare and glitter of jewelry? It certainly all looked very shallow and troublesome to a plain man, destitute by nature of kingly aspirations. To confess the truth, I was utterly unable to appreciate any thing but the absurdity of these things. I can not discover much difference, save in degree, between barbaric show on the part of savages ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... had joined the battalion there was much rearranging of disjointed commands, squads continually coming in from detail duty, so that it was plain that between us we had pretty well investigated the whole landscape. David and Reardon were missing still, even after we had rested for some time. We started south again, and it was not till after another march that the lost men rejoined us, David triumphant, but Reardon very hot and weary. ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... account for the gratification of their hatred. He has, apparently, none of that vanity which led Napoleon I. to be pleased with having his antechamber full of kings whose hearts were brimful of hatred of their lord and master. If he were to have an Erfurt Congress, it would be as plain and unostentatious an affair as that of his uncle was superficially grand and striking. He seems perpetually to have before his mind's eye what the Greeks called the envy of the gods, the divine Nemesis, to which he daily makes sacrifice. He is the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... as the scene of the labours of the venerated Fletcher, so much so, that admirers of his life and writings come long distances to visit his tomb, a plain brick structure, with a simple inscription upon an ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... a gentleman, coming up to him. The colonel was not himself, that was plain. His eyes looked dreamy, and he had the appearance of a man who was under the influence of some strong and very pleasurable excitement. When the friend saluted him he did not reply with marked courtesy. He did not even ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... hands, which seem to come from behind the winged disk, the right open and exhibiting the palm, the left closed and holding a bow. [PLATE CXLI., Fig. 2.] In a large number of cases all sign of a person is dispensed with, the winged circle appearing alone, with the disk either plain or ornamented. On the other hand, there are one or two instances where the emblem exhibits three human heads instead of one—the central figure having on either side of it, a head, which seems to rest upon the feathers of the wing. [PLATE ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... above an hour: King turned directly upon business; wishes to have 'Categorical Answers' as to Three Points already submitted to his Britannic Majesty's consideration. Clear footing indispensable between us. What you want of me? say it, and be plain. What I want of you is, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... flashing eyes on the philosopher, who felt that this glance penetrated into the innermost depths of his heart. [The writer heard the account of this meeting with the Emperor Napoleon from the celebrated philosopher himself in 1829. He described in plain, yet soul-stirring words, the profound, overwhelming impression which the appearance of the great emperor had made upon him, and called this meeting with Napoleon one of the most momentous events of his life. The writer, then a young girl, listened at the side of her ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... one who gives and another who accepts. From the first day of our ill-omened attachment, I was conscious that Agnes's passion was a stronger, a more dominant, and—if I may use the expression—a purer sentiment than mine. Whether she recognized the fact then, I do not know. Afterward it was bitterly plain to both ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... species of the rhinoceros there are large glands in the foot. These animals live among grass and herbage which they brush against as they walk, and thus "blaze" a plain trail for the mate or young to follow. There are few if any animals which care to face a rhinoceros, so the scent is incidentally useful to ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... come—the swift twilight of the East. Before he had reached the dak-bungalow the twilight had changed to the splendour of an Indian night. The bungalow was empty of visitors. Thresk's bearer lit a fire and prepared dinner while Thresk wandered outside the door and smoked. He looked across a plain to a long high ridge, where once a city had struggled. Its deserted towers and crumbling walls still crowned the height and made a habitation for beasts and birds. But they were quite hidden now and the sharp line of the ridge was softened. Halfway between the old ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... touching distance of it. All those notes she had collected so painstakingly were cold, inanimate. In order to write of folks she must touch them, feel them, must know they lived and breathed as she did. Why couldn't she get at them,—folks, plain folks, and so was she. A slow fury rose up in her, and she watched the great events Of the afternoon with resentful eyes. Even