"Simple-minded" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have had an opportunity of observing the Aborigines in their original state, it is not very difficult to distinguish the guilty from the innocent, for they are a simple-minded race, little skilled in the ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... there any evidence offered to show that such religious beliefs are held, as the Catholic religion is, on the authority of antiquity, interpreted by a living voice. The substance of this elementary religion—the existence of God the Rewarder of them that seek Him—is naturally suggested to the simple-minded by the data of unspoilt conscience, confirmed and supplemented by the spectacle of Nature. That the truth would be borne-in on a solitary and isolated soul we need not maintain; for in solitude and isolation man is not man, and neither reason nor language can develop aright. Further ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... a wonderful charm for him. So much so, that on the following week, thanks to a letter from Baron Moser, he was admitted into the service. A cruel disenchantment awaited him. He had seen the results, but not the means. His surprise was like that of a simple-minded frequenter of the theatre, when he is admitted for the first time behind the scenes, and is able to pry into the decorations and tinsel that are so dazzling ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... not read the underlying scorn in merry Kate's tones. He was a very simple-minded youth, and his life and training had not been such as to teach him much about the various grades in the world, or how greatly these grades differed one from the other. He was looking at his cousin's bright face with thoughtful, ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... trap[51] is on the style of the bamboo spear trap described above but is much smaller, being set on the branch of a tree without any attempt at concealment. The poor, simple-minded monkey, on catching sight of the bait, walks up innocently, seizes it, and is wounded by the spear. He does not travel far after that, for monkeys ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... Simple-minded Bud readily accepted the wily half-breed's explanations and surmises, and fell into the trap he was preparing. This was to hold up the express-agent and rob him of the money Payson was expecting, on securing which it was McKee's intention to flee the country before Dick Lane returned to ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... certain kind of culture. He had read a good deal of the odds and ends of literature and, as a simple-minded islander expressed it in my hearing, knew more bookfuls than anybody on the island. He was naturally an intelligent man; and he might have attained influence in the community had it not been for his utter aimlessness of character, ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... occupied by Pascualet, the villagers would sit in the open air all night sometimes, on low stools or on the ground, listening open-mouthed while the sailor told about the countries he had visited, embroidering his adventures with harmless embellishments to rouse greater thrills in his simple-minded audience. As compared with the uncouth fishermen they knew, dull and stupid from the routine of daily toil, or with the stevedores he used to work with in Valencia, Tonet looked like an aristocrat to the girls of the Cabanal, with his ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... was but shortly before the hour appointed for the dinner, there was another arrival betokened by the clatter of hoofs and grinding wheels in the courtyard; and then entered a gentleman of different mien from the bluff, ruddy, simple-minded, yet worldly Englishmen around him. He was a tall, dark man, with a black moustache and almost olive skin, a slender, lithe figure, a flexible face, quick, flashing, mobile. His deportment was graceful; his dress, ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to come to the gardens a little fat red-faced girl called Mary Kitson, the child of simple and ingenuous parents (her father was a writer of stories of adventure for boys' papers); she was herself simple-minded, lethargic, unadventurous, and happily stupid. Walking one day slowly with Hortense down one of the garden paths, Sarah saw Mary Kitson engaged in talking to two dolls, seated on a bench with them, patting their clothes, very happy, her ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... nothing like a striking appearance to help a man over a difficulty,—I've found that before and since. People like ourselves, who're up to diving-dresses by the time we're seven, can scarcely imagine the effect of one on a simple-minded savage. One or two of these niggers cut and run, the others started in a great hurry trying to knock their brains out on the ground. And on I went as slow and solemn and silly-looking and artful as a jobbing plumber. It was evident they took me ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... squire; to be lulled into a placid doze by the humming of Dorlecote Mill; to sit down in Dandie Dinmont's parlour ... or to drop into the kitchen of a good old country inn, and to smoke a pipe with Tom Jones or listen to the simple-minded philosophy of Parson Adams.'" ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... interest in this discussion, and they hastened their departure as soon as the atmosphere began to look stormy. The barber was sorry he had said anything. Simple-minded man as he was, he had not foreseen that he was getting Mr. Checkynshaw into trouble, and he determined to say nothing ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... have been established in this semi-desert realm, the wandering tribes being at first cajoled and in the end defied. The glove of silk has been at first extended to the tribes, but within it the hand of iron has always held fast its grasp. The simple-minded chiefs have easily been brought over to the Russian schemes. Some of them have been won by money and soft words; others by some mark of distinction, such as a medal, a handsome sabre, a cocked hat or a gold-laced coat. Rather than give these ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... better explanation—and, after all, it was no bad one—this theory was generally received, and, with a shuddering horror, people asked themselves, if the whole of the churchyard were excavated, how many coffins would be found tenantless by the dead which had been supposed, by simple-minded people, to ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... in an institution. The total cost of maintaining this family will be approximately L9,500. These children are cousins of another family under State control. There are four children, two of whom are simple-minded. The mother is feeble-minded, and the father died in a mental hospital. In this case the mothers of the ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews
... number of instruments yearly made in Mirecourt and Saxony[1] amounts to many thousands, and is yearly increasing. They send forth repeated copies of Amati, Maggini, Guarneri, and Stradivari, all duly labelled and dated, to all parts of the world, frequently disappointing their simple-minded purchasers, who fondly fancy they have thus become possessed of the real article at the trifling cost of a few pounds. They produce various kinds of modern antiques in Violins, some of which display an amount of ingenuity worthy of being exercised in a better cause; but usually the whole ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... be extremely simple-minded," she announced, "to imagine anything else. You wouldn't be a male human being if you had sat here for half an hour patiently ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... much for the patience of the simple-minded owner of Greenwood. "May Belza have us all," he fumed, "if I can see the bottom or even the sides of this criss-cross business. Just tell us a straight tale, lad, if we are not to ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... strangely affected by human and unscriptural methods, after they have experienced some new sensations, they proclaim to the world that now they have found the light which they could never find in the Lutheran Church! And thus not a few of our simple-minded and unreflecting people are led to depart from the faith and follow ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... as good as his word. He longed to make Ireland a Protestant country; and the whole modern history of Ireland might have been altered. But Comenius had now become an unpractical dreamer. For all his learning he was very simple-minded; and for all his piety he had a weak side to his character. He had listened in his youth to the prophecies of Christopher Kotter; he had listened also to the ravings of Christina Poniatowski; and now he fell completely under ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... most delicate form of attention. There were days when his room door was closed; there were days succeeding these blanks when he met her as frankly and naturally as if he had seen her yesterday. Indeed, on those days following his flight the simple-minded Carmen, being aware—heaven knows how—that he had not opened his door during that period, and fearing sickness, sudden death, or perhaps suicide, by her appeals to the landlady, assisted unwittingly in discovering his ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... When the simple-minded Conquistadores first pushed their frail cockleshells out into the gigantic embouchure of this tawny stream and looked vainly for the opposite shore, veiled by the dewy mists of a glittering morn, they unconsciously crossed themselves and, forgetful for the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... information than this, although whenever she was questioned concerning the matter, she did only reply by a very grave shake of the head, each vibration of which (particularly when accompanied by a pursing of the mouth, and a mysterious looking round) more and more convinced her simple-minded auditors (i.e. some of them, for it is not to be denied that there were a few incredulous ones who, either from former experiences, or natural sagacity, or some cause unknown, hesitated not to declare it to be their fixed and unalterable opinion that these seeming indications ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... in all the Turkey Track regions. The Southern mountaineers have little affinity, socially or politically, with the people of the settlements. There were never any slaveholders among them, and the few isolated negroes were treated with almost perfect equality by the simple-minded ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... our edition. In the "Fables," Gay is happy in proportion to the innocence and simplicity of his nature. He understands animals, because he has more than an ordinary share of the animal in his own constitution. AEsop, so far as we know, though an astute, was an uneducated and simple-minded man. Phaedrus was a myth, and we cannot, therefore, adduce him in point. But Fontaine was called the "Fable-tree," and Gay is just the Fable-tree transplanted from France to England. In so doing we do not question our poet's originality, but merely indicate a certain resemblance in spirit ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... be seen," returned Fred, in a mysterious manner, evidently taking some delight in frightening the simple-minded young ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... Many simple-minded people, with something of a sentimental turn, (they are almost always fond of raw oysters, and gloat over a roasted turkey, although they know that it was bled to to death by cutting the roots of its tongue,) look upon angling as a "cruel sport." Let us see, with Mr Scrope, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... nothing but oysters or beefsteak, but they wait till they get in an extra chef and then send her a formal invitation. I believe ours is one of the half-dozen houses where people don't pretend to be something quite different from what they are when Mrs. Lenox appears. And yet she's the most simple-minded and genuine person, and would rather have beefsteak and friendship than pate de fois gras and good gowns ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... the tactics of Conachar when brought face to face with Hal o' the Wynd, I have been trying to get my simple-minded adversary to follow me on a wild-goose chase through the early history of Christianity, in the hope of escaping impending defeat on the main issue. But I may be permitted to point out that there is an alternative hypothesis which equally fits the facts; and that, after all, there may ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... had the general known him. That Willett was a many-sided man, that he could be an eager and ambitious officer when once afield, and a mere butterfly about the garrison, had not occurred to this simple-minded chief. The combination of terrier and lapdog is rare in the army. However, Willett was not yet fit for field service, and the Gray Fox meant that he should have fair play and ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... has ensnared me while my reason and freedom were asleep, while I was following with docile steps the path He had Himself traced out for me, distracting thoughts crowd themselves upon me. God knows that I was simple-minded and pure; I took nothing upon myself; I walked with free and unflagging steps in the path which He disclosed before me, and behold this path has led me to the brink of a precipice! God has betrayed me! I never doubted but that a wise ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... occasional hammering, which echoed in hollow reverberations, no sound disturbed repose. Here one felt the meaning of retreat and self-absorption, the dignity of silence which respected itself; the presence which was not to be touched or seen. To a simple-minded child like Catherine Brooke, the first effect was as impressive as though she were in the church of St. Mark's. She was overwhelmed by the space and silence, the color and form; and as she came close to Wharton's four great figures of the ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... will be the worse for you!" and now Tom caught the simple-minded youth by the collar. He did not intend to harm the lad, but he ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... bedroom, and returned in a few minutes in the character of an amiable and simple-minded Nonconformist clergyman. His broad black hat, his baggy trousers, his white tie, his sympathetic smile, and general look of peering and benevolent curiosity were such as Mr. John Hare alone could have equalled. It was not merely that Holmes changed his ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... case did not come on. Day by day passed away, and still it was not in the paper. The reason, however, is simple, and need not be told to any except those of my readers who are under the impression that the expeditious administration of justice is of any consequence. It was obvious to the most simple-minded that the case could not be taken for a day or two, because there was a block in every one of the three Courts devoted to the trial of Nisi Prius actions. And you know as well as anyone, Mr. Bumpkin, that when you get a load of turnips, or what not, in the market town blocked by innumerable ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... it enjoyed a comparatively tranquil existence till A.D. 1740, when Ratanpur fell to the Marathas almost without striking a blow. "The only surviving representative of the Haihayas of Ratanpur," Mr. Wills states, [538] "is a quite simple-minded Rajput who lives at Bargaon in Raipur District. He represents the junior or Raipur branch of the family, and holds five villages which were given him revenue-free by the Marathas for his maintenance. The malguzar of Senduras claims descent from the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... simple-minded piper Such a kindly nature had That he lifted up the viper And bestowed her in his plaid. "Though the Scot is stern, at least he No unhappy creature spurns, 'Sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,'" Quoth the ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... trembling with fear, but on seeing the person who was to play "Garrick," she quickly mastered herself. This amateur was hardly more than a boy, skinny, awkward, and simple-minded. He lisped and waddled about like a duck, but since he was the cousin of one of the influential journalists who backed him, he regarded everybody at the theater with a haughty expression and treated them with an air of condescension. The members of the company delicately ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... he would say, slapping his comrade on the back. "It will be mine from the dungeons forty foot below the ground, right up, bedad, to the flagstaff from which the imblem of loyalty flaunts the breeze." At these speeches the simple-minded German used to rub his great red hands together with satisfaction, and feel as pleased as though he had actually been presented with the fee simple of the castle ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... objects that are not there in reality. To this power are due the frequent reports of apparitions of Buddha, seen generally by single individuals, and the visions of demons, the accounts of which alone terrify the simple-minded folk, and cause them to pay all their spare cash in ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... mixed character of the council, and the choice of the courses open before it. As Socrates describes the incident, the disputes were running so high, from the mere pleasure of argument, that there seemed likely to be no end to the controversy, when suddenly a simple-minded layman, who by his sightless eye or limping leg bore witness of his zeal for the Christian faith, stepped among them and abruptly said, "Christ and the apostles left us not a system of logic nor a vain deceit, but a naked truth to be guided by faith and good works." "There has," says ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... The light of tremulous joy in their lovely depths startled and thrilled him. A snicker from the group of young men behind roused in him a deep indignation. They were taking their coarse fun out of this simple-minded girl. Cameron's furious glance at them appeared only to increase their amusement. It did not lessen Cameron's embarrassment and rage that now and then during the reading of the hymn Mandy's eyes were turned upon ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... More people then began to see the self-contradictions of the opposition, and most of those "plain people" to whom Lincoln consciously appealed were touched to the heart by his pathetic question: "Must I shoot the simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of the wily agitator who induces ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... country dreadfully dull; and that, consequently, she was extremely glad to have made his acquaintance. But what he chiefly realized when they parted was that he had spent a couple of pleasant hours talking nonsense with a girl who was natural, simple-minded, and entirely free from that repellently protective atmosphere with which a woman of the 'classes' so carefully surrounds herself. He and Esther had 'made friends' with the ease and rapidity of children before they have ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... tried to decide whether Groener was really unconscious of impending danger. Was he deceived by this Matthieu disguise? Or was it possible, could it be possible, that he was what he appeared to be, a simple-minded wood carver free from any wickedness or duplicity? No, no, it was marvelous acting, an extraordinary make-up, but this was his man, all right. There was the long little finger, plainly visible, the identical ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... you really mean it?" she said with the indulgent incredulity one shows to the simple-minded—"But just think! The session will go on, every one says, till quite the end of September. Isn't that enough of itself to make a party discontented? All our big measures are in dreadful arrears. And my father believes so much of the friction might have been avoided. He ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Roger Acton; almost since morning light, the leprosy had changed his very nature. The