"Simple-minded" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "in the trances, of which she had divers and many,[310] consequent upon her illness, told wondrously things done and said in other places whereat she was neither herself present, nor yet had heard no report thereof." To simple-minded people who believed in Romanism and the legends of the saints, the natural explanation of such a marvel was, that she must be possessed either by the Holy Ghost or by the devil. The archbishop's bailiff, not feeling himself able to decide in a case of so much gravity, called in the advice ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... principle of Purpose. Let us take a very simple illustration. Across many of the hills in Cumberland the way from one village to another is marked by white stones placed at short intervals. We may easily imagine a simple-minded person asking how they came there, or what natural law could account for their lying in that position; and the physical antecedents of the fact—the geological history of the stones and the physiological structure of the men who moved ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... nothing, and, as nothing could not be said to exist, space must be an illusion; and as motion implied space in which to take place, there could be no motion. So all things were really perfectly compact and at rest, and all our impressions of change were the illusions of the thoughtless and the simple-minded. Since one of the chief satisfactions of the metaphysicians is to get away from the welter of our mutable world into a realm of assurance, this doctrine exercised a great fascination over many minds. ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... to a big store and, guided by that special Providence which looks after simple-minded old souls in their dangerous excursions into the world, found a sympathetic clerk who knew just what she wanted and got it for her. The Old Lady selected a very dainty muslin gown, with gloves and slippers in keeping; and she ordered it sent at once, ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... chief embarrassment of the writers in this realm of the imagination has been the want of illustrative examples. In a State where there is no fever of speculation, no inflamed desire for sudden wealth, where the poor are all simple-minded and contented, and the rich are all honest and generous, where society is in a condition of primitive purity and politics is the occupation of only the capable and the patriotic, there are necessarily no ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... many affectionate wives deserted by 'affinity-seeking' husbands. Many once devoted wives have been seduced, and left their husbands and tender, helpless children, to follow some 'higher attraction.' Many well-disposed but simple-minded girls have been deluded by 'affinity' notions, and led off by 'affinity hunters,' to be deserted in a few months, with blasted reputations, or led to deeds still more dark and criminal, to hide ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... la Beaume-le-Blanc obeyed the King, or in other words, the dictates of her own heart, imprudently embarking upon a career of passion, for which a temperament wholly different from hers was needed. It is not simple-minded maidens that one wants at Court to share the confidence of princes. No doubt natures of that sort—simple, disinterested souls are pleasant and agreeable to them, as therein they find contentment such as they greedily prize; but for these unsullied, romantic ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... influence see many things which are not there in reality. To this power are due the frequent reports of apparitions of Buddha, seen generally by single individuals, and the visions of demons, the accounts of which terrify the simple-minded natives. Rather than get more closely acquainted with these evil spirits the ignorant pay the monastery whatever little cash ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... occurred to the straightforward and simple-minded Vicar that one of his own flesh and blood could come to this! He was stultified, shocked, paralysed. And if Angel were not going to enter the Church, what was the use of sending him to Cambridge? The University as a step to anything but ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... He was not parsimonious, but, as Squire Inchly expressed it, "narrer-minded in money matters." He had the air of a man who is satisfied with himself rather than with the world, and the continual exhibition of this species of selfishness is apt to irritate the most simple-minded spectator. Lacking the sense of humour necessary to give him a knowledge of his own relations to his neighbours, he lived under the impression that he was not only one of the most generous of men, but the most popular. He insisted upon his ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... the knowledge that she would never get rid of her unwelcome guests until Prince Inga was overcome and Regos regained for King Gos, the Queen of Coregos finally decided to trust to luck and her native wit to defeat a simple-minded boy, however powerful he might be. Inga could not suspect what she was going to do, because she did not know herself. She intended to act boldly and trust ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... few words as possible I told him my story, interrupted by many exclamations of wonder and sympathy from my simple-minded listener. As I concluded he slapped me on the back, and declared that I should join his party, and should never want for a bite or sup while Ned Harding was to the fore. By this time the other men of the party had gathered around, and I was compelled to repeat ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... speaks more eloquently than many descriptions as to the character of the "simple-minded Boer." We discovered to our cost during the Indian Mutiny that the "gentle native" was not all our fancy painted him, and it may be as well to realise that our simple-minded and pious brother in the Transvaal is scarcely so righteous as we ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... in no way deceived, but such was his regard for this simple-minded creature that his ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... to-day," says Mr. Arnold, "to appreciate the effect on the old settlers, of this figure. This lightning-rod was the first which most of those present had ever seen. They had slept all their lives in their cabins in conscious security. Here was a man who seemed, to these simple-minded people, to be afraid to sleep in his own house without special and extraordinary protection from Almighty God. These old settlers thought nothing but the consciousness of guilt, the stings of a guilty conscience, could account for such timidity. Forquer and his lightning-rod were talked ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... never dreamed, until this fair, sweet, strong womanhood crossed his path. His love of Draxy kindled and transformed his whole consciousness of himself and of life; it was no wonder that he felt terrors; that he asked himself many times a day what had become of the simple-minded, earnest, contented worker he used to be. He was full of vague and restless yearnings; he longed to do, to be, to become, he knew not what, but something that should be more of kin to this beautiful nature he worshipped—something that should give her great ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... the dead is a simple one. All tasks are simple to the simple-minded. To the delicate and complex mind so much of life is bound up with every act that any violent act involves not only a large personal sacrifice of ideal, but a tearing-up by the roots of half the order of the world. Wisdom is founded upon justice; but justice, to the wise man, is more ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... think it's as bad as all that, Ruthie," soothed her mother, too simple-minded to accept immediately ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... the country, among these simple-minded peasants, to understand the excitement and the fury of all these men and women as they crowded around the ruins of Valpinson. People in town do not mind brigands, in general: they have their gas, their strong doors, and the police. They are generally little afraid of fire. They have their fire-alarms; ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... for