when a man not entered for racing, swung over the railing into the center field, and scrambled upon the bare back of King Devil, the wild horse of the plains which ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... and when they arrived they told the merchant to go to the Raja and ask him to collect all the citizens on a certain day to hear the reason why the fishes laughed. The merchant went to the Raja and the Raja gave him a letter fixing the day and all the citizens were assembled in an open plain; and the princess dressed herself as a man and went to the assembly and stood ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... that, after having so long anticapated that party, I am now here in sackcloth and ashes, which is a figure of speech for the Peter Thompson uniform of the school, with plain white for ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... trees, and behind it is the richest dell, out of which rises Laurel Hill, which in its season is one of perfect bloom. Rustic seats are at hand all about, and the prettiest winding .paths, and glimpses of the Housatonic River gem the plain. It has not the wide scope and proud effect of our picture, but it is the dearest, sweetest, lovingest retreat one can imagine. Mr. O'Sullivan took me to see Mrs. Harry Sedgwick, in the evening; a noble ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... who thus accosted them was dressed in a plain leathern cap and doublet, with a pair of stout hose that would not have disgraced a burgher of the first magnitude; his short and frizzled beard was curiously twirled and pointed, we may suppose after the fashion of those regions; and his manner and appearance was that of some confidential menial ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... presented to Jane as a parting gift, when she quitted the situation in their family which she had filled with so much credit to herself and satisfaction to them. The little parlour was fitted up with plain new furniture, which had been purchased with the remains of the funds which the friends of the young people had raised for their education, on the death of their father. One year's schooling for Alfred was all that remained ...
— Principle and Practice - The Orphan Family • Harriet Martineau
... want, and uninterrupted by the fears of indigence — He was very moderate in his estimate of the necessaries, and even of the comforts of life — He required nothing but wholesome air, pure water, agreeable exercise, plain diet, convenient lodging, and decent apparel. He reflected, that if a peasant without education, or any great share of natural sagacity, could maintain a large family, and even become opulent upon a farm, for which he payed an annual rent ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... novus homo, this Mr. Gilbert Glossin, late writer in—, presuming to set up such an accommodation at all; but his wrath was mitigated when he observed that the mantle upon the panels only bore a plain cypher of G. G. This apparent modesty was indeed solely owing to the delay of Mr. Cumming of the Lyon Office, who, being at that time engaged in discovering and matriculating the arms of two commissaries from North America, three ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... Tankerville, Sir J. Warrender, and some others being in black full dress. Lord Camden and some more in uniform, which several sent for after they arrived, as Salisbury and Hardinge. The mass, however, in plain black, some in colours. The Royal Dukes came ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... to learn the self-denying virtues of the clerical character is plain from his own confession; that his conduct had always defied the reproach of immorality was confidently asserted by his friends, and is equivalently acknowledged by the silence of his enemies. The ostentatious parade and worldly pursuits of the chancellor were instantly renounced ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... Tindal attempts to answer in his 'Christianity as old as the Creation.' The answer is a plain one, and the arguments by which he supports it are repeated with an almost wearisome iteration. 'The religion of nature,' he writes, 'is absolutely perfect; Revelation can neither add to nor take from its perfection.' 'The law of nature has the highest internal excellence, the greatest ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... WRITING. The first English Arithmetic, published about 1540 to 1542, has been entirely lost, and was probably read by few. The first to attain any popularity was Cocker's Arithmetic (1677), this "Being a Plain and Familiar Method suitable to the meanest Capacity, for the understanding of that incomparable. Art." A still more popular book was Arithmetick: or that Necessary Art Made Most Easie, by J. Hodder, ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... he, "to open the Scriptures to persons in their low state of ignorance, who could not fail, as St. Paul says, to wrest them to their own destruction. The word of God should be wrapped in discreet mystery from the vulgar, who feel little reverence for what is plain and obvious. It was for this reason, that our Saviour himself clothed his doctrines in parables, when he addressed the people. The Scriptures should be confined to the three ancient languages, which God with mystic import permitted to be inscribed ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... of his lordship in Bristol betokened a social atmosphere charged with electricity—a phase of the problem that constituted the only clear item in Dale's seething brain: it was too much for him; in sudden desperation he determined to stick to the plain truth. ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... St. Clair Simpkins preferred to have his letters addressed "E. St. Clair-Simpkins, Esq.," as if his second Christian name were part of his surname. He belonged by birth to the haute aristocratie, and believed that the use of a hyphen made this fact plain to the members of the middle classes with whom he came in contact. He was a man of thirty-five years of age, but looked slightly older, because his hair was receding rapidly from the left side of his ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... sort of granite which formed the lowermost stratum at Konyam Bay. It was principally at the foot of these slopes that the natives erected their dwellings. South-west of the anchorage commenced a very extensive plain, which towards the interior of the island was marshy, but along the coast formed a firm, even, grassy meadow exceedingly rich in flowers. It was gay with the large sunflower-like Arnica Pseudo-Arnica, and another species of Senecio (Senecio frigidus); the Oxytropis nigrescens, ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... for the liberty to come into the world, of being married, of having children and likewise of leaving the world. * * * Send here the frugal and industrious; no half Gentlemen with long pedigrees from Nimrod and Cain, nor any who expect to make their fortunes by any other methods than the plain beaten paths of honest industry, for idle indolent people, unwilling to work, ought not to eat but to live ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... her person, like a phoenix, dignified like a dragon soaring high. What is her chastity like? Like a white plum in spring with snow nestling in its broken skin; Her purity? Like autumn orchids bedecked with dewdrops. Her modesty? Like a fir-tree growing in a barren plain; Her comeliness? Like russet clouds reflected in a limpid pool. Her gracefulness? Like a dragon in motion wriggling in a stream; Her refinement? Like the rays of the moon shooting on to a cool river. Sure is she to put Hsi Tzu to shame! Bound to put Wang Ch'iang to the blush! What a remarkable ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... It's something to make your ordinary mortal marvel at. Why, to do any one of the many things we do, we have to practise asceticism and chastity, and patiently peg away day after day at hard, dangerous work. Your plain business man, who never omits his glass of beer, has no idea what it is like." He continued to sing the ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... which occupied very short time and was always of a plain and frugal description, he disposed of his correspondence, or prepared sketches of drawings, and gave instructions as to their completion. He would occasionally refresh himself for this evening work by a short doze, which, however, he would never admit had ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... writer with a proof" that I still continue of opinion that "the best of the argument is in my jokes, and the best of the joke is in his arguments." I will not so favor him. At the very outset I told him in plain English that he has the whiphand of all the reasoners in the world, and in plain French that il a perdu le droit d'etre frappe de l'evidence[385]; I might have said pendu.[386] To which I now ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... the funeral procession started, the plain coffin, containing the remains, being carried by the stalwart arms of a delegation of colored men, and the family and friends of the deceased following in carriages with a large procession on foot, while ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... on my way To join the white men in a foreign land, And from the dawn bring on the bright noon-day. Noon-day of Peace! O, glorious jubilee, When all mankind are one, from sea to sea. Farewell, my native land, rock, hill, and plain! River and lake, and forest-home, adieu! Months shall depart ere I shall tread again Amid your scenes, and be once more with you. I leave thee now; but wheresoe'er I go, Whatever scenes of grandeur meet my eyes, My heart ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... RANDLE and ROOPE.] Well, gentlemen, in the first place, it's plain that Titterton was too fly to risk being easily ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... aroused companions, who cursed and growled, were persistent with their argument. "Well, he wants t' scrap!" The whole affair was as plain as daylight when one saw this great fact. The interference and intolerable discussion brought the three of ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... thus she fared, from Ravenswood Came Injuns o'er the plain, And seized upon that beauteous maid And rent ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... darkness; in