"Downright" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... evening after this sale, he no more thought of saying his prayers than would a man who had taken God Almighty by the horn, patted Him on the rump, and sold Him, and let some strange boy urge Him on with a bit of strap. He felt that he was an evil man, a downright ungodly man, and he asked his wife what the ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
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... masses of unshaped metal, caring little for immediate effect or minute dexterity of stroke, but knowing full well that the emotional energy of their temperaments was capable of fusing the most intractable material, and that in the end they would produce their great, downright effect. Their spirits rose and fell, but the case was desperate, copy had to be despatched for the current serial. Good and bad had to make up the tale against time, and revelling in the very exuberance and excess of their humour, the novelists ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
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... aid of the bath, the soda, and the coffee, and all the thousand remedies which a skilful valet has ever at hand, at three o'clock on the same day he rose and dressed, and in an hour was again at the illustrious bow-window, sneering with Charles Annesley, or laughing downright ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
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... even Ady was a downright disbeliever. He defended Scot from the report "that he held an opinion that Witches are not, for it was neither his Tenent nor is it mine." Alas, Ady does not enlighten us as to just what was his opinion. Certainly his witches were creatures without power.[50] What, then, were they? Were ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
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... the most opposite views on this subject find their expression in current literature. To stir up all these controversies is not my object, but I want to state quite generally that it is under all circumstances a downright evil to try to follow out any theoretical system to its logical development, whether the one selected be that of Captain Plinzner[24] or another's. We have neither such a uniform type of horse nor sufficiently skilled riders as to be able to employ the ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
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... fled; mother frantic; hard, very hard to know how best to comfort. A woman is a wonderful network of cross-wires, and when these wires get unstrung or entangled, the result is most distressing. In presence of such, one feels hopelessly lost, and all one can do is to—walk away. And yet, for downright, dogged perseverance—for silent, struggling endurance—for quiet, patient suffering—commend me to a woman. What would become of Man ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
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... were to be wished) I would rather have a plain downright wisdom, than a foolish and affected eloquence. For what is so furious and Bedlam like as a vain sound of chosen and excellent words, without any subject ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
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... shook the dampness from them. As he handed them to the checker, he looked casually around. Dorrine was nowhere in sight, but he hadn't expected her to be. There would be no point in their meeting physically; it might even be downright dangerous. ...
— The Penal Cluster • Ivar Jorgensen (AKA Randall Garrett)
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... and he took his aunt's hand as he said, "I thank you for your kindness, and more than all for your downright sincerity. When I came here it was to make but a formal call. With the exception of one friend, I believed that I stood utterly alone in the world— that no one cared about what I did or what became of me. I was ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
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... I hate her. I do indeed. It isn't love for me now so much as downright malice against Palliser, because he baulked her project before. She is a wicked old woman. Some of us fellows are wicked enough—you and ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
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... Africa, which presages a severe storm. It appears at first in the form of an ox-eye, but soon overspreads the whole hemisphere, accompanied by a violent wind which scatters ships in all directions, and many are sunk downright. Also, a water-fowl. Also, the smaller ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
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... merchants, was already in a fair way of getting rid of his portion in riotous living. Nothing does a young American so much good, under such circumstances, as to induce him to travel. It makes or breaks at once. If a downright fool, he is plucked by European adventurers in so short a time, that the agony is soon over. If only vain and frivolous, because young and ill-educated, the latter being a New York endemic, but with some foundation of native mind, ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
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... the second place such teachers are disposed to bring the people into downright bondage and to bind their conscience by forcing laws upon them and teaching work-righteousness. The effect is that fear impels them to do what has been pounded into them, as if they were bond-slaves, while ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
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... I own; not but what I have told a pretty round number in my life, not all in downright words, as I suppose you did, but in actions, or in some shabby circumlocutory way, leading people either to disbelieve the truth, or believe a falsehood. You know who is the father of lies, Margaret? Well! ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
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... nay, it is perhaps a widely diffused assumption that even in antiquity educated and unbiased persons held the same view of the religion of their people as we do. In reality both assumptions are erroneous: our "atheism" in regard to ancient paganism is of recent date, and in antiquity itself downright denial of the existence of the gods was a comparatively rare phenomenon. The demonstration of this fact, rather than a consideration of the various intermediate positions taken up by the thinkers of antiquity in their desire to avoid a complete rupture with the traditional ideas of ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
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... why Mary Todd married Lincoln. He was still poor; so poor that after marriage they lived at the Globe Tavern on four dollars a week. And the lady had been sought by prosperous men! The lowliness of Lincoln's origin went ill with her high notions of her family's importance. She was downright, high-tempered, dogmatic, but social; he was devious, slow to wrath, tentative, solitary; his very appearance, then as afterward, was against him. Though not the hideous man he was later made out to be—the ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
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... enthusiastic promoter of workingmen's associations, and a leading spirit among the so-called Christian Socialists. Needless to add that, though never for one moment sundered one from the other in heart or affection by differences of opinion, the two could not work together in this field. Downright, practical George has his objections, and states them. Listen: "'You don't want to divide other people's property?' 'No.' 'Then why call yourselves Socialists?' 'But we couldn't help ourselves: other people ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
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... being New Year's Day, we passed a more than usually merry time. Stories were told, old ballads were sung, while Roger de Coverley was danced in downright earnest by most of those who were present. By midnight, however, the old hall was silent; each of us had repaired to his room, and most, I expect, were quietly asleep, when a terrible scream was heard, after which there were shouts for help and hysterical cries. The sounds seemed ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
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... the collar of command upon any pretence whatever, and are so ready to usurp upon dominion, every one does so naturally aspire to liberty and power, that no utility whatever derived from the wit or valour of those he employs ought to be so dear to a superior as a downright and sincere obedience. To obey more upon the account of understanding than of subjection, is to corrupt the office of command —[Taken from Aulus Gellius, i. 13.]—; insomuch that P. Crassus, the same whom the Romans reputed five times happy, at the time when he was consul ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
