"Homely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be upon his Guard. That there are such, every one will agree with me, who hears me name *** with his first Friend and Favourite ***, not to mention *** nor ***. These People may cry Ch-rch, Ch-rch, as long as they please, but, to make use of a homely Proverb, The Proof of the P-dd-ng is in the eating. This I am sure of, that if a certain Prince should concur with a certain Prelate, (and we have Monsieur Z—n's Word for it) our Posterity would be in a sweet P-ckle. Must the British Nation suffer forsooth, because ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... ruins and in the scattered half-destroyed dug-outs amongst the trenches which criss-crossed the village. All this had to be done in pouring rain. When at last we settled down it was found that our new homes were also shared by huge rats who capered about in a most homely manner. ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... you may be right," exclaimed Randal, as if struck and half-convinced by his companion's argument—"very possible; and certainly I think that the homely folks at the Hall would fret and fume at first, if they heard you were married to Madame di Negra. Yet still, when your father learned that you had done so, not from passion alone, but to save him from all pecuniary sacrifice—to clear yourself ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... and the child reluctantly let it fly. It made straight for the distant roofs behind them, but the rest of the pigeons still strutted and pecked round the perambulator with tiny mincing steps, like court ladies practising the minuet. Malcolm looked on with unabated relish—the homely idyll ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... could, to make her take good heed of what she went about, to consider it well; and had urg'd all the Inconveniencies of Severe Life, Watchings, Midnight Risings in all Weathers and Seasons to Prayers, hard Lodging, course Diet, and homely Habit, with a thousand other things of Labour and Work us'd among the Nuns; and finding her still resolv'd and inflexible to all contrary persuasions, he consented, kiss'd her, and told her, She had argu'd according to the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... and was literally deluged with a stream of Spanish. She stood there, hands clasped on her tremendous bosom, staring unbelievingly at the bearer of these tidings of great joy, the while tears cascaded down her flat, homely face. With a snap of his fingers, Pablo dismissed her; then he darted into the house and emerged with his rifle. A cockerel, with the carelessness of youth, had selected for his roost the limb of an adjacent oak and ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... we spent together. Shaw played some tunes on an accordion which I had purchased for him at Zanzibar; but, though it was only a miserable ten-dollar affair, I thought the homely tunes evoked from the instrument that night were divine melodies. The last tune played before retiring was ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... any poem he might have produced on this subject would certainly have wanted that tinge of chivalrous feeling which the manners of the age and the character of the king alike demanded. But with Burns's ardent admiration of Bruce, and that power of combining the most homely and humorous incidents with the pathetic and the sublime, which he displayed in Tam o' Shanter, we cannot but regret that he never had the leisure and freedom from care, which would have allowed him to try his hand on a subject so entirely ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... same as usual," said Caleb. "Homely, but very snug. The gay colours on the walls; the bright flowers on the plates and dishes; the shining wood, where there are beams or panels; the general cheerfulness and neatness of the building,—make ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... man, in the midst of his civilization, instinctively goes back to some half-hidden reminiscence of the forest and the wilderness in which his savage forefathers dwelt. My lord seeks his highland moor, Norvegian salmon river, or more homely coverside; the retired grocer, in his snug retreat at Tooting, builds himself an arbour of rocks and mosses, and, by dint of strong imagination and stronger tobacco, becomes a very Kalmuck in his back-garden; and it is by no means improbable ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... plain. She was, however, one of those girls who start by being "ugly" or "queer-looking," or downright "homely," and end by becoming "interesting" or "picturesque" or "fascinating," according to the divagations of the individual vocabulary. She had the beaute troublante. At first sight, you might have called her gipsy, Indian, ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... he saw his ideal. Her beauty was remarkable for a fullness, a perfection of outline, combined with a fairness and delicacy which suggested that she was not made of ordinary clay. Miss Wildmere prided herself upon giving the impression that she was remote from all that was common or homely in life. She cultivated the characteristic of daintiness. In her dress, gloves, jewelry, and complexion she would be immaculate at any cost. Graydon's fastidious taste could never find a flaw in her, as regarded externals, and she knew the immense advantage of pleasing his eye with ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... considerable concession—by placing herself before him in a more favourable light. In her dress, her manner, her bearing there was a certain half-alien delicacy, finesse, aloofness. She would not lay this altogether aside, even at home, even in the informal country; but she would provide a homely medium, suited to Abner's rustic vision, through which her exotic airs and graces might be more ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... generation something of its transparency, and at last degenerated into a gross superstition. But traces still remained, even down to the times of Christian ascendency, of the deep, philosophical spirit in which it had been originally conceived; and through its homely imagery there ran a vein of tender humour, such as still characterises the warm-hearted, laughter-loving northern races. Of this mixture of philosophy and fun, the following story is no bad specimen. [Footnote: The story of Thor's journey has been translated from the Edda ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... impending threat of death, as well. His life had been one of scant ease and of unmitigated warfare with the hostile forces of Nature. Yet he had built up a modest competency after a life time of struggle. With a few more years of industry he might have claimed material victory. In the homely parlance of his kind he had things "hung-up," which signified such prosperity had come to him as came to the pioneer woodsmen who faced the famine times of winter with smoked hams hanging from their nails, and tobacco and pepper and ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... bloodroot were blooming while the last patches of snow still lingered; the rapture of the hermit thrush in Vermont, the serene golden melody of the wood thrush on Long Island, would be heard before we were there to listen. Each was longing for the homely things that were so dear to him, for the home people who were dearer still, and for the one who was dearest of ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... a townsman who was held to be his equal; not one who was considered his superior. Though he was little over thirty yet, he was at the head of all municipal affairs. He had already held the office of mayor for one year, and might have been re-elected, if his wife had not somewhat scorned the homely bourgeois dignity. There was no more popular man in the whole town ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... explained with homely earnestness the nature of the sheep, her time of lambing, etc., and showed Jacky how the sheep and cattle would always keep him fed and clothed, if he would but use them reasonably, and not kill the breeders ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... self-sufficiency of youth I was feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform here—until I saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically "homely" creatures, and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said, "No—the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh censure—and the man that marries sixty ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... bearing precisely on this case, then it was all the more important that this should be made the occasion of a settlement of the question so unequivocal and positive as effectually to guard against future complication and embarrassment. Now how did the Premier deal with this issue? He disregarded the homely wisdom contained in the pithy bull of Sir Boyle Roche, that "the best way to avoid a dilemma is to meet it plump." He dodged the dilemma. His resolutions, worded with ingenious obscurity, skilfully evaded the important aspect of the controversy, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... neighbor's fields, once actually fording my lakelet to get to my precious potato patch. The number and variety of devouring pests connected with each vegetable are alarming. Here are a few connected closely with the homely cabbage, as given by a noted helminthologist under ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... to Mrs. Fogg that she sent for Clara Belle to live with her and go to school part of the year. "She'll be useful," said Mrs. Fogg, "and she'll be out of her father's way, and so keep honest; though she's so awful homely I've no fears for her. A girl with her red hair, freckles, and cross-eyes can't fall into no kind of sin, I ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... NIGHT; a rustic merry-making in a farm-house about Christmas, common in some parts of Yorkshire. There is abundance of homely fare, tea, cakes, fruit, and ale; various feats of agility, amusing games, romping, dancing, and kissing withal. They ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... with the freedom, the raciness, interest, and the freshness of the American pulpit orator. These discourses are orations which were delivered extemporaneously and taken down by a shorthand writer. Hence they are homely, yet eloquent; natural, yet cultivated, and come right home to the hearts of the readers. No one could tire reading these sermons. They are as racy as a magazine article, as instructive as a lecture, and as impressive and lofty as a message from God. They are thoroughly American for ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... the girl's environment was wrong for him also. What had he to do with Chelsea? Chelsea was a parish; it was not the world. He had been gravely disappointed in Chelsea. Marguerite had no shimmer of romance. She was homely. And she was content with her sphere. And she was not elegant; she had no kind of smartness; who would look twice at her? And she was unjust, she was unfair. She had lacerated his highly sensitive pride. She had dealt his conceit a frightful wound. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... or springs of pure flowing water, were conducive to health. The vivifying air, the well cultivated gardens surrounding the shrine, the magnificent view, all tended to cheer the heart with new hope of cure. Many of these temples owed their fame to mineral or merely hot springs. To the homely altars, erected originally by sacred fountains in the neighbourhood of health-giving mineral springs, were later added magnificent temples, pleasure-grounds for festivals, gymnasia in which bodily ailments were treated by physical exercises, ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... gossip amounted almost to a passion, and nothing came amiss to her; she liked to know everything about everybody, and in the main I think her interest was a kindly one, though she found that a little bit of scandal, every now and then, added a piquant flavour to the homely fare provided by the commonplace life of ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... rushing by. Little villas, with back-gardens running down to the rail, would give way for a mile or two to fields, and then start afresh. The fog was thin there, and England looked extraordinarily homely and pleasant. It was the known; he was conscious of rushing at fifty miles an hour into the unknown. He turned over the scrappy conversation of the last few minutes, and found it savoured of the unknown. It was curious the difference uniform made. He ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... and waked from my dream. It was a joyful shock to see Joseph beside me, in the homely clothes which had replaced his "Sunday best"; to see Finois and his pack full of my friendly belongings. But I clung to the comfortable present for a few moments only. The spell of dead centuries had me in its grip. Farther and farther back into the land of dead days, I journeyed ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... between the two brothers, who protectingly joined their hands behind her back, as if she were a delicate piece of statuary that a push might damage. Soon the King had passed, and receiving the military salutes of the piquet, joined the Queen and princesses at Gloucester Lodge, the homely house of red brick in which ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... most certainly, not comfort. Robin himself would have smiled contemptuously if you had pleaded for something homely, something suggestive of roaring fires and cosy armchairs, instead of the stiff-backed, beautifully carved Louis XIV. furniture that stood, each chair and table rigidly in its appointed place, as though bidding defiance to any one bold enough to ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... my girlhood like Marie Bashkirtseff, and about the rest of my days and my work like many other artists of the pen, who merely, by putting black upon white, have had the power to bring before their readers not merely themselves "as they lived," but the most homely and intimate details of their lives, the friend who had first impressed on me that I ought not to leave my story untold any longer, said that the beginning was easy enough: "What is the first thing you remember? Write that ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... whom I leant for guidance and advice, were more hopeful than myself; and so I came away from my beautiful country parish. You know, my friends, who have passed through the like, the sorrow to look for the last time at each kind homely face: the sorrow to turn away from the little church where you have often preached to very small congregations: the sorrow to leave each tree you have planted, and the evergreens whose growth you have watched, year by year. Soon, you are in ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... tablecloth. Oh, the innocent and funny makeshifts of poverty, and the goodly distance it can make a little go! Perhaps some of us, as we stand in our rich dining rooms, and gaze with pride at the silver, the gold, the cut glass, and the transparent china, can recall a little kitchen in a homely house far away, where our good mothers once set their tables for their guests, and what a brave show the few extra dishes made when they brought them out on the ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... distinctly in that clear air, still standing before his door. And then he appeared to make a parting gesture with his hand, and something like snow fluttered in the air above his head. It was only the torn fragments of Parker's draft, which this homely gentleman of the Sierras, standing beside his empty pork barrel, had ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... was not in the most celestial humour with the Mamelukes, who seemed inclined to defy his and every other person's authority; and, on hearing that the result of all the disorders and revolutions had been the elevation of Bibars Bendocdar to the throne of Saladin, he remarked, in homely oriental phrase, 'when the pot boils, the scum rises to the top.' Above all, Musteazem was a miser, and covetous to the last degree; and when it was explained to him by his grand vizier, whom the Templar had already ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... to celebrate the New Tear. Even the richest of the members of the German bourgeoisie is obliged to be educated gradually to the cultured usages of society, and are still far from accomplished in the art of easy familiarity. It finds in its homely culture no hard-and-fast traditions by which it can regulate its conduct, and by a deficiency of observation, or by the want of development of the finer feelings, is only imperfectly helped by foreign or aristocratic manners. Herr Ellrich, who loved ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... they would be bickerings without effect; and Ralph Newton, of Newton, would probably so live with this wife of his bosom, that they, too, might lie at last pleasantly together in the family vault, with the record of their homely virtues visible to the survivors of the parish on the same tombstone. The means by which each of them would have arrived at these blessings would not redound to the credit of either; but the blessings would be there, and it may be said of their ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... fine old order, large and lofty, full of wonders in the way of gables, porches, and oriels, carved doors and panels, in preservation that did them honour due, and the furniture betokening that best of taste which perceives the fitness of things. All had the free homely air of plenty and hospitality—the open doors, the numerous well-fed men and maids, the hosts of live creatures—horses, cows, dogs, pigs, poultry, each looking like a prize animal boasting of its ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not—and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... combined with her homely aspect, and perfectly unassuming manners, made a great impression upon many of those who met her in London. Ticknor says of Maria Edgeworth: "There was a life and spirit about her conversation, she threw herself into it with ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... am to home," sais I, "I have returned again to the old occupation and the old place; for, after all, what's bred in the bone, you know, is hard to get out of the flesh, and home is home, however homely. The stones, and the trees, and the brooks, and the hills look like old ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... and I proceed right onward to the performance of my duty. Be the consequences what they may, the responsibility is with those who have imposed upon me this necessity. The Senator from Massachusetts has thought proper to cast the first stone, and if he shall find, according to the homely adage, that "he lives in a glass house,"—on his head be the consequences. The gentleman has made a great flourish about his fidelity to Massachusetts. I shall make no professions of zeal for the interests ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... Minnie, the elderly servant, sat by the table reading, amid the odor of roasting chicken; outside the door on the kitchen porch was the freezer containing the dinner ice-cream. An orderly Sunday peace was in the air, a gesture of homely comfort, ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... time with her bare feet. But by the time the miller threw his banjo aside, its strings still quivering, she was standing up, and the look of interest had given place to the old gravity. She had not a pretty feature, not even the usual pretty teeth. She was a homely black girl. ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... duty to mere man vouchsafed Was laid on thee,—out of wild chaos, When the roused popular ocean foamed and chafed And vulture War from his Imaus Snuffed blood, to summon homely Peace, And show that only ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... silver-wired leaves, Through the salt-lick or orange glade, or under conical firs, Through the gymnasium, through the curtain'd saloon, through the office or public hall; Pleas'd with the native and pleas'd with the foreign, pleas'd with the new and old, Pleas'd with the homely woman as well as the handsome, Pleas'd with the quakeress as she puts off her bonnet and talks melodiously, Pleas'd with the tune of the choir of the whitewash'd church, Pleas'd with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist preacher, impress'd seriously ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... local journal into the hands of the enemy and reveal—nothing at all. The position of the barrier guard ceased to be—if it ever were—a sinecure, and he was kept busy picking pockets, examining bills, perusing love-letters, written in all sorts of prose, and in verse which was homely, if not ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... should be attracted to a woman who has devoted herself assiduously to understanding and to making known the aspirations of our country, especially in introducing the labors and achievements of our women to their sisters in France, of whom we also have much to learn; for simple, homely virtues and the charm of womanliness may still be studied with advantage on ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... is not very nice," Honor retorted coquettishly, "quite plain, almost homely, I should say, but I can't give his name, he did ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... had a terrifying effect on them for several days. They did not appear to pick up much food amongst the grass, but scratched away industriously all the same. I must say that they were very friendly and gave the place quite a homely aspect. One of them was christened "Ma" on account of her maternal ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... excellent cure for the rheumatism. I have been twice at the play; where, notwithstanding the excellence of the performers, the gayety of the company, and the decorations of the theatre, which are very fine, I could not help reflecting, with a sigh, upon our poor homely representations at Gloucester — But this, in confidence to my dear Willis — You know my heart, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose words in their best order;—poetry the best words in the best ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... find that Morgan hadn't been bored. Her mother, in whose strange, deep-cut features was suggested something of the spirit of Cleo's face, was a brisk-looking, homely matron of fifty. ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... in this laconic description of the homely dreamer a richness of beauty which no efforts of the artist can adequately portray; and in the concise dialogue of the speakers, a simple sublimity of eloquence which any commentary could only weaken. While our feelings are excited by this description, we cannot ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... quitted the amphitheatre and reconnoitred the adjoining buildings. They found many stores, the remains of old days, mats, tents, and fuel, drinking-bowls, and other homely furniture. They fixed upon a building for their stable, and others for the accommodation of their band. They summoned their companions to the open place, the scene of Hassan Subah's fate, where Alroy addressed them ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... pleased with my prudent conduct that I can truly say I was a favourite for some days. Madame de Carignan was telling her one day that I was very homely, to which the Queen replied, "He has a very fine set of teeth, and a man cannot be called homely who has this ornament." Madame de Chevreuse remembered that she had often heard the Queen say that the beauty of a man consisted ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... walls. Here and there you may detect an ancient frame-house which has escaped the shocks of time and chance, and still holds its own against its sturdier neighbours. Nor is the memory of England wholly obliterated. Is there not a homely sound in Maiden Lane, a modest thoroughfare not far from Wall Street? What Englishman can feel wholly abroad if he walk out to the Battery, or gaze upon the austere houses of Washington Square? And do not the two churches of Broadway recall ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... my discretion," said he, "thou shalt arise from thy never-to-be-lamented-sufficiently-lowliness; thou shalt leave the homely occupations of that rude boor unto whom it beseemeth thee to give the appellation of father, and shalt attain to the-all-to-be-desired greatness of my love, even as the resplendent sun condescends to shine down upon ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... Truedale by the cold, steely gleam of his eyes which was driving lucidity home to the dulled brain. By a power as unyielding as death Jim was destroying the screen Truedale had managed to raise against the homely codes of life and was leaving his ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... that any place was ever more distinctly home to me. Over the rail, across the dancing waters of the harbour, where the buildings clustered about Circular Quay; as yet, of course, there could be nothing homely for me about all that. And, as to me, it never did become very homely; perhaps that is why my recollections of our first doings there are ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... a fortnight had elapsed, but Gordon Wright had not re-appeared, and Bernard suddenly decided that he would leave Baden. He found Mrs. Vivian and her daughter, very opportunely, in the garden of the pleasant, homely Schloss which forms the residence of the Grand Dukes of Baden during their visits to the scene of our narrative, and which, perched upon the hill-side directly above the little town, is surrounded with charming old shrubberies and terraces. To this garden a portion of ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... our boast of the indomitable courage, the many self-denials, the homely virtues of our forefathers, think you that we in America are degenerate sons of noble sires? ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... to herself. "She looks as though she could eat those children up. She seems so fond of them. Mothers are always that way. Mrs. Bowerman looks at Mary as though she was the prettiest thing in the world and Mary is homely—just ordinarily homely, and Jane Orr's mother—." The thought was too much for Hester. Her lips quivered, her eyes filled with tears so that she could scarcely distinguish the features of the picture which she held in her hand. "It's just a way that mothers have," ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... Mr. Maclaurin, with a face of flippant assurance, 'Are these words your own?' BOSWELL. Sir Walter Scott shows where the humour of this motto chiefly lay. 'The counsel opposite,' he writes, 'was the celebrated Wight, an excellent lawyer, but of very homely appearance, with heavy features, a blind eye which projected from its socket, a swag belly, and a limp. To him Maclaurin applied ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... from lips unaccustomed indeed to such an outburst. The speaker stood a moment longer in silence beside the figure in the chair, and it seemed to Robert, gazing at him with fixed eyes, that the man's whole presence, at once so homely and so majestic, was charged with benediction. It was as though invisible hands of healing and consecration had been laid upon him. The fiery soul beside him had kindled anew the drooping life of his own. So the torch of God passes on its way, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... beautiful pup, this Peter Pied-Bot—or Peter Club-foot, as Jolly Roger McKay—who lived over in the big cedar swamp—had named him when he gave Peter to the girl. He was, in a way, an accident and a homely one at that. His father was a blue-blooded fighting Airedale who had broken from his kennel long enough to commit a mesalliance with a huge big footed and peace-loving Mackenzie hound—and Peter was the result. He wore the fiercely bristling whiskers of his Airedale father at ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... faculty of historic imagination and in the finer artistic sense. It is, in a measure, because of his lack of culture and, more broadly, lack of real knowledge, that he was enabled to evoke the laughter of the multitude. "The Mississippi pilot, homely, naive, arrogantly candid," says Mr. S. P. Sherman, "refuses to sink his identity in the object contemplated—that, as Corporal Nym would have said, is the humour of it. He is the kind of travelling ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... deities of the Italian Olympus. This over, bonfires of hay and straw were lighted, music was made with cymbal and flute, and shepherds and sheep were purified by passing through the flames. A feast followed, the simple folk lying on benches of turf, and indulging in generous draughts of their homely wines, such, probably, as the visitor to-day may regale himself with in the same region. Towards evening, the flocks were fed, the stables were cleansed and sprinkled with water with laurel brooms, and laurel boughs were hung about them as adornments. ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... church in the evening, sheltered from curious eyes in her nook, and there for a moment she heard the peculiar brush and sweep of rich silk upon pavement, and wondered at so sophisticated a sound in the little homely congregation, but forgot it again in the exulting, joyous beauty of the chants and hymns, led by the rector himself, and, oh, how different from poor Mr. Touchett's best efforts! and forgot it still more in the unfettered eloquence of the preaching of a man of great natural ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... somewhat ungainly of figure and homely of face. But his large, deep eyes of velvety nut-brown were very beautiful and marvellously bright and clear for a man of his age. He wore a little pointed, well-cared-for beard, innocent of gray; but his hair was grizzled, and altogether he had the appearance of ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... not equally beautiful, however, and cannot be; but all may be beautiful to a degree that will render them attractive. Let all little girls who want to be pretty, handsome, or good-looking, give attention and we will tell them how. Those who are homely should listen especially, for all may become good-looking, though all cannot become remarkably beautiful. First of all, it is necessary that the girl who wishes to be handsome, to be admired, should be good. She must learn to love what is right and true. She must be pure in mind ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... course, he had forgotten them. Later, they had disappeared again; it had never occurred to him to think. Often in the earlier days she had tried to talk to him about his work. Had he but looked into her eyes, he might have understood. But she had always been so homely-seeming, so good. Who would have suspected? Then suddenly the blood rushes into his face. What must have been her opinion of his work? All these years he had imagined her the amazed devotee, uncomprehending but admiring. He had read to her at times, comparing himself the while with Moliere reading ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... supper that night, and the German actor certainly ate enough to ward off any possible illness. And, in spite of the rather homely character of the hotel, the meal was an excellent one, and the moving picture players were more comfortable in the matter of rooms than they had expected. About the only ones to find fault were Miss Pennington, ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... expression on his grotesque face such as I had seen there once or twice before. When he glanced at me with that strange affection shining from his great eyes, he seemed like some big, benign dog. Never had I seen a calmer man. It seemed impossible that passion ever had contorted those homely black features. ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... relation respecting the stone of Ensisheim on the Rhine, at which philosophy once smiled incredulously, regarding it as one of the romances of the middle ages, may now be admitted to sober attention as a piece of authentic history. A homely narrative of its fall was drawn up at the time by order of the Emperor Maximilian, and deposited with the stone in the church. It may thus be rendered: "In the year of the Lord 1492, on Wednesday, which was Martinmas eve, the 7th of November, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... the back of my eyes did not scorch with hot tears too. I thought of the likable little Arab, red-headed, freckled and homely, and I blamed myself bitterly that I had ever let him rejoin ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... favours were bestowed as fast as possible upon their countrymen. They had neither the bearing nor manner which men associate with royalty, nor the graces and power of attraction which distinguished the Stuarts. Commonplace and homely in manner, in figure, and in bearing, they were not men whom their fellows could look up to or respect; their very vices were coarse, and the Hanoverian men and women they gathered round them were hated ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... silent, and again the sound came from a farther pen like a belated echo; the fire flaring out from the open door of the nearest hut of the ranchmen's little hamlet gave a pleasant sense of hospitality and homely hearth-side cheer, for it requires only a few nights under a tent or the open canopy of heaven to make a woman, always the most artificially disposed of all creatures, exceedingly respectful to ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... ease,—the women among cushions on a rattan couch, the men stretched in long chairs. He put questions, indolent, friendly questions, opening vistas of reply and recollection; so that Rudolph, answering, felt the first return of homely comfort. A feeble return, however, and brief: in the pauses of talk, misgiving swarmed in his mind, like the leaping vermin of last night. The world into which he had been thrown still appeared disorderly, incomprehensible, ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... beauty, of simplicity, and of rude strength. The new taste hailed with delight the appearance of a native lyric genius in Burns, whose first volume of poems was printed in 1786. It welcomed also the homely, simple sweetness, what Coleridge and Lamb called the "divine chit-chat," of Cowper, whose "Task" appeared in the preceding year. But it was in Coleridge himself and his close contemporaries and followers that the splendor of the new poetry showed itself. He was two years younger ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... all was peace by his cheerful fireside. No man was ever more blessed in his home. His children were intelligent, loving, and obedient; his wife was one of those rare women—seen nowhere more often than in the South—who, to a cultivated mind and polished manners, add the more homely accomplishments of a good housewife. It is years since she laid aside the weary cares of her plantation home, and entered on the higher duties of another life; but her gentle words are still as fresh ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to be a homely person, with no desire either to speak, or to be spoken to. She went out but seldom, and on those rare occasions did not in any way interfere with her daughter. Mr. Boncassen filled a prouder situation. Everybody knew that Miss Boncassen was in England because it suited ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... spite of their tameless days Of outcast liberty, They're sick at heart for the homely ways Where their gathered ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... on earth would you do with Nancy if you didn't marry her off? If she were homely she'd have to fill in chinks in other people's lives, but with her nice little basket of eggs, good looks, money, not too much wit, and a desire to please, she just naturally is put up for sale ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... collected into a single volume in 1879, and on the 7th of October 1886 Barnes died at Winterborne Came. His poetry is essentially English in character; no other writer has given quite so simple and sincere a picture of the homely life and labour of rural England. His work is full of humour and the clean, manly joy of life; and its rusticity is singularly allied to a literary sense and to high technical finish. He is indeed the Victorian Theocritus; and, as English country life is slowly ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... friend I've got here and I'd be lost without her. We've been neighbors for forty-five years and we've never had a quarrel . . . though we came rather near it that time you flew at Mrs. Rachel for calling you homely and redhaired. ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... sweet face, as fair and fresh as a damask rose, to be kissed, and submitted to Mrs. Kane's caresses rather from consciousness that she ought to do so, than from any warmth of gratitude in her own heart. So far from being grateful to the homely sun-burned woman who hugged her, she felt a sort of resentment towards her for finding her on the sea-shore and making a cottage child of her. It ought to have been Mrs. Rushton who found her, and perhaps she might ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... that wonder why little lads forget their homely ways, And little maids put their dolls aside and take to acting plays, Ah, let them be kings and queens awhile, for there's nothing sad or mean In their innocent thought, and their crowns were wrought by the touch o' the ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... which was not common even in England during the period. "Eating with the knife," a step beyond the use of the fingers, gradually became an established custom, and the practice has survived among the homely folks, despite the many varieties of forks available ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... being—is to blunder. I defy competition. There are champion tight-rope dancers, billiard players, opera singers, swindlers, base-ballists, candidates for the Presidency. I am the champion blunderer. You remember the man who asked of another, "Who is that coarse, homely creature across the room?" and received for answer, "That creature is my wife!" Well, I ought to have been that man, although in that case I did not happen to be. My compliments always turn out to be ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... calibre of those for whom the books were primarily intended must be constantly borne in mind. He attained a splendid fulfilment of his own theories, employing the moujik's expressive vernacular in portraying his homely wisdom, religious faith, and goodness of nature. Sometimes the prevailing simplicity of style and motive is tinged with a vague colouring of oriental legend, but the personal accent is marked throughout. No similar achievement in the beginning Mr. Chertkov ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... leisure and went out to search for a barber. The quest was not difficult, and while he awaited his turn he sat against the wall, mildly amused at the scraps of local gossip that came to his ears couched in homely vernacular. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... bliss of an eternal existence hereafter. To the sceptic, examining the evidence for immortality by the cold light of reason, such peoples and such individuals may seem to sacrifice the substance for the shadow: to adopt a homely comparison, they are like the dog in the fable who dropped the real leg of mutton, from his mouth in order to snap at its reflection in the water. Be that as it may, where such beliefs and hopes are entertained in full force, the whole activity of the mind and the whole energy of ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... about you. Some ways you're a powerful homely girl. Your hair's gettin' sunburned around the ends like Karen Jensen's. And your eyes—turn around, won't you, so I kin remember what color your eyes is. I sort of forgot, but they ain't much. Not that I care about it. Women is nothing ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... organ with the quaver in its tongue, Seemed to tremble in its fervor as the sacred songs were sung, As we sang the homely anthems, sang the glad revival hymns Of the glory of the story and the light ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... he laughed. "It is their game we play. They deal and shuffle all the cards... and take the stakes. Think not that you have escaped by fleeing from the mad cities. You with your vine-clad hills, your sunsets and your sunrises, your homely fare and ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... for threshing, grinding, and dressing it; and in numerous instances (though perhaps not quite so much now as it has been, on account of the present agricultural distresses) he would find something else too which he might not consider an improvement: instead of meeting the honest homely farmer, assisting personally in the gathering in his crops, and his daughter following the cart with a rake, he would find the former mounted on his Prad following the hounds, and the latter at boarding ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... has given us a series of reproductions of portraits, of the highest importance in the study of one who is not merely a difficult poet, but a very ambiguous human being. They begin with the eager, attractive, somewhat homely youth of eighteen, grasping the hilt of his sword so tightly that his knuckles start out from the thin covering of flesh; passing into the mature Donne as we know him, the lean, humorous, large-browed, courtly thinker, with his large intent eyes, a cloak folded elegantly about his ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... between his bare feet and the snow, probe around the south edge of melting drifts until he found brilliant little primroses to stick behind his ears. I have been ushered into the little-used, musty best-parlor of a New England farmhouse, and seen fresh vases of homely, old-fashioned flowers—so recently placed for my edification, that drops of water still glistened like dewdrops on the dusty plush mat beneath. I have sat in the seat of honor of a Dyak communal house, looked up at the circle of all too recent heads, and seen a gay flower ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... wouldst thou, thus betray, My easy faith, and lead my heart away. I might some humble shepherd's choice have been, Had I not heard that tongue, those eyes not seen; And in some homely cot, in low repose, Liv'd undisturb'd, with broken vows and oaths; All day by shaded springs my flocks have kept, And in some honest arms, at night have slept. Then, un-upbraided with my wrongs thou'dit been, Safe in the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... pupils; many a wavering line Torn from the dear fat soil of champaigns hopefully tilled, Torn from the motherly bowl, the homely spoon, To jest at famine.... Over an empty platter affect the merrily filled; Die, if the multiple hazards ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... He could see the little warbler doing his best to entertain the weary moments of one who seldom heard the wild birds, or set her foot in the woods. He could also see the soft draperies about the window, the climbing ivy and growing ferns, and the much-used books and work-table, and from all these homely but precious belongings came uppermost the sweet smile of affection, the placid face which, in spite of age and sorrow and suffering, had always so tender a beauty for him. Quickly he turned back to ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... about her homely tasks with an alacrity that Mrs. Grubbling, knowing nothing of the hope that had been let in upon her dreariness, attributed wholly to the salutary effect of a "good scolding" she had administered the day before. The work she got out of the girl that Thursday forenoon! Never ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... and a thing that she very seldom ever did. She, like everybody else, had her pets and hobbies, such as flowers, trees, plants, dogs, horses, etc., and there was one dog in particular that was her favorite pet. This dog was with Her Majesty always and followed her wherever she went, and a more homely dog I never saw. It had absolutely nothing to recommend it in any way. Her Majesty thought it beautiful, and called ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... not stand here for a certain homely, useful quality of intellect, that guards a person from committing mistakes to the injury of his fortunes or common reputation; but for that master-principle of business, literature, and talent, which gives him strength in any subject ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... to have died in a colic. No less homely image expresses the contractions and contortions of the houses reaching out the appeal of their desperate chimney-pots and agonized girders. There is one view along the exterior of the town like nothing ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... "To use a homely illustration, just rising in my fancy,—shall the good housewife take such pains in pickling and preserving her worthless fruits, her walnuts, her apricots, and quinces—and is there not much spiritual housewifery in treasuring up our mind's best fruits—our ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... called 'the Branciani dress,' and once attired in it, and the rich purges and swelling creases over the shoulders puffed out to her satisfaction, and the run of yellow braid about it properly inspected and flattened, she would not return to her more homely wear, though very soon her mother began to whimper and say that she had lost her so long, and now that she had found her it hardly seemed the same child. Emilia would listen to no entreaties to put away her sumptuous robe. She silenced ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... midst of these simple and homely occupations, the supernatural life of prayer, and ecstacy, and communion with God, was never for a moment interrupted. Strange and beautiful sights were seen by many of those who were present in the church when she communicated: sometimes a column of fire ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... Does it worry you to think of crumps bursting and so on? But, really, it seems quite ordinary and in the day's work here. Men talk of crumps as you would talk of bread and butter. That is, perhaps, why letters from home that talk about homely things—cows and lavender and the new chintz—are ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... the cosy dining-room, and sitting down, he hammered the floor with his crutch. The homely sound of dishes being washed ceased suddenly in the adjoining room, and Mrs. Mathews ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... the rails, looking down. Almost every one held flowers which had been brought to them: not costly bouquets, but homely bunches of marigolds or pinks. They carried, too, little German or American flags, which ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... the moment he had seen those glaring headlights and realized that he was participating in a reality, he had been frantic, wondering what to do. Well, now he had "gone and done it" and he was terror-stricken at his own act. The mere wasting of so much gasoline was a terrible thing in the homely life of ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... dear," said the homely Mrs Twitter, "we won't be so hard on you here. I want you to assist me with my sewing and darning—of which I have a very great deal—and help to take ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... said—"Before you go I want yon to know a thing or two,—you may as well learn once for all my views on women. They're brief, but they're fixed. And they're straight! Women are nothing—just necessary for the continuation of the race—no more. They may be beautiful or homely—it's all one—they serve the same purpose. I'm under no delusions about them. Without men they are utterly useless,—mere waste on the wind! To idealise them is a stupid mistake. To think that they can do ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... through Russia after the Russian-Japanese War, I met one of the leading diplomats of that country who greeted me with, "Well, how do you like it?" "How do I like what?" I asked. "How do you like helping Japan to lick Russia?" Those were the homely expressions that he used. To which I replied, "We did not help Japan to lick Russia." "But," he said, "you did in effect. Your people and your press sympathized and they expressed the kindly sympathy that counts for so much at such a time." ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... as in any other. In the First Part he displays a great natural gift of lying. His lies are not of the highly imaginative sort that liars in fiction commonly indulge in; like Falstaff's, they resemble the father that begets them; they are simple, homely, plump lies; plain working lies, in short. But in the service of such a master as Don Quixote he develops rapidly, as we see when he comes to palm off the three country wenches as Dulcinea and her ladies in waiting. It is worth noticing how, flushed by his success in this instance, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... "That sounds homely," said the professor to Miss Carmichael and myself, who were standing with him on the gallery outside the car. "It's the sweetest music I've heard for many a day. Certainly Venus was a charming place, but I for one am jolly glad ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... Miss Button, his stenographer, needed a little trip. Ten days at Atlantic City with her mother would pull her up. She had been looking badly lately—worried about her mother, Weeks had told him. Pity she was so homely. It was pretty unfair the way women had to work at both ends of the line. Weeks, too, could get his wife that fur coat he'd been wanting her to have for three years. What an honest old duck Weeks was!—and who would ever believe him as full of sentiment as a boy of ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... thinkers they had been taught to emphasize equality, freedom of conscience, and political liberty. These stocks differed somewhat from each other, but they were equally attached to practical religion, homely virtues, and democratic institutions.[7] Being a kind and beneficent class with a tenacity for the habits and customs of their fathers, they proved to be a valuable contribution to the American stock. As they had no riches every ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... lately seen her, the glory of the Chalet, the pride of Madame Latournelle and the Dumays. Modeste was living a double existence. She performed with humble, loving care all the minute duties of the homely life at the Chalet, using them as a rein to guide the poetry of her ideal life, like the Carthusian monks who labor methodically on material things to leave their souls the freer to develop in prayer. All great minds have bound themselves to some form of ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... girl herself he might have entertained during his ride were immediately dissipated as soon as Adelle entered the drawing-room from the class whence she had been summoned. She was a little larger, perhaps, than he remembered her, but essentially the same awkward, homely child, and she was now wearing an ugly harness upon her teeth that further disfigured her. Mr. Ashly Crane was an observant man, and he became at once merely the business man, solely intent upon performing his duty and getting back to Albany in time to catch his train. He presented his roses, ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... when the wearer is old and frail. We must take the merino for granted until she steps out of the astrakhan. She is dressed up to the nines, there is no doubt about it. Yes, but is her face less homely? Above all, has she style? The answer is in a stout affirmative. Ask Kenneth. He knows. Many a time he has had to go behind a door to roar hilariously at the old lady. He has thought of her as a lark to tell his mates about by and by; but for some reason that he cannot fathom, ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... love for her sister had been tinged with envy. No young lad had ever waited in the dusk to hear the sound of her footfall; no half-impudent but half-bashful glances had ever been thrown after her as she went through the village on her business. To be a homely, household thing, useful indeed in this world, and with high hopes for the future,—but still to be a drudge; that had been her destiny. There was never a woman to whom the idea of being loved was not the sweetest thought that her mind could produce. Fate ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... for their beauty depends closely upon the expensiveness of the articles. A homely illustration will bring out this dependence. A hand-wrought silver spoon, of a commercial value of some ten to twenty dollars, is not ordinarily more serviceable—in the first sense of the word—than a machine-made spoon ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... de sole a la Delmonico," and as nothing to the contrary was said until dinner was over, he ate them under the impression that they were veritable filets de sole. Of course I can't pretend to say whether M. Delmonico imports his soles, or uses the homely flounder; but I do know that one of his frequenters ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... she toiled at her self-appointed labour of love. She swept and dusted, she scrubbed and cleaned, with capable fingers, proud of the strength and skill that made her a good housewife; then bringing in the fragrant, homely fabrics, made up the beds and placed all back ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... ingratiated himself with the Fieldens, played with the children, made himself at home, and in the evenings when Mainwaring, as often as he could find the excuse, absented himself from the family circle, he contrived to draw Lucretia into more social intercourse with her homely companions than she had before condescended to admit. Good Mr. Fielden rejoiced; here was the very person,—the old friend of Sir Miles, the preceptor of Lucretia herself, evidently most attached to her, having influence over ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... utterances of one suffering from delirium tremens. Whether in its wrath, disdain, or its dismay, the countenance was infernal. I called once upon a time on a most respectable yeoman, and I was, in language earnest and homely, pressed to accept the hospitality of the house. I consented. The word to me was, 'Nah, Maister, yah mun stop an hev sum te-ah, yah mun, eah, yah mun.' A bountiful table was soon spread; at all events, time soon went while I scaled the ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... unwilling to part with his friend, used many arguments to prevail upon Valentine not to leave him: but Valentine said, "Cease to persuade me, my loving Proteus. I will not, like a sluggard, wear out my youth in idleness at home. Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits. If your affection were not chained to the sweet glances of your honoured Julia, I would entreat you to accompany me, to see the wonders of the world abroad; but since you are a lover, love on still, and ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... homely red walls of Little Corton nestling among the elms brought to my mind a hundred memories of the past days, wherein Isabella's parents had ever accorded a welcome to myself—a muddy-booted boy then, with but an evil reputation in ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... misdemesnors of these bailiffs, they are therefore usually bound in a bond for the due execution of their office, and thence are called bound-bailiffs; which the common people have corrupted into a much more homely appellation. ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... judge you are ready for late supper or early breakfast, whichever you may prefer to call it. The provisions are homely, and I am an indifferent cook, but I can at least give you enough to eat. Those brigands of yours have stored sufficient food ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... Dutch wagons, guarded by the homely soldiery, jolted slowly over the stumps and roots of the newly made road, and the regiments followed at their leisure. The hardships of the way were not without their consolations. The jovial Irishman who held the chief command made himself ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... crusade against drink. No kudos to be gained; no acclaim of the multitude to ring in the pleased ear; no cheering clash of party conflict. GRANDOLPH gives a deprecating twirl to his modest moustache, and takes up his homely parable. Possibly he does this with the larger content, since he had his go at the Land Purchase Bill before Debate on Second Reading opened. His letters, published on eve of Easter recess, hurtled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... a greyish-red colour, and have no particular style. The brickwork of the place is in fact very poor—inferior to that of the North Italian towns and quite wanting in the wealth of tone which this homely material takes on in general in the climates of dampness and greenness." And then my note-book goes on to narrate a little visit to the Capitol, which was soon made, as the building was in course of repair and ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... revealed in these touching words: "How often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings." The imagery is homely, but oh! so impressively sublime. I can not do better than to use here the words of another. "Was ever imagery so homely invested with such grace and such sublimity as this at our Lord's touch? And yet ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... Gael. It's awful hard to say you had ought to be somethin' a person can't manage for themselves. I mean—" poor Joan, the inarticulate, floundered, but he left her, rather cruelly, to flounder out. "I mean, that's an awful hard sayin' fer a homely woman, ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... of shrubbery, and a brook; to another house abutting a railroad, with infinite interests and astonishing playmates; and finally back to the quiet street on which I was born,—down a long lane and in a homely, cozy cottage, with a living-room, a tiny sitting-room, a pantry, and two attic bedrooms. Here mother and I lived until she died, in 1884, for father early began his restless wanderings. I last remember urgent letters for us to come to New Milford, where ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Darning has a homely sound, but it is useful for more than mending. In embroidery you no longer use it to replace threads worn away, but build up upon the scaffolding of a merely serviceable material what may be a ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... the quaint and dear absurdities which make up personality are embalmed in the leisurely, peaceable talk of the village, still enriched by all that they brought to it. We are not afraid of the event which men call death, because we know that, in so far as we have deserved it, the same homely immortality awaits us. ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... homely, but accurate illustration of the action of the flying machine. The motor does for the latter what the force of your arm does for the cardboard—imparts a motion which keeps it afloat. The only real difference is that the motion given ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... while the elders sit, with their mugs of beer and long pipes, watching and gossiping, are very like what took place in the times of the old painters who were so fond of producing pictures of the kermesses. The dress of the people, of course, is different, but the spirit of the scene, with its homely festivities, is wonderfully ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... ever stole such a name as that," said Foley. "And for all he's homely enough to stop traffic, his face sorta lives up to his name. ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... again, Our homely cottage view, And hear us sing a cheerful strain, To thee, and ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... ready to marry him, he was still waiting. He wrote of his handsome farm he had cleared with his own hands, and the beautiful wild country he lived in, telling her he hoped her future life would be free from all care. All this, and even more, dear reader, he told her—in plain, homely words, it is true; but love's language is always sweet, be it in courtly ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... opposite of such as yield a fine imagination, which is always based on a keen vision, a keen consciousness of what is, and carries the store of definite knowledge as material for the construction of its inward visions. Witness Dante, who is at once the most precise and homely in his reproduction of actual objects, and the most soaringly at large in his imaginative combinations. On a much lower level we distinguish the hyperbole and rapid development in descriptions of persons and ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... especially. She was a small person; I couldn't decide whether she was a child or a woman. I kept thinking her homely, and then when she spoke I forgot everything but the music of her voice,—it was so restful, so rich and mellow in tone, and she seemed so small for such a splendid voice. Somehow I kept expecting her to squeak like a mouse, but every word she spoke charmed me. Before the meal ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... as you liked my former illustration, I will explain myself by another one more homely. In a room to which you are accustomed there is a piece of furniture, or an ornament, which so exactly suits the place that you say: 'The prettiest thing I ever saw!' You go away—you return—the piece ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