his despair he kneels and commits his soul to God, when he suddenly beholds the North Star breaking through the clouds, enabling him to guide his ship to the shores of safety. Many things were made plain to me. I saw that there is one Fatherhood of God and one brotherhood of man; that though "once I was blind, now I see;" that there was no more pain, nor aches, no fear, nor indigestion. I slept that night like a babe and awoke next morning ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... "Let us be plain with each other. Speak out, Buckingham. What, in one word, was to have been the regale ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... and left them to get out of it as best they could ... it was Madame Jeannin's own business if she chose to forgive him, if she were a saint, but for his part, he, the senator, not being a saint—(s, a, i, n, t),—but, he flattered himself, just a plain man—(s, a, i, n),—a plain, sensible, reasonable human being,—he could find no reason for forgiveness: a man who, in such circumstances, could kill himself, was a wretch. The only extenuating circumstance he could find ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... deign to dare such deeds As holiest Ireland hallows? Nay, But justice then makes plain our way: Be laws burnt up like burning weeds That ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Soon the mist lifted or was dispersed by the bright sun, and disclosed a squad of combatants posted behind one or two small houses, a clump of hay stacks, and along the brink of the river on the other side. Apparently, from the mixture of uniforms and plain clothes, which could be discovered by the glass, this force was composed of militia and some regular troops. Several shots were fired from the gun while we were getting our pieces in readiness to reply—but as soon as Lawrence opened upon them with his Parrots, ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... low-roofed, with small, peaked windows, had not been built in modern times. The furniture was almost in keeping: roomy settees, broad, plain, ribbed-back chairs, with faded worked covers, the task of fingers crumbled into dust, heavy bookcases loaded with proportionably ponderous or curiously quaint volumes, and mirrors, with their frames like coffins covered with black velvet ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... to countermine them!' said Schweinitz, and immediately left the gallery to give the necessary orders. Then began a severe subterranean battle. Both sides made desperate exertions in the attempt to get the upper hand, and for very plain reasons the Freibergers did their utmost to steal a march on the enemy. Although the ground was frozen so hard that it had first to be thawed by the use of fire, two hours had not passed away before the untiring energy of the miners had driven a heading of tolerable ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... possible that such a strategy had been used? He began an examination, two of his warriors helping him. There were the footprints of the delicate moccasins in plain sight, showing where he had leaped clear from the ground, but not the faintest impression was visible either to the right or left of the spot. Inasmuch as the fugitive could not have fled in either direction without leaving a trail, and the closest search ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... is gratified mainly by means of the cockpit. One of the most familiar sights of the islands is the native man with a game cock or just a plain rooster under his arm. They pet and fondle these birds as we do cats or lap-dogs, and on Sundays (alas!) they gather at the cockpits to match their favorites against each other. Many barrios have large covered pits seating hundreds of people. The pit of ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... white shirt waist and an equally plain black cloth skirt, Miss Hazel Weir, on week days, was merely a unit in the office force of Harrington & Bush, implement manufacturers. Neither in personality nor in garb would a casual glance have differentiated her from the other ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... with a very calm voice, but blushed extremely as she spoke; and, for the first time, Vivian thought her not absolutely plain; and, for the first time, he thought even the formality and deliberate coolness of her manner were not disagreeable. He liked her more, at this moment, than he had ever imagined it possible he could like Lady Sarah Lidhurst; but he liked her chiefly because she did not press him into her service, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... matter is this: a tradesman's letters should be plain, concise, and to the purpose; no quaint expressions, no book-phrases, no flourishes, and yet they must be full and sufficient to express what he means, so as not to be doubtful, much less unintelligible. I can by no means approve of studied abbreviations, and leaving ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... mountain is perhaps Mount Ephraim, or the mountain range over the plain of Sharon. It is also suggested that it might have been the mountains round Kirjathjearim (Abu Goosh?). It contained Cephar Bish, Cephar Sheclaim, Cephar ...