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... of them. Their father is away, their mother won't look at them! What will become of me until Eva gets well and behaves like a human being? I never promised to be an aunt to twins; I never did like twins; I think they're downright vulgar!" ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
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... the partial eclipse into which Mr. Garland's reputation passed. As a matter of fact, the causes were more fundamental than the mere fickleness of literary reputation or than the demands of editors and public that he repeat himself forever. In that first brilliant cycle of stories this downright pioneer worked with the material which of all materials he knew best and over which his imagination played most eagerly. From them, however, he turned to pleas for the single tax and to exposures of legislative corruption and imbecility about which he neither knew nor cared so much as he knew ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
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... "Oh, she was wicked—downright wicked!" declared Mary, with some passion—"Any girl who would plan and scheme to marry an old man for his money must be a worthless creature. I wish I had been in that Lucy ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
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... on a grassy flat not far from the ranges; hope to find water early to-morrow, as our horses are too poor to go long without it. Was obliged to abandon police-horse Brick to-day, as he was completely done up. Nothing but downright poverty is the cause of his giving in; and the same in the case of Fame and Little Padbury, which we abandoned over a month ago. They were poor when they left, and have only had very dry grass ever since. It is a wonder to me they all do not give in, as many are mere skeletons. ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
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... traditions of Teutonic sentiment. With something of the rough tone and temper of the great peasant who initiated the German Reformation, a man who had himself sprung from the people, and who knew of what he was speaking, here set down in downright fashion the actual facts as to the position of women in Germany, as well as what he conceived to be the claims of justice in regard to that position, slashing with equal vigour alike at the absurdities of conventional marriage and of prostitution, the obverse and the reverse, he declared, ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
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... greatest part of Dickens, as you may read the greatest part of Hawthorne or Tolstoy, and not once be reminded of literature as a business or a cult, but you can hardly read a paragraph, hardly a sentence, of Thackeray's without being reminded of it either by suggestion or downright allusion. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
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... his heart, sae smooth his speech, His breath like caller air; His very foot has music in't As he comes up the stair. And shall I see his face again? And shall I hear him speak? I'm downright dizzy wi' the thought, In troth ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
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... anything wonderful in the dark, deep eyes at all,—they looked downright wicked to him. He took Carol away hurriedly, and questioned her feverishly to find out if Mrs. Waldemar had put any fresh nonsense ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
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... should make as free with a sister of mine as I have made with the sisters and daughters of others. But then I took care never to promise any thing I intended not to perform. A modest ear should as soon have heard downright obscenity from my lips, as matrimony, if I had not intended it. Young ladies are generally ready enough to believe we mean honourably, if they love us; and it would look lie a strange affront to their virtue and charms, that it should be supposed needful to ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
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... them out of their sleep, (for they are a sluggish sleepy animal), they would raise up their heads; snort and snarl, and look as fierce as if they meant to devour us; but as we advanced upon them they always run away, so that they are downright bullies. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
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... basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable simplification of actual life be it observed in passing); and, placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself. ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
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... sought his with tenderness. All his long life of grasping greed had been spent in money-getting and money-saving. No sense of right or justice had ever restrained him; but only the fear of getting caught had kept him from downright stealing. Year after year he had added to his hoard, carefully invested it, and now in a few days of desperate dread it had all ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
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... she is a small, slender woman with rather quick, decided movements and that her voice is that of a refined person. He is sure she is a young woman, but he can furnish no better description of her than this. He claims he was very nervous at the time of their meeting. I figure he was downright excited, filled as he was with guilty apprehensions, and no doubt because of his excitement he took less notice of her than he otherwise might. Besides, you must remember that the place of rendezvous was a fairly dark spot on rather a ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
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... little time ago you were singing a Gypsy song—a downright heathen Gypsy song. I heard it about half an hour ago when I ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
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... liberty, as was evinced by Lear Green, made the efforts of the most ardent friends, who were in the habit of aiding fugitives, seem feeble in the extreme. Of all the heroes in Canada, or out of it, who have purchased their liberty by downright bravery, through perils the most hazardous, none deserve more praise ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
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... England the reign of Andros wrought no downright persecution. He suspended the charters, and, with an irresponsible council in each colony, assumed all legislative as well as administrative power. Rhode Island submitted tamely. Her sister colony did the same, save that, at ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
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... attached to one another; and yet as wretched as wretched could be. How are you going to account for it? It is vastly important just because it is so common. Domestic difficulties rarely arise out of downright wickedness. Husband and wife may be as free from all outward fault as poor Mr. and Mrs. Cardew. Mark Rutherford thinks that Mr. Cardew was chiefly to blame, and his verdict is probably just. A man takes a considerably longer stride ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
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... the lake. They allowed the people to trample the grass. They threw papers and banana skins about. And they wasted! His years in Germany had taught him to regard all these things as sacrilege, and the last as downright criminal. He was lonesome for his Germany. That was plain. He hated it, and loved it, much as he hated and loved the woman who had so nearly spoiled his life. The maelstrom known as the southwest corner of State and Madison streets ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
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... for him; and with the beginning of the fourth chapter, Condy had finally come to know the enormous difficulties, the exasperating complications, the discouragements that begin anew with every paragraph, the obstacles that refuse to be surmounted, and all the pain, the labor, the downright mental travail and anguish that fall to the lot of the writer ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