simple-minded Christian, toiling in contentment for his daily bread, cheerful for the passing day, and trustful for the coming morrow, this fair state was well-nigh faded away; while a bitterness of feeling against (in one word) GOD—against unequal partialities in providence, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Spirit[602] had justified their excesses in language which they borrowed from men of such noble and holy life as Eckhart[603] and Tauler, and Nicolas of Basle, so the flagitious conduct, at Bedford and elsewhere, of some who called themselves Moravians threw scandal and odium on the tenets of the pure and simple-minded community of Herrnhut. This was a danger to which Wesley was, without doubt, all the more sensitive, because he lived among hostile critics who were only too ready to discredit his teaching by similar imputations on its tendencies. The truth is that Methodism, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... the excitements of the selfish crowd, and ignorant of the sorrows and sufferings of great cities. She is found in the enjoyment of the sunshine and the open air, in the shady groves and flowery fields, by the side of the murmuring brooks, and in the society of the gay, frank, and simple-minded peasant of my own dear country. Oh! my white and pretty pavillon, whose walls are clad with fragrant creepers and the luscious vine, whose porch is scented with the woodbine and the rose—oh! lovely valleys, dark forests, deep blue lakes which sleep unruffled in the bosom of the ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... that which lends such a charm to the author's essays,— brilliant, epigrammatic, vigorous. Indeed, herein lies the fault of the work, when viewed as a mere detail of historical facts. Its sparkling rhetoric is not the safest medium of truth to the simple-minded inquirer. A discriminating and able critic has done the author no injustice in saying that, in attempting to give effect and vividness to his thoughts and diction, he is often overstrained and extravagant, and that his epigrammatic style seems better ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... speak to the simple-minded man or child about the freedom of the human will. Their lessons in this are learned from observation and experience. By experience every one knows that he has the power to choose what he likes and to reject what he does not like. Even beasts, and birds, and reptiles do the same. They choose ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... certainly impressed people very much, and I suppose his letters as newspaper correspondent were quite wonderful. He was remarkably intelligent and absolutely unscrupulous, didn't hesitate to put into the mouths of people what he wished them to say, so he naturally had a great pull over the ordinary simple-minded journalist who wrote simply what he saw and heard. As he was the Paris correspondent of The London Times, he was often at the French Embassy. W. never trusted him very much, and his flair was right, as he ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... nationalize land, railways, mines, quarries, factories, workshops, warehouses, shops, and all and every agency for the production and distribution of wealth? I say again, within a generation? He who entertains such hopes must indeed be a sanguine and simple-minded Socialist."[45] ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... same. Mr. Dempster, however, was not willing to relinquish his half-made proselyte; and certainly, the less Jane was inclined to believe in these manifestations the more she became attached to the simple-minded pious visionary who rested so ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... view, the excitement was beyond description. Young and old, women and children, fell simultaneously upon their knees, and tears and sobs mingled with the blessings showered upon His Majesty by thousands of his simple-minded, affectionate people. ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... gentlemen travel abroad, to reduce their waists or improve their minds, the effects on the hotel waiters and cabmen must be immense. They will be charged three times the ordinary tariff instead of only the double which is the stranger's usual fate at the hands of simple-minded foreigners. The satisfaction must be cheap, ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... there in the hot weather—especially men who die in the state the Boss was in. Then Ned went to the public-house where the barmaid was and called the landlord out. It was a desperate fight: the publican was a big man, and a bit of a fighting man; but Ned was one of those quiet, simple-minded chaps who will carry a thing through to death when they make up their minds. He gave that publican nearly as good a thrashing as he deserved. The constable in charge of the station backed Ned, while another policeman picked up the publican. Sounds queer to you city ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... embarrassed and troubled. If this big-hearted, simple-minded countryman had come to New York to buck the stock market, it was time to sound a warning. But had he, on such short acquaintance, the right to warn? The captain was shrewd in his own way. Might ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... India. Nor is there anything in such a natural sentiment that need give umbrage to Englishmen; although the liberality of a recent English governor of Bombay who headed a list of subscriptions for public commemoration of the deed, betrayed a somewhat simple-minded unreadiness to appreciate the significance of ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... often encountered and recognized each other in them. Contractors and "jobbers" used to besiege the offices of the Secretaries of War and Navy, and the venerable Welles (who reminded me of Abraham in the lithographs), and the barnacled Stanton, seldom appeared in public. Simple-minded, straightforward A. Lincoln, and his ambitious, clever lady, were often seen of afternoons in their barouche; the little old-fashioned Vice-President walked unconcernedly up and down; and when some of the Richmond ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... course, been president; his moral character,—a point on which so many geniuses were weak—was absolutely irreproachable; foremost of all, however, among his many great qualities, and perhaps more remarkable even than his genius was what biographers have called "the simple-minded and child-like earnestness of his character," an earnestness which might be perceived by the solemnity with which he spoke even about trifles. It is hardly necessary to say he was on the Liberal side ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... The poor, simple-minded Noah with tears in his eyes, for he was very fond indeed of Zip, replied, "He's done and gone and ...