— Hebrew Literature
... her conspicuous by always travelling home with her, but he will be at hand to pilot her through a fog, to help her out of a crowd, or to get her a place when there is anything to be seen. He will make it plain that he thinks of her, and is ever on the alert to play the part ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... power on earth could induce me to marry you, and that would be plain enough if you were in your right mind. I shall not stand this foolishness another moment. You must go with me at once to Lemuel Weeks'. If you will not, I'll have you ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... That delicious plain, studded with every creation of graceful culture; hamlet and hall and grange; garden and grove and park; that castle-palace, grey with glorious ages; those antique spires, hoar with faith and wisdom, the chapel and the college; that river winding through the shady meads; the ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... Dunlavey's friends were afraid of him. I can't get a jury. Dunlavey elects the sheriff—controls the election machinery. I am powerless—a mere figurehead. This is the situation in a nutshell. I could go into detail, but I imagine it is plain enough ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Israel; "we want to spaik plain. Why is he to be put afore we? Here 'ee es, livin' at your 'ouse as ef 'ee was yer son. He ain't got to do no dirty work. Oal we want es fair play. Laive 'ee do loustrin' jobs ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... excludes altogether that of the canonists; and also a sense which appears to be the genuine and legitimate sense of the word in its first intention. Now, when we are endeavouring to appreciate the force and scope of the legal doctrine concerning ecclesiastical and spiritual jurisdiction, it is plain that we must take the term employed in the sense of our own law, and not in the different and derivative sense in which it has been used by canonists and theologians. But canonists themselves bear witness to ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... Dodonaean Jove supreme, Dwelling remote, who on Dodona's heights Snow-clad reign'st Sovereign, by thy seers around Compass'd the Selli, prophets vow-constrain'd 285 To unwash'd feet and slumbers on the ground! Plain I behold my former prayer perform'd, Myself exalted, and the Greeks abased. Now also grant me, Jove, this my desire! Here, in my fleet, I shall myself abide, 290 But lo! with all these Myrmidons I send My friend to battle. Thunder-rolling ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... to the sky. When that was a twig, your thumb and finger could have bent it straight; but now, what force could do it. If sufficient strength could be applied it might be broken, but never bent again. Excuse my plain speaking, Harriet, but I see before you so much trouble, unless that little boy's strong will is controlled, that my conscience would not let me rest, unless I spoke honestly to you what is in ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... certainly in all the early ages of the world governments were imposed upon people by the strong hand, irrespective of their will and wishes,—and these were the only governments which were fit and useful in that elder day. Governments, as a plain matter of fact, have generally arisen from circumstances and relations with which the people have had little to do. The Oriental monarchies were the gradual outgrowth of patriarchal tradition and successful military leadership, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... that is to exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, "over all places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature in which the same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, and other needful Buildings," among which Light-houses may be included. Is it not the plain Conclusion from this Clause in the Compact, that Congress have not the Right to exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, nor even to purchase or controul any part of the Territory within a State for the Erection of needful Buildings unless ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... breath of time we floated downwards and alighted on a broad and beautiful plain, where flowers of strange shape and colour grew in profusion. Here we were met by creatures of lofty stature and dazzling beauty, human in shape, yet angelic in countenance. They knelt to us with reverence and joy, and then ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... this time with relief. "Well, well!" he said. "You're right. It'll be easier to talk plain. I ought to known I could with you, all the time. I just hoped you'd let that boy come and see you sometimes, ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... Agassiz School, Boston. Residence, Jamaica Plain. I take the opportunity to notify him that the Exeter High School holds ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... ff. is still more blind to the presence of Charinus and raises a deal more fuss, as he enters in the wildest haste looking for Charinus, who is of course in plain sight. Acanthio, with labored breathing and the remark that he would never make a piper, probably passes by Charinus and goes to ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... enter at all into the consideration of the various theological and metaphysical theories held by different classes of philosophers in respect to the native constitution and original tendencies of the human soul, but to look at the phenomena of mental and moral action in a plain and practical way, as they present themselves to the observation of mothers in the every-day walks of life. And in order the better to avoid any complication with these theories, we will take first an extremely simple case, namely, the fault of making too much noise in ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... few stars peeped out, a large valley opened before them, whose bold outline Edward could distinguish, even in the uncertain light. The well-defined roofs of a neat village were perceptible, and behind these, half-way up the mountain that crowned the plain, Edward thought he could discern a large building which glimmered with more than one light. The road led straight into the village. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... and "friends," the dignitaries, the dark and fair-haired bands of the guards of Grecian youths and boys, as well as divisions of the picked corps of the Hetairoi, Diadochi, and Epigoni, in beautiful plain Macedonian armour. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... not analyze closely her own troubled mind. Here was plain evidence of her husband's being in which she no longer had the smallest share. She had been slightly jealous, more than she would admit, that other time at the beginning of the portrait because of Jack's absorption in his subject and his work. Her egotism had ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... the habit of using tobacco in all its forms of cud, cigar and snuff; he drank tea and coffee freely, and spirit and cider moderately. I advised him to the entire disuse of tobacco, tea, coffee, and all other drinks, save water, and to live on plain and unstimulating food. He followed the advice in regard to drinks, in so far as to confine himself to water, and threw away the cud and cigar, but continued to take snuff. Under this change his health was improved, and the turns of palpitation were less frequent, ...