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... love the unhighschooled ways Ol' farmers hed when I was younger— Their talk wuz meatier and would stay, While book-froth seems to whet your hunger. For puttin' in a downright lick 'twixt humbug's eyes, there's few can metch it. An' then it helves my thoughts as slick, ez stret grained hickory does ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
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... liberal tone. This ingenuous young man of course despises the confessional. He goes to confess because the law obliges him to do so; but the law cannot dictate what he must confess. Therefore, he ventures as near downright burlesque as he dares, and (if the account he gives of the matter be true) puts off his confessor with some well-known fact, as that he has blasphemed. Of course he has blasphemed, blasphemy being as common as the forms of salutation in Venice. So the priest, who ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
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... sadness. No need of spring sunshine to thaw his song, for it never freezes. Never shall you hear anything wintry from his warm breast; no pinched cheeping, no wavering notes between sorrow and joy; his mellow, fluty voice is ever tuned to downright gladness, as ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
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... comparatively small number of whites by immense masses of mounted horsemen. When their weapons were inferior, as on the first occasions when they were brought into contact with troops carrying breech-loading arms of precision, or when they tried the tactics of downright fighting, and of charging fairly in the open, they were often themselves beaten or repulsed with fearful slaughter by mere handfuls of whites. In the years 1867-68, all the horse Indians of the plains were at war with us, and many battles were fought with varying fortune. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
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... Sane Voting is not a short cut to the millennium, it is no way of changing human nature, and in the new type of assembly, as in the old, spite, vanity, indolence, self-interest, and downright dishonesty will play their part. But to object to a reform on that account is not a particularly effective objection. These things will play their part, but it will be a much smaller part in the new than in the old. It is like objecting to some projected and long-needed railway ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
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... the yard, and approaching to see what was going on, found that a preacher was pouring forth anathemas against the king and the Royal party, and inciting the citizens to throw themselves heart and soul into the cause. Especially severe was he upon waverers, who, he said, were worse than downright enemies, as, while the one withstood the Parliament openly in fair fight, the others were shifted to and fro with each breeze, and none could say whether they were friends or enemies. Passing through the cathedral, ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
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... with it, but the simple truth is he cannot help knowing that he has a wide and lively intelligence, and it pleases him to know it, and to be reminded of it, especially in an oblique and tangential sort of way, so as not to look like downright flattery. ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
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... until the time of their marriage. It is only in the rarest of cases that the parents feel it needful to hire any kind of tutor for THEM. What the average girl knows is simply what her mother can teach her. Perhaps a certain number of Athenian women (of good family, too) are downright illiterate; but this is not very often the case. A normal girl will learn to read and write, with her mother for school mistress.[*] Very probably she will be taught to dance, and sometimes to play on some instrument, ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
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... matter which appears under the title of "High Life in New York" is accompanied by a note, signed by the publishers, who are naturally supposed to know something of the real value of the works they issue, in which "editors are forewarned that it is a volume which, for downright drollery and hearty humor, has never had its equal in the productions of any American pen," and are otherwise admonished in various ways calculated to inspire lofty expectations, and to fill the mind with exalted visions of coming joy. But when it appears, on examination, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
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... dear fellow, to what the habit of bombasticising in newspapers brings you to. Here am I writing a downright article. Does the mind have its ruts, like a road? I stop; for I rob the mail, and I rob myself, and you may be yawning—to be continued in our next; I hear the second bell, which summons me to one of those abundant breakfasts the ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
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... great fancy to her. I think I begin to appreciate her fascination; it's her courage and her candor together. Most girls are so uncertain and capricious. It's delightful to meet such a straightforward and downright creature." ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
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... "You will make me downright angry with you, Anna, if you talk such nonsense," Mary said, severely. "You know very well that I have always made up mind that nothing shall induce me to marry and give up my freedom, at any rate for ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
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... she had just made. Curiously wanting as she seemed both in timidity and in levity, she was to a certainty not self-conscious—she was extraordinarily simple. Mr. Longdon looked at her now with an evident surrender to his extreme interest, and it might well have perplexed him to see her at once so downright as from experience and yet of so fresh and ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
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... never studied with personal interest the fine art of selling. He does not realize that ignorance of salesmanship, and consequent non-use of the selling process, almost always are responsible for the merely partial success or the downright failure in life of the man who deserves to win, but ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
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... don't want to seem severe, but I cannot bear a noise. I am so worn out when I come from the office. It seems each day my head aches worse than it did the day before." Miss Dorcas sighed. "And if it isn't a downright ache when I come home, it begins to pound as soon as I look at this book—" she eyed the account-book open before her—"I hoped you could have some new shoes this month. Those are downright shabby. But there isn't any money for them. I don't see how I am going to pay ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
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... suspicions on the purity of their own minds. And young persons, who talk and think in this way, are in extreme danger of falling into sinful habits. As to the volumes before us, the authors have, in their fanatical panegyrics of virginity, made use of language downright profane.' ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
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... follow, though in better order. Union and Confederate generals alike were astonished at the sudden change. McDowell found it impossible to stem the tide once set in, and gave orders to fall back across Bull Run to Centreville, where his reserves were stationed. As the retreat went on it turned to a downright rout. The Confederates made only a feeble pursuit, but fear of pursuit spread alarm through the flying ranks, demoralized by long marching and hard fighting. Baggage and ammunition-wagons, ambulances, private vehicles which ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
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... Sylla was engaged with Mithridates's generals in Boeotia; the consuls, from factious opposition, were fallen to downright fighting, wherein Octavius prevailing, drove Cinna out of the city for attempting despotic government, and made Cornelius Merula consul in his stead; while Cinna, raising forces in other parts of Italy, carried the war against them. As soon as Marius heard of this, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
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... herself (before she left home) a "speckled beauty," she began to feel very low in her mind. And there was only one thing that kept her from being downright sad. All the sightseers agreed that she ...
— The Tale of Henrietta Hen • Arthur Scott Bailey
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... was taken into Clive's confidence, and through Crackthorpe very likely the whole mess became acquainted with his passion. These young fellows, who had been early introduced into the world, gave Clive small hopes of success, putting to him, in their downright phraseology, the point of which he was already aware, that Miss Newcome was intended for his superiors, and that he had best not make his mind uneasy by sighing for those beautiful grapes which were ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
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... Lady Betty,' said Flora, 'may, I conceive, persevere in his suit under very discouraging circumstances. Affection can (now and then) withstand very severe storms of rigour, but not a long polar frost of downright indifference. Don't, even with YOUR attractions, try the experiment upon any lover whose faith you value. Love will subsist on wonderfully little hope, but ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
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... out on its journey at the reputable hour of three in the afternoon, by pretending to start a coach at five o'clock in the morning, was an imposition "tolerable" only in Dogberry's sense of the word—it was "not to be endured." And then, the downright absurdity of the undertaking! for admitting that the proprietors might prevail on some poor idiot to act as coachman, where were they to entrap a dozen mad people for passengers? We often experience an irresistible impulse to interfere, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various
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... nearly all human passions which lend themselves to comedy or farce. Sordid avarice, lavish prodigality, shameless vice, womanly resignation, artless coquetry, greed for money, downright hypocrisy, would-be gentility, self-sufficient vanity, fashionable swindling, misanthropy, heartlessness, plain common-sense, knowledge of the world, coarse jealousy, irresolution, impudence, pride of birth, egotism, self-conceit, pusillanimity, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
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... I think so! I know so! Wasn't there a sign up not to? Why, taking blackberries when there's a sign up is not much better than downright stealing!" ...
— A Little Question in Ladies' Rights • Parker Fillmore
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... to give an original turn to their expressions. After all, it is judicious, in the composition of such affairs, to follow the briefest and most usual formulas, unless, indeed, you desire to introduce and recommend some particular person in downright reality, and then the farther you deviate from mere customary expressions the better. And if you are truly in earnest, you need be at no loss what to say: ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
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... resist them, as he did sometimes, or whether he would lie, which he never did. Holt instructing the boy on this point, however, that if to keep silence is not to lie, as it certainly is not, yet silence is, after all, equivalent to a negation—and therefore a downright No, in the interest of justice or your friend, and in reply to a question that may be prejudicial to either, is not criminal, but, on the contrary, praiseworthy; and as lawful a way as the other of eluding a wrongful demand. For ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
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... said Dan. "Cheer up, lad. There's fellers worse off than you!" An inspiration lit up his honest and downright brain for a moment. "Why," he said, "it's better to be you than be a feller like Bill that never had a fancy in his life. You've lost a lot, maybe; but you can't lose a thing you ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
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... voluntary actions which depend on the will, it is in some respect more improperly said, that he is unable to exert the acts of the will themselves; because it is more evidently false, with respect to these, that he cannot if he will; for to say so is a downright contradiction: it is to say he cannot will if he does will. And in this case, not only is it true, that it is easy for a man to do the thing if he will, but the very willing is the doing; when once he has willed, the thing is performed; and nothing else ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
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... depend upon the fruits of action.[20] The Pitris, that support (by rain) the lives of even all disbelievers, observing the ordinances (of the Creator as declared in the Vedas), are, O king, engaged in action.[21] Know them for downright atheists that reject the declaration of the Vedas (which inculcate action). The person that is learned in the Vedas, by following their declarations in all his acts, attains, O Bharata, to the highest region of heaven by the way of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
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... I was you," said the downright cabman, "I wouldn't break my heart over them. I know I'd like to have a chance of a quiet talk with the young swells; I'd give them something to take home with them, ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
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... well-laid plans, this interloper into his caravan? Must he call upon Texas Smith to assassinate the fellow? It was a disagreeably brutal solution of the difficulty, and moreover it might lead to loud suspicion and scandal, and finally it might be downright dangerous. There was such a thing as trial for murder and for conspiracy to effect murder. As to causing a United States officer to vanish quietly, as might perhaps be done with an ordinary American emigrant, that was too ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
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... which may easily be exceeded; whereas our enjoyments can possibly be but in a determinate measure and degree. Therefore such excess of the affection, since it cannot procure any enjoyment, must in all cases be useless; but is generally attended with inconveniences, and often is downright pain and misery. This holds as much with regard to self-love as to all other affections. The natural degree of it, so far as it sets us on work to gain and make use of the materials of satisfaction, may be to our ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
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... to bear. But it remained a cruel burden. That gentle, dreamy soul up yonder could not know how it hurt. How could she understand, for instance, what it meant to go back and face the deadly dull routine of a life from which all zest, all interest, had fled? A routine broken only by moments of downright torture. Yes, and the effort it would take to smile! God! If there were only some way to break his fetters, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
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... the duke's steward, was very eager to know how the affair had turned out; so that the two whom I suspected of being the cause of my metal's concreting in the manner above related told me that I was not a man, but rather a downright devil, for I had compassed that which was not in the power of art to effect; with many other surprizing things which would have been too much even for the infernal powers. As they greatly exaggerated what had passed, perhaps, with a view of excusing themselves, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
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... under him, received a musket shot through the right arm and lungs, of which he died in a few hours, having been carried off the field by the bravery of lieutenant-colonel Gage, another of his officers. When he dropped, the confusion of the few that remained turned it into a downright and very disorderly flight across a river which they had just passed, though no enemy appeared, or attempted to attack them. All the artillery, ammunition, and baggage of the army were left to the enemy, and, among the rest, the general's cabinet, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
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... was, as Dulcie expressed it, "rather a dear, quaint thing." But she was more than that, I thought. She had such a pungent wit, her sayings were at times so downright—not to say acrid—that many stood in terror of her and positively dreaded her quick tongue. I rather liked Aunt Hannah myself, perhaps because, by the greatest of good luck, I happened not to have done anything so far to incur her displeasure, which she ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