— Zip, the Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier • Frances Trego Montgomery
... too! Why, I knew Marc Runyon when he thought an upper berth was the very lap of luxury; knew him when he'd grind his teeth over payin' a ten-dollar fee to a doctor. And now he's trying to buy back his digestion by hiring a private physician, is he? The simple-minded old sinner!" ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... come on the twentieth of May; it was then the seventh, and Jeanne awaited their arrival with intense impatience. Besides her natural desire to see her parents, she felt it would be such a relief to have near her two honest hearts, two simple-minded beings whose life and every action, thought and desire had always been upright and pure. She felt she stood alone in her honesty among all this guilt. She had learnt to dissimulate her feelings, to meet the comtesse with an outstretched hand and a smiling face, ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... the simple-minded Uncle in his secret attraction towards the marvellous and adventurous—of which he was, in some sort, a distant relation, by his trade—had greatly encouraged the same attraction in the nephew; and that everything that had ever been put before the boy to deter ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Mr. Crawford; for this is evidently a sweet, simple-minded lady, and more over nothing has turned up to indicate that Mr. Crawford had a romantic ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... drove down town, the Magistrate's wife went up to the nursery and hugged her sleeping little ones, one after the other, and tear-drops fell upon their warm cheeks that had wiped out the guilt of more than one sinner before, and the children smiled in their sleep. They say among the simple-minded folk of far-away Denmark that then they see angels ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... by some simple-minded reader why we should not resort to crude Communism as the disciples were told to do. This would be quite practicable in a village where production was limited to the supply of the primitive wants which nature imposes on all human ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... patiently and approvingly though the rain was pouring down upon them, and the branches of the trees and the tops of the tall nettles, agitated by the gusts from the mountain hollows, were beating in their faces, for enthusiasm is never scoffed at by the noble, simple-minded, genuine Welsh, whatever treatment it may receive from the coarse-hearted, sensual, ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... I have been forced to regard as being within the exceptions of the Constitution and as indispensable to the public safety.... I think the time not unlikely to come when I shall be blamed for having made too few arrests rather than too many.... Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert? This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father, a brother, or friend into a public meeting ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... The boy would return! That was all she cared for. She really liked him, for he was so candid, so good, and so simple-minded. With such a son-in-law much was possible, she thought. Okoya could certainly be moulded to become a very useful tool to her as well as to Tyope. The woman felt elated over the results of the evening; she felt sure that notwithstanding one egregious mistake, of which of course she would ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... further questions; that is, the principle of Purpose. Let us take a very simple illustration. Across many of the hills in Cumberland the way from one village to another is marked by white stones placed at short intervals. We may easily imagine a simple-minded person asking how they came there, or what natural law could account for their lying in that position; and the physical antecedents of the fact—the geological history of the stones and the physiological structure of the men who moved them—give ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... Genial and simple-minded as he was, eagerly as he desired to appreciate at her full value the young lady who was one day to be the wife of Amelius, Rufus felt the tone in which those words were spoken. It was not easy to stimulate his modest sense of what was fairly due to him into asserting itself, but the ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... other companies of our battalion was equally great, as it was also with the prisoners generally. Not less than twenty-five thousand gallant, noble-hearted boys died around me between the dates of my capture and release. Nobler men than they never died for any cause. For the most part they were simple-minded, honest-hearted boys; the sterling products of our Northern home-life, and Northern Common Schools, and that grand stalwart Northern blood, the yeoman blood of sturdy middle class freemen—the blood of the race which has ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... Bishop is the richest man in the Island, and his income is about £150 a year, a sum which these simple-minded folk look upon ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... announces the birth of a new epoch, it is meet that the rank and file remain silent; and at this Congress of the Church of England no jarring interruptions marred the solemnity of the moment. No old-fashioned doctor was there to utter a futile protest, and there was no simple-minded clergyman to rise in the name of Christ and give Lord Dawson the lie. Without dissent, on a public platform of the Established Church, presided over by a Bishop, and in full view of the nation, "the moth-eaten mantle of Malthus, the godless robe of Bradlaugh, and ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... great cry of welcome that caused the forest to ring with its echoes. As the pious leader of the expedition stepped on shore, he took Rene by the hand, and both kneeling on the sands, gave thanks to Him who guided them thus far in safety in their perilous wanderings. Though the simple-minded Indians could not understand what Laudonniere said or was doing, they were so anxious to show their respect and love for him that all knelt when he did and maintained a deep silence ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... had been a man of the world he would have divined that the present was a rare opportunity for catching his bumptious young friend by the ear, and making him carry out his threat then and there. But, being a simple-minded new boy, unlearned in the ways of the world, he merely said "Pooh!" and walked on, leaving his assailant in possession of the field, calling out "coward!" and "sneak!" after him till he was out ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... to anyone except to her confessor, and he, a simple-minded man of great learning and a total lack of knowledge of the world, was completely at ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... smile at such simple-minded ebullitions of feeling; yet I would by no means be understood to laugh at them. On the contrary, they are so manifestly spontaneous and sincere as to be really touching. Whatever may be the future of the Portuguese Republic, it has given the nation some weeks of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... his mild blue eyes struggled for freedom now, and one or two flowed slowly down his wrinkled cheek. Marguerite, though heartsore and full of agonizing sorrow herself, felt her whole noble soul go out to this kind old man, so pathetic, so high and simple-minded ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... my brother officers were strangers to me, and mostly to each other, so it took a little time before we became acquainted