her home was very different from ours. Her parents were dead, and as she was an only child, she had never known the love of brother or sister; and the aunt who brought her up was a strict narrow-minded sort of person, with manners that must have been singularly uncongenial to my affectionate, simple-minded Jessie. Poor Jessie! I could not help giving her one of my bear-like hugs at this, so well did I know the meaning of that sigh; and there is no telling into what channel our talk would have drifted, only just at that moment Belle Martin, the pupil-teacher, appeared in sight, walking ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... are so minded, call this feeling religion. But it is a very inconvenient meaning to attach to the word, and we cannot take it to be the meaning the Bishop had in view. What he meant, in all probability—what he desired his simple-minded hearers to understand—was that he had never known a good man who did not believe, if not in all the dogmas of the Church of England, at any rate in the Christian Trinity, the fall of man, redemption ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... "I'm nothing of the sort! I'm a simple-minded little country girl, and I dance because I can't help it. I love to dance, but I must say that a monk's robe on one's partner is a little troublesome. I think all the time I'm going to trip ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... committee refused to sign. More people then began to see the self-contradictions of the opposition, and most of those "plain people" to whom Lincoln consciously appealed were touched to the heart by his pathetic question: "Must I shoot the simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of the wily agitator who induces him ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... proud idealism of the Germans was thus, by its own weight, descending into the level flats of thought, a political movement was agitating Germany. Simple-minded poets were celebrating atheism with an enthusiasm which seemed sincere; and, at the same time, men who are not simple-minded, journalists and demagogues, were laying hold of the irreligion as a lever with which to make a breach in the social edifice. In the year 1845, the ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... of an attempted reformation of the church in Switzerland and Germany awakened a lively interest in this community of simple-minded Christians. At length a convocation of their ministers[454] at Merindol, in 1530, determined to send two of their number to compare the tenets they had long held with those of the reformers, and to obtain, if possible, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... happy, and took away from her all fear. It was so shocking, too," she thought, "to think so ill of men—our fellow-creatures, and the creatures of a perfect Father. She loved her brother—he was so simple-minded, and so kind to her, too; how could she ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... were each put under curb and chain—the smiles of the lip and the glances of the eyes, were all subdued to precision, and permitted to go forth, only under special guard and restriction. In tone, look, and manner, he strove as nearly as he might to resemble the worthy but simple-minded man, who had so readily found a worthy adherent and pupil in him; and his efforts at deception might be held to be sufficiently successful, if the frank confiding faith of the aged heads of the Hinkley family be the fitting test ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... morning, in riding about the place with Mr. Hardinge, and in listening to his account of his stewardship, With the main results I was already acquainted—nay, possessed them in the Dawn,—but the details had all to be gone over, with the most minute accuracy. A more simple-minded being there was not on earth than Mr. Hardinge; and, that my affairs turned out so well was the result of the prosperous condition of the country at that day, the system my father had adopted in his life-time, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... energy, if not with skill. When he abandoned the steering oar, the raft began to whirl, and thus to complicate his labor. I caught a glance of the simple-minded fellow, as the craft turned, and I heard him yell, "Hookie!" He was nonplussed by the change of the raft; but he did not know enough to follow it round upon the outside. I am not sure this freak of the current did not save us from a calamity, for as it ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... to see why Marcius is considered to have been a simple-minded and straightforward character, while Alkibiades has the reputation of a false and tricky politician. The latter has been especially blamed for the manner in which he deceived and outwitted the Lacedaemonian ambassadors, by which, as we learn from Thucydides, he brought the truce between the two nations ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... me in a quandary. For how, pray, is it possible for me, a simple-minded male, fittingly to depict for you the clothes of Margaret?—the innumerable vanities, the quaint devices, the pleasing conceits with which she delighted to enhance her comeliness? The thing is beyond me. Let us keep discreetly out ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... they lie in the spoken word? Why, to admit that the horse understands and translates his master's words is just to accept the most extraordinary part of the phenomenon! Is it a case of surreptitious touches or conventional signs? However simple-minded one may be, one would nevertheless notice them more easily than a horse, even a horse of genius. Krall never lays a hand on the animal; he moves all round the little table, which contains no appliances of any sort; for the most part, he stands behind the horse which ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... not read the underlying scorn in merry Kate's tones. He was a very simple-minded youth, and his life and training had not been such as to teach him much about the various grades in the world, or how greatly these grades differed one from the other. He was looking at his cousin's bright face with thoughtful, questioning eyes, ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... I don't know—I'm sure I don't know why. It was in own hands. When they were little children, I said to myself: hey shall grow up plain, good, honest girl and boy. I said that I wouldn't educate them very much; I saw little good that came of it, in our rank of life. I meant them to be simple-minded. I hoped Nancy would marry a plain countryman, like the men I used to know when I was a boy; a farmer, or something of that kind. But see how it's come about. It wasn't that I altered my mind about what was best. But I seemed to have ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... Pete Quilliam: Philip talented, accomplished, ambitious, of good family, and eager to win back the social position which his father had lost by an imprudent marriage; Pete a nameless boy—the bastard son of Philip's uncle and a gawky country-girl—ignorant, brave, simple-minded, and incurably generous. The boys have grown up together, and in love are almost more than brothers when the time comes for them to part for a while—Philip leaving home for school, while Pete goes as mill-boy to one Caesar Cregeen, who combined the occupations of miller and landlord ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... dollar thrown in, else no peace is worth having. I don't complain. I only rejoice. But I'm glad that kind of a rapid change is not a part of my record. The German was the same beast yesterday that he is to-day; and it makes a simple-minded, straight-minded man like me wonder which attitude was the (or is the) attitude of real conviction. But this doesn't bother me now as a real problem—only as a speculation. What we call History will, I presume, in time work this out. But History is often ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... away, one of the thousands who were thronging the streets and public places of London—brave, simple-minded young men, all of them, with tangled recollections in their brains of blood and fire and hell, and a game leg or a lost arm to remind them that the whole thing was not a nightmare. He looked a little disconsolately around, and was on the point ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... who was the master spirit who