— An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health • R. D. Mussey
... this censure of the lectures, there is unhappily no good ground for disputing its substantial justice. And the inferences which it suggests are only too painfully plain. One can well understand Coleridge's being an ineffective lecturer, and no failure in this respect, however conspicuous, would necessarily force us to the hypothesis of physical disability. But a Coleridge who could no more compose a lecture than he could deliver ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... in nature produced it originally, if even it had a beginning, will most probably be sufficient to produce it again. Is not the reparation of vegitable life the spring equally wonderful now as its first production? Yet this is a plain effect of the influence of the sun, whose absence would occasion death by a perpetual winter. So far this question from containing, in my opinion, a formidable difficulty to the Epicurean system, I cannot help judging the continual ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner
... Lowndes was of so strange, so sudden, so unexpected and so remarkable that it was difficult for many to bring themselves to a realization of the fact that such a thing had actually happened and that it was a living reality. To the curious, the speech was a disappointment, although it was a plain, calm, conservative and convincing statement of the new member's position upon public questions. To the great amusement of those who heard him he related some of his experiences while he was engaged in canvassing the county. ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... proceedings to take, sought the general to inform him of the necessity he was under of executing the laws, and of carrying out the direct orders of the Emperor. The general's reply to this courteous overture was plain and energetic: "If a single officer dares to place his hand on the boxes of my old mustaches, I'll throw him into the Rhine!" The officer insisted. The custom-house employees were quite numerous, and were preparing to proceed with the inspection, when ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... greatly violating their honor." (Koellner, 419.) Over against the Emperor's demand of blind submission and his threat of violence, the Lutherans appealed to their pure Confession, based on the Holy Scriptures, to their good conscience, bound in the Word of God, and to the plain wording of the imperial manifesto, which had promised discussions in love and kindness. In an Answer of August 9, e.g., they declared: The articles of the Augustana which we have presented are drawn from the Scriptures, and "it is impossible for us to relinquish them with a good conscience and ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... rolling down to her high white chest and finally on to the crispiness of her plain nightgown. Crept to bed finally, into a darkness as sleek as a black cat's flank, silently, to save the sag of mattress, her body curving to the curve of ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... my meaning plain enough," he replied, "but as you are here, I will answer you; and first, I want to put a question to you. Why do you wish me ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... have here expressed in plain language the imaginative memory of the beloved dead, rising upon the past, like moonlight ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... and very angry. He knew how unreasonable she was, and yet he did not know how to answer her. And she was dishonest with him. Because she felt herself unable to advocate in plain terms a thorough shutting up of her daughter,—a protecting of her from the temptation of sin by absolute and prolonged sequestration,—therefore she equivocated with him, pretending to think that ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... presented him a row of fish which he had just found on the bank of a river, evidently forgotten by a fisherman. The brahmin then went to the fox, who immediately went in search of food, and soon returned with a pot of milk and a dried liguan, which he had found in a plain, where apparently they had been left by a herdsman. The brahmin at last went to the hare and begged alms of him. The hare said, 'Friend, I eat nothing but grass, which I think is of no use to you.' Then the pretended brahmin replied, 'Why, friend, if you are ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... drifted against the windows or eddied in at the crevices of the door, while a blast kept laughing in the chimney and the blaze leaped fiercely up to seek it. And sometimes, when the wind struck the hill at a certain angle and swept down by the cottage across the wintry plain, its voice was the most doleful that can be conceived; it came as if the past were speaking, as if the dead had contributed each a whisper, as if the desolation of ages were breathed in that one ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... there were symptoms of its being renewed on the same quiet and friendly footing as formerly. But no two beings could be less alike, in certain essentials, than Mr. Jarvis and his wife. The former was a plain pains-taking, sensible man of business, while the latter had an itching desire to figure in the world of fashion. The first was perfectly aware that Mr. Effingham, in education, habits, associations and manners, was, at least, of a class entirely distinct from his own; and without ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... reached the extremity of the dark range and stood at that point where Great Howe fringes downward to the plain, he turned about and rode back on the opposite side of the pikes. Once more he rode in and out of cavernous alcoves, up and down hillocks and hollows, over bowlders, over streams, across rivers, through sinking sloughs, and still with a drizzling rain ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... Mironositskoe; on the right stretched a row of hillocks which disappeared in the distance behind the village, and they both knew that this was the bank of the river, that there were meadows, green willows, homesteads there, and that if one stood on one of the hillocks one could see from it the same vast plain, telegraph-wires, and a train which in the distance looked like a crawling caterpillar, and that in clear weather one could even see the town. Now, in still weather, when all nature seemed mild and dreamy, Ivan Ivanovitch and Burkin were filled with love of that countryside, ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... when after mahkor, as you can take your own time, but I strongly object to taking the place of the mahkor. Our advance never stopped, but by ten o'clock we had only gone some two hundred yards, and I could see our force crossing the river on to the plain below. ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... the binnacle quite plain now," said Barney; "and, yes, o' course, I kep' coming over all soft like, and wantin' to sing songs, and listen to moosic, and couldn't sing; but it was all silver and gold and sunshine and beautiful birds in beautiful trees. Yes, it's all ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... you can send the machine in with a wire to your company for a leading woman." Jean picked up her gloves and turned to pull the door shut behind her, and by other signs and tokens made plain her intention ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... refinement; they are essentially in bad taste. Rudimentary effects, on the contrary, are pure, and though we may think them trivial when we are expecting something richer, their defect is never intrinsic; they do not plunge us, as impure excitements do, into a corrupt artificial conflict. So wild-flowers, plain chant, or a scarlet uniform are beautiful enough; their simplicity is a positive merit, while their crudity is only relative. There is a touch of sophistication and disease in not being able to fall back on such things and enjoy them thoroughly, as if a man ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... occasions')—that 'it is doubtful whether they are novels disguised as treatises, or treatises disguised as novels'; that, 'while less romantic than Euclid's Elements, they are on the whole a great deal less improving reading'; and that 'they seem to have been dictated to a plain woman of genius by the ghost of David Hume.' Herself, too, has been variously described: as 'An Apotheosis of Pupil-Teachery'; as 'George Sand plus Science and minus Sex'; as 'Pallas with prejudices and a corset'; as 'the fruit of a caprice of Apollo for the Differential Calculus.' ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... laughter and happy faces; cram his little brains with so-called knowledge; let him have vicious associates in his hours out of school, and at the age of ten you have fixed in him the opposite traits. You have, perhaps, seen a prairie fire sweep through the tall grass across a plain. Nothing can stand before it, it must burn itself out. That is what happens when you let weeds grow up in your child's life, and then set fire to ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... cannot be doubted to be authentic," wrote the London Correspondent of the Bleater, within the last year, "that Lord John Russell bitterly regrets having made that explicit speech of last Monday." These are not roundabout phrases; these are plain words. What does Lord John Russell (apparently by accident), within eight-and-forty hours after their diffusion over the civilised globe? Rises in his place in Parliament, and unblushingly declares that if ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... was beyond earshot, galloping over the moonlit plain in the direction of the hacienda ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... understand that,' was the answer, 'will best be made plain to you if I take up my train of thought where I left off. If, in order to labour productively, we required the undertaker, no power in heaven or earth could save us from giving up to him what was due to him as master of the process of production, while we contented ourselves with ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... I saw, above the adjacent headland, the tapering spars of a ship. Slowly she hove into view, boltsprit, forecastle, waist and poop, until she was plain to view, and I knew her for that same black ship that fouled us in Deptford Pool. She was standing in for the island under her lower courses only, although the wind was very light, but on she came, and very slowly, until she was so near that