and shook into our places. Captain Cranley, I found, was somewhat of the old school—very kind-hearted and simple-minded, and not less strict towards himself than towards others—with a nice sense of honour, and very sensitive of rebuke. I was very glad to find that my old friend Jack Stretcher had volunteered, with the hope of one day becoming a warrant-officer. I ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... dominates the whole novel, Turgenev has, I think, displayed genius of a still higher order in the creation of that simple-minded pair of peasants, the father and mother of the young nihilist. These two are old-fashioned, absolutely pious, dwelling in a mental world millions of miles removed from that of their son; they have not even a remote idea of what is passing in his mind, but they look on ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... Johnson, Addison, Bishop Berkeley. Bishop Berkeley, who crossed Mont Cenis on New Year's Day 1714, complained that he was "put out of humour by the most horrible precipices." There is huge comfort to be drawn from Stephen's pages descriptive of the "simple-minded abhorrence of mountains," and from his categorical declaration that love of the sublime shapes of the Alps springs from "a delicate and cultivated taste." But we are puzzled by the presence outside the pale of some who cannot rightly be ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... since it is their fundamental principle that they are not a pillar or ground of truth, but voluntary societies, without authority and without gifts, the Bible Church they cannot be. If the serious persons who are in dissent would really imitate the simple-minded Ethiopian, or the noble Bereans, let them ask themselves: "Of whom speaketh" the Apostle, or the Prophet, such great things?—Where is the "pillar and ground"?—Who is it that is appointed to lead us to Christ?—Where are those teachers which were never to be removed into ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... than that of inaccuracy or deficient authority lies against the writings which have come down to us from the second century. There can be no doubt that great numbers of books were then written with no other view than to deceive the simple-minded multitude who at that time formed the great bulk ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... more need of publishing than any other of my sermons or tracts. For the greatest of all questions has been raised, the question of Good Works, in which is practised immeasurably more trickery and deception than in anything else, and in which the simple-minded man is so easily misled that our Lord Christ has commanded us to watch carefully for the sheep's clothing under which the wolves hide ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... left it in the hands of friends, who paid him a very small percentage on it, and whom he always regarded as being very kind to take care of the troublesome stuff on his account. In matters of art, Gibson was a great master; in matters of business, he was hardly more than a simple-minded child. ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... nought but his simple-minded talk,' replied the farmer, taking a huge bite out of a slice ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... that; I've reached it, and I intend to maintain it. Why, you simple-minded jackass, these scientists will eat you up. They'll make a monkey of me and disgrace the girl. They'll pretend to expose her—the press will be on their side—and I will be made the butt of all their slurring ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... name also, the L at the last moment having been found to stand for Liberty. If they had consulted the groom, he would have decried all fuss, for Fannie's chief attraction was that he thought her an unspoiled, simple-minded ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... men—officers of the law at that—being simple-minded enough to come fogging out here to me, instead of getting on the trail of the men that were seen on the spot! You say they came in a machine to the bank and you never so much as tried to trace it, or to get the license number even, I'll bet a month's salary you didn't! It was a moving-picture ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... child! Such a dear, simple-minded child! Report engaged her to at least ten different people at Simla. She had a crowd of cavaliers there—I was one of them. The whole place adored her. She is a very rare little creature, but well looked after, I can tell you—a long array ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... puzzled glance at his companion. As a simple-minded English gentleman he was quite unable to penetrate the obscurity of expression which masked the meaning of the last remark. Merrington caught the look, but had formed too poor an opinion of his companion's understanding to ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... after another to define with scientific accuracy and to everybody's satisfaction his exact nature and attributes; in consequence of which efforts there had come to be several most distinct but quite contradictory ideas upon the subject. There were some simple-minded folk to whom the chime typified a God essentially masculine, and like a man, hugely exaggerated, but somewhat amorphous, because they could not see exactly in what the exaggeration consisted except in the size of him. They pictured him sitting alone on a throne of ivory and gold ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... registers in Boggs City may give us a clew. If you don't mind, Mr. Crow, I'll have this New York detective, who is coming up to-morrow, take a look into this phase of the case. It won't interfere with your plans, will it?" asked Bonner, always considerate of the feelings of the good-hearted, simple-minded old marshal. ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... offenders be brought up for trial, Iyeyasu advises that, in the case of common people, particular deliberation be given to the matter: he remarks upon the weakness of human nature, and suggests that, among the young and simple-minded, some momentary impulse of passion may lead to folly even when the parties are not naturally depraved. But in the next article, [346] No. 51, he orders that no mercy whatever be shown to men and women of the upper classes when convicted of the same crime. "These," he declares, "are expected ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... number of characters in these novels are of the same unpromising quality. Most of them are ignorant, uncouth and simple-minded; yet George Eliot gives them a warm place in our hearts, and we rejoice to have known them all. This ignorant rusticity is discovered to have charms and attractions of its own. Especially does the reader learn that what is most human and ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... brat. Don't draw that chair farther off, Miss Eyre; sit down exactly where I placed it—if you please, that is. Confound these civilities! I continually forget them. Nor do I particularly affect simple-minded old ladies. By-the-bye, I must have mine in mind; it won't do to neglect her; she is a Fairfax, or wed to one; and blood is said ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... manner men differ in regard to want of sense. Those who are most out of their wits we call 'madmen,' while we term those who are less far gone 'stupid' or 'idiotic,' or, if we prefer gentler language, describe them as 'romantic' or 'simple-minded,' or, again, as 'innocent' or 'inexperienced' or 'foolish.' You may even find other names, if you seek for them; but by all of them lack of sense is intended. They only differ as one art appeared to us to differ from another or one disease ...