had contrived so effectually to blind and mislead those simple-minded men, and so powerfully to influence them that they had eventually permitted themselves to be betrayed into an act that converted them into outlaws, with every man's hand against them? And why had they done it? They had no grievance, ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... as if he saw things mistily. But they were quite clear. It was really Septimus Dix who sat opposite, concentrating his discursive mind on Sypher's Cure and implicitly denying Zora's faith. A simple-minded man in many respects, he would not have scorned to learn wisdom out of the mouths of babes and sucklings; but out of the mouth of Septimus what wisdom could possibly proceed? He laughed his suggestion away somewhat blusteringly and launched ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... stay at home as usual. Nevertheless the organization of most of the assemblies takes place, amounting to some six or seven thousand. This is accounted for by the fact that each canton contains its small group of Jacobins. Next to these come the simple-minded who still believe in official declarations; in their eyes a constitution which guarantees private rights and institutes public liberties must be accepted, no matter what hand may present it to them. And all the more readily because the usurpers offer to resign; in effect, the Convention ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... had "gone away" were buried in the little Catholic graveyard by the creek, the others crept closer together. Joe, nearest Ellen in age, was kept at home to help with the house-and yard-work, and, partly from being a simple-minded fellow, and partly to humor Ellen, fell into her girl's ways. "Joe and me," she said, "churned and cooked together, and then he'd bring his tools into mother's room and work. We liked that, he was so full of joking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... threatened to come after Thomas and carry him off; but Eric advised him to make no attempt of the sort as the boy was now under his protection. They rode on and left him grumbling and threatening as before. Thomas seemed highly pleased at the change. He was evidently a sharp, clever little fellow, though simple-minded and ignorant of the world. He was the son of a poor shepherd, but the desire to gain knowledge induced him to quit his father's cottage and to go forth in search of that education which he could not gain at ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston
... calm severity characteristic of him. Mistrust, however, is more appropriate in such circumstances than reproach. It is somewhat ridiculous to expect from the Roman contemporaries of Hannibal a just judgment on their opponents; but no conscious misrepresentation of the facts, except such as a simple-minded patriotism of itself involves, has been proved against the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... with them before paintings fit to please their unpracticed eyes but which he did not think worthy of admiration. He likewise passed Venuses, Eves, Truths, all nudities, without remark or pause, acquainted of old with the simple-minded prudery of certain Americans, ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... amongst young men especially; and I have seen many instances of this doubt being—if not removed—shaken to its very foundation by their witnessing the phenomena of spiritualism. "Yes, but did it make good consistent Christians of them?" asks one of my excellent simple-minded objectors. Alas! my experience does not tell me that good consistent Christians are so readily made. Does our faith—I might have asked—make us the good consistent Christians it ought to do, and would do perhaps, if we gave it ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... course, been president; his moral character,—a point on which so many geniuses were weak—was absolutely irreproachable; foremost of all, however, among his many great qualities, and perhaps more remarkable even than his genius was what biographers have called "the simple-minded and child-like earnestness of his character," an earnestness which might be perceived by the solemnity with which he spoke even about trifles. It is hardly necessary to say he was on the Liberal ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... say they would come on the twentieth of May; it was then the seventh, and Jeanne awaited their arrival with intense impatience. Besides her natural desire to see her parents, she felt it would be such a relief to have near her two honest hearts, two simple-minded beings whose life and every action, thought and desire had always been upright and pure. She felt she stood alone in her honesty among all this guilt. She had learnt to dissimulate her feelings, to meet the comtesse with an outstretched hand and a smiling face, but her sense ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... constructiveness in statesmanship. Monroe was a man of yet more limited capacity, unless Polk be excepted, Monroe was the least able of all our Presidents. But he had a large experience in public affairs, he was judicious and cool-tempered, and thoroughly honest and simple-minded. He was personally liked, and after Washington was the only President who was the unanimous choice of ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... telegraphed to Washington to obtain authority to call out Col. Sumner with the United States troops at Fort Leavenworth. He also wrote to Col. Sumner to hold himself ready to march at a moment's notice. And now this simple-minded Gov. Shannon, Ex-Governor of Ohio, who had come to Kansas to waste in a few short months the ripe honors he had been so carefully hoarding up for a life-time, bethought himself that it was time for him to go and look with his own eyes after this rebellion he had ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... be in love with this simple-minded American, who comes—" Peter Brutus started to say at one stage of the discussion, when the frail girl was battling almost physically ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... her father joyfully, "here is the child Abel—he is found!" and seizing the trembling boy, with evident exultation, led him to her. The effect of this act of the poor simple-minded man was electrical. The mother instantly revived, but turned her face from her husband; and, entwining her son in her arms, pressed him closely to her side. The clergyman proceeded to interrogate the prisoner, but he answered nothing, keeping his eyes intently fixed upon his wife and child. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... chamber-door. "You treat me like a child, father," said Jenny. "I thought, Jinny," said the father apologetically,—"I thought I heard sounds as if you was takin' on inside, and, listenin' I fell asleep."—"You dear, old simple-minded baby!" said Jenny, looking past her father's eyes, and lifting his grizzled locks one by one with meditative fingers: "what should I be takin' on for? Look how much taller I am than you!" she said, suddenly ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... was so slow, that Fairford had time to notice all this, and to marvel in his mind what wily and ambitious priest could have contrived to subject his worthy but simple-minded hostesses to such superstitious trammels. Father Buonaventure's entrance and appearance in some degree ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... When the simple-minded Conquistadores first pushed their frail cockleshells out into the gigantic embouchure of this tawny stream and looked vainly for the opposite shore, veiled by the dewy mists of a glittering morn, they unconsciously crossed themselves and, forgetful for the moment ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... immigrants. The illiterate, unskilled immigrant may be, in fact, more desirable than the better educated skilled laborer, or the still better educated professional or business man. There may be a great demand here for unskilled labor. Again, the moral qualities of the untaught but industrious, simple-minded, unspoiled countryman may be far more wholesome for the communities to which he comes than those of the educated, town-bred, unsuccessful business or professional man, the misfit skilled laborer, or ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... would the naif co-believer. Their common technical interests would unite them more than their opposite