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... brought Colonel Thom to see me to aid in his negotiations, but I would not give in, so McKibben in the kindness of his heart rode several miles in order to procure the beef himself, and thus save me from the dire results which he thought would follow should Halleck get wind of such downright insubordination. The next day I was made Commissary of Subsistence for the headquarters in addition to my other duties, and as this brought me into the line of fresh beef, General Halleck had no cause thereafter to complain of a scarcity of ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
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... were reassuring, although I still felt there was something behind her light manner which intimately concerned me. But I had learned to count on her downright honesty, and her words, "Nothing that cannot be helped, my dear," steadied me, gave me hope that no matter what trouble she had to tell me, she had ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
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... "Monarch," completing the line of nine British ships. Captain Riou with his light division engaged the Trekroner, and the Danish blockship next south of it, which was by him terribly battered. From this moment, and for some time, to use subsequent words of Nelson, "Here was no manoeuvring: it was downright fighting." ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
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... woman, and gives a capital account of the battle between OUR and YOUR weeds. Does it not hurt your Yankee pride that we thrash you so confoundedly? I am sure Mrs. Gray will stick up for your own weeds. Ask her whether they are not more honest, downright good sort of weeds. The book gives an extremely pretty picture of one of your villages; but I see your autumn, though so much more gorgeous than ours, comes on sooner, and ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
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... care all, or nearly all the ordinary cooking-utensils. These the usurpers scorned. Three or four gasoline cans, transformed by a jack-knife into skillets, ovens, platters, etc., sufficed for these masters of their craft. The downright Greek simplicity of their methods won ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
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... followed the others out to greet the guests. She stayed by the kettle and stirred the stew, and scowled. "I think it's downright mean for folks to come in this way, just dinner-time," said she to the uncles, who had not left their chairs. And they gave short grunts which expressed their assent, for neither of ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
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... cheerfully. "But why should they worry you, old chap? Everything is securely packed in air-tight, zinc-lined cases, so that there was really no very serious cause for anxiety or fear, even of an explosion. Such a thing could not possibly happen except by the downright deliberate act of some evil—disposed individual; and ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
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... a decent-sized brig enough, and handy to manage when she had plenty of sea-room, and a wind right aft; but on a bowline, or when the wind was on the quarter, and there was a bit of a sea on, she kept such a stiff weather-helm, and was such a downright cranky vessel, never bending down to a breeze or lifting to the swell, that it was no wonder that as soon as the hands got used to her ways, and tumbled to her contrary points—and she was that contrary ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
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... was interested.' She described her life in the Arab camps, and explained that her influence over the tribes was partly due to her long sight, a quality held in high esteem in the desert, and partly to a brusque, downright manner, which is always effective with Orientals. She professed to have fasted physically and mentally for years, living only on milk, and reading neither books nor newspapers. Her unholy claim to supremacy in the spiritual kingdom was based, in Kinglake's opinion, on her fierce, ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
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... done to you? Is it not downright ungrateful to be afraid of him so soon after the service he has ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
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... So's Gray, and more of 'em too; but there's a difference between them and the downright murdhering Tory set. Poor Tom doesn't throuble the Church much; but you'll be all for Protesthants now, Martin, when you've your new brother-in-law. Barry used to be one of your ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
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... must happen. The first is love, downright love, on the part of this young girl, for the poor little misshapen man. You may laugh, if you like. But women are apt to love the men who they think have the largest capacity of loving;—and who can love ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
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... more accurate rendering of the Revised Version, 'received Him with blows.' Mark's account, then, is this: that, as soon as the unanimous howl of condemnation had beep uttered, some of the 'judges'(!) fell upon Jesus with spitting and clumsy ridicule and downright violence, and that afterwards He was handed over to the underlings, who were not slow to copy the example set them at the upper end of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
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... was in John Jones's letter. There was also a downright directness which hit the mark, and I wrote that I would go to Maizeville in the ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
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... aware that in giving you this story just as I was told it I shall incur the charge of downright ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
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... yit I love th' unhighschooled way 25 Ol' farmers hed when I wuz younger; Their talk wuz meatier, an' 'ould stay, While book-froth seems to whet your hunger; For puttin' in a downright lick 'Twixt Humbug's eyes, ther' 's few can metch it. 30 An' then it helves my thoughts ez slick Ez stret-grained hickory ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
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... downright awful, isn't it?" Arthur Hill said in a hushed voice. "I've often thought I should like to see a sea-fight, but I never thought it would be as terrible ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
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... down, never!" she cried. "But when a mean thing is hiding what every one has a right to know, I like to tear the truth out of her ... like your case of Tom Jones. Sister Claire is downright mean. Maybe she can't help it. But I know the nuns, and they're God's own children. She knows it too, but, just for the sake of money, she's lying night and day against them, and against her own conscience. There's a devil in her. I could do ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
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... lookout for cheaper quarters. In spite of his outcries and sulky resistance Trina had induced her husband to consent to such a move, bewildering him with a torrent of phrases and marvellous columns of figures by which she proved conclusively that they were in a condition but one remove from downright destitution. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
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... as that, father," replied the young woman, smiling but serious; "but I am in downright earnest. The making, the unmaking and the enforcing of law are politics, and every American woman should have an interest in these things. Every thinking woman must have an interest in them. I must know more ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock
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... him; and few things are more strange than the change wrought in his whole bearing and look by that week of energy in climbing his brother's throne. The great article in Nicholas's creed was a complete, downright faith in despotism, and in himself as despotism's apostle. Hence he hated, above all things, a limited monarchy. He told De Custine that a pure monarchy or pure republic he could understand; but that anything between these he ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
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... madmen! We are not told how the evil was treated and checked. The remedy prescribed by most, the falling upon these jumpers with kicks and cuffings, was entirely fitted to increase the frenzy and turn it into downright epilepsy.[46] Doubtless there was some other remedy, of which people were loth to speak. At the time when witchcraft took its first great flight, the widespread use of the Solaneae, above all, of belladonna, vulgarized the medicine which really checked those ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
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... like that you are downright silly!" broke in Felix. I could tell by his voice he was trying hard to control his temper. "'Tisn't the going out that anybody objects to; it's the person you're going with. You know very well, Phil, that he isn't the sort of fellow ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
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... part, don't believe a word of it!" said Miss Cassandra emphatically. "No ordinary girl, no matter how handsome she might be, would sit up and talk like that to a great King. I call it downright impertinent; she wasn't even a titled lady, much less ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
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... shows a hearty, wholesome, human spirit, sometimes overflowing into downright fun, and a straightforward directness always. It is a pleasant book, sure to ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
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... who could hedge and trim and lie and be all things to all men. He was totally lacking in the patience that can flatter a fool. He was too sincere, too downright in ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
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... of skill at manual and mental tricks of a trivial character—which must inevitably appear to a barber or a dentist as stupidity, and to a successful haberdasher as downright imbecility—is a character that men of the first class share with women of the first, second and even third classes. There is at the bottom of it, in truth, something unmistakably feminine; its appearance in a man is almost invariably accompanied by the other touch of femaleness ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
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... often a downright unscrupulous one. If it's only politics, I'll have a chat with him myself. You pump the newspapers. You leave it to me to swing the boys into line ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
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... very marked trait, which might promise well for the future, or otherwise, according to circumstances, and that was a certain wilful persistence, which often degenerated into downright obstinacy. Frequently, when his mother thought that she had coaxed or wheedled him into giving up something of which she did not approve, he would quietly approach his object in some other way, and gain his point, ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
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... they say in Parliament, where no one could be expected to give a downright and straightforward "yes" or "no," is in the affirmative. The scenes of these early dramas are characteristically Mesopotamian. The well-ordered garden "planted" with the tree of life "in the midst," ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
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... But even if I stay at court, Osgod, you will often be able to be away, and can spend some hours a day at the smithy, where, if you like, you can take off your smock and belabour iron to your heart's content. I should say you would be a rare help to your father, for, as Leof says, for a downright solid blow there are not many ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
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... the exhibition of bad manners, nor to the mere passive indulgence of an undutiful spirit. These led gradually to a more serious phase of the rebellion, the inauguration of a series of petty annoyances, to be followed, naturally, by acts of downright injustice and cruelty. It seemed as if the old years of oppression to which, in a ruder age, the children had been subjected, were about to be repeated, with the parents for the victims. You must not suppose that these vast changes came about in ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
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... the pretty infuses; I disdain those little quibbles and verbal allusions that have since sprung up. Those worthy people stood in need of no subtlety to disguise their meaning; their language is downright, and full of natural and continued vigour; they are all epigram; not only the tail, but the head, body, and feet. There is nothing forced, nothing languishing, but everything ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
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... several days in hopes of a chaperon to take care of herself and daughter—a lovely girl, only nineteen, you wretch—to London, en route to the continent: the mamma a delightful woman, and a widow, with a very satisfactory jointure—you understand—but the daughter, a regular downright beauty, and a ward in chancery, with how many thousand pounds I am afraid to trust myself to say. You must know then they are the Binghams of—, upon my soul, I forget where; ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
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... Professor Gray knows about them. Billy and Gus are in our class at school." This from the girl who had joyfully greeted the Professor and the boys, yodeling a school yell from the hillside. Then she shot an aside at the slim youth: "You're a regular, downright simpleton, Thad, and forever looking for trouble. ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
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... comparing notes with Moore, I was confirmed in one or two points which I had always laid down in considering poor Byron. One was, that like Rousseau he was apt to be very suspicious, and a plain downright steadiness of manner was the true mode to maintain his good opinion. Will Rose told me that once, while sitting with Byron, he fixed insensibly his eyes on his feet, one of which, it must be remembered, was deformed. Looking up suddenly, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
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... can think of things to say that will be the truth and yet not give the whole thing away!" sighed the downright Cynthia. "I wish I were as quick ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
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... ashamed," he went on, with an uneasy movement of his hands. "It's too bad to expect so much of you. You have more pride than most people, yet I behave to you as if you didn't know the meaning of the word. Do, I beg, believe me when I say that I am downright ashamed, and that I hardly know how to ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
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... she held out her hand—"I am afraid this is a most unceremonious hour for a call, and if I have interrupted you in your work, pray go on. I wouldn't for the world. What a day, hasn't it been? I always think that these sort of grey depressing days are so much worse than the downright pouring ones, don't you? You are always expecting, you know, and ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
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... puzzled and troubled me in Jenny. It marred the pleasure of the visit most miserably. I was continually fearing the displeasure of my father and the discomfort of my mother. The whole household were disturbed by what seemed to them downright rudeness. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
