"Artlessness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dazzling sun, and giving with child-like generosity their beauty to the loneliest spots and most desolate places. Close up to a fence that surrounded a garden where bloomed hundreds of rare and lovely blossoms they crowded, praising with sweet artlessness the grace and fragrance of their more precious sisters, and wondering every morning when the gardener came out at early dawn and collected many young plants together, and gathered roses, and pansies, ...
— Harper's Young People, July 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... paint-brush. Where but in a photograph would you see a parting so straight as this? It is unnatural. You flatten down all a man's character; for nothing shows that more than the feathers and drakes' tails, the artful artlessness, or revolutionary tumult of his hair. Mind you, I am not one of those who would prohibit a man wearing what he conceives to be his best clothes to the photographer's. I like to see the little vanity peeping out—the last moment's folly of a foolish tie, nailed up for a lifetime. ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... air, the distraction and restlessness and hurry of feeling of a criminal. A knowledge of the world takes away the freedom and simplicity of thought as effectually as the contagion of its example. The artlessness and candour of our early years are open to all impressions alike, because the mind is not clogged and preoccupied with other objects. Our pleasures and our pains come single, make room for one another, and the spring of the mind is fresh and unbroken, its aspect ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... belligerents; it were idle to try to deny they were the most dangerous of spies. And yet these two now sailed across the bay and landed inside the Tamasese lines at Salelesi. On the very beach they had another glimpse of the artlessness of Samoan war. Hitherto the Tamasese fleet, being hardy and unencumbered, had made a fool of the huge floating forts upon the other side; and here they were toiling, not to produce another boat on their own pattern in which they had always enjoyed the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and the delicacy of her features were matched by hands and feet of such exquisite proportions that sculptors besought the privilege of modeling them, and poets raved about them in their verses. Artlessness and naivete were joined with such fine breeding of manner that it seemed as if the blue blood of centuries must have coursed in her veins instead of the blood of obscure actors, whose only honor was to have given to the world one of the paragons of song. Sontag never aspired ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... desire—to use a phrase which we have heard him apply to himself—"to rise above the crowd, and stand when others fall," he chose for his wife a young provincial actress, whom he had once chided for her inattention or inability, but whose artlessness of manner, purity and sweetness of nature and aptness for improvement so enlisted his sympathies that he constituted himself her friend and guide until the death of her father and brother awakened a still warmer solicitude, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... answer; but her pale cheek and quivering lips, evidences of feeling that her artlessness did not enable her to conceal, caused Bluewater again to regret the remark. With a view to restore the poor girl to her self-command, he changed the subject of conversation, which did not again advert to Wycherly. The remainder of the meal was consequently ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... look, her mouth drooped grievedly, and her eyes took on a wide, child-like look of distress that gave an impression of innocence. He went away wondering if, after all, he had not misjudged her. Perhaps she was only an adorable child who had no idea of the effect her artlessness had upon men. She certainly was lovely—wonderful! And yet the last glimpse he had of her had left that impression of jeweled horns and scarlet, pointed toes. He had to get away and think it out calmly before he went again. Oh yes, he was going again. He ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... once innocent; But the seducer beguiled thee in artlessness, Then he abandoned thee ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... science and genius, absorbed in the labors of investigation and discovery, practical in his views of life and upright in all his actions, with an ill-trained and unintellectual beauty, whose perfections of form and face, pretty coquetry, studied artlessness and sweet recognition of the value of masculine knowledge and strength as the proper stay of feminine weakness and the proper organ of the feminine will, assail the superior being just at that point where ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... scenery, and from his evident delight in rural sounds and objects, he appears to have been extremely open to those happy influences, exercised over some spirits, by the graces and wonders of nature. He gives utterance to these feelings with characteristic enthusiasm, and at the same time with the artlessness and simplicity of diction of a child. When speaking of some lovely scene among the groves, or along the flowery shores of these favored islands, he says, "One could live there forever." Cuba broke upon him like an elysium. "It is the most beautiful island," he says, "that ever eyes beheld, full ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... mind, plainer and more feasible. There is a gay audacity about the laugh which lingers in Bertie's eyes and on his lips, as if Dan Cupid himself had just been there, whispering some choice scheme of roguish knavery, some artful artlessness, into the young man's ear. Bertie does not acknowledge that his inspiration has come in such a questionable fashion. He says to himself, "It will do: I feel it will do. Isn't it providential? Just when I was in despair!" This is a more suitable sentiment for an organist, no doubt, for what ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... artlessness of the manner acted as a kind of check, and Lady Belamour said in a different tone, "Seriously, child, the family are truly obliged for your share in rousing the poor creature from his melancholy. My good man ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... by that emphatic tone? What is all this bombastic sermon about? What manners are these? My friend, you are grotesque. Those lines should be repeated simply, naturally and with the utmost artlessness. Remember that it is the good La Fontaine who speaks! [accenting each syllable] the-good-La-Fon-taine—do you hear? There is but one way possible to render the ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... sigh, and considered Molly with anxiety. He had not dared to say a word to her of what her entertainer was, or what her part should be. Premeditation might throw her out of balance, conscious art might exhibit her a scheming courtesan; just in her artlessness lay all her magic. No, no; he trusted her. She was still adorably English—witness her on the ship! He could see how she would do, how the sight would ravish him, lover as he was; for the rest, he must trust ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... older myths, intrinsic evidence of immense antiquity.—Chinese influence is discernible in both works; yet certain parts have a particular quality not to be found, I imagine, in anything Chinese,—a primeval artlessness, a weirdness, and a strangeness [112] having nothing in common with other mythical literature. For example, we have, in the story of Izanagi, the world-maker, visiting the shades to recall his dead spouse, a myth that seems to be purely Japanese. The archaic naivete of the recital must impress ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... appears to be lavished on every one alike. And as true humility, blended with a right appreciation of self-respect, gives a pleasing cast to the countenance, so from a sincere and open disposition springs that artlessness of manner which disarms all prejudice. Feeling, on the contrary, is ridiculous when affected, and, even when real, should not be too openly manifested. Let the manners arise from the mind, and let there be no disguise for the genuine emotions of ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... the hope that any but Delvile could have written it? in secret she could not cherish two, and that Delvile was cherished most fondly, the artlessness of her character unfitted her ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... his hands with the ritual gestures of the infatuated picture-lover, he praised the artlessness of the clear, wide eyes, the delightful freshness of the complexion, and the charming ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... know myself," said Platonov with artlessness. "You see, I am a vagabond, and am passionately in love with life. I have been a turner, a compositor; I have sown and sold tobacco—the cheap Silver Makhorka kind—have sailed as a stoker on the Azov Sea, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... too clever he repels. Shakespeare avoids the difficulty, and proves himself the master by keeping out of sight; Renan wins by a great show of modesty and deferential fairness; Boswell assumes an artlessness and ignorance that were really not parts of his nature. Every man who reads Boswell considers himself the superior of Boswell, and therefore is perfectly at home. It is not pleasant to be in the society of those who are much your superiors. Any man who sits in the company of Samuel Pepys for ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... life, provoking indulgent smiles at a great distance. His usual discourses treated of trotting horses, wine-parties in expensive restaurants, and the merits of persons of easy virtue, with a disarming artlessness of outlook. He pounced upon Razumov about midday, somewhat less uproariously than his habit was, and led ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... that we take no thought of them. It is so purely natural and unsophisticated, yet so profound in its pathos, that, as Hazlitt observes, it takes us back to the old ballads; we forget that, in its perfect artlessness, it is the supreme and ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... which he particularly valued, while listening idly to her prattle. The curve of her cheek and sweep of her eyelashes delighted his artistic love of beauty, so that though he had plumbed the shallow depths of her mind at the start, he was still entertained by such superficialities as artlessness and loveliness. ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... to a distinct tone, repeated and deepened above by the color of the maiden's hair. This hair, too, was a marvel of the dresser's art—reared straight and tight from the forehead over a high-arched roll, and losing strictness of form behind in ingenious wavy curls, which seemed the very triumph of artlessness; it was less wholly powdered than Lady Berenicia's, so that the warm gold shone through the white dust in soft gradations of half tints; at the side, well up, was a single salmon tea-rose, that served to make ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... political skies were overcast with the thunder clouds of approaching revolutions; France had just passed through another violent upheaval. Village conditions seemed to offer a veritable haven of refuge. The pristine artlessness of the peasant's intellectual, moral, and emotional life furnished a wholesome antidote to the morbid hyperculture of dying romanticism, the controversies and polemics of Young Germany, and the self-adulation ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... faubou',—without being able to name any street. He asked her what her father used to do, and was assured that he did everything—that there was nothing he could not do. Divine absurdity of childish faith!—infinite artlessness of childish love! ... Probably the little girl's parents had been residents of New Orleans—dwellers of the old colonial quarter,—the faubourg, ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... peasant maiden, blooming and blithe and fair, of an indefinable simplicity and purity; the genuine peasant of the poetic world, not a fine lady of Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon playing at rustic artlessness. The voice and the singing were but the natural expression of that charming maidenhood. The full volume, the touching sweetness of tone, the exquisite warble, the amazing skill and the marvellous execution, with the perfect ease ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... remarked Adrian, at the close of his explosions, "the gravest actors of farcical nonsense that the world possesses. May I never be where there are no boys! A couple of boys left to themselves will furnish richer fun than any troop of trained comedians. No: no Art arrives at the artlessness of nature in matters of comedy. You can't simulate the ape. Your antics are dull. They haven't the charming inconsequence of the natural animal. Lack at these two! Think of the shifts they are put to all day long! They know I know all about it, and yet their ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