conclusions separate them. Each would feel an essential consanguinity in the other, would think of him, write at him, care for his good opinion. The simple-minded believer in free-will would be disregarded by either. Neither as ally nor as opponent would his vote ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... and when he saw his master stretched out, with no sign of life, his eyes filled with tears, and he thrust himself over his master's body, crying and wailing like a little child. It was pitiful to see the sorrow and the devotion of the poor, simple-minded fellow, bewailing his master's fall from the blow of a mere stick. And he ended his tribute by thanking him for the great generosity he had always shown; for Don Quixote, for but eight months of service, ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... patriot's enthusiasm fell flat. The Bretons were marching into danger partly from desire, but more from duty and discipline. At the very first shot these simple-minded creatures reach the supreme wisdom of loving one's country and losing one's life for it, if necessary, without interesting themselves in the varied mystifications one calls government. Four or five of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... The simple-minded Monticelli had no psychology to speak of—he was a reversion, a "throw back" to the Venetians, the decorative Venetians, and if he had possessed the money or the leisure—he hadn't enough money to buy any but small canvases—he might have become ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... drunk many hundreds of cups of coffee in the grunting society of Sir Paul, all that Mr. Prohack could be sure of knowing about Sir Paul was, first, that he had an absolutely unspotted reputation; second, that he was a very decent, simple-minded, kindly, ignorant fellow (ignorant, that is, in the matters that interested Mr. Prohack); third, that he instinctively mistrusted intellect and brilliance; fourth, that for nearly four years he had been convinced that Germany would win the war, and fifth, that he ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... simple-minded natives kept the history of this treaty by means of strings of wampum, and they would often count over the shells on a clean piece of bark and rehearse its provisions. "It was the only treaty never sworn to, and the only one never broken." On every hand the Indians waged ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... mouth. After skilfully achieving this feat, she scrambled down upon the breakfast-table and began to wash her face and hands. Evidently, these companions were all three on intimate terms, as was natural enough, since a great many childish impulses were softly creeping back on the simple-minded old man; insomuch that, if no worldly necessities nor painful infirmity had disturbed him, his remnant of life might have been as cheaply and cheerily enjoyed as the early playtime of the kitten ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... particular information than this, although whenever she was questioned concerning the matter, she did only reply by a very grave shake of the head, each vibration of which (particularly when accompanied by a pursing of the mouth, and a mysterious looking round) more and more convinced her simple-minded auditors (i.e. some of them, for it is not to be denied that there were a few incredulous ones who, either from former experiences, or natural sagacity, or some cause unknown, hesitated not to declare it to be their fixed and unalterable opinion that these seeming ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... natural grandeur and magnificence; his streams seem all abodes for nymphs, his hills are fit haunts for the muses, and his temples worthy of gods,"—a passage, we think, most worthy the monosyllable commonly used upon such occasions by the manly and simple-minded Mr Burchell. That Sir Joshua occasionally transgressed in his wanderings into mythology, it would be difficult to deny; nor was it his only transgression from his legitimate ground, as may be seen in his "Holy Family" in the National ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... fear himself, or for himself, as he investigated himself, when the blame had already been put publicly on some one else, some simple-minded old soul who could go back to his cotton fields in Mississippi and forget all about it, strong in his innocence, even though shorn of reputation, ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... her last few shots have been quite good. That is Maiyo all the world over. I will wager that he is thinking of nothing on earth at this moment but of making that poor old lady feel at her ease and enjoy her game. A stranger, looking on, would imagine him to be just a kind-hearted, simple-minded fellow. Yet there is not one of us three who has wit enough to get a single word from him against his will. You shall see. There is an excellent opportunity here. I suppose both of you read his speech at the Herrick Club ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a simple-minded person, wholly devoid of subtlety of intellect, so that I willingly admit that there may be depths of alternative meaning in these propositions out of all soundings attainable by my poor plummet. Still there are a good many ...
— Mr. Gladstone and Genesis - Essay #5 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... towns and manufactories may have changed for the worse, the spirit and feelings of our population; in them, "evil communications may have corrupted good manners;" but in the country at large, there never was a more simple-minded, healthful-hearted, and happy race of people than our present British peasantry. They have cast off, it is true, many of their ancestors' games and merrymakings, but they have in no degree lost their soul of mirth and happiness. This is never ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... had become confused, as he thought was not improbable, or had, in reality, been so long absent from the forest as to have forgotten its paths altogether: which was likely enough, as she seemed a very simple-minded, inexperienced creature. "But why need we," he said, "trouble ourselves to find reasons for the poor girl's opposition? Here are the tracks of our friends, broader and deeper than ever: here they wind down into ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... his hatred than Pipe. The future of the Christian settlement rested with these two chiefs. Girty and Elliott, evidently, were the designing schemers, and they worked diligently on the passions of these simple-minded, ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... Denviers to him, "I have a good mind to serve you the same. You deserve to die as so many of these simple-minded, credulous Kachyens have done." I thought for one brief second that my companion was about to kill the juggler, for through all our adventures I had never seen him so thoroughly roused. I stood between them; then, when ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... talked with her found in her a sincere friend. She related to us her flirtations with Monsieur, and we told her of the flirtations she had had with others, or, at least, the rumors of them that had spread abroad. Poor woman, so simple-minded! she laughed at them, as we did. ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... light of tremulous joy in their lovely depths startled and thrilled him. A snicker from the group of young men behind roused in him a deep indignation. They were taking their coarse fun out of this simple-minded girl. Cameron's furious glance at them appeared only to increase their amusement. It did not lessen Cameron's embarrassment and rage that now and then during the reading of the hymn Mandy's eyes ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... drawing-room. Mrs Combermere was always astoundingly grand and patronising when she honoured Cary with a call; Mrs Combermere liked to call upon folks whom she denominated inferiors—to impress them with an overwhelming idea of her importance. But on the simple-minded literal Cary, this honour was lost, she received it with such composure and unconscious placidity: on Bab it produced, indeed, the desired effect; but whether it was Mrs Combermere's loud talking and boasting, or Mr Newton's ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... all over as with an attack of ague. He was seized by a whirlwind of passionate, terrible sweetness of sensation, when what he wildly wanted was to curse Roy and John for their simple-minded conclusions. ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... South Seas. A well-informed Roman Catholic priest told me that he had been disappointed with the progress his powerfully organized church had made in converting the freedmen. Before going among them I had supposed that the simple-minded black, now no longer a slave, would be easily attracted to the impressive ceremonies of the Church of Rome; but after witnessing the activity of their devotions, and observing how anxious they are to take a conspicuous and a leading part in all religious services, it seemed to me that the free black ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... he is what one would call a wild man," said Ben Basswood, Dave's old chum from home, who had just come in from some experiments in the school laboratory. "He is simple-minded and very shy. He gets excited once in a while, like when he ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... Dealer in Fruit and Vegetables," had been rudely altered in chalk to read: "Jackson Wells, Double Dealer in Wills and Codicils," and the intimation "Bouquets sold here" had been changed to "Bequests stole here." For an instant the simple-minded Jackson failed to discover any significance of this outrage, which seemed to him to be merely the wanton mischief of a schoolboy. But a sudden recollection of the lawyer's caution sent the blood to his cheeks and kindled his indignation. He tore down the paper ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... is the more free to gain a foot-hold and go about controlling the tone of our life. There is real advantage in bringing the large issues of life to a point where not only our mind but, as it were, our senses, can lay hold on them. It is the impulse of simple-minded men like those early disciples, and if we continue straight-seeing we do not outgrow it. What makes these views of life so deep is not that they are less simple than those of others, but that they are more simple. ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... flirt or so like Clarence over there," she had vouchsafed, "men are such simple-minded children of nature! All you have to do is to treat them like hounds and tell them what to do, and ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... as an expression of energy, we can some day compare Mont-Saint-Michel with Beauvais, and draw from the comparison whatever moral suits our frame of mind; but you should first note that here, in the eleventh century, the Church, however simple-minded or unschooled, was not cheap. Its self-respect is worth noticing, because it was short-lived in its art. Mont-Saint- Michel, throughout, even up to the delicate and intricate stonework of its cloisters, is built ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... property holders in the town, was a simple-minded, true-hearted, honest man, named Jones. His father had left him a large farm, a goodly portion of which, in process of time, came to be included in the limits of the new city; and he found a much ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... somewhat scarce and precious commodity: it is kept in tanks, the chief of which is at some distance from the place. Under these circumstances the request for fresh water was refused, or at all events, was not complied with. The captain of the brig was a simple-minded man with a strongish will, and he at once declared that if his casks were not filled in three hours, he would destroy the whole place. “A great people indeed!” said the Governor; “a wonderful people, the English!” He instantly ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... the old claim. For a whole week or two Uncle Billy sulked, but his invincible optimism and good humor got the better of him, and he thought only of his old partner's good fortune. He wrote him regularly, but always to one address—a box at the San Francisco post-office, which to the simple-minded Uncle Billy suggested a certain official importance. To these letters Uncle Jim responded ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... saw my friend. "Come in," said she; and we followed her into the house. It was a wretched place; and the smell inside was sickly. I should think a broker would not give half-a-crown for all the furniture we saw. The woman seemed simple-minded and very illiterate; and as she stood in the middle of the floor, looking vaguely round she said, "Aw can hardly ax yo to sit deawn, for we'n sowd o' th' things eawt o'th heawse for a bit o' meight; but there is a cheer theer, sich as it is; ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... Edward's death brought to the throne her elder sister, Mary, who has harshly become known as Bloody Mary. During this time Elizabeth put aside her boldness, and became apparently a shy and simple-minded virgin. Surrounded on every side by those who sought to trap her, there was nothing in her bearing to make her seem the head of a party or the young chief of a faction. Nothing could exceed her in meekness. She spoke of her sister in the humblest terms. She exhibited no signs of the Tudor ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... and "clues" came to nothing, the police had no greater concern than quietly to forget, according to custom, a problem beyond their limited powers. With the release of the German musician, who was found to be simple-minded to the verge of half-wittedness, public interest waned, and the case faded ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... seen, at once challenges comparison with Hals. But in "Le Linge" no challenge is sent forth to any one; it is Manet, all Manet, and nothing but Manet. In this picture he expresses his love of the gaiety and pleasure of Parisian life. And this bright-faced, simple-minded woman, who stands in a garden crowded with the tallest sunflowers, the great flower-crowns drooping above her, her blue cotton dress rolled up to the elbows, her hands plunged in a small wash-tub in which she is washing some small linen, habit-shirts, pocket-handkerchiefs, collars, expresses the ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... noon to the house of the chief of the Mackinnons to borrow a boat. This old man was a fine type of a Highland gentleman. It was his daily—probably his only—prayer that he might die on the field of battle fighting for his king and country. He was simple-minded, brave, and faithful, and though now between sixty and seventy, as active and courageous as any young man. John had received injunctions not to betray the Prince's presence in the neighbourhood to the laird, but to keep such a piece of news from ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... record of every incident; he does the work of the police without suspecting it. A government should maintain two hundred spies at most, for in a country like France there are ten millions of simple-minded informers.—However, we need not trust to this report; though even in this little town something would be known about the twelve hundred thousand francs sunk in paying for the Rubempre estate. We will ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... that a man so simple-minded and so sensitive as Dr. Lloyd should have provoked an encounter in which I can well conceive him to have been worsted. With your leave, Mr. Mayor, I will look into your ballroom. I may perhaps find there some ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... marriage, before embarking for Turkey, Philip, with his bride, paid a visit to Newberg. His second sermon he preached in the Baptist church. To those simple-minded country people, he stood before them a living illustration of what the grace of God might effect. Six years previously he had startled and amazed them, as though he had ridden through the air on a broomstick; ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... at that time was their condition. And the community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles; in it there is no insolence or injustice, nor, again, are there any contentions or envyings. And therefore they were good, and also because they were what is called simple-minded; and when they were told about good and evil, they in their simplicity believed what they heard to be very truth and practised it. No one had the wit to suspect another of a falsehood, as men do now; but what they heard about Gods and men ...