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... the hostile dogmatic tone adopted in both countries by those who only know their own. The ceremonies that are foreign to you impress you, while those you have been used to all your life have become a second nature. An Englishwoman feels downright uncomfortable in her high stuff gown at night, and a German lady brought up at one of the great German Courts told me that when she stayed in an English country house and put on what she called a ball dress for dinner every night, she felt like ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
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... There must be a downright physical reason for this effect—it is so remarkable and so universal. It seems that the sun's rays so completely alter and modify the constitution of the atmosphere, that it produces, as we inhale it, a wonderfully different effect upon the ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
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... Charles Lamb, or at any determination, also like Lamb, to write for antiquity, there is in his anthems and odes very considerable evidence that he was ready to write what his paymaster wanted written. We must bear in mind that downright bad taste, such as our present-day taste for such artistic infamies as the "Girls of This" and the "Belles of That," had not come into existence in Purcell's time. Purcell's contemporaries preferred his music to all other for the same reason that we prefer it to all other ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
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... where the boy stood gazing at his fallen game. He fired, almost at random, at the nearest of the flying buffalo; but the buckshot whistled hurtlessly among the herd, and Sandy thought to himself that it was downright cruelty to shoot among them, for the scattering shot would only wound without ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
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... Number Two. It was Giovanni now, and not his brother, the unhappy woman was sure of that, and every instinct in her nature bade her go to him at once. But the unconscious volition of those long trained to duty is stronger than almost any impulse except that of downright fear, and Sister Giovanna stayed where she was, for there was still much to ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
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... know, Trot,' my aunt pursued, after a pause, 'though of a very pliant disposition, has an earnestness of affection in him that reminds me of poor Baby. Earnestness is what that Somebody must look for, to sustain him and improve him, Trot. Deep, downright, faithful earnestness.' ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
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... Let me see; what's here? as I live, [Takes it. Nothing but downright bawdry: Sirrah, rascal, Is this an age for ribaldry in verse; When every gentleman in town speaks it With so much better grace, than thou canst write it? I'll beat thee with a stave of thy ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
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... box we set down an' she told me the hide an' hair of the whole thing. She says at first she got letters from everybody under the sun askin' her her opinions an' views, some about things as she never heard of before an' others as to things as she considers a downright insult to consider as she might know about. But she says views an' insults don't really matter much, after you reach her age, so she let those all go into the box together an' thought she'd think no more about it. She says ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
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... style, than he smiled very oddly, and shook his head. These motions he repeated at every following leaf, so that the student Anselmus felt the blood mounting to his face; and at last, when the smile became quite sarcastic and contemptuous, he broke out in downright vexation: "The Herr Archivarius does not seem contented ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
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... tingled, and he drew closer. Beasley always had a knack of so blending truth with his personal venom that it stung far more than downright insult. He wondered what the Padre's generosity had been, and wherein lay its connection with their present purpose. The explanation was not long in coming, for Montana Ike took up the challenge amidst a storm of ominous murmurs ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
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... void, empty, unfilled; expressionless, vacant: confounded, nonplused, astounded; unmitigated, absolute, downright. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
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... marry a second wife without repudiating the first. And when the Landgrave Philip asked for leave to do the same thing, Luther gave it on condition that it was denied. He insisted on what he called a downright lie. The great fact which we have to recognise is that with all the intensity of his passion for authority he did more than any single man to make modern History the ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
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... gentleness. They might be more safely held up as a pattern. There is an openness, a quickness, almost a bluntness in Mr. Weston, which every body likes in him, because there is so much good-humour with it—but that would not do to be copied. Neither would Mr. Knightley's downright, decided, commanding sort of manner, though it suits him very well; his figure, and look, and situation in life seem to allow it; but if any young man were to set about copying him, he would not be sufferable. On the contrary, I think a young man might be very ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
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... speech or silence, when he would have wished, as he knew perfectly how, to be considerate, gentle, sympathetic, responsive. On the other hand, his shyness and reticence were seemingly contradicted by a downright bluntness, a deliberate frankness in matters of opinion in which his convictions were involved; for his views were most positively held and his convictions were often passionate in intensity, and he declared them, upon occasion, with an utter absence of diplomacy, compromise, ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
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... harm will come of it," the other said. "I like you, and I never saw any one hit so quickly and so hard. It's a downright pity you are a preacher. My name's John Morrison, and my farm is ten miles from Nashville, on the Cumberland River. If you should be going in that direction I should be right glad if you would drop ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
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... Rosny was taken to him, about midnight, at the top of the castle; the king sent him off that very night; he consented to everything that the King of Navarre proposed; promised him a town on the Loire, and said he was ready to make with him not a downright peace just at first, but "a good long truce, which, in their two hearts, would at once be an eternal peace and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
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... or L4 paid per annum by those gentlemen who are out of town for written news, which is so far generally from having any probability of matter of fact, that it is frequently stuffed up with a 'we hear,' or 'an eminent Jew merchant has received a letter,' being nothing more than downright fiction.' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
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... was as well dressed as anybody, she concluded, except perhaps the ladies in the closed carriages whose dress could only be guessed at. As for good looks, there did not seem to be much of them in Paris. She called the Frenchwomen downright plain. They knew how to put on their clothes; there was style about them, she did not deny that; but she was prepared to maintain that there was hardly a ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
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... imagined him a young dandy. She saw a man about thirty-five with dark brown hair, eyes set rather deeply in his head, a little too close together, a delicate, thin, very slightly aquiline nose, and a mouth with curved lips, which were, however, compressed as if with determination or downright resolution. There was not a trace of dandyism in him, and he reminded her immediately of a portrait she had seen of Edward Irving in a shop ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
