"Plain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... himself. "Was I crackin' a safe, or was I pullin' off something fine fer poor, bleedin' Mexico? If I was a-doin' that they ain't nothin' criminal in what I done—except to the guy that owned the coin. If I was just plain crackin' a safe on my own hook why then I'm a crook again an' I can't be that—no, not with that face of yours standin' out there so plain right in front of me, just as though you were there yourself, askin' me to remember an' be decent. God! ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Warrington had found himself on the right hand of Mrs. Shandon, who sate in plain black silk and faded ornaments by the side of the florid publisher. The sad smile of the lady moved his rough heart to pity. Nobody seemed to interest himself about her: she sate looking at her husband, who himself seemed rather abashed in the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... persons" referred to here, if only slaves, are very delicately described. But this clause, too, came to be recognized by all the departments of the government as referring to slaves. It is quite sure that if the good and plain men of the Revolutionary period had been dealing with a subject not shocking to their consciences, sense of justice, and humanity, they would have dealt with it in plain words, of direct and not ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... and clamoring, and on reaching the plain of Pharsalia, they forced Pompey by their pressure and importunities to call a council of war, where Labienus, general of the horse, stood up first and swore that he would not return out of the battle if he did not rout the enemies; and a]l the rest took the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... plain and practical treatise, prepared by a physician of skill and experience, in which he aims to furnish information to women, in their peculiar conditions and relations, married and single, so as to enable them to preserve their own ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... jolted along the straight white road to the cemetery, which was a little dusty acre on a plain between the hills. We halted at the gate, and Monty, getting down from his seat, robed by the front wheels. And, when the seven bodies had been removed in their stretchers from the waggon and laid in a line upon the road, the corporal of the Burial ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... he said, as, puffing and blowing, he clambered up the terrace. "Curious idea to live in this wearisome desert, when he has respectable and comfortable castles in the midst of the city, and on a level plain. One might truly think that the king, even in life, wishes to draw nearer to heaven, and withdraws from the children of man, to pray and ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... bit of it. I told you he was a plain, practical kind of cuss, with a tender spot in his heart. He looked at me with a calm, queer, but not mischievous twinkle in his eye. I stood the gaze with the most innocent assumption of impudence, waiting for the verdict. It came in a moment, accompanied with a hearty laugh as he said: 'By jingo, ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... and between it and the dark side of the ball lies the serial or middle tint. The point of darkness, the extreme of shade, is diametrically opposite to the focus of illumination, between which and the aerial tint lies the tint of reflection. If the ball rests on a plain, it will throw a shadow equal in length to one diameter and a quarter of the ball. That shadow will be darker than the shade on the ball, and the darkest part will be where the plain and ball come in contact with ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... I do assure you. Patt writes in charming spirits, and I dare say is in blooming beauty by this time, though she tells me that she is generally thought rather plain. That is impossible; for you know when we left her, at fifteen, she had every promise ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... "It's plain that you're new to the business!" retorted Mautang with a compassionate smile. "How did you treat ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... had had this very literary conversation with my honorable director, I rang at the door of the small house in the Rue Desbordes-Valmore where Pierre Fauchery lived, in a retired corner of Passy. Having taken up my pen to tell a plain unvarnished tale I do not see how I can conceal the wretched feeling of pleasure which, as I rang the bell, warmed my heart at the thought of the good joke I was about to play on the owner ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... plain, he was peasant-skulled For their tricks; and hence The traitors' shrewd schemings were all annulled By his bit of sense. He knew but one thing;—what his people thought them, And therefore in danger he freedom brought them. The whole was his vision, He would no ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... keep your eye on HALDANE, Ex-Minister of War, The sleek and supple-minded And suave Lord Chancellor, Whose brain, so keen and subtle, Moves swifter than a shuttle, Obscuring, like the cuttle, Things that were plain before. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... building a house close to the school and took care that certain remains found by her builders should be duly noted: excavations in 1906-7, however, left the size and extent of these remains somewhat uncertain and resulted in what we now know to be an incorrect plan. The work done last spring makes it plain (fig. 3) that the Principia fronted—in normal fashion—the main street of the fort (gravel laid on cobbles) running from the north to the south gate. But, abnormally, the frontage was formed by a verandah or colonnade: the only parallel ...
— Roman Britain in 1914 • F. Haverfield
... He descended into the plain, and offered battle to the enemy, which was instantly accepted. The great inequality of numbers was sufficient alone to decide the victory; but the queen, by sending a detachment, who fell on the back of the duke's army, rendered her ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... regarding Macaulay and Hallam as the ideal historians, suspicious of novelty, and dismayed by paradox. Froude's critic belonged to a more advanced school of Liberalism, and shuddered at the glorification of a "tyrant" like Henry VIII. That he had also some reason for personally detesting Froude is plain from his malicious references to the Lives of the Saints, and to The Nemesis of Faith, which Froude himself had, so far as he could, suppressed. When Froude's name was restored to the books of Exeter College in ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... completely. Forgetting entirely his duties as a telegrapher, he closed the office and went for a walk across the meadows and in the little patches of woodlands that still remained standing in the open plain north of Pickleville. He did not return until late at night, and when he did, had not solved the puzzle as to what had happened. All he got out of it was the fact that the machine he had been trying to make was of great and mysterious importance to the civilization into which ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... came into him to tell her the truth, to revel in plain speaking for once, and to see how she would ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... supposed to have gained Education quite good and sufficient; But one in those days, Thought deserving of praise, Would in these, be deemed very deficient. And here we will try Before the mind's eye, To bring forward a few of that household; There were the witty, Also the pretty, But some very plain, Not a few very vain, And among them the phlegmatic and cold. Though it seems out of place I will here find a space For some few in the lower apartment; Sure this must be right, They contributed quite To our ...
— The Kings and Queens of England with Other Poems • Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow
... The plain people who think—the mechanics, farmers, merchants, workers with head or hand, the men to whom American traditions are dear, who love their country and try to act decently by their neighbors, owe it to themselves to remember that the most damaging blow that can ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... whatever. The clock had a good loud tick, and when he heard it strike, one of my sisters told me that he left his study, went to the parlor, got down on his knees and carefully examined the machinery, which was all in plain sight, not being enclosed in a case. This he did repeatedly, and evidently seemed a little proud of my ability to invent and whittle such a thing, though careful to give no encouragement for anything more of ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... experience Seldom that in her own house a lady gets a chance to scream Taste usually implies a sort of selection To read anything or study anything we resort to a club Vast flocks of sheep over the satisfying plain of mediocrity Vitality of a fallacy is incalculable Want our literature (or what passes for that) in light array We move in spirals, if ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner
... fixedly at his companion, plain horror showing in his eyes. But he found nothing to ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Tad's name. It was plain that he heard them, for he waved a listless hand then returned to ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... any point needs clearing up," he said. "It's a blind trail at best. You've the right to see it as plain as I can make it—with Slade's help. Cut right in with your questions: There'll be plenty to answer and ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... winding up Bignor Hill is still easily recognisable, and from the summit half Sussex is visible: the flat blue weald in the north, Blackdown's dark escarpment in the north-west, Arundel's shaggy wastes in the east, the sea and the plain in the south, and the rolling turf of the downs all around. Henceforward the road is again straight, nine unfaltering miles to Chichester, which we enter by St. Pancras and East Street. For the first four miles, however, the track is over turf and ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... Daniel Granger was; and perhaps wanted to see what probability there was of Daniel Granger's wife being able to supply him with money in the future. Austin Lovel had, from his earliest boyhood, possessed a fatal capacity for getting rid of money, and for getting into debt; not common plain-sailing debt, which would lead at the worst to the Bankruptcy Court, but liability of a more disreputable and perilous character, involving the terror of disgrace, and entanglements that would have to be unravelled by ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... couldn't occur again in a thousand years, not even if she tried to do it. Her left ear happened to stop not more than half an inch from the keyhole. She just couldn't help hearing what Mrs. Smith said to her maid. Angie says she said, plain as anything: 'You couldn't blame me for sitting up all night, if you had to sleep in a thing like this.' She didn't hear anything more, because she hates eavesdropping. Besides, she thought she heard ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... and admirable management of her household. She had the general's own warm heart, frank manners, and admirable temper; and no two persons could have been better suited to each other, lived more happily together, or made a house more attractive to visitors. No bashful youth or plain old man, whose modesty sat them down at the lower end of the table, could escape her cordial attention, any more than the titled gentlemen at her right and left. Young persons were her delight, and she always had her house ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... Ben. "Stella is the Latin for star. Don't you see, she has sent this message out from the Hole in the Wall, where she is a prisoner? It's as plain as day ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... of the open air, and the spectacle of the wind foaming among the leaves of the oak and elm can easily make us forget all but the present. The blue hills in the distance when rain is about, the grey arras of wet that advances over the plain, the whitethroat that sings or rather scolds above the hedge as he dances on the wing, the tree-pipit—or is it another bird?—that sinks down to the juniper-tip through a honey of music, a rough sea seen in the distance, half shine, half scowl—any of these ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... stories about his behaviour in the House of Conde, which if they are true seem to carry eccentricity beyond the bounds of what is permitted even to a philosopher. Nevertheless, contemporaries report that, in spite of his plain features and his "look of a common soldier" (a dreadful thing to say in the seventeenth century), the ladies ran after him. I am afraid that when they did so, he repulsed them. He says about love none of the ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... soon plain that this view prevailed among the quartette. As they turned to move away, ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... no more, and caught the two hands of Bhanavar in his, saying, 'This that is in my soul for thee thou knowest, O Bhanavar! and 'tis spoken when I move and when I breathe, O my loved one! Tell me then the cause of thy shunning me whenever I would speak of it, and be plain with thee.' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of obtaining information regarding present religious phenomena, it is plain that we should adopt the scientific method and turn our attention to the remote past, where, by careful and systematic investigation, we are enabled to perceive the earliest conception of a creative force and the fundamental basis of all religious ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... such a 'eathen place a name too, was more than she could bear." So the girls who loved to tease her, declared her Mistress did not look one bit better than the rest of the party, and that Madame's neat plain white cap was the prettiest thing at the dinner table, or Jenny's smart blue one, with bows and ends all over it. As she was too-matter-of-fact to see any joke in this, and as her Mistress's hair was her weak point, she waxed ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... around, and there, grinning a little, but looking highly determined and dangerous, was the same man they had seen the day before, and who had questioned them when the tire of their taxicab blew out! But now he was not in uniform, but in a plain suit ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... not only the relative lack of anachronisms in poems supposed to have been made through a period of at least four hundred years, but also the harmony of the CHARACTERS in subtle details. Some of the characters will be dealt with later; meanwhile it is plain that Mr. Leaf, when he rejects both the idea of written texts prior to 600-540 B.C., and also the idea of a school charged with the duty of "maintaining a fixed standard," leaves a terrible task to his supposed editor of orally transmitted poems which, he says—if unpreserved ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... Miss Granger called giving them a solid foundation; but as the edifice destined to be erected upon this educational basis was generally of the humblest—a career of carpentering, or blacksmithing, or housemaiding, or plain-cooking, for the most part—it is doubtful whether that accurate knowledge of the objective case or the longitude of the Sandwich Islands which Miss Granger so resolutely insisted upon, was ever of any great ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... digging out a passage in the "Apology" when there came a knock at the door of his room. The visitor was his cousin, James, and he radiated such an air of prosperity that the plain little bedroom shrank ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... would have herself been shocked had she seen written down in plain words all the feelings her jealous temper caused her. But almost the worst of jealousy is that it hides itself in so many dresses, and gives itself so many names, sometimes making itself seem quite a right and proper feeling; often, very often making one think oneself a poor, ill-treated martyr, ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... we are right. If it is really true that a soldier is more likely to be killed when wearing a scarlet coat, it is plain common sense to dress him in mud colour. If music attracts the enemy's fire, then bands should be left at home to play for nursemaids in parks and on piers. Yet there is something to be said for ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... pleasantly. "But I 'm afraid," he explained to Franco, "that there is n't any noblesse in my bones. I 'm afraid I 'm just a plain commoner." ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... watched, it crept quickly along the blue-enamelled plain. It swallowed up the southern cliffs of Guernsey. Its creeping nose was level with the tall Doyle column. It crept on and on, till Castle Cornet disappeared and Peter Port was lost to sight. On and on—Jethou was gone, and bit by ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... that? Perhaps it may give my words a closer application if I glance at two or three references: 'For this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the Devil'. Are you in union with Him for that purpose? There is the reason round about us, plain ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... Mangier in a private room; and he remarked, with a nervous shudder, that two gendarmes were stationed in the passage. Derville, though very pale, sustained Bertrand's glance of rage and astonishment without flinching. It was plain that he had steeled himself to carry through the diabolical device his revenge had planned, and the fluttering hope with which Marie had inspired Bertrand died within him. Derville repeated slowly and firmly what the clerk had previously stated; adding, that no one save Bertrand, Jeanne Favart, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... the waters, to make men and women to live, to make the gods to be at peace [with thee], and to make Ra to employ his magical spells through thy chants of praise. Come to me this day, quickly, quickly, as thou workest the paddle of the Boat of the god. Drive thou away from me every lion on the plain, and every crocodile in the waters, and all mouths which bite (or, sting) in their holes. Make thou them before me like the stone of the mountain, like a broken pot lying about in a quarter of the town. Dig thou out from me the poison ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... fiction cease to lie about life Long-puerilized fancy will bear an endless repetition Made them talk as seldom man and never woman talked No greatness, no beauty, which does not come from truth Novels hurt because they are not true Plain industry and plodding perseverance are despised Pseudo-realists Public wish to be amused rather than edified Teach what they do not know Tediously analytical Unless we prefer a luxury of grief Vulgarity: bad art to lug it in ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of William Dean Howells • David Widger
... however, his senses came back to him, and one evening, as he lay languidly looking about him in his rude wooden bunk, he endeavoured to recall what had passed since he left the loggers' camp. The little room was comfortably warm, and a plain tin lamp burned upon what was evidently a home-made table. There was nothing, except a rifle, upon the rough log walls, and nothing upon the floor, which was, as usual, rudely laid with split boards, ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... filtering through the senses in a thousand ways—the wild ducks' flight, the sweet smell of the balsam, the exquisite gallop of the deer, the powder of the frost, the sun and snow and blue plains of water, the thrilling eternity of plain and the splendid steps of the hills, which led away by stair and entresol to the Kimash Hills, the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... two-story, the other one had just one story and they were both weatherboarded like Marse John's own house. The grown folks slept on beds made with tall oak posts. There were no metal springs then and the beds were corded instead. The straw-stuffed mattress ticks were made with plain and striped material, and pillows were filled with cotton. We children slept on trundle beds, which were pushed up under the big beds in the daytime, and pulled out for us to sleep ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... invariably in the past meant an enormous increase in venereal diseases on the return of the army in the civil population. Armies lose large numbers of men by them, and every person must feel it is their plain duty to leave no means untried and no measures unused ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... so. I asked her if it was because she had ceased to love you. After a pause she said 'No.' Was it because some one else had come between you? She threw up her head proudly, and said it was best to be quite plain and frank. She had met Geoffrey Cliffe again, and she meant henceforward to share his life. Then she went into the wildest dreams about going back with him to the Balkans, and nursing in a hospital, and dying—she hopes!—of hard ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Lethbridge, of Blackheath, has a horse, bred by Lord Mostyn, which had previously borne a foal by a quagga. This horse is dun with a dark stripe down the back, faint stripes on the forehead between the eyes, plain stripes on the inner side of the fore-legs and rather more faint ones on the hind-legs, with no shoulder-stripe. The mane grows much lower on the forehead than in the horse, but not so low as in the quagga or zebra. The ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... great deal lately about when I was your age, and there didn't seem anything for me but to marry one of the neighbour's boys that I'd known always, or a long plain piece of school teaching. It wasn't easy with everybody egging me on—but I stuck it out, and at the last along came your father ... I'd like you to have something like that, Peter,—and your son coming ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... the elder woman, with her wan face coloring faintly, "I've done nothin' but my plain duty, ez I seed hit. I've done nothin' ter what THEY would've done had n't they been taken from me afore they had a chance. Like one who speaks ter us in the Book, I've been in journeyin's often, in peril of robbers, ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... Schwaermerin, very much lacking in character and mother-wit. From the first the expression of her love does not ring perfectly true. We suspect her of phrase-making,—she is quite too ethereal and ecstatic for a plain fiddler's daughter. No trace here of that homely poetic realism,—Gretchen at the wash-tub, or Lotte cutting bread and butter,—with which Goethe knew how to invest his bourgeois maidens. For aught we can learn from her discourse Schiller's Louise might be a princess, ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... the council and from his position as chief justice, and Bernard returned in his former place. All of the rest of Albemarle's creatures were dismissed from their posts, and the supporters of Lynch's regime again put in control of a majority in the council.[495] This measure of plain justice was one of the last acts of James II. as King of England. On 5th November 1688 William of Orange landed in England at Torbay, and on 22nd December James escaped to France to live as a pensioner of Louis XIV. The new king almost immediately wrote ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... bright summer morning have I seen her resting on a low bench beneath a huge overhanging elm, overlooking the field of our labors. To a stranger the flushed face with its irregular features, might have seemed plain; the earnest, energetic manner might have seemed almost abrupt; but to the children who sat on the grass at her feet looking upward, the face was beautiful. That calm eye had pierced through so many childish intricacies and made them clear; the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... bare, as scrupulously clean as were the other landings; but his quick glance noted that while the door upon the left was plain and unadorned as the others he had passed, that upon the right bore a small brass plate engraved ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... it. There's property or money hanging on her existence. Now, padre, I'll talk plain. You priests are pretty sly. You write your people about this child. I'll see you have money. My banker will work the whole municipality of ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... the man, reseating himself, and drinking off the scheedam. "That's really prime; I like it better every time I taste it. Now, then, shall we go to business again? I'll be plain with you. Half is my conditions, ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... "violent measures" charged against Luther a careful reader of history will rather find on the side of Luther's opponents. They plainly relied on the power of Rome to crush Luther by brute force. What respect could a plain, honest man like Luther conceive for men like Cajetanus, Eck, and Hoogstraten, who were first sent by the Vatican to negotiate his surrender? For publishing simple Bible-truth the cardinal at Augsburg roared and bellowed at him, "Recant! Recant!" Even at this early stage of the affair ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... wall, and probably set down from some hunter's report. I had better explain here the chief features of the country, for they bulk largely in my story. The Berg runs north and south, and from it run the chief streams which water the plain. They are, beginning from the south, the Olifants, the Groot Letaba, the Letsitela, the Klein Letaba, and the Klein Labongo, on which stands Blaauwildebeestefontein. But the greatest river of the plain, ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... the Agency, and Parker's sister and housekeeper brought the visitor coffee. The house was very plain, roomy, and comfortable. The two men ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... lord," said the plain-spoken Fleming, "remain at home, and be yourself the protector of what is ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... the captain in some perplexity, "I'm a plain seaman, and I don't know much of governors and baronets and their ways. I don't remember that I ever so much as spoke to one. But if it's in King George's service, and he asks a cast in the Morning ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... unsatisfactory is apparent. Stockholders are complaining; directors are bewildered; bankers are frightened. Yet that the Interstate Commerce Act is in the main responsible for all these results, remains to be proved. In my opinion, the difficulty is far more deep-seated and radical. In plain words, it does not lie in any act of legislation, State or National; and it does lie in the covetousness, want of good faith and low moral tone of those in whose hands the management of the railroad system now is; in a word, in the absence among men of any high standard of commercial honor. These ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... grief to see his daughter; for he fears she is seduced; and tells me, good honest man, that, poor as he is, he will not own her, if she be not virtuous. O, said they all, with one voice almost, Dear sir! shall we not see the good old man you have so praised for his plain good sense, and honest heart? If, said he, I thought Pamela would not be too much affected with the surprise, I would make you all witness to their first interview; for never did daughter love a father, ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... was thinking. Possibly his daughter had told him something more than he chose to communicate to me. I could not help suspecting the mode in which he judged I might interfere. But I could see no likelihood before me but that of confusion and precipitation. In a word, I had not a plain path to follow. ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... Consort by Act of Parliament, and urged her wish upon the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. At first that sagacious man simply evaded the point, but when her Majesty insisted on a categorical answer, "I thought it my duty to be very plain with her. I said, 'For G——'s sake, let's hear no more of it, ma'am; for if you once get the English people into the way of making kings, you will get them into the way ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... darkened chamber overhead. Bathsheba Stoker was not called handsome; but she had her mother's youthful smile, which was so fresh and full of sweetness that she seemed like a beauty while she was speaking or listening; and she could never be plain so long as any expression gave life to her features. In perfect repose, her face, a little prematurely touched by sad experiences,—for she was but seventeen years old,—had the character and decision stamped in its outlines which any young man who wanted a companion to ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... he cried, "if there ain't the old scoundrel now, right here behind us! I kin see him plain as day—he's got an old cowbell hitched to his neck; and he's shy a couple of feathers out of one wing. By doctors, that's somethin' you won't see every day! In all my born days I ain't never ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... where he was carried off by fever on the very day appointed for his coronation. His corpse was interred the same evening in the church of the monastery, according to his will; and his tomb was covered with a plain stone, on which, ten years after, Manso, his friend and admirer, caused this ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... not the end, as Richard and his men knew full well. Though they had possession of the town itself, they were surrounded by a great army of Saracens, that were hovering around them on the plain, and rapidly increasing in numbers; for Saladin had sent orders to the interior directing all possible assistance to be sent to him. Richard himself, on the other hand, was hourly expecting the arrival of the main body of ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... tenderness shown by our law to presumed criminals is as injurious as it is inconsistent and excessive. A miserable beggar, a petty rioter, the wretch who steals a loaf to satisfy the gnawings of his hunger, is roughly seized, closely examined, and severely punished; meanwhile, the plain common sense of our mobs, if not of our magistracy, has pitied the offender, and perhaps acquitted him. But let some apparent murderer be caught, almost in the flagrant deed of his atrocity; let him, to the best of all human ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... I found the packing completed, and after shaking hands with the telegraph man we at once continued our journey. At first we passed through meadows, partially bordered with trees, and across sandy hills, and then descended a grassy slope called Lazga, from which we surveyed the extensive plain before us, with the sandy hills on the left projecting into the bright green surface like islets in the sea (see sketch). To the right are two large "Sidr" trees called Sager el Emir (the tree of the ...
— The Caravan Route between Egypt and Syria • Ludwig Salvator
... mountain range, still capped with snow, lay perhaps a hundred miles to the northwest; in the distance it looked like a white, low-lying cloud on the horizon. No other mountains or hills marred the endless sweep of the high plain. ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... yards to our right in plain view across the open fields was the little village of Auchonvillers. Suddenly a great German shell burst with an earth-shaking shock in the open fields about three hundred yards behind it, throwing up a great cloud of inky black smoke nearly as large as a city block. It made a crater ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... of the valley I had my first view of the Great City. It occupied a huge, mound-shaped circular mountain which rose alone out of the wide plain that spread before me. As far as I could see extended a rich muddy soil partially covered with water. A road led out of the valley, stretching across these wet fields toward the base of the mountain. It was built on an embankment some ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... Declaration of Independence. In 1814 he was elected to the Senate from Lincoln county. In 1815 he delivered an address at King's Mountain, commemorative of the battle at that place, and caused to be erected, at his own expense, a plain headstone of dark slate rock, with appropriate inscriptions on both sides. The inscription on the east side reads thus: "Sacred to the memory of Major William Chronicle, Capt. John Mattocks, William Robb and John ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... M. Venizelos was sailing for the islands, and orders were given for a French escort. But at the last moment M. Venizelos did not sail. He hesitated. The French Secret Service urged the National Leader to lead, instead of being prodded from behind; but he resisted their pressure and their plain speaking.[13] When questioned by the Associated Press Correspondent if there was any truth in the reports that he was going to put himself at the head of the revolutionary forces, he replied: "I cannot answer now. I must wait a little while yet and see what the ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... your Excellency's knowledge, and the knowledge of every one on the island, that his Honour has only just risen from a long and serious illness, brought on by overwork, by too zealous attention to his duties, and that—in fact, that—well, not to blink the plain truth, that——" ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... rock ridge. Up this the dogs toiled, with Jean pulling at the lead-trace. They came to the top. There they stopped. And standing like a hewn statue, his voice breaking in a panting cry, Jean Jacques Croisett pointed down into the plain below. ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... guarding carefully against the intrusion of mere traditional forms and arrangements. The latter are apt to insinuate themselves, and to interfere with that simplicity and directness of action which is in all cases so desirable a quality in mechanical structures. PLAIN COMMON SENSE should be apparent in the general design, as in the form and arrangement of the details; and a general character of severe utility pervade the whole, accompanied with as much attention to gracefulness of form as is consistent with the nature ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... desire to visit the Everglades—a large tract extending over the greater part of the southern end of Florida. It consists of a vast plain of coarse saw-grass; above which, here and there, rise well-wooded and fertile islands, composed of coral rock of a crescent form, which they assumed when first forced up, by some convulsion of nature, above ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... river-bank, I saw the wreck of the large bridge which had been burned by the enemy, with its many stone piers still standing, but the superstructure gone. Across the Congaree River lay the city of Columbia, in plain, easy view. I could see the unfinished State-House, a handsome granite structure, and the ruins of the railroad depot, which were still smouldering. Occasionally a few citizens or cavalry could be seen running ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... this there will be the simple, subtle, but very real, atmosphere of the Holy Spirit, helping you make the story plain and full, and helping people to understand that story as it is lived, as they never can simply by hearing it told with tongues or read ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... it I must make some things plain," interrupted the youth eagerly. "I can admit that the government does not know the people, but I believe that the people know the government even less. There are useless officials, bad ones, if you wish, but there are also good ones, and if these are unable to do anything ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Ashley, and possibly her son, know about the bill," said I, "and no one shall if you will go with that lady to her room, and make plain to her, in the only way you can, that the extremely valuable article which has been lost to-night ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... iverything himself," said Major Gahogan, who had cantered up to the side of Fitz Hugh. "It's just a matther of plain business, an' he looks after it loike a business man. Did ye see us, though, Captin, whin we come in on their right flank? By George, we murthered um. There's more'n a hundred lyin' in hapes back there. ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... deal, possibly. If he was shut up somewhere they could make him write a set of these letters off at a sitting, and send them from place to place to be posted, to make us think he was travelling, and prevent our finding where they keep him. Here it is plain there was a slip in posting ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... grasps a poleaxe, bursts through the hard doorway, and wrenches the brazen-plated doors from the hinge; and now he hath cut out a plank from the solid oak and pierced a vast gaping hole. The house within is open to sight, and the long halls lie plain; open to sight are the secret chambers of Priam and the kings of old, and they see armed men standing in front ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... end of this mystification," he said, putting Oscar back from him, sharply, at arm's length. "I want a plain answer to a plain question. She knows that the boy knocked at the door, and asked if Blue Face was at home. Does she know what the boy's impudence meant? Yes? ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... carries no flag of fashion, her clothes are but passing plain, Though she comes from a city palace all jubilant with her reign. She threads a bewildering alley, with ashes and dust thrown out, And fighting and cursing children, who mock ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... lived at the skirt of a mountain, which ran up in long successive undulations, until it ended in a dark, abrupt peak, very perpendicular on one side, and always, except on a bright day, capped with clouds. Before his door lay a hard plain, covered only with a kind of bent, and studded with round gray rocks, protruding somewhat above its surface. Through this plain, over a craggy channel, ran a mountain torrent, that issued to the right of M'Kenna's house, from a rocky and precipitous ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... Valerie, now talking to a man, none other than her husband. So Morange had come with her, and had waited for her in the street while she interviewed Madame Bourdieu. And now they both stood there consulting together, hesitating and evidently in distress. It was plain to Mathieu that a terrible combat was going on within them. They stamped about, moved hither and thither in a feverish way, then halted once more to resume their conversation in a whisper. At one moment the young man felt intensely relieved, for, turning into ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... eyes opened at last, and rested on Wyvis' face with a look of recognition. She smiled a little, and seemed pleased that he was there. It was plain that for the moment she had quite forgotten the events of the last few hours, and the first words that she spoke proved that the immediate past had completely faded from ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... do we have to make hotbeds just like those for tomatoes, or if just a plain seed-bed will do? Is it necessary to irrigate them ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... plans made that night, however; but, by degrees, it was made plain to Mrs Inglis what it was best for them to do. David went almost immediately to M—, and was admitted into the university, passing the examinations for the second year; and Violet went back to her place in Mrs Lancaster's school. Mrs Inglis decided ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... tribe arrived in the valley, and pitched their deerskin tents on the plain opposite to the camp of the white men. Their numbers far exceeded Cameron's expectation, and it was with some anxiety that he proceeded to strengthen his fortifications as much as circumstances and the nature of ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... myself." When his second wife was taken from him, his affection so far prevailed that he raised a memorial stone, and in his will left this "order" to Mack and William Robinson, his executors: "I direct that my funeral be as plain as possible; that I be buried by the side of my second wife, Charlotte Emilia Carey; and that the following inscription and nothing more may be cut on the stone which commemorates her, either above or below, as there may ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... Obscurity, even by Gentlemen of Abilities, and such as in other Parts of the Work very frankly allow it's Merit: the Definition of Wit, which presents itself at first, you say is, particularly objected to, as dark and involv'd; in answer to which I beg Leave to give you my plain Sentiments upon it, and which I apprehend should naturally occur to every Reader: In treating upon Wit, the Author seems constantly to carry in his View a Distinction between This and Vivacity: there is a Lustre or Brilliancy which often results from wild unprovok'd Sallies of Fancy; ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... as the waves of light are of different lengths, it is plain that, to produce extinction in the case of the longer waves, a greater thickness of film is necessary than in the case of the shorter ones. Different colours, therefore, must appear at ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... and aunt had left us after a fortnight's visit, and were now on the Continent. The parting was hard work—harder, I fancy, to them than to him, for boys soon get over trouble, whereas it was plain to see in my aunt's wistful eyes that it was a sore trial to her to leave her child behind. I believe that she did not anticipate, in as sanguine a spirit as did her husband, the happy meeting again that was talked of for the spring, after ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... the air. If they had not been exposed the breath would have frozen their coverings, and they would have been obliged to take them off with the help of an axe—an awkward way of undressing. The interminable plain kept on with fatiguing monotony; icebergs of uniform aspect and hummocks whose irregularity ended by seeming always the same; blocks cast in the same mould, and icebergs between which tortuous valleys wound. The travellers spoke little, and marched on, compass in hand. It is painful to open ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... manufacturers of Sedan. He owned a large factory in Rue Maqua, which had been the property of the family for a hundred and sixty years; in the rear of the building was a palatial courtyard shaded with old trees, gigantic elms dating from the foundation of the establishment. Jules, married to a woman dull and plain-looking, had been kept by his mother in the dependent position of a mere boy, but at fifty years of age, his wife being dead, he became enamoured of Gilberte Maginot, a pretty young widow of Charleville, ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... from a Kinsman to a Countryman! a plain Contrivance to get my Woman out of the Room. Closet, as you value my Service, stir ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... you, Blaine," shouted the boatswain when he identified his shipmate, and grasped his hand. "Shiver my timbers if I'm not rejoiced to see a man that speaks plain English! ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... Congressional Library, he had satisfied himself that it would be far better and cheaper to string the wires through the open air between poles. This idea the men controlling the scheme for a time resisted. Some of them regarded such interference in a scientific matter by one whom they considered a plain working-man as altogether too presuming. But one day Professor Morse came out to decide the matter. Finding Mr. Cornell at his machine, the professor explained the difficulties in the case, especially the danger of shaking the confidence of Congress, and so losing the necessary appropriation, ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... such a country as this. Skill with the rifle and knowledge of forest warfare are far more important. In these points the colonists are as superior to the English soldiers as they are in point of numbers. Nevertheless, my dear, my duty is plain. I am an Englishman and have borne his Majesty's commission, and I must fight for the king. Harold has spoken to me as we rode home together, and he wishes to fight by my side. I have pointed out to him that as he was born here he ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... any salary annexed to your appointment for this plain reason, that we cannot afford any. It is our present business to reduce salaries heretofore given, and not to create new ones. This appointment, however, may be attended with pecuniary advantages, because a public character may, and no doubt will, point you out to American merchants as ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... blue mountains opposite lay the wonderful network of sea-loch and island through which one had to pass to get to the distant Lewis. How gladly at this moment would he have stepped on board the steamer with Sheila, and put out on that gleaming plain of sea, knowing that by and by they would sail into Stornoway harbor and find the wagonette there! They would not hasten the voyage. She had never been round the Mull of Cantyre, and so he would sit by her side and show her the wild tides meeting there, and the long jets of white ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... to you, Mr. Adair, and plead business; but I shan't. I'll tell you the plain truth. I'm too sore just now to be any ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... with the flavour of the finest claret—and that experience was renewed by the claret which she was now tasting. It was easy to understand why Mr. Mountjoy had purchased the wine; and, after a little thinking, his motive for inviting Mr. Vimpany to dinner seemed to be equally plain. Foiled in their first attempt at discovery by her own prudence and tact, his suspicions had set their trap. Her gross husband had been tempted to drink, and to talk at random (for Mr. Mountjoy's benefit) ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... said Mirah. "Only I have been used to thinking about my dress for parts in plays. And I almost always had a part with a plain dress." ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... but no model was present; his pictures were advantageously arranged, and his own plain vivacious person set off by a dove-colored blouse and a maroon velvet cap, so that everything was as fortunate as if he had expected the beautiful young English lady exactly at ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the glance she sent to him; it was only a glance and away, for more formidably than ever his power was enthroned in his haggard face. He stood with his back to the fire and it was plain that the muscles of his strong figure were braced to give and to receive a shock. "Mr. Burroughs," he said, "your daughter is mistaken. Perhaps it is my fault—in having helped her to mislead herself. The plain truth is, I have become infatuated with a young ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... and great bankers came to her office and did business with her on a footing of equality. She did not become any prouder for it, she knew too well the strength and weakness of life to have pride; her former plain dealing had not stiffened into self-sufficiency. Such as one had known her when beginning business, such one found her in the zenith of her fortune. Instead of a woollen gown she wore a silk one, but the color was still black; her language ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... the plain, everyday truth, boys, I don't allow as how there is any more reptiles up to Lake Narsac nor there be around Lake Firefly an' in the mountains whar I hang out. Narsac may have a few more rattlers, an' them's the wust kind—-you ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... Rathfarnham, by the late king, was amply avenged in the first year of the new Ard-Righ (A.D. 920), when the Dublin Danes, having marched out, taken and burned Kells, in Meath, were on their return through the plain of Breagh, attacked and routed with unprecedented slaughter. "There fell of the nobles of the Norsemen here," say the old Annalists, "as many as fell of the nobles and plebeians of the Irish, at Ath-Cliath" (Dublin). The Northern Hydra, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... civilized East have often succeeded in holding intercourse, by means of their invention and application of principles in what may be called the voiceless mother utterance, with white deaf-mutes, who surely have no semiotic code more nearly connected with that attributed to the plain-roamers than is derived from their common humanity. They showed the greatest pleasure in meeting deaf-mutes, precisely as travelers in a foreign country are rejoiced to meet persons speaking their language, ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... country in Arabic) centered in the white band; design is based on the Arab Liberation flag and similar to the flag of Syria, which has two green stars, Iraq, which has three green stars (plus an Arabic inscription) in a horizontal line centered in the white band, and Yemen, which has a plain white band ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... teaching of God's word, Rom. 1:18, "The wrath of God[1] is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men," But we need to keep in mind that it is discriminating wrath, and God's word makes this plain, Heb. 2:2, "Every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward." "A ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... for very plain reasons. Because, for one thing, the object only satisfies for a time. Yesterday's food appeased our hunger for the day, but we wake hungry again. And the desires which are not so purely animal have the same characteristic of being stilled for the moment, and of waking more ravenous than ever. 'He ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... except that the men bind a string or fillet, ten handbreadths long, about their heads. They make breeches and shoes of the skins of wild beasts, and use no other garments. After three days journey is the town of Scasom[6], seated in a plain, through the middle of which there flows a great river; and there are many castles in the surrounding mountains[7]. There are many porcupines in this country, which are hunted by dogs; and these animals, contracting themselves ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... palaces, like the temples, never rose directly from the soil, but were invariably built on the top of an artificial mound of crude brick. At Lagash, this solid platform rises to the height of 40 feet above the plain, and the only means of access to the top is by a single narrow steep staircase, easily ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... shout of the cavalry, sprang out of his tent, and, perceiving a tumult before the rampart, and his own troops in a state of hurry and confusion, the standards of the legions gleaming at a distance, and the plain filled with the enemy, immediately sent out the whole body of his cavalry against the horsemen of the enemy; marching himself out of the camp, at the head of the infantry, without departing at all from the usual arrangement in forming ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... north end of this plain stood a row of pretty dwellings. The largest was the residence of Colonel North, commanding officer of the Thirty-fourth. Next to the colonel's residence was that of Major Silsbee, the battalion commander. Past the major's residence was a row of somewhat smaller cottages, each the home of a ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... plain (Deccan Plateau) in south, flat to rolling plain along the Ganges, deserts ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... in which the officer accepted the assistance of the coachman to help him out, it was plain that he was past fifty. There are certain movements so undisguisedly heavy that they are as tell-tale as a register of birth. The captain put on his lemon-colored right-hand glove, and, without any question to the gatekeeper, went up the outer steps to the ground of the new house ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac |
