"Straightforwardness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... customary straightforwardness and honesty, had printed the account of the scene in the Council Chambers word for word. There it stood—his own accusation and the counter-charges urged against him. He had attempted neither palliation ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... by Mrs. Percy Dearmer, has a quaint straightforwardness, of a sort that exactly wins ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... purchase entirely; but some plot should be laid to entrap him. The factor undertook the force game, notified him that the cotton was held subject to his order, and protested the draft for the appearance of straightforwardness. Cotton shortly fell to the other extreme, the lot was "shoved up" for sale on Shannon's account, Shannon was sued for the balance, held to bail, and in default committed to prison. His confinement and endurance of it would form ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... and accurate knowledge of the character of his countrymen, to pledge himself to the king for their inviolable loyalty, as soon as they should be convinced of the honesty of his intentions by the straightforwardness of his proceedings; while, on the contrary, he assured him that there would be no hopes of it as long as they were not relieved of the fear of being made the victims of the oppression, and sacrificed to the envy of the Spanish nobles. At last Montigny's coadjutor ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... tall, well formed, broad-chested, with his head well set on his shoulders, and his feet and hands small. His appearance is decidedly commanding and aristocratic: he is certainly handsome even according to our notions. He has a fine open brow, significant at once of brains and straightforwardness, a straight proportionate nose, and a good mouth. The slight tendency to Polynesian overfulness about his lips is concealed by a well-shaped moustache. He wears whiskers cut in the English fashion. His eyes are large, dark-brown ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... their wants, and discuss the military hero's qualifications for rule in that relation, and that, too, in a not altogether foolish manner. For though the author knows how to do justice to the simplicity of their politics, he knows how to do justice also to that practical determination and straightforwardness and largeness of sense, which even in the common sense of uneducated masses, is already struggling a little ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... experiences, which was published in 1843, under the title of "Travels of a Viennese Woman to the Holy Land," and immediately obtained a worldwide popularity. Its merits, however, are not of a literary character; its attractiveness is due entirely to its simplicity and straightforwardness. The reader at once discovers that he is dealing with a writer who makes no attempt to deceive, who neither diminishes nor exaggerates, nor adapts her facts to preconceived opinions. To this we may add that Madame Pfeiffer, though an accurate, ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... should have hunted upon the traces indicated by him. Any solution of Pope's virulence, and of the master's bitter retaliation, even as a solution, is so far entitled to attention; apart from which the mere straightforwardness of this man's story, and its minute circumstantiality, weigh greatly in its favor. To our thinking, he unfolds the whole affair in the simple explanation, nowhere else to be found, that the master of the school, the mean avenger of a childish insult by a bestial ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... States who was responsible for others being added to the commission. Adams was a sturdy New Englander of British stock and of a distinctly English type—medium height, a stout figure, and a ruddy face. No one questioned his honesty, his straightforwardness, or his lack of tact. Being a man of strong mind, of wide reading and even great learning, and having serene confidence in the purity of his motives as well as in the soundness of his judgment, Adams ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... likely of Trego. She could not overlook the impression he conveyed of rugged honesty and straightforwardness. However strong the aversion he inspired, Sally could ignore neither that impression nor yet its correlative, that if he was not an over-righteous scorner of lies, he was the sort that would suffer much rather than seek to profit by ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... Clarissa's purity strikes one as having at once too much questionable prudery in it and too little honest prudence: while her later resolution has as much false pride as real principle. Even some of her admirers admit a want of straightforwardness in her; she has no passion, which rather derogates from the merit of her conduct in any case; and though she is abominably ill-treated by almost everybody, one's pity for her never comes very ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... no mistake when he had told Sanderson that Judge Graney was honest. Graney looked honest. There was about him an atmosphere of straightforwardness that was unmistakable and convincing. It was because he was honest that a certain governor had sent ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... death has been preceded by a long illness, and the family exchequer has sunk low, the neighbours come to the rescue, and with characteristic straightforwardness and goodnature avert impending disgrace. One such case occurred here recently. The father of the family had been hovering for months between life and death, and when he "drew away" at last, wife and children ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... you formed any opinion as to the effect of this system upon the truthfulness and uprightness of the Shetland character?-I have formed the opinion that it has a very bad effect indeed upon the straightforwardness and truthfulness of the character of the people in this part of Shetland, for of course I have, had no experience elsewhere. I have found among the younger portion of the population generally a ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... was going on a duel, the weapons of which were not pianos, but those invisible stilettos with which two women conduct a deadly feud, and politely tear each other's eyes out. George Sand was famous then beyond her present-day esteem, and she was a woman of vigour almost masculine and of a straightforwardness which was almost an affectation. She loved to go about in boots and blouse, and to ride bareback; she smoked cigars, and wrote at night. The Comtesse d'Agoult was eminently feminine. She would rather have spent one thousand francs on a gown than on anything else ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... speak out in full and unembarrassed tones, that it might convulse and terrify us, as though the voice of some hitherto concealed and evil spirit had suddenly cried out in our midst. Or how do the following propositions strike our ears?—That passion is better than stocism or hypocrisy; that straightforwardness, even in evil, is better than losing oneself in trying to observe traditional morality; that the free man is just as able to be good as evil, but that the unemancipated man is a disgrace to nature, and has no share in heavenly or earthly ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... incredulity with which his opinion is received. Candour is looked upon as so eminently characteristic of childhood, that deceit seems impossible; the case is thought by the parents to be an obscure one which the doctor does not understand; and therefore it is said, he, with want of straightforwardness and of kindness, throws doubts on the existence of disease, and on the truthfulness of a most loving, most suffering child. The vagaries of a hysterical girl, the fits, the palsy, the half-unconsciousness have all been assumed within my own observation ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... their neighbours, they gave their answer to Polydamas: "For the present they would not be able to send him sufficient aid: under the circumstances they advised him to go back and make the best settlement he could of his own affairs and those of his city." He, thanking the Lacedaemonians for their straightforwardness, withdrew. ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... From their looks it was apparent they had suffered greatly from want of food; and they frankly confessed that starvation was their principal motive for coming over. I did all in my power to fix their new faith by presents of provisions, &c. &c.: and I think they are trustworthy; for there is a straightforwardness about the Dyak character far different from the double-faced dealings of the Malay. Their stipulations were, forgiveness for the past, and an assurance that none of the Dyaks from the sea (i. e. Sarebus and Sakarran) should be employed; ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... length did speak his own voice sounded strange to him; but he said what he had to say with a simple straightforwardness which in ordinary ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... The murmur was followed by a curious hush; but if for an instant an idea was poised in the air of the court room, it did not descend, it was banished as preposterous. The moment's silence was broken by Lewis Rand. From his place at the side of the room he spoke with a grave simplicity and straightforwardness, characteristic and impressive, familiar to most there who had heard him before now, in this court room, on questions of life and death. "Everything is to be pardoned to Mr. Fairfax Cary's most natural grief. My testimony, sir, is ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... by implication, as when he attend services, public or private, which are to him the symbol of superstition and mere spiritual phantasmagoria. The vindication of this simple right of living one's life honestly can hardly demand any heroic virtue. A little of the straightforwardness which men are accustomed to call manly, is the only quality that is needed; a little of that frank courage and determination in spiritual things, which men are usually so ready to practise towards their wives in temporal things. It must be a keen delight to a cynic to see a man who owns ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... man by the Hindu caste system. "The duties of Brahmans, Kshatriyas, and Vaisyas, and of Sudras, too, O terror of your foes, are distinguished according to the qualities born of nature. Tranquillity, restraint of the sense, penance, purity, forgiveness, straightforwardness, also knowledge, experience, and belief in the future world, this is the natural duty of the Brahmans. Valour, glory, courage, dexterity, not slinking away from battle, gifts, exercise of lordly power, this is the natural duty of Kshatriyas. Agriculture, tending ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... captain's sandy hair, reddish beard, and tanned skin. His mouth was like a badly made buttonhole, which gaped a little when he smiled. He had a nose like a parrot's beak, and his eyes were blue, kindly, and wise in their straightforwardness. When he would render his costume absolutely de rigueur, he wore a leathern jacket with manifold pockets, from one to another of which trailed a gold watch-chain with a ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... the confusion of mind which is the normal characteristic of the paradoxist. But certainly the very candid way in which Mr. Reddie admitted, in the correspondence above named, that he had not known some facts and had misunderstood others, afforded to my mind the most satisfactory proofs of his straightforwardness. ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... George W. Perkins. He came to me with a letter of introduction from the then Speaker of the National House of Representatives, Tom Reed, which ran: "Mr. Perkins is a personal friend of mine, whose straightforwardness and intelligence will commend to you whatever he has to say. If you will give him proper opportunity to explain his business, I have no doubt that what he will say will be worthy of your attention." Mr. Perkins wished to see me with reference ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... you last Sunday, Mr. Hodder," the young man volunteered, with that mixture of awkwardness and straightforwardness which often characterize his sex and age in referring to such matters. "And I had an idea of writing you, too, to tell you how much I liked what you said. But I know you must have had many letters. You've made ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... House had scarcely recovered from this sensation when Lord Hugo Sizzle caused a further flutter of astonishment by going out of his way to indulge in an outspoken appreciation of the fairness, loyalty, and straightforwardness not only of the Chancellor, but of all the members of the Cabinet. A wit had gravely suggested moving the adjournment of the House in view of the unexpected ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... believe it," said Drayton, but with so much simplicity and straightforwardness that Mary Leithe's cheeks scarcely changed color. "And there is beauty enough here," ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... the words, works, and exploits by which he won for