I might ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... proceed:— But, heavens! We've majors also by the score, Arsenals heaped with muniments of war, With spurs and howitzers and drums and shot, But what does that permit us to infer? That we have men who dangle swords, but not That they will wield the weapons that they wear. Tho' all the plain with gleaming tents you crowd, Does that make heroes ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... crowd had increased in size, and the people were pressing noisily and threateningly round the cyclist, who had remained near the carriage, and in whom they had recognised a policeman in plain clothes. He would not tell them why he had come first to gather information, and had then returned with the other individual. They tried to force the cabman to drive away, and even talked of unharnessing the horse. When the delegato appeared with Benedetto they surrounded him, crying: "Away with ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... had emigrated from England about the middle of the preceding century, and had settled at Potomac, in Westmoreland county, in the colony of Virginia. At this place the general was born, and after receiving a plain education, he learned something of the business of land-surveying, and was in the eighteenth year of his age appointed surveyor of the western part of the territory of Virginia, by Lord Fairfax, the proprietor of that country. After this, however, he embraced the profession of arms, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... It was plain that Spaniards had erected the cross, for Charles III was King of Spain. These English tars hated the dons, with whom they had but recently been embattled. When they were convinced that a Spanish ship had been at Tautira ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... you do not. We will now throw for a dollar a game, and in that way I shall win the money that you received in change. Otherwise I should be robbing you, and I imagine you cannot afford to lose. I mean no offence. I am a plain-spoken man, but I believe in honesty before politeness. I merely want a little diversion, and you are so kind-natured that I am sure you will ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... letter. One thing was plain to me—it was Ellen who had come to my help. How could I reject her generous aid without wounding her or appearing ungrateful? After great hesitation I wrote a few lines, which, as far as I can recollect, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... miles a day, the country must be extraordinarily rugged, or the valleys tortuous. Turner took eight or nine days on his journey from Phari to Teshoo Loombo, a distance of only eighty miles; yet he is quoted as an authority for the fact of Tibet being a plain! he certainly crossed an undulating country, probably 16,000 to 17,000 feet high; a continuation eastwards of the Cholamoo features, and part of the same mountain range that connects Chumulari and Donkia: he had always lofty mountains in ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... asked. "Phyllis, it was lovely! ... And think of being able to dance like that without knowing how! That was just a plain miracle, if ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... deep cusps or valleys, of every size, from a quarter of a mile to full thirty miles in diameter; generally circular and surrounded with elevated ridges, some rising to lofty jagged summits above the surrounding plain. These ridges, on their inner sides, show separate terraces and mural precipices, while their outer slopes display deeply scarred ravines and long spurs at their bases. These cusps, or deep valleys, are the craters ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... as my back is turned one or other is sure to push through the roof, and get out among the flower-beds. Will you never change your mind, and live with me, Annemie? I am sure you would be happy, and the starling says your name quite plain, and he is such a funny bird to talk to; you never would tire of him. Will you never come? It is so bright there, and green and sweet smelling; and to think you never even have seen it!—and the swans and all,—it ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... treat her in my turn with less ceremony; accordingly, I laid close siege to her, and, finding her not at all disgusted with the gross incense I offered, that very night made a declaration of love in plain terms. She received my addresses with great gaiety, and pretended to laugh them off, but at the same time treated me with such particular complacency that I was persuaded I had made a conquest of her heart, and concluded myself the happiest man alive. Elevated with these flattering ideas, I sat down ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... he started to count—and away at last They went on twinkling feet; Never did squirrels move more fast, Or rabbits run more fleet. And just as they touched the latch of the gate, They heard, far down in the hush, "Twenty-three!" as plain as could be; And they scurried ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner
... those plain frocky dresses, and her hair all pulled back without the sign of a crimp or curl!" and Dora burst into ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry |