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... mean sincerely, by not answering me with a compliment. it is very weak to be pleased with flattery; the stupidest of 'all delusions to beg it. From You I should take it ill. We have known one another almost fifty years—to very little purpose, indeed, if any ceremony is necessary, or downright sincerity not established between us. tell me that you are recovered, and that I shall see you some time or other. I have finished the catalogue of my collection; but you shall never have it without fetching, nor, though a ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
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... then I persuaded wife, who had been trembling in the kitchen all the while, that we had better go out quiet again, as there was nobody in the house but us: I had tried that woman's door—and we might perhaps be taken for the murderers. And so we did; and that's the downright, honest truth, my lord. I'm rightly served; but God bless you, doant hurt the woman—my wife, my lord, these thirty years. Five-and-twenty years ago come May, which I shall never see, we buried our two children. Had they lived, ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
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... secure land reform and other measures for all classes of wealth producers, and we need all the help they give us. But if they are threatened with a class war, then they will surely sulk and harden into downright Toryism. What gain will that be for ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
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... enough to justify the town For three days past; wit that might warrant be For the whole city to talk foolishly Till that were cancell'd; and when that was gone, We left an air behind us, which alone Was able to make the two next companies Eight witty; though but downright fools were wise. When I remember this, * * * I needs must cry I see my days of ballading grow nigh; I can already riddle, and can sing Catches, sell bargains, and I fear shall bring Myself to speak the hardest words I find Over as oft as any with one wind, That takes ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
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... the statement of his trainers, Mr. and Mrs. McArdle, that Peter's proficiency is not so much the result of training as of downright self-education." ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
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... should be the marble image of death or weariness. So the concomitants should be distinctly marble, severe and monumental in their lines, not shroud, not bedclothes, not actual armor nor brocade, not a real soft pillow, not a downright hard stuffed mattress, but the mere type and suggestion of these: a certain rudeness and incompletion of finish is very noble in all. Not that they are to be unnatural, such lines as are given should be pure and true, and clear of the hardness and mannered rigidity of the strictly Gothic types, but ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
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... the pumps, and hearing them stirring about, I came on deck and employed the idlers in getting the spars alongside, as the sea was as calm as a pond. Then, I set them to work unreeving the gear and making things snug for setting up our jury-masts, of which this is the first—a downright seamanlike piece of work I ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
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... was conquered by Sir Bevis of Southampton. See notes of the commentators on 2 Henry VI., ii. 3: "Therefore, Peter, have at thee with a downright blow, as Bevis of Southampton ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
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... even occurred to us, until to-night, that he might be one of the burglars who have been looting this post. Besides, sir, though Tip had always been known as a rather worthless fellow, we had never heard of his being the associate of downright criminals." ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
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... overbearing language which had been used by some gentlemen towards others, who differed in opinion from them on a subject of so much difficulty as the present. He protested against a debate, in which he could trace nothing like reason; but, on the contrary, downright phrensy, raised perhaps by the most extraordinary eloquence. The abolition, as proposed, was impracticable. He denied the right of the legislature to pass a law for it. He warned the Chancellor of the Exchequer to beware of the day, on which the bill should pass, as the ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
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... her pipe, the old woman continued to gaze with almost motherly affection at the figure in the corner. To say the truth, whether it were chance, or skill, or downright witchcraft, there was something wonderfully human in this ridiculous shape, bedizened with its tattered finery; and as for the countenance, it appeared to shrivel its yellow surface into a grin—a funny kind of expression, betwixt scorn ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
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... of the Mongal nobility, and even teach them the articles of the Christian faith, yet by their evil lives they drive them from Christianity, as the moral conduct of the Mongals and Tuinians[5], who are downright idolaters, is far more ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
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... iron bands, and delivered them to sixty knights, who were good in fight, fast to hold over the weald. And he himself drove him forth, and made much din, and Gorlois the fair, forth on the other side, and all their knights ever forth-right slew downright all that they came nigh. Some they crept to the wood on their bare knees, and they were on the morrow most miserable of all folk. Octa was bound, and led to London, and Ebissa, and Ossa—was never to them ...
— Brut • Layamon
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... hesitation upon every other subject, but on this he almost always speaks evasively, and though about any thing else he would cut his hand off rather than say the thing that is not, will sometimes tell a downright falsehood. In most cases he has been led to this course by witnessing the agony or suffering the reproach with which the knowledge of his habit is received by his friends. He lies either in mercy to them or because the pangs which their rebuke inflicts would become still ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
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... early Christian writings in the Church which were not definitely admitted into the New Testament is instructive on this point. The fate of some of these may be described as tragical. Even when they were not branded as downright forgeries, the writings of the Fathers from the fourth century downwards were far preferred ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
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... Having uttered this downright and unmistakeable opinion, Miss Lavinia raised her head with dignity, and smoothed down her ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
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... job, and so I took it, and I flatter myself that I made a pretty good job of it. The Germans have an inhuman way of cutting up their verbs. Now a verb has a hard time enough of it in this world when it's all together. It's downright inhuman to split it up. But that's just what those Germans do. They take part of a verb and put it down here, like a stake, and they take the other part of it and put it away over yonder like another ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
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... man decides for what purpose he is studying this subject, and not the others. But to study every thing, as the men of scientific science in our day preach, without any idea of what is to come out of such study, is downright impossible, because the number of subjects of study is endless; and hence, no matter how many branches we may acquire, their acquisition can possess no significance or reason. And, therefore, in ancient times, down to even ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
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