— Alcibiades II • An Imitator of Plato
... the one side devotion, simple-minded loyalty and a fighting heart in a body of such mechanical perfection as Mars had never seen before or since. On the other side a primal beast, just as huge, ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... obeyed the King, or in other words, the dictates of her own heart, imprudently embarking upon a career of passion, for which a temperament wholly different from hers was needed. It is not simple-minded maidens that one wants at Court to share the confidence of princes. No doubt natures of that sort—simple, disinterested souls are pleasant and agreeable to them, as therein they find contentment such as they greedily prize; but for these unsullied, romantic natures, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... less legal ward, not less, despite his being so very much Albert's senior. In these facts and in the character of each of the three persons involved resided the drama; which must more or less have begun, as I have hinted, when simple-minded Henry, at a date I seem to have seized, definitely emerged from rustication—the Beaverkill had but for a certain term protected, or promoted, his simplicity—and began, on his side, to pace the well-worn ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... people's reading, notwithstanding all the involutions of style and thought which might suggest a different judgment. He certainly does not write like Cobbett or Franklin, nor has he the thin, clear polish of the popular historian. Yet his shrewdness and tenderness will touch all simple-minded men; and twenty Cobbetts, or people's writers, sharply rubbed together, could never light the flame of his imperial imagination, for it is a kind of sunshine, sometimes hot enough, but broad, impartial, and quickening, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... kept woman, is a feat. Your Madame de Thievre, with her shawl which she slips up and down over her fat shoulders, isn't she decidedly of the Restoration! And the uncle who wants to confiscate his nephew's grisette! And Antoine, the good fat tinsmith so polite at the theatre! The Russian is a simple-minded, natural man, a character that is not ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... for the largest, and resolved to shape a course for it, and so I did. It will be distant five leagues from this of San Salvador, and the others some more, some less. All are very flat, and all are inhabited. The natives make war on each other, although these are very simple-minded ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... years old, and small of his age. He dresses in homespun, and is a simple-minded, honest, old-fashioned farmer, with a strange proclivity for writing rhymes. He writes them on all possible subjects, and gets them printed on slips of paper, with his portrait at the head. These he will give to any man who comes along, whether he has anything against ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... by President Woodruff and his two Councillor's, George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith. But President Woodruff was as helpless in the political world as a nun. He was a gentle, earnest old man, patiently ingenuous and simple-minded, with a faith in the guidance of Heaven that was only greater than my father's because it was unmixed with any earthly sagacity. He had the mind, and the appearance, of a country preacher, and even when he was "on the underground" he used to do his daily "stint" of farm labor, ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... long. She did occasionally visit the house, though only for an hour or two; just to show, said Buncombe, that there was no ill-feeling. On his part, evidently, there was none whatever. An easy-going, simple-minded fellow, aged about forty, with a boyish good temper and no will to speak of, he seemed never to entertain a doubt of his wife's honesty, and in any case would probably have agreed, on the least persuasion, to let bygones be bygones. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... marriage, before embarking for Turkey, Philip, with his bride, paid a visit to Newberg. His second sermon he preached in the Baptist church. To those simple-minded country people, he stood before them a living illustration of what the grace of God might effect. Six years previously he had startled and amazed them, as though he had ridden through the air on a broomstick; now he came back to them in peace and gentleness. Before he had laid sacrilegious ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... child, she had never known the love of brother or sister; and the aunt who brought her up was a strict narrow-minded sort of person, with manners that must have been singularly uncongenial to my affectionate, simple-minded Jessie. Poor Jessie! I could not help giving her one of my bear-like hugs at this, so well did I know the meaning of that sigh; and there is no telling into what channel our talk would have drifted, ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... until her last few shots have been quite good. That is Maiyo all the world over. I will wager that he is thinking of nothing on earth at this moment but of making that poor old lady feel at her ease and enjoy her game. A stranger, looking on, would imagine him to be just a kind-hearted, simple-minded fellow. Yet there is not one of us three who has wit enough to get a single word from him against his will. You shall see. There is an excellent opportunity here. I suppose both of you read his speech at ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... uneventfully away, Nat remaining at home, nursing his wrath and the wounds upon his face, and Henry Schulte attending to his various duties upon the farm. The quarrel finally ceased to be a matter of remark, and the simple-minded villagers, believing that Nat's threats were only the utterances of a man crazed with drink, and smarting under the punishment he had received, quieted their fears and resumed their ordinary peaceful and contented mode ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... wide. "It seems to me that you were simple-minded," she breathed. "Why did you not thrust the iron ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... well, Brannan," said Langston, with a smile of deep meaning, "and among simple-minded military folk the answer would be enough, perhaps, but not to a lawyer. Would you declare that Howard did not wield the knife that slashed you—but was ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... door he had had to burst was bolted as well as locked. He confirmed Mrs. Drabdump's statement about the windows; the chimney was very narrow. The cut looked as if done by a razor. There was no instrument lying about the room. He had known the deceased about a month. He seemed a very earnest, simple-minded young fellow, who spoke a great deal about the brotherhood of man. (The hardened old man-hunter's voice was not free from a tremor as he spoke jerkily of the dead man's enthusiasms.) He should have thought the deceased the last man in the world to ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... infatuated persons!" Mr. Nash replied, understanding that she had asked for a description. "Strange eccentric, almost romantic, types. Predestined victims, simple-minded sacrificial lambs!" ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... in some place not stated. There, so far as the Essenes were concerned, the matter ended. Indeed, as the peasant who was concealed in the gully when the Jew was murdered had talked of what he had witnessed, even the most simple-minded of the Essenes could suggest a reason for this sudden departure. Nor did they altogether regret it, inasmuch as in many ways Caleb had proved himself but an unsatisfactory disciple, and already they were discussing the expediency of rejecting him from the fellowship ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... was who had discovered Jem Agar's talent for this rough, peculiar soldiering of the frontier. He it was to whom the simple-minded young officer had owed promotion after promotion. General Michael had fixed upon Agar as his last hope—his last chance of doing something brilliant in this deathly country, which moved with a slowness ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... in like manner men differ in regard to want of sense. Those who are most out of their wits we call 'madmen,' while we term those who are less far gone 'stupid' or 'idiotic,' or, if we prefer gentler language, describe them as 'romantic' or 'simple-minded,' or, again, as 'innocent' or 'inexperienced' or 'foolish.' You may even find other names, if you seek for them; but by all of them lack of sense is intended. They only differ as one art appeared to us to differ ...
— Alcibiades II • An Imitator of Plato
... resources, coats richly laced with gilt braid, red trousers, medals, flags, knives, colored handkerchiefs, paints, small looking-glasses, beads and tomahawks were believed to be so attractive to the simple-minded red man that he would gladly do much and give much of his own to win such prizes. Of these fine things there were fourteen large bales and one box. The stores of the expedition were clothing, working tools, fire-arms, food supplies, ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... favorite method of these German plotters, Hugh," said Mr. Cook. "Very often they get some simple-minded, ignorant fellow like Heinrich and make a tool of him. Heinrich hasn't got brains enough to ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... was all Charlie. He was a thief, an' I was sech a simple-minded old fool I never knowed what he was. I let him go ahead, an' I set in the house with a white apurn tied on me an' thought I was havin' an easy time. I set here and let him rob my neighbors that I ain't ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... Belding was simple-minded, a man more inclined to action than reflection. When the complexities of life hemmed him in, he groped his way out, never quite understanding. His wife had always been a mystery to him. Nell was sunshine most of the time, but, like the sun-dominated desert, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... his old nurse, had not a little to do with this. She was one of those simple-minded humble Christians who, all unknowingly, plant in many minds the good seed which grows up ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... cannon, the glittering steel swords, the thick armor and shining helmets, the prancing horses on which the Spanish leaders were mounted, gave the whole a strange, unearthly appearance to the simple-minded Indians. The story is told that the Mexicans believed that one of their gods had once floated out to sea, saying that, in the fulness of time, he would return with fair-skinned companions to begin again his rule over his people. Many Aztecs looked upon the coming of the white men as the return ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... into natural grandeur and magnificence; his streams seem all abodes for nymphs, his hills are fit haunts for the muses, and his temples worthy of gods,"—a passage, we think, most worthy the monosyllable commonly used upon such occasions by the manly and simple-minded Mr Burchell. That Sir Joshua occasionally transgressed in his wanderings into mythology, it would be difficult to deny; nor was it his only transgression from his legitimate ground, as may be seen in his "Holy Family" in the National Gallery. But we ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... men of the law, and Mr Robert Queeker was a man of their office—in other words, a clerk—not a "confidential" one, but a clerk, nevertheless, in whose simple-minded integrity they had much confidence. Bob, as his fellow-clerks styled him, was sent on a secret mission to Ramsgate. The reader will observe how fortunate it was that his mission was secret, because it frees us from the necessity of setting ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... still a very lovely child. Her father, wrapped in his literary pursuits, had left the entire control of his plantation to overseers, in whom he trusted almost implicitly. And many a tale of wrong and sorrow came to the ear of Camilla; for these simple-minded people had learned to love her, and to trust in her as an angel of mercy. Often would she interfere in their behalf, and tell the story of their wrongs to her father. And at her instance, more than one overseer had been turned away; which, coming to the ears of others, made them ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... because they rejoice in its repose. But Michael Angelo and Raphael invent for it ingenious mechanical motion, because they think it uninteresting when it is quiet, and cannot, in their pictures, endure any person's being simple-minded enough to stand upon both his legs at once, nor venture to imagine anyone's being clear enough in his language to make himself intelligible ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... fear himself, or for himself, as he investigated himself, when the blame had already been put publicly on some one else, some simple-minded old soul who could go back to his cotton fields in Mississippi and forget all about it, strong in his innocence, even though shorn of reputation, and ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise |
