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Plainness   Listen
noun
Plainness  n.  The quality or state of being plain.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Plainness" Quotes from Famous Books



... robust; his manners rustic, not clownish; a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity, which received part of its effect, perhaps, from one's knowledge of his extraordinary talents. His features are represented in Mr. Nasmyth's picture, but to me it conveys the idea that they are diminished as if seen in perspective. I think his countenance ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... his melancholy end, whether you saw it with your own eyes, or heard it from some other traveller, for he was a man born to trouble. Do not soften things out of any pity for me, but tell me in all plainness exactly what you saw. If my brave father Ulysses ever did you loyal service, either by word or deed, when you Achaeans were harassed among the Trojans, bear it in mind now as in my favour and tell me ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... and candid reliance on the Nation was one which could never have been foreseen by so-called 'diplomatic' statesmen, who are accustomed to juggle with simple facts, and who strive to cover up and conceal the too distinct plainness of truth. An electric thrill of chivalrous enthusiasm pulsated through the entire country; and the unanimous vote of the people was returned to the King in entire favour of the Crown Prince and his chosen bride. Perhaps no one was more ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... sustained a rather short thick neck, now exposed in extreme decollete style, as if to aid the unsuccessful elongation of nature. Her sallow complexion was dark, almost bistre, and the strongly marked irregular features were only redeemed from positive plainness by the large fiery black eyes, whose beauty was somewhat marred by the intrusive boldness of their expression. Bowing to some one opposite, her very full lips parted smilingly over a set of sound strong teeth, rather uneven in outline, and of the yellowish cast often observed ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... whim, flightiness, perverseness; patient fidelity to Nature, in a word, SCIENCE,—leading it at last, though slowly, and not by the most brilliant road, out of the bondage of the humdrum and common, into the better life. The universal dead-level of plainness and homeliness, the lack of all beauty and distinction in form and feature, the slowness and clumsiness of the language, the eternal beer, sausages, and bad tobacco, the blank commonness everywhere, pressing at last like a weight on the spirits of the traveller ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold

... Burns, who rewarded me with a look and a word, which though of mere civility, I then received with very great pleasure. His person was strong and robust; his manner rustic, not clownish; a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity. His countenance was more massive than it looks in any of the portraits. I would have taken the poet, had I not known who he was, for a very sagacious country farmer of the old Scotch ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... will no doubt bear in mind that Clara had other words of which to think besides those which were addressed to her by her mother. Dalrymple had asked her to be his wife in the plainest possible language, and she thought that the very plainness of the language became him well. The very taking off of his apron, almost as he said the words, though to himself the action had been so distressing as almost to overcome his purpose, had in it something to her of direct simple determination which pleased her. When he had ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... there was a great deal in what he said. And upon the whole I find him a most exact and methodicall man, and of great industry: and very glad that he thought fit to show me all this; though I cannot easily guess the reason why he should do it to me, unless from the plainness that he sees I use to him in telling him how much the King may suffer for our want of understanding the ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... presented them to the Legislature in a Memorial of thirty-two octavo pages, the first of a series of seventeen statements and appeals presented to the legislatures of different states, as far west as Illinois and as far south as Louisiana. "I shall be obliged," she said, "to speak with great plainness and to reveal many things revolting to the taste, and from which my woman's nature shrinks with peculiar sensitiveness.... I proceed, gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of insane persons within this Commonwealth, ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... primitive simplicity of the mansion and its inhabitants. We were introduced into the little family sitting-room, the floor of which was painted after the Yankee fashion; instead of being carpeted, the walls were of unornamented deal, and the furniture of the room of corresponding plainness. A large spinning-wheel, as big as a cart-wheel, nearly occupied the centre of the room, at which a neatly- dressed matron, of mild and lady-like appearance, was engaged spinning yarn; her little daughters ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... we read of in full-length descriptions by some folks, but equally comprehensive, though shortly done by others, under the simple name of John Bull—as ungarnished in his dress, as in his speech and action; whereas Mrs. Cheeseman, as I have just told you, is the counterpart of plainness; she has trinkets out of number, brooches, backed with every kind of hair, from "the flaxen-headed cow-boy" to the deep-toned "Jim Crow." Then her rings—they are the surprise of her staring acquaintances; she has them from the most delicate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various

... than ever, but no plainer than Madame Titiens, so the papers say. I never saw or heard her, of course, but the critics say I have the same large, "massive" style of voice and person. My present accompanist would take first prize for ugliness in any competition; he is more like a syndicate of plainness than one single exemplification of it! I must have a noble nature to think more of my audiences than of myself, but I should like to give them something to please their eyes—I flatter myself I can take care of ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... before the monarch's chair, And stood with rustic plainness there, And little reverence made: Nor head, nor body, bowed nor bent, But on the desk his arm he leant, And words like these he said, In a low voice—but never tone So thrilled through vein, and nerve, ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... Empress reached Troyes April 2. A letter dated the 3d was printed in the Moniteur. It said: "Everywhere the presence of the Emperor has evoked the liveliest applause; the people seem astonished to see him wearing such a modest uniform, and conspicuous, in the midst of his court, by the plainness of his dress. The people of this department exhibit this joy all the more because it is here that was brought up the man who was destined to raise France to the highest glory and prosperity. It is at Brienne that the ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... scientific originality. The sage of a parish, provided only she began her trade with an open and energetic mind, may here pass philosophers. Locke was nearly as sage, as homely, as real, as one of these strenuous women. The honest plainness of certain of his prescriptions for the preservation of physical health perhaps keeps us somewhat too near the earth. His manner throughout is marked by the stout wisdom of the practical teacher, who is content to assume good sense in his hearers, ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... elaborately carved stone-work than any outside Rouen. There is something rather odd, in the close juxtaposition of the Hotel Mouton d'Argent with its smooth plastered front and the almost overpowering mass of detail that faces it on the other side of the road. There is something curious, too, in the severe plainness of the tower that almost suggests the unnecessarily shabby clothing worn by some men whose wives are always to be seen in the most elaborate and costly gowns. Internally the church shows its twelfth century origin, but all the intricate stone-work outside belongs ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home

... also convince the Scholar, that the Artifice of a Professor is never more pleasing, than when he deceives the Audience with agreeable Surprizes; for which reason he will advise him to have Recourse to a seeming Plainness, as if he aim'd ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi

... courtesy which was graceful enough but perfectly cool. So cool, that it rather excited Lady Brierley's curiosity, who was accustomed to be a person of great importance wherever she went. Her eye took in swiftly the neatness of the room, its plainness, and yet its expression of life and mental activity; the work and workbasket on the chair, the bunch of ferns and amaranthus in one vase, the roses in another, the violets on the table, the physiognomy of the books, which were not from the next circulating ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... stimulants lose their power." [See a fine article on history, Ed. Her., 1828. Also in Macaulay's Miscellanies.] We have taken occasion in the notes to point out not a few examples of rhetorical pomp, and poetical coloring, and even needless multiplication of words, where plainness and precision would have been much better, and which may well surprise us in a writer of so much conciseness. Lord Monboddo, in a very able, though somewhat extravagant critique on Tacitus, has selected numerous instances of what he calls the ornamented dry style, many of ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... great plainness and directness upon this great matter and to avow my convictions with deep earnestness. I have tried to know what America is, what her people think, what they are, what they most cherish and hold dear. I hope that some of their finer passions are in my own heart,—some of the great conceptions ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson

... comment. He found Johnson's definitions wanting in exactness, and often rather explanations than definitions. For his part he aimed at a somewhat plainer work. He was under no temptation, as Johnson was, to use a fine style, but was rather disposed to take another direction and use an excessive plainness of speech, amplifying his definition by a reference in detail to the synonymous words. It must be said, however, that Webster was often unnecessarily rambling in his account of a word, as when, for instance, under the word magnanimity he writes: ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder

... without forfeiting respect, something very manly in one who can break through the etiquette of his conventional rank and trust himself to the reason and intelligence of those who have elected him. No higher compliment was ever paid to a nation than the simple confidence, the fireside plainness, with which Mr. Lincoln always addresses himself to the reason of the American people. This was, indeed, a true democrat, who grounded himself on the assumption that a democracy can think. "Come, let us reason together about this matter," has been the tone of all his addresses to the ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... excellent, and his other features, though they could scarce be termed handsome, expressed sense and acuteness; he bore, in his aspect, that ease and composure of manner, equally void of awkwardness and affectation, which is said emphatically to mark the gentleman; and, although neither the plainness of his dress, nor the total want of the usual attendants, allowed Meg to suppose him a wealthy man, she had little doubt that he was above the rank of her lodgers in general. Amidst these observations, and while she was in the course of making them, the good landlady ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... all that hate us; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant," or bargain (Luke 1:68-72). [I might give you more Scriptures; but pray consider the second thing.] And if any should be offended with the plainness of these words, as some poor souls may be through ignorance, let them be pleased to read soberly Isaiah 49:1-12, and there they may see that it runs as plain a bargain as if two would be making of a bargain between themselves, and concluding upon several conditions ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... drove out to call upon Kossuth. We found him in an obscure lodging on the outskirts of London. I would that some of the editors in America, who have thrown out insinuations about his living in luxury, could have seen the utter bareness and plainness of the reception room, which had nothing in it beyond the simplest necessaries. He entered into conversation with us with cheerfulness, speaking English well, though with the idioms of foreign languages. When ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... a Church building that was plain in its interior, the plainness being emphasized, and at times rendered unsightly, by reason of the removal of the statues and pictures which in pre-Reformation times had decorated the walls and pillars. The building was, however, as required by the Book of Discipline, rendered ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston

... of his person; but he, with thanks for their courtesy, refused it, having store of company well armed of his own retinue, besides some English of Hamburg who were come to him. The Luebeckers commended the sobriety and plainness of Whitelocke and his company; only they said his liveries were very noble; and they wondered that they saw no more drinking among them, and that he had so constant exercises of ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... of that great scheme of which this life is a part. It is an apparently essential element and fulfilment of the wonderful apparatus of retribution, reward, and discipline, intended to educate us as members of God's eternal family. Because from the little which we now understand we cannot infer with plainness and certainty the precise means and method by which we can discriminate our friends in heaven need be no obstacle to believing the fact itself; for there are millions of undoubted truths whose conditions and ways of operation we can nowise fathom. Upon the whole, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... dressed, while the other was uncommonly plain in her apparel. The lady in the plain dress was addicted to the habit of using snuff. The lady in the fashionable dress abhorred such a filthy practise. When the Word of God was read on the comeliness and plainness of female attire, the lady in the plain dress smiled and nodded assent. The lady whose heart was set on costly apparel, expressed a rejection of God's Word in her countenance and manner. In the discourse the subject was changed from the wearing of gay clothing to the practise of tobacco ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... stouter and more numerous, and project further from the wall. Flying buttresses were also introduced at this period. We can generally distinguish Early English work from that of the Norman style by its lightness and elegance, as compared with the roughness and massiveness of the latter; and its plainness and simplicity sufficiently distinguish it from that ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... outside. It is possible that some intelligences might have seen in this priest a caricature of his profession, a figure to be copied for the curate of burlesque, so accurately did he reproduce the common signs of the ascetic school. His face would have been womanish in its plainness but for the gravity that had grown upon it, only occasionally dispersed by a smile of scholarliness and sweetness which had the effect of being permitted, conceded. He had the long thin nose which looked as if for preference it would be forever thrust among the pages of the Fathers; and anyone ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... stop a moment, to see how this adventurous plainness was taken; and he really, though my manner showed me only rallying, looked I don't know how, at such unexampled disrespect towards his brother orators. But I soon went quietly on: "To come forth now, after all that has passed, with the eclat of novelty, and,-for the most cruel ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... were very sweet and charming. During her discourse, which was frequently interrupted, Miss Dickinson maintained her presence of mind, and uttered her radical sentiments with augmented resolution and plainness. Those who did not sympathize with her remarks, provocative as they were of numerous unmanly interruptions, were softened by her simplicity and solemnity. 'We are told,' said she, 'to maintain constitutions because they are constitutions, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... picture with my warm thanks, both for that, and your better favour the 'Messiah' which I assure you I have read through with great pleasure. The verses have great sweetness, and a New Testament plainness about them which affected me very much. I could just wish that in page 63, you had omitted the lines 71 and 72, and had ended ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... I could not yet tell. I worked on as rapidly as the necessary care would permit; and when I had uncovered the whole mass, and rising from my knees, had retreated a little way, so that the effect of the whole might fall on me, I saw before me with sufficient plainness—though at the same time with considerable indistinctness, arising from the limited amount of light the place admitted, as well as from the nature of the object itself—a block of pure alabaster enclosing the form, apparently in marble, of a reposing woman. She lay on one ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... we have a snug competency in reserve? And really, my dear, you must curtail your personal expenditures; you recollect but a week ago you gave two hundred dollars for that diamond coronet you have on—and you are constantly purchasing costly dresses and superb shawls. Do you not observe the plainness of my attire? Believe me, an elegant simplicity of dress is far more attractive to men of taste, than gaudy ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... impassioned; Senators Seward, Hale, Trumbull, and Chase spoke from a more conspicuous forum; but Lincoln's were more philosophical, while as able and earnest as any, and his manner had a simplicity and directness, a clearness of statement and felicity of illustration, and his language a plainness and Anglo-Saxon strength, better adapted than any other to reach and influence the common people,—the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various

... he was awkward at a trick. For little souls on little shifts rely, And coward arts of mean expedients try; The noble mind will dare do anything but lie. False friends, his deadliest foes, could find no way But shows of honest bluntness, to betray: That unsuspected plainness he believed; He looked into himself, and was deceived. 930 Some lucky planet sure attends his birth, Or Heaven would make a miracle on earth; For prosperous honesty is seldom seen To bear so dead a weight, and yet to win. It looks as fate with nature's law ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... struggle against law, by which law is discovered, may easily enough be confounded with the utter repudiation of it. Both forms of mind will discuss the same questions; both will discuss them freely, with a certain plainness and daring, which may range through all grades, from the bluntness of Socrates down to reckless immodesty and profaneness. The world will hardly distinguish between the two; it did not in Socrates' case, mistaking his reverent irreverence for Atheism, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... let us look on him as an impartial relator of our faults; for he will tell us truer than our fondest friend will, and we may forgive his anger, whilst we make use of the plainness of his declamation. The ox, when he is weary, treads truest; and if there be nothing else in abuse, but that it makes us to walk warily, and tread sure for fear of our enemies, that is better than to be ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... the traces of tears from her cheeks, but her eyes were red and swollen. The cheap mirror exaggerated her plainness, while memory pitilessly emphasised the beauty of the other woman. As she dressed, the thought came to her that, no matter what happened, she could still go on loving him, that she might always give, whether or not she received ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... constitutions. The little table—two feet by sixteen inches—was in all respects worthy of the chairs. At one end of the hut there was a bed-place, big enough for two; it was variously termed a crib, a shelf, a tumble-in, and a bunk. Its owner called it a "snoosery." This was a model of plainness and comfort. It was a mere shell about two and a half feet broad, projecting from the wall, to which it was attached on one side, the other side being supported by two wooden legs a foot high. A plank at the side, and another at the foot, in conjunction with the walls ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne

... of mediating between science and the popular mind, is one that requires a peculiar gift of perspicuity, both in thought and style; and this, I think, the author possesses in an eminent degree. I am pleased with its comprehensiveness, its plainness, and its fidelity to the ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham

... barebill in any MS., but a gap and sort of caesural mark in A. In a letter Aug. 14, '79, G. M. H. writes: 'I enclose a sonnet on which I invite minute criticism. I endeavoured in it at a more Miltonic plainness and severity than I have any- where else. I cannot say it has turned out severe, still less plain, but it seems almost free from quaintness and in aiming at one excellence I ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... scorn of Lionel's credulity in believing in her. Lionel read it all. Happening to glance across the table, he caught the eyes of Lucy Tempest fixed upon him with an open expression of wonder. Wonder at what? At his believing in Sibylla? It might be. With all Lucy's straightforward plainness, she would have been one of the last to storm Lionel's abode, and take refuge in it. A retort, defending Sibylla, had been upon Lionel's tongue, but that ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... sailing under any flag rather than the Bourbon. His equanimity seemed perfectly re-established from the moment when he set his foot on the British deck. He conversed affably with Captain Usher and the officers; and by the ease and plainness of his manners, his intelligent curiosity as to the arrangements of the ship, and the warm eulogies which he continued to pronounce on them, and on the character of the English nation at large, he succeeded in making a very favourable impression on all the crew—with the exception ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... chirpings of a poultry-yard are startled by the raid of a dog. They laughed at his conversation behind his back; but in his presence, under the angry light of those grey eyes, the gloom of those bent brows, they were chilled into submission and civility. He had a dignity which made his Puritanical plainness more patrician than Rochester's finery, more impressive than Buckingham's graceful splendour. The force and vigour of his countenance were more striking than Sedley's beauty. The eyes of strangers singled him out in that gay throng, and ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... speak frankly, there is a Rabelaisian plainness of speech on certain subjects, which one must admit to be apt to characterise boys' conversation, which it is impossible to construct or include, and yet the omission of which subtracts considerable reality from the picture. Genius might triumph over all these obstacles, ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... a minute, which seemed a long, long time, she stared fixedly at them, and then began to wonder who it was that took so much interest in her. It was a tall woman of about thirty, who sat among the servants from the White House; a stranger, with nothing remarkable about her except the extreme plainness of her dress, and a certain hungry expression in her eyes. "I wonder who she is," thought Mary, "and why she stares at me ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton

... any scandalous offence, they should be censured or degraded by the superior pontiff; but as long as they retain their rank, they are entitled to the respect of the magistrates and people. Their humility may be shown in the plainness of their domestic garb; their dignity, in the pomp of holy vestments. When they are summoned in their turn to officiate before the altar, they ought not, during the appointed number of days, to depart from ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... initiatory lesson upon subjects which ought never to enter the imagination of girlhood: my introduction into a region which should never be approached by the guileless and the pure." (page 61) One or two individuals (Roman Catholic) soon formed a close intimacy with me, and discoursed with a freedom and plainness I had never, before encountered. My acquaintances, however, had been brought up in convents, or familiar with them for years, and I ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... places of worship belonging to the Quakers in this Province. There are however, a few of these primitive worshippers scattered through the country, who joining sincerity and honesty with plainness, are excellent ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher

... J. Frederick Bridge. This book has freshness and plainness combined with thoroughness, and must commend itself to young students ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown

... its plainness is beauty, Science itself is a charm, But the frown of a tyrant tutor Puts ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite

... him myself, I presently saw such a plainness in his dealing and such honesty in his countenance that I made no scruple to tell him my whole story, viz., that I was a widow, that I had some jewels to dispose of, and also some money which I had a mind to send to England, and to follow there myself; but being but a ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe

... the background. They were both to repair, on a given day, at a given hour, to a given office, in a given street, where they were to sign without inquiry, and even without perusal, whatever documents might then and there be presented to them. This course, the writer pointed out, with perspicuous plainness, was all in the end ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... distinction,—the son of ambition, whose gaze was already fixed on the distant hill-tops of fame. There was nothing in his countenance or manner that gave this impression, but my own morbid sensitiveness. The dawning feelings of womanhood made me blush for the plainness and childishness of my dress, and then I was ashamed of my shame, and ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... explained to her quite clearly, without attenuation, often with horrible plainness of speech, the critical position in which Lucien found himself, his connection with the Hotel Grandlieu, his splendid prospects if he should succeed; and finally, how necessary it was that Esther should sacrifice herself to ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... in sheer wonder whence came all the wealth that was displayed before my eyes. My own poor preparations lost all their charm, and I had not been above half an hour in the place before I was seeking a quiet corner in which to hide the poverty of my coat and the plainness of my cloak. But the desire for privacy thus bred in me was not to find satisfaction. Darrell, whom I had not met all day, now pounced on me and carried me off, declaring that he was charged to present me to the ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... account and rouse it from its lethargy, and demand that it should untrammel itself and be free and equal to the age and demand. I have met with miserly persons who didn't believe in beautiful churches, or the missionary cause, or any cause indeed that wanted money. They would argue for plainness, and so on. The secret of their peculiar ideas on these matters was to be found in their stinginess and their love of money. They advocated such theories because it saved them from contributing. Like ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild

... him therein no little aid in carrying his burden of the many souls which are under his care, alone as he is, without any other assistance or instruction than ours. But Father Gabriel Sanchez, with his accustomed plainness, has written a more detailed account of some particular cases, while making a report of his labors to the superiors, as is the custom among us. In a letter to the father-visitor, dated in November of the year one thousand six hundred, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... applied to the wounds which his keen edged words had made, and to show that they were wounds by a surgeon, not by a foe. In effect, this parting smile of love says, 'I am not become your enemy because I tell you the truth; I show my love to you by the plainness and roughness of my words.' Generalise that, free it from its personal reference, and it just comes to this: There never was a shallower sneer than the sneer which is cast at Christianity, as if it were harsh, 'ferocious,' or unloving, when it preaches the terror of the Lord. No! ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... the months roll by. The call for men to join our fighting forces, which is our primary need, has been and is being nobly responded to here at home and throughout the empire. That call, we say with all plainness and directness, was never more urgent or more imperious than today. For this is a war not only of men but of material. To take only one illustration, the expenditure upon ammunition on both sides has been ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... trials of virtue which it involves, is a disagreeable piece of sentimentality. The members of the trio fall on each other's necks with unpleasant frequency and fervor. But the picture of that home itself, with its well-ordered housekeeping, its liberality and its plainness, is interesting and attractive. "Since the masters of this house have taken it for their dwelling, they have turned to their use all that served only for ornament; it is no longer a house made to be seen, but to be lived in. They have built up the long lines ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... community of Christians popularly known as Quakers, founded in 1648 by GEORGE FOX (q. v.), distinguished for their plainness of speech and manners, and differing from other sects chiefly in the exclusive deference they pay to the "inner light," and their rejection of both clergy and sacrament as media of grace; they refuse to take oath, are averse to war, and have ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... evening—was a fleshy, bald-headed man, who looked the veriest little bit like Mr. Dearborn, the Congregational minister at Denboro, and was as pleasant and jolly as could be. His wife was a white-haired little lady, dressed plainly—the expensive kind of plainness, you know—and with a diamond pin that was about as wonderful as anything I ever saw. And I kept thinking to myself: "Oh, what SHALL I say to you? What on EARTH shall we talk about?" and not getting any answer from ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... with no great spiritual organ in the West, what would have become of Western development? It was the energy and resolution of the Pontiffs which resisted the heresies of the East, and preserved to the Christian religion that plainness and intelligibility, without which it would never have made a way to the rude understanding and simple hearts of the barbarians from the North. It was their wise patriotism which protected Italy against Greek oppression, and by acting the part of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley

... tell me what was the second complaint which he had to make, acknowledging I was very much his debtor for the first, and thanked him heartily for it. He told me he would use the same freedom and plainness in the second, and hoped I would take it as well; and this was, that notwithstanding these English subjects of mine, as he called them, had lived with these women for almost seven years, and had taught them to speak English, and even to read it, and that they were, as he perceived, women ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... he means. Somehow or other a well-ordered monastery represents the Least Common Multiple of nearly all pleasant houses. It has the largeness and amplitude of a castle, and the plainness of decent poverty. It has none of that theatricality which it is supposed to have, none of the dreaminess or the sentimentality with which Protestants endow it. He had passed just now through, first, a network of small stairways, archways, vestibules ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... of their ancient liberties and in preserving the isle from the tyranny of strangers. At the Assembly last held the King had been present, and had urged that contributions should be made from the whole realm for this purpose, when Melville rose and told him, with his usual plainness of speech, that if the estates of the Popish lords were applied, as they should be, to the defence of the country, no contributions would be needed from ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... what I said, but told me, since there had been such a clamour among them, and that her younger son talked after such a rattling way as he did, she desired I would be so faithful to her as to answer her but one question sincerely. I told her I would, with all my heart, and with the utmost plainness and sincerity. Why, then, the question was, whether there way anything between her son Robert and me. I told her with all the protestations of sincerity that I was able to make, and as I might well, do, that there was not, nor every had been; I told her that Mr. Robert ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... of the citizens of Stockholm is that of extreme plainness and simplicity. I take them to be an honest, substantial, and reliable people, well educated and intelligent; satisfied with themselves and the world, and proud of their country and its history. Politeness is a national characteristic. Every person, of high and low degree, upon entering a shop, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... its author, and with more than his ordinary research and elaboration. He informs us that his purpose has been to help the inquiring soul and young Christian with counsel taken immediately from the unerring word: he has therefore studied conformity to scripture, rather than novelty of thought, and plainness more than grace of style. Yet there is in this volume much of the author's usual boldness of originality and peculiar felicity of expression. Our readers have been made acquainted with the high merits of Dr. Bethune as a poet, by ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... wise passed three days and nights; yet both in the sleep-time and the time of waking did great multitudes cease not to watch; so that many went hungry for sleep, as in truth did I. And sometimes we saw those Youths with plainness; but other times they were lost to our sight in the utter shadows of the Night Land. Yet, by the telling of our instruments, and the sense of my hearing, there was no awaredness among the Monsters, and the Forces of Evil, ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... during their brief but concentrated, most vivid and momentous, reign, a matter, as I recall it, of a couple of breathless winters. We were provided by their presence with as happy a foil as we could have wished to the plainness and dryness of the Wards; their homely grace was all their own and was also embodied in three brothers, Eugene, Reginald, Albert, whose ages would have corresponded, I surmise, with those of Johnny, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... of that plainness of speech and manners which comes from the finest training is not to be understood by those whose habitat is below a certain level. Just as the exquisite sea-anemones and all the graceful ocean-flowers die out at some fathoms below the surface, the elegances and suavities ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... Elegant in plainness, the classic poet would have said of her hair and dress. She was of the women whose wits are quick in everything they do. That which was proper to her position, complexion, and the hour, surely marked her appearance. Unaccountably this night, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... surprise and disgust, he remained silent when she made known the munificent intentions of Fanny's father, it was not for a reason that he chose to discuss with her. His remarks were reserved for Mr Grove's private ear, and to him they were made with sufficient plainness. ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... tract of land belonging to the Seminary, a little distance from the city, near the Lachine road, with a large old- fashioned edifice upon it. I happened to be in the Superior's room on the day alluded to, when she made some remark on the plainness and poverty of her furniture. I replied, that she was not proud, and could not be dissatisfied ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... little complexity, and there was no strangeness in their personalities. Irving was more genially human, Cooper more vitally intense; Bryant was the more careful artist in the severe limits of his art, which was simple and plain. Simplicity and plainness characterize all three; they were, in truth, simple American gentlemen, of the breeding and tastes that a plain democracy produced as its best, who, giving themselves to literature for a career, developed a native romanticism, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... burial provoked, as being derogatory to the dignity of a Royal Duke, it was Lady Cork who rapped out, "I presume in those days, a novel apposition of the quick and the dead." A certain peer was remarkable alike for his extreme parsimony and his unusual plainness of face. His wife shared these characteristics, both facial and temperamental, to the full, and yet this childless, unprepossessing and eminently economical couple were absolutely wrapped up in one another; ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... cut out the pearl for the slides and ornamentation on his bows. This accounts for the characteristic plainness of these features of his work. He was often at a loss for silver for the mountings, and the Doctor says it was highly diverting to him when a boy to hear the old housekeeper soundly rating Dodd for melting down another of ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George

... said Joel, not at all dashed by her plainness, "I'll be good then—when I'm a big man; don't you suppose, Polly," as a new idea struck him, "that Mr. ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney

... authorities and privileges of the Holy Priesthood, revelation of the great truth was given,[15] they transmitted it to the people rather in the language of imagery and parable than in words of direct plainness. Nevertheless the testimony of the evangelists and the apostles, the attestation of the Christ Himself while in the flesh, and the revelations given in the present dispensation leave us without dearth of ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... defence he told the judges, that he had always shown himself in his public life the friend, not, like other men, of rich Ionians and Thessalonians, to be courted, and to receive presents, but of the Lacedaemonians; for as he admired, so he wished to imitate, the plainness of their habits, their temperance, and simplicity of living, which he preferred to any sort of riches; but that he always had been, and still was proud to enrich his country with the spoils of her ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... is overturned on the head of the capital, for the purpose, as it were, of hoisting the figure a little higher, is in bad taste, and detracts from the plainness of the column, which, if divested of both bee-hive and figure, would be an object worthy to commemorate the citizen Washington, in whose character simplicity gave lustre to the grandeur with which it was happily blended; softening and chastening it, and ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... thus distinguished for his mental powers, he was no less so by the strength and felicity of his style of writing. He had the rare talent of putting proper words in their proper places. He wrote English with English plainness and English force. There was nothing affected or modish in his manner. He gave his readers an impression that he was clear in the conception of his own meaning, and he made it equally so to them. He aimed at no ornament: ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... his plainness, and promises the readers of his Letters only a matter-of-fact account of his pursuits, he has his full share of eighteenth-century "sensibility." Since he is, however, at many removes from the sophistications of London and ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... broken from its moorings while the rest of the sheet is still perfectly good—a way it has. Hem-stitching may answer on linen sheets which are not in constant use, but ordinarily let us have the more profitable plainness. Good sheets are always torn—not cut—and finished with a 2 1/2- or 3-inch hem at the top and an inch hem at the bottom, the finished sheet measuring not less than 2 3/4 yards. There must be ample ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... to see what had become of her. He had feared to find her stricken down in the road, and when he saw her clinging alone and in a maddened way to this tree, he made no bones of speaking to her with all necessary plainness. ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... daughter of the plains, with thee alone the queen of beauty dwells! What is it that adorns and enhances all the wild and uncultivated scenes of nature? It is plainness and artless simplicity. What is it that renders lovely and amiable her most favourite productions in the animal creation: the tender lamb, the cooing dove, and the vocal nightingale? It is simplicity; ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... I was much entertained by contrasting in my own mind, the open manner of the kind-hearted Joshua Geddes, with the abrupt, dark, and lofty demeanour of my entertainer on the preceding evening. Both were blunt and unceremonious; but the plainness of the Quaker had the character of devotional simplicity, and was mingled with the more real kindness, as if honest Joshua was desirous of atoning, by his sincerity, for the lack of external courtesy. On the contrary, the manners of the fisherman were those of ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... his property. It is the defect of these townships that the houses are all as like one another as peas in a pod—four-roomed squares or six-roomed oblongs built of red brick, and with every detail exactly the same; but their plainness and similarity does not detract from their ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... her mind again in the evening, when Jack had gone home and she was sitting in her own room. She wheeled her chair around and took a steady look at herself in the mirror. A woman may never admit extreme plainness of feature, and she may deprecate her own fairness, if she be possessed of fairness, but she seldom has any illusions about one or the other. She knows. Hazel Weir knew that she was far above the average ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... accompaniment to a dish of meat, but as an article of diet in themselves. The immense benefit derived in innumerable cases from a diet of beans is one of the strongest and most practical arguments in favour of vegetarianism. Meat-eaters often boast of the plainness of their food, and yet wonder that they suffer in health. It is not an uncommon thing for a man to consult his doctor and to tell him, "I live very simply, nothing ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne

... the green, quiet, hidden nooks of their Alpine solitudes. With them there is no need of imaginative expression; the trouble of thought is useless; their words are the transparent revelation of their beliefs. The calm brought to the hyper-civilized spirit by this plainness and directness of Nature is absolutely indescribable; and when I came to reflect on the profoundness of mental quietude—I might say of consolation—that I had attained to during my wanderings, I could not help recognizing ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... tell the charm of such an incident. The minister was in the pulpit. His dress and hair were very plain, and his complexion was extremely dark. He was evidently a Welshman: there was no mistake about it: his gravity, plainness, attitude—all told the fact. I ventured forward, and walked along to the stove, which to me was an object of agreeable attraction. Around the stove were two or three chairs. A big aristocratic-looking Welshman, a sort of a "Blaenor," ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies

... weirdness and loneliness of the night came home to him more than they had done yet. The old woman dragged to her death, the hooting crowd, the inexorable parson, the struggle in the water, the last gurgling cry—the vision rose before him on the dark with an ever ghastlier plainness than a while ago on the mountain-top. How had 'Lias seen her that the sight had changed him so? Did she come to him with her drowned face and floating grey hair—grip him with her cold hands? David, beginning to thrill in good earnest, obstinately filled in the picture with all the ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... youth, excitement, the example of your companions, the easiness and the pleasure of the worldling's career, make it full of attractions for you. Besides, your conscience does not perhaps speak with sufficient plainness as to its being the career of the worldling; you can find admirers enough, and give up to them all the young, fresh interests of your active mind, all the precious time of your early youth, without ever frequenting the ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... sometimes seized from their love of popularity, issued a decree explanatory of their decision on the 24th of September. "The real intentions of the court," said the decree, "have been distorted in spite of their plainness. The number of deputies of each order is not determined by any law, by any invariable usage, and it depends upon the king's wisdom to adjudge what reason, liberty, justice, and the general wish may indicate." The Parliament followed up this strange retractation with a series of wise ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... Hill would have the modern poet profit by another quality of Biblical style: its magic combination of a "magnificent Plainness" with the "Spirit of Imagery." This is the Hebrew virtue of concrete suggestiveness, so highly prized by 20th-century critics and so alien to the generalized abstractions and the explicit clarity of ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill

... of this subject in his day, says, "The old English plainness and sincerity, that generous integrity of nature and honesty of disposition, which always argues true greatness of mind, and is usually accompanied with undaunted courage and resolution, is in a great measure lost ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... been forced on his attention. The truth about Rose had been presented to him very plainly and boldly by Prothero, by the doctor, by Mrs. Eldred and by Jane. It was the same naked truth that in his novels he himself presented with the utmost plainness and boldness to the British public. His genius knew no other law but truth to Nature, trust in Nature, unbroken fidelity to Nature. And now it was Nature that arraigned his genius for its frustration of her purposes in Rose. His ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair

... whom, 'that he had been often at Lord Hastings's table, but that Brother Marshman's table far exceeded his.' I have also often been at Lord Hastings's table (I mean his private table), and I do therefore most positively deny the truth of the assertion; though I confess there is much domestic plainness at the table of the Governor-General of India (though nothing of meanness; on the contrary, everything is marked with a dignified simplicity). I suspect the informant never was at Lord Hastings's table, or he could have not been guilty of such misrepresentation. Lord ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... same tone, with similar plainness of truth I answered, No, I will not be sorry you go, though miss you at Cheltenham ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... as a kind of over-nicety; and indeed 'tis nothing else but a difficulty of taste, in anything it applies itself to. Whoever cures a child of an obstinate liking for brown bread, bacon, or garlic, cures him also of pampering his palate. There are some who affect temperance and plainness by wishing for beef and ham amongst the partridges; 'tis all very fine; this is the delicacy of the delicate; 'tis the taste of an effeminate fortune that ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... subject old Camden, in his Remains, relates a story of a trick played off on a citizen, which I give in the plainness of his own venerable style. Sir Philip Calthrop purged John Drakes, the shoemaker of Norwich, in the time of King Henry VIII. of the proud humour which our people have to be of the gentlemen's cut. This knight bought on a time as much fine French tawny cloth ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... not, however, so much absorbed in the work of his life that he could not form and express strong opinions upon the great events passing around him. His view of the Russian war and of the French alliance was set forth with much plainness of speech in a letter to ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... I know not where I could live with more comfort; and where comfort is, my good madam, what signifies the costliness or plainness of the dwelling?" ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... the plainness of this lesson, and the authority which it possesses. Its meaning cannot be mistaken; we know what is spoken here, and we know who speaks. Hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... however, Umbelazi, who was a very open-natured man, threw off all pretence, and, after greeting me heartily enough, told me with plainness that he was there because this was a convenient spot on which to arrange the ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard

... paid the cabman, and lounged up the path, lifting his head to nod in patronising fashion to his adorers. He was no Apollo of beauty, no Samson of strength, but just an ordinary-looking young man in an ordinary grey suit, with ordinary irregular features redeemed from plainness by an expression of quizzical good humour; yet each of the eight beholders gave a gasp of adoration as she beheld him. His mother's eyes swam with tears as she embraced her boy; Maud felt a ray of pure, unselfish happiness; even Lilias overlooked the fact that his collar was of an unfashionable ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... clasped with a simple emerald buckle. Therein, of course, the child only obeys the reigning fashion. Simplicity,—so I am informed by the last number of La Mode Parisienne,—is the dominant note of Parisian dress to-day,—simplicity, plainness, freedom from all display. A French lady wears in her hair at the Opera a single, simple tiara bound with a plain row of solitaire diamonds. It is so exquisitely simple in its outline that you can see the single diamonds sticking out from it and can count up the price ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock

... room with a firm step and an outward composure of manner. She was a blonde young lady, small, dainty, well gloved, and dressed in the most perfect taste. There was, however, a plainness and simplicity about her costume which bore with it a suggestion of limited means. The dress was a sombre grayish beige, untrimmed and unbraided, and she wore a small turban of the same dull hue, relieved ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle

... stood aghast. Such a reply was little better than rebellion in one of the town's servants, and his blood boiled at such unheard-of plainness of speech to him, late representative to the general court, member of the school committee, one of the selectmen, and ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic

... with its three tiers of columned galleries, was built in 1204, the choir in 1308, and the triforium in 1400. The sculptures of the portico are subjects from the life of St. Martin. Over the door on the left is a Descent from the Cross, by Nicolo di Pisa, 1233. Loftiness and simplicity, verging on plainness, characterise the interior of this church, as well as those of all the others in Lucca, with the exception of San Romano, which is profusely decorated. The windows are small and filled with modern glass, excepting the three at the eastern end, which are by P.Ugolino. ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... nature. To dine at the rude board table with the young officers of one of the companies of a battalion, perhaps in a bare hut, on the floor of which lay the lads' beds, was something sacred and sacramental. Their apologies for the plainness of the repast were to me extremely pathetic. Was there a table in the whole world at which it was a greater honour to sit? Where could one find a nobler, knightlier body of ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... extremes that our prophetical speculators wrecked themselves. Men always had it to say that their prophecies had been either too plain or too obscure; or, if very plain, and yet as plainly written before the event, that their very plainness had insured their own accomplishment by prompting to the very actions and ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... savage plainness of these words and the excited ring of the angry voice, the sculptor could scarcely recognise his gentle courteous friend, to whom mere living used to be a joy. The absent expression in his eye, the anxious wrinkle on his brow, and the heat of the hand which grasped Vedrine's, all ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... limbs lay on the sofa, which was the only article of furniture, and Dr. Hull was in the act of lifting her head from the floor to which it had fallen. Her eyes were half open, and the black rings around them showed with ghastly plainness against the awful pallor which the rest of her face had taken on. One hand was clenched. The other was clutching her bodice, as if in the act of tearing it open. A little ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy

... importance in the daily life of humans. The nouveaux-riches of the ancient and the modern world cannot find it easy to separate themselves from their traditions nor are they wont to put up with their plainness, hence the fancy trimmings. The development of the American pie is a curious analogy in this respect. We see in this the intricate working of human culture, its eternal strife for perfection. And perfection is synonymous with decay. The fare of the Carthusian ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius

... Jocelyn would have added grace and nature to your regulation gait." He watched the groups at the card-tables with a curious interest, and the bobbing heads of gossiping dowagers and matrons; he compared the remarkable "make up," as he phrased it, of some of them with the unredeemed plainness of his mother's Sunday gown. "Neither the one nor the other is in good taste," he thought. "Mrs. Jocelyn dresses as I intend my mother shall some day." He coolly criticised a score or more of young men and women who were chatting, promenading, flitting through ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... ambassador representing good might come of the visit, Howard went to see his majesty, and remained with him two hours in conversation, during which time he made the emperor acquainted with the bad state of some of the Austrian prisons. Once or twice the emperor was angered by Howard's plainness of speech, but told the ambassador afterwards that he liked the prison reformer all the ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross

... learning of the nation surrounded his bier. This state funeral, the first since that of Lord Palmerston, was rendered more imposing by the magnificence of the edifice in which it was solemnized. The coffin rested on an elevated bier before the altar, its plainness hidden beneath a pall ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... the gladness and splendour of their espousals, and of all the joy that he had, is not for me to tell, for these things, which belong to the chronicles of that fairy country, no mortal hand in words of human speech is in any wise able to relate. All that I certainly know and can speak of with plainness is this, that he obtained the fulness of his heart's desire, and beyond all hope, or knowledge, or understanding of earth, was blessed for evermore. And now I have finished the story of a man who saw and followed his Ideal, who loved and prized it, and clave ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... the housekeeper haughtily, though still quailing before the girl's terrible plainness of ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... take his stand against that love of dress which dissipates and corrupts so many minds among the opulent? Cannot the laboring class refuse to measure men by outward success, and pour utter scorn on all pretensions founded on outward show or condition? Sure I am that, were they to study plainness of dress and simplicity of living, for the purpose of their own true elevation, they would surpass in intellect, in taste, in honorable qualities, and in present enjoyment, that great proportion of the prosperous ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... entered upon any overture of, reserving, to feast myself with the surprise of it to him, in calmer instants. And, as to my dress, it could give him no idea of the truth, not only as it was mourning, but likewise in a style of plainness and simplicity that I had ever kept to with studied art. He pressed me indeed tenderly to satisfy his ardent curiosity, both with regard to my past and present state of life, since his being torn away from me: but I found means to elude his questions, by answers that shewing his satisfaction ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... dresses are a few yards of stuff," said the surgical Solomon. "The fair ones of the Marquesas do not give themselves to men of your plainness for popoi and muslin robes. You are a foreigner. You expect too much. The preponderance of probability, added to the weight of testimony, causes the court to believe that this woman is the real owner of the sewing-machine and the ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... The Quakers' address was esteemed somewhat singular for its plainness and simplicity. It was conceived in these terms: "We are come to testify our sorrow for the death of our good friend Charles, and our joy for thy being made our governor. We are told thou art not of the persuasion of the church of England, no more than we, wherefore we ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... train of carriages. All the road was thronged by multitudes of people, many dressed in a style which is called Tsubo-Shozok. Many of great age prostrated themselves in an attitude of adoration, and many others, notwithstanding their natural plainness, looked almost blooming, from the joy expressed in their countenances—nay, even nuns and aged women, from their retreats, were to be seen amongst them. Numerous carriages were also squeezed closely together, so that the broad thoroughfare of the ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various

... world-famous "Grace Abounding," he produced during the first six years of his gaol life a treatise on prayer, entitled "Praying in the Spirit;" a book on "Christian Behaviour," setting forth with uncompromising plainness the relative duties of husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, by which those who profess a true faith are bound to show forth its reality and power; the "Holy City," an exposition of the vision in the closing chapters of the Book of Revelation, brilliant with picturesque ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... came down the stairs and took the white apron which Brophy handed to her she had ceased to be the city-wearied girl. It was homely adventure, to be sure, but the very plainness of it, in the free-and-easy environment of the north woods, appealed to her sense of novelty. There was especial zest for her in this bullyragging of Crowley by the man who was to be victim of the machinations ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... that she was by no means good-looking,—the meaning of which was that no other man would probably want her. Then she remembered her father's words,—"To me your face is the sweetest thing on earth to look upon." This she did believe. Her plainness did not come against her there. Why should she rob her father of the one thing which to him was sweet in the world? And to her, her father was the one noble human being whom she had ever known. Why should she rob herself of his daily presence? Then she ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... I have given on the subject in this work, and in my pamphlet on the Bible, are not new. You may find them in the works of quite a number of Evangelical Authors. The only credit to which I am entitled is, that I state them with great plainness, and without reserve, and that I do not, after having given them on one page, take them back ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... would have recommended her warmly to my good opinion; her modesty, her intelligence, would have induced me to feel most kindly—most affectionately towards her, notwithstanding the almost ghastly plainness of her features, the disproportion of her form, the corpse-like lack of animation in her countenance, had I not been aware that every friendly word, every kindly action, would be reported by her to her ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... in their chief magistrate. Besides these, there were also a custom-house, several banking-houses, and a school or college, all claiming to themselves the destruction of public works; but in them there was a plainness amounting almost to coarseness, and a general air of republicanism, by no means imposing. With respect to the number of inhabitants which Washington contained, I confess that I cannot pretend to give an opinion: but if any judgment may be formed from ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... thou, that duty shall have dread to speak, When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour's bound, When majesty stoops to folly. Reverse thy doom, And in thy best consideration check This hideous rashness: answer my life my judgment, Thy youngest daughter does not love ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... knocks. Courage tempered by stupidity (as in the persons of Fluellen, etc.) is what he loves in a man. He, himself, has plenty of his favourite quality. His love of plainness and bluntness makes him condemn sentiment in ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

... his first sermon told me that the great court-house, more than seventy feet long, could not contain the people who thronged to hear their king. Every chief on the island and all the local preachers were present. The king led the singing. He preached with great plainness and simplicity, and in strict accordance with the teaching of God's word; dwelling on the humility and love of the Saviour, the cleansing efficacy of His atoning blood, and the obligations under which we are laid ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston

... intervening period she lived in lodgings in Leicester Square—or "Leicester Fields" as the place was still often called—in a house opposite that of Sir Joshua Reynolds. The oeconomy which she had learnt in her early days she continued to practise; dressing with extraordinary plainness, and often going without a fire in winter; so that she was able, through her self-sacrifice, to keep from want a large band of poor relatives and friends. The society she mixed with was various, but, for ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... done thus, after all: plainness and candor were best. She went back a third time; he did not see her now, and she lingeringly gazed up at his unconscious figure, loath to put an end to any kind of hope that might live on in him still. "Giles— Mr. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... man's heart. Concerning that he would make his last request to the admirable heart of Iemon. Iwa is a plain girl. The end of time for man, and the carping comment of neighbours come to his ears, have opened the eyes of Matazaemon to the truth. Great has been the favour in disregarding this plainness and taking her to wife. Everything is in the hands of Iemon San. Consider her happiness and deign to use her well. Abstain if possible from taking a concubine. At all events conceal the fact from ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... disease breaks out in the city, the plainness and urgency of the case compel all to see in the sickness of one the danger of all. Wants and discomforts, which charity had been too cold to attend to, now considered as sources of contagion, are administered to with a ready alacrity. ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington

... could not recover his property. Ordas, who was a man of much experience, seeing that Cortes was fallen much into neglect since he was superseded from the government, advised him to assume more state and consequence to maintain the respect due to him: But such was his native plainness of manners, that he never wished to be called otherwise than simply Cortes; a truly noble name, as glorious as those of Cesar, Pompey, or Hanibal among the ancients. Ordas likewise informed Cortes of a current report in Mexico, that he intended ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... war and knowledge in the art of ruling people, and so tediously won our promotion. I am speaking in Tatho's private abode, that was mine own not two hours since, and I would have an answer with that plainness which we always then ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... his blank verse for the explanation]:—It is from that seat, to which the plainness of this man, with the official dignities of his time, has conducted him, that he puts the inquiry to that keen observer, whose observations in natural history have ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... on her. A clear, clean, oval face, just edged about with little thin plaits of the purest cambrick, received great advantages from the shade of her black hood: as did the whiteness of her arms from that sober-coloured stuff in which she had clothed herself. The plainness of her dress was very well suited to the simplicity of her phrases, all which put together, though they could not give me a great opinion of her religion, they did ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... served up in earthenware; It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand, Through the every-dayness of this work-day world, Baring its tender feet to every roughness, Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray From Beauty's law of plainness and content; A simple, fireside thing, whose quiet smile Can warm earth's poorest hovel to a ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... looks!' said another. 'Ah!' said the old thatch, 'rather let them say, 'How beautiful is the loving moss!'" So it is with the religion of Christ, it adorns and beautifies the life who really wears it; so that the plainness of that life is covered, its ruggedness softened, and its "pain transformed into profit ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy

... round a circular breast ornament, whereof the cut opposite is a representation. Elsewhere his apparel is less superb, and indeed it presents almost every degree of richness, from the wonderful embroidery of the robe just mentioned to absolute plainness. In the celebrated picture of the lion-hunt. [PLATE LXXXVI., Fig. 2.] With Sargon, the next king who has left many monuments, the case is remarkably different. Sargon is represented always in the same dress—a long fringed robe, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... is agreeable to the same; and that in such a Language and Order as is most easy and plain for the understanding both of the Readers and Hearers. It is also more commodious, both for the shortness thereof, and for the plainness of the Order, and for that the Rules ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England

... it, insisted on always taking her to the grandest and most expensive shops; while, on the other hand, though Eleanor liked to hunt up cheap things and good bargains, she had such rigid ideas about plainness of dress, that there was little chance that what she approved would ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge

... sins of Jerusalem and the judgments of heaven that are about to fall upon her. With these are interspersed denunciations of the false prophets that flatter the people in their sins, and fervent addresses to his fellow-captives remarkable for their plainness and evangelical spirit. The second part opens with a series of prophecies against seven foreign nations, in which the order of time is not observed—first, short prophecies against the four neighboring nations, Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia (chap. 25); secondly, a series of prophecies against ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... fickleness, he—to his shame be it chronicled—having practically forgotten the woe-begone damsel's very existence within eighteen short hours after his adventure in knight-errantry. Her tear-ravaged and untidy plainness had, in that brief time, been exorcised from memory by a more potent interest, that of Beauty on her imperial throne. Setting forth the facts in their due order, it befell in ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... mental workers are more sensitive than ordinary men: they are more easily destroyed by strong drink or opium. The nip of brandy, the soothing draught, are terrible dangers to such. Instances of brain power continued far into old age are always lessons in plainness of diet and temperance. One such temperate man will do as much work as ten who are luxurious eaters, tipplers, and smokers. Diet for mental workers should be light and easily digested, with a preponderance of proteid food (see Diet). Rich, ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... only answer by an equal plainness, Mr. Balfour," said he, "that (in that case) your testimony will not be called by me, and I desire you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... our patroness provide might be unskilfully mangled, and rendered unfit for worthy men's use.—Stand forth, therefore, dame Glendinning, and tell to us, as thy liege lord and spiritual Superior, using plainness and truth, without either fear or favour, as being a matter wherein we are deeply interested, Doth this son of thine use his bow as well as the Father Kitchener avers ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... plainness of the Saracen leech's dress, and his inferiority of size when contrasted with the tall prelate and gigantic English baron, there was something striking in his manner and countenance, which prevented the Bishop of Tyre from expressing strongly ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... did I see here, nor elsewhere in the Rouergue. Plainness of feature in men and women is the rule throughout this extensive tract of country. But there is this to be said in favour of the girls and younger women, that they generally have well-shaped figures and a very ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... another creature with whom she seems to have an understanding—an idiot peasant girl, who once, in spite of her plainness and imbecility, fell in love with a mason. The mason thought of marrying her because she had a little bit of land, and for a whole year poor Genevieve was the happiest of living creatures. She dressed in her best, and danced on Sundays with Dallot; she understood love; there was room for love ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac

... head. By whom whatsoever is wrong, in Finance or otherwise, will be righted,—as far as possible. Is it not as if Wisdom herself were henceforth to have seat and voice in the Council of Kings? Turgot has taken office with the noblest plainness of speech to that effect; been listened to with the noblest royal trustfulness. (Turgot's Letter: Condorcet, Vie de Turgot (Oeuvres de Condorcet, t. v.), p. 67. The date is 24th August, 1774.) It is true, as King Louis ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle



Words linked to "Plainness" :   visual aspect, pureness, simpleness, plain, starkness, lucidness, clearness, homeliness, chasteness, limpidity, severity, pellucidity, perspicuousness, appearance, severeness



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