— Laws • Plato
... I am sure they are not aware of it, and would resent my criticism as unjust. Not only Sister Mary John and Veronica, but all of us; it seems to me that we all talk too much about her... I am sometimes almost glad that she is so little in the novitiate. Her influence on such simple-minded young women as Sister Jerome and Sister Barbara must be harmful—how could it be otherwise, coming out of another world? and her voice, too—you don't agree with me?" And Mother Hilda turned to Mother Philippa. Mother Philippa shook her head, ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... Socialist postulates as desirable is wanted without limit or qualification, to imagine whatever proposal is chosen for the controversy is to be carried out by uncontrolled monomaniacs, and so to make a picture of the Socialist dream. This picture is presented to the simple-minded person in doubt with "This is Socialism. Surely! SURELY! you don't ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... dinner, and ate their ox-tail soup. It is terrible to think of the subtlety with which the Evil One can insinuate himself among the most pious; for soup at middle-day is one of his most dangerous wiles, and it is precisely with the simple-minded inhabitants of the country and of the suburbs that this vice is ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... which we have just descended, and availing himself of the immemorial right belonging to such cases of kissing and being kissed by every woman whom he meets, young and old. You will find yourself here among those who are too simple-minded, and too full of self-respect, to be either ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... simple-minded creature, Rosmer—an inexperienced creature. You have no suspicion of the violence of the storm that will burst upon you. (MRS. HELSETH slightly opens the door ...
— Rosmerholm • Henrik Ibsen
... rude, unprincipled adventurers, men of violence and blood, it was very difficult to find a suitable person. At length he fixed with much hesitation upon M. Codro, the astrologer. He was a simple-minded, good man; learned, though very artless. M. Codro was strongly attached to De Soto, the preserver of his life. As we have seen, he was well aware of the peril to which his benefactor was hourly exposed from the malignity of the governor. ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... his critics. As a rule, however, the reader is concerned neither with the moral purpose of the book nor with the attacks of the Reviewers, and so the preface remains unread. Nevertheless, this is a pity, especially with us Russians! The public of this country is so youthful, not to say simple-minded, that it cannot understand the meaning of a fable unless the moral is set forth at the end. Unable to see a joke, insensible to irony, it has, in a word, been badly brought up. It has not yet learned that in a decent ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... until it has reached that haven of happiness called matrimony. The parents of these young people seemed to have been cast in opposite moulds, mentally and physically. Their modes of thought, their expectations, and their manner of living differed entirely. Hanz Toodleburg was simple-minded, honest, contented with his lot in the world, smoked his pipe, and lived in peace with his neighbors. And these he esteemed the greatest blessings a man could enjoy. Chapman was restless, designing, ambitious of wealth, and ready always to quarrel with those who ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... books and newspapers, which latter he had no habit of reading. He liked, therefore, to be with Celia, not withstanding her little airs of superiority, and if she patronized him, as she certainly did, probably the simple-minded young gentleman, who was unconsciously bred in the belief that he and his own kin had no superiors anywhere, never noticed it. To be sure they quarreled a good deal, but truth to say Phil was never more fascinated with the little witch, whom he felt ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... at her, his blue eyes full of a contented admiration. To this simple-minded, big-hearted man, his wife and child represented the whole world. All he had, all he owned, he valued only for the pleasure ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... Churches, will come forward and do their duty as Scotchmen on the political platform. In neither body does the attitude assumed by the ecclesiastical element in this question, so far as has yet been indicated, appear of a kind which plain, simple-minded laymen will delight to contemplate. The Established Church courts are taking up the ground that the teaching in their parish schools has been all along religious, and at least one great source from which has sprung the vitalities of ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... laughed the doctor. "Well now, I am glad to be warned, and I am glad there are some laws to protect poor simple-minded men like me. I'll speak to Driggs about it as soon as I go back, and you may expect to see on the front page of the 'Mercury' something like this: 'I, Horace Clay, physician of the village of Millford, hereby warn the public ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... while his warriors were still some hours from Prizren, they had the mortification of hearing that the Serbs had entered it. With passionate desire they turned to Scutari. Nikita told them of the old Slav princes who were buried there—and to the simple-minded Montenegrins that seemed a good enough reason why 20,000 of them, the flower of the army, should lay down their own lives on the dreary hills that barred them from the town. It was hardly necessary for Nikita to allude to the wealth that would be theirs if they could gain possession of ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... Miss Penelope was the only one that wasn't flustered. I ought to 'a' said Miss Penelope and Uncle Jim. The old creetur was jest that simple-minded he didn't know he'd done anything out o' the way, and he set there lookin' as pleased as a child, and thinkin', I reckon, how smart he'd been to help Miss Penelope out with ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... amusing to see these two—the good old clergyman, weak and simple-minded, and his strong antagonist, the aggressive working man with his large frame and genial countenance and great white flowing beard—a Walt Whitman in appearance—working together for some good object in the village. It was even more amusing, but touching ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... was all that was brave and noble and heroic and, too, he was Om-at's friend—the friend of the man she loved. For any one of these reasons Pan-at-lee would have died for Tarzan, for such is the loyalty of the simple-minded children of nature. It has remained for civilization to teach us to weigh the relative rewards of loyalty and its antithesis. The loyalty of the primitive is spontaneous, unreasoning, unselfish and such was the loyalty of Pan-at-lee for ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not be afraid.; there is no man whom I love better than Porthos, because he is so simple-minded and good-natured. Porthos is so straightforward in everything. Since I have become a bishop, I have looked for these primeval natures, which make me ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... suspect that, in some particular instance, one of your fellow men takes you for a simple-minded fool. To know you are being so regarded, not in one instance, but in general, is in the highest degree exasperating, no matter how well your vanity is ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... moments Juve was able to size up his man, who seemed only too anxious to impart information about himself and his affairs. While quite as simple-minded as Wulf, he appeared far more sinister. Juve also divined without much difficulty that his wife, Madame Heloise Heberlauf, was the best informed woman in the kingdom regarding gossip ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... at this relation; for said sermons must have been before him when he began the Large Catechism with the words: "This sermon is designed and undertaken that it might be an instruction for children and the simple-minded." (575, 1.) This was also Roerer's view, for he calls the Large Catechism "Catechism preached by D. M.," a title found also in the second copy (Nachschrift) of the third series: Catechism Preached by Doctor Martin Luther. In the conclusion ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... simple-minded thing be expected to resist such elegant compliments, my dear No. 6?" answered Aunt Judy. "But then came the difficulty. The 'SOMETHING' which lived in the field had no more legs than the lob-worm himself, and, in ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... Egyptian that held their influence on his mind the longest. A typical example of such a god will suffice, namely Thoth, whose original emblem was the dog-headed ape. In very early times great respect was paid to this animal on account of his sagacity, intelligence, and cunning; and the simple-minded Egyptian, when he heard him chattering just before the sunrise and sunset, assumed that he was in some way holding converse or was intimately connected with the sun. This idea clung to his mind, and we find in dynastic ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... faithless, unscrupulous and pitiless humbugs in their dealings with their own sex—which, whatever they may say, they despise at heart—that I am happy to be able to say, Mrs. Vane proved true as steel. She was a noble-minded, simple-minded creature; she was also a constant creature. Constancy is a rare, a beautiful, ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... modesty was so painfully sensitive that he could not say I on any account, though he occupied three more columns of his paper in explaining the state of our feelings. But, at first, the cry went forth that the battle had been of two against one; and that even the simple-minded colonists set down as somewhat cowardly. So much for talking about we in the ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... in the mind of man, duties multiply in his conscience and obstacles and bonds around his life. Instead of those electric brains, prompt to communicate the spark which they have received; instead of those ardent and simple-minded men, whose projects like Macbeth's "will to hand"—the world now presents to the poet minds like Hamlet's, deep in the observation of those inward conflicts which our classical system has derived from a state of society ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... receive God's account of His own creation as under the ordinary limits of human knowledge and imagination it would be received by a simple-minded man; and finding that "the heavens and the earth" are spoken of always as having something like equal relation to each other, ("Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them,") I reject at once all idea of the term "heavens" being intended to signify ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... hope they won't find us out. They were awfully kind to Nick when he went to India with them, and they're so simple-minded that they would expect him to be glad ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... who lived in a marsh in a certain part of the country. It fell out one day that, the crab having picked up a rice cake, an ape, who had got a nasty hard persimmon-seed, came up, and begged the crab to make an exchange with him. The crab, who was a simple-minded creature, agreed to this proposal; and they each went their way, the ape chuckling to himself at the good bargain which he ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... publication of his art. To succeed in penetrating the secret of the discovery which filled people's imaginations, the judges summoned his most confidential workmen, and required them to give evidence of what they knew. These men, simple-minded, yet faithful and strongly attached to Gutenberg, refused to reveal anything. Their master's secret was safer in their hearts than in the breasts of his more grasping associates. None of the great mysteries of the art transpired. Gutenberg, ruined, condemned, perhaps banished, retired alone and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... for two Sabbaths, but on the third, women and children had vanished. What was the matter? It had been reported that all this labor was only a preparation to transport them to America, and the simple-minded mothers staid away with their children in great trepidation; but visits from house to house, during the week, dispelled their fears, and next Sabbath all were again in their places, and this pleasant labor in Gavalan continued ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... befogs the serene light of God's holy law, and gives the directing power to his own inner liking. The sentimental young lady, who would recoil from the grossness of the Deist, is attracted by the poetry of Pantheism. Infidelity has had, in consequence, a degree of success very little suspected by simple-minded pastors and parents, and which is often ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... aged ecclesiastic, who resides in Paris; let his dwelling be searched, and should he be absent, it will warrant a suspicion that Pichegru is here; if, on the contrary, his brother should be at home, let him be arrested: he is a simple-minded man, and in the first moments of agitation will betray the truth. Everything happened as I had foreseen, for no sooner was he arrested than, without waiting to be questioned, he inquired if it was a crime ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... news, of course; but he has the greatest respect for Cynthia's literary tastes— You know she has published some verse? Yes. Not in book form, but in some of the better magazines. Oh, yes, Barthrop's a good chap: simple-minded, a shade gross, too, perhaps, in some ways. These chaps in the city do themselves too well, I think. But quite a good chap, and sure to make an excellent husband. I fancy his kind do, you know—no tension, no fret, ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... younger still. He went to a leading public school, where he was in no way distinguished either in work or athletics. I gathered, when I first knew him, that he had been regarded as a clever, quiet, good-natured, simple-minded boy, with a considerable charm of manner, but decidedly retiring. He was not expected to distinguish himself in any way, and he did not seem to have any particular ambitions. I went up to Cambridge at the same time as he, and we formed a ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... music than speech. It would not be fair to say that Myrtle was piqued to see that Cyprian was devoting himself to Bathsheba. Her ambition was already reaching beyond her little village circle, and she had an inward sense that Cyprian found a form of sympathy in the minister's simple-minded daughter which he could not ask from a young woman of her ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... like him," said Ronicky Doone gravely, "I sure wouldn't care where I had to do the talking; but I haven't any smooth lingo—I ain't got a lot of words all ready and handy. I'm a pretty simple-minded sort of a gent, Miss Smith. That's why I want to get you out of this house, where I ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... them. The poetical element would have been as much out of place as it would have been in a merchant's ledger. He could not, indeed, help introducing a little moralising, for he was a typical English middle-class dissenter. Some of his simple-minded commentators have even given him credit, upon the strength of such passages, for lofty moral purpose. They fancy that his lives of criminals, real or imaginary, were intended to be tracts showing that vice leads to the gallows. No doubt, De Foe had the same kind of solid ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... bailiwick were involved. He had taken a great liking to Mr. Holmes, and had striven to open the way for that gentleman in case he had the faintest inclination to speak of his losses; but, though the civilian instantly saw what the simple-minded old soldier was aiming at, he changed the subject, and it presently became plain to the commander that he would not speak about the matter at all. Miller could not well seek his advice without telling of the other thefts of which he believed Mr. Holmes to know nothing, and yet he felt that ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... Dete's mistress about finding a companion for her, and her mistress was anxious to help in the matter, as she felt so sympathetic about it. The lady-housekeeper had described the sort of child they wanted, simple-minded and unspoilt, and not like most of the children that one saw now-a- days. Dete had thought at once of Heidi and had gone off without delay to see the lady-housekeeper, and after Dete had given her a description of Heidi, ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... Lady Cecilia, turning to Horace, as soon as the unsuspecting philosopher was fairly gone. "Too bad really! If he were not the most simple-minded creature extant, he must have seen, suspected, something from your look; and what would have become of you if the doctor had come in one moment sooner, and had heard you—I was ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... began to laugh, but the least apprehensive ears would have perceived that the laughter was affected. Miss Cassewary did not laugh at all, but sat bolt upright and looked very serious. "Upon my honour," said the younger lady, "he is the most beautifully simple-minded human being I ever ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... and I could not avoid noticing the manner in which, once or twice, unconsciously to herself, I do believe, this simple-minded, sincere creature, pressed the hand which retained the locket to her heart; and yet it made no very lively impression on my imagination at the time. The conversation soon changed, and we began to ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... He recalled them with simple-minded compunction at that distance of time. He said: "You understand that directly I stooped to pick up that coil of running gear—the spanker foot-outhaul, it was—I perceived that I could see right into that part of the saloon the curtains ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... the matter ended, outwardly at least; but only outwardly. Tom had his own opinion, gathered from Grace's seemingly guilty face, and to it he held, and called old Willis, in his heart, a simple-minded old dotard, who had been taken ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... it became clear to her, had been infected by Evan's folly. Caroline, she subsequently learnt, had likewise been a fool. Instead of marvelling at the genius that had done so much in spite of the pair of fools that were the right and left wing of her battle array, the simple-minded lady wept. She wanted success, not genius. Admiration she was ever ready ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hall—it was unnecessary, he said, to dilate upon its merits—the Senators had seen for themselves. The painter of the picture was the grandson of Lucien Briscoe. Then came the word-pictures of Briscoe's life set forth in thrilling colours. His rude and venturesome life, his simple-minded love for the commonwealth he helped to upbuild, his contempt for rewards and praise, his extreme and sturdy independence, and the great services he had rendered the state. The subject of the oration was Lucien Briscoe; the ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... of Judea! In appearance, rough and savage as the gaunt dogs sitting with them around the blaze; in fact, simple-minded, tender-hearted; effects due, in part, to the primitive life they led, but chiefly to their constant care ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... view, the excitement was beyond description. Young and old, women and children, fell simultaneously upon their knees, and tears and sobs mingled with the blessings showered upon His Majesty by thousands of his simple-minded, affectionate people. ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... this difference between the late Chapeloud and the vicar,—one was a shrewd and clever egoist, the other a simple-minded and clumsy one. When the canon went to board with Mademoiselle Gamard he knew exactly how to judge of his landlady's character. The confessional had taught him to understand the bitterness that the sense of being kept outside the social pale puts into the heart of an ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... respect for the tradition of the county, or any feeling whatever for history in stone, was about to demolish much, if not all, that was interesting in that ancient pile, and insert in its midst a monstrous travesty of some Greek temple. In the name of all lovers of mediaeval art, conjured the simple-minded writer, let something be done to save a building which, injured and battered in the Civil Wars, was now to be made a complete ruin by the freaks of an irresponsible owner. Her sending him the paper seemed ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... extraordinary what excellent fish-hooks the natives will manufacture out of them. They prefer them to the best made in England. They still set a high value on them; but they are not quite so simple-minded as some of the Friendly islanders we heard of, who, on obtaining some nails, planted them, in the hope of obtaining a large crop from the produce! Scarcely had we dropped our anchor when we were surrounded by the canoes of the natives, who wore but the primitive ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... beefsteak, but they wait till they get in an extra chef and then send her a formal invitation. I believe ours is one of the half-dozen houses where people don't pretend to be something quite different from what they are when Mrs. Lenox appears. And yet she's the most simple-minded and genuine person, and would rather have beefsteak and friendship than pate de fois gras and ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... happy, careless souls like McLeary and Hogg. There are conscientious but slow-moving worthies like Mucklewame and Budge. There are drunken wasters like—well, we need name no names. We have got rid of most of these, thank heaven! There are simple-minded enthusiasts of the breed of Wee Pe'er, for whom the sheer joy of "sojering" still invests dull routine and hard work with a glamour of their own. There are the old hands, versed in every labour-saving (and duty-shirking) device. There are the feckless and muddle-headed, making heavy weather ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... engaged in forming a following for himself among the ignorant and simple-minded Germans, the rogue who called himself Count Leon came over and joined Rapp's colony at Economy; and when Leon, after quarreling with Rapp and removing to Phillipsburg, ran away from there to Louisiana, Keil managed to ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... you"—just like that. Then he had laughed and joked as if nothing unusual had happened—only was he watching her out of the corner of his eye when he thought she wasn't looking? That was the real question. The idea of Raymond trying to make her jealous! How simple-minded ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... Contractors and "jobbers" used to besiege the offices of the Secretaries of War and Navy, and the venerable Welles (who reminded me of Abraham in the lithographs), and the barnacled Stanton, seldom appeared in public. Simple-minded, straightforward A. Lincoln, and his ambitious, clever lady, were often seen of afternoons in their barouche; the little old-fashioned Vice-President walked unconcernedly up and down; and when some of the Richmond captives came home to ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... father-in-law to Ephraim, for he declared that none but Eph-raim should be his pet daughter's husband. And now he has come for the purpose of having a confidential chat with Viola. There he sits, the kind-hearted, simple-minded man, every line of his honest face eloquent with good-humor and happiness, still guilty of an occasional violent onslaught upon his thighs. Viola still ...
— A Ghetto Violet - From "Christian and Leah" • Leopold Kompert
... simply furnished as to leave no shadow of opportunity for concealment or trick, was the residence of honest piety and rural simplicity. All who ever knew them bore witness to the unimpeachable character of the good mother, while the integrity of the simple-minded farmers who were father and brother to the sisters who have since become so celebrated as the "Rochester Knockers" stands ...
— Hydesville - The Story of the Rochester Knockings, Which Proclaimed the Advent of Modern Spiritualism • Thomas Olman Todd |