himself 'imperishable renown.' His life presents itself to us in different aspects, wherein the lowliest as well as the loftiest may find something exemplary; and all may learn a lesson in that virtue of virtues—persevering straightforwardness. By and by, we shall have a magnificent funeral; and then, as new events follow, we shall find whether new men are to come capable of meeting them; whether there are to be heroes after ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... feet firmly upon what might prove "delicate ground." When he bowed, a contraction of sinews worthy of an acrobat allowed his head to obtain an unnatural inclination, suggestive of a complimentary deference which humbled itself to the dust and kissed the garment's hem. Straightforwardness in word, thought, or action was to him as incomprehensible as it was impossible. He was a great general, ever standing on the political or social battle-field; skilful manoeuvres were the glory of his existence, and flattery the magical weapon never laid ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... others had prematurely succumbed. His hair, which he wore short, and his beard, which was full, had already grown gray, and gave him the look of a Puritan. The proverbial honesty of the Brazilian merchants and fazenders showed itself in his features, of which straightforwardness was the leading characteristic. His calm temperament seemed to indicate an interior fire, kept well under control. The fearlessness of his look denoted a deep-rooted strength, to which, when danger threatened, he could never appeal ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... of the latter. "In ancient times," said Mabuchi, "when men's dispositions were straightforward, a complicated system of morals was unnecessary. It would naturally happen that bad actions might be occasionally committed; but the straightforwardness of men's dispositions would prevent the evil from being concealed and so growing in extent. So in those days it was unnecessary to have a doctrine of right and wrong. But the Chinese, being bad at heart, in spite ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... logically his defence was unassailable. But these were cases where the plain man—and the House of Commons is full of plain men—feels, though he cannot prove, that there has been a departure from ordinary straightforwardness and fair dealing. ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... Maud was married. Between Mr Dolomore and Jasper existed no superfluous kindness, each resenting the other's self-sufficiency; but Jasper, when once satisfied of his proposed brother-in-law's straightforwardness, was careful not to give offence to a man who might some day serve him. Provided this marriage resulted in moderate happiness to Maud, it was undoubtedly a magnificent stroke of luck. Mrs Lane, the lady who has so often been casually mentioned, took upon herself ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... gaoler-he was not Marston's nigger; all that man's niggers were sold for the benefit of his creditors." So says the official, returning to his august master with cringing servility. His honour, in the fulness of his wisdom, and with every regard for legal straightforwardness (his honour searched into the profoundest depths of the "nigger statutes" while learning the tailoring trade, which he now pursues with great success), is now doubly satisfied that the negro before him is a vagabond-perhaps, and he is more than half inclined to believe he is, the very marauder ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... found himself in the street, whirled in many emotions. The girl had not said that from herself, but it was from some woman; he knew that by the directness of the phrase and its excess, for he had noticed that women who liked to beat about the bush in small matters have a prodigious straightforwardness in more vital affairs, and will even call grey black in order clearly to establish the presence of the black in that colour. He could hardly keep himself ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... style of our authors of a couple of hundred years ago was more terse and masculine than that of those of the present day, possessing both more of the graphic element, and more vigour, straightforwardness, and conciseness. Most readers will have anticipated me in admitting that a man should be clear of his meaning before he endeavours to give to it any kind of utterance, and that having made up his mind ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... young Talbot. She did not choose again to beg for secrecy when she was sure to hear that she had been forestalled, and she was too consummate a judge of character not to have learnt that, though she might despise the dogged, simple straightforwardness of Richard and Susan Talbot, their honour was perfectly trustworthy. She was able for the present to keep her daughter almost entirely to herself, since, on the return to Sheffield, the former state of things was resumed. The Bridgefield family was still quartered in the Manor-house, ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... which show Washington's straightforwardness, here is one which shows much diplomacy. He was asked by Volney, a Frenchman and a revolutionist, for a letter of recommendation to the American people. This request put him in an awkward position, for there were good reasons why he ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... with the straightforwardness of sixteen, "that means a lot to you, doesn't it, that she should write that ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... they may be? There may, of course, be a satisfactory explanation, but as the matter stands it is inexplicable, and is all the more regrettable because it is calculated—we feel sure unjustly—to cast doubts on the loyalty and straightforwardness of the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... determined to take no part in any speculation of the kind; but the possibility of my father entering into any such scheme is care enough to "kill a cat," and make a kitten miserable besides.... In all matters, but especially in matters of business, I hold frankness, straightforwardness, and decision as conducive to success, as consonant with right feeling; but I think men are much more cowardly than women, and believe a great deal more in policy, temporizing, and expediency than we do. "Managing" is supposed to be a feminine tendency; it has no place in my composition; perhaps ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... a disregard of small things; that of the present day shows itself in license. The stern dignity of antiquity showed itself in grave reserve; that of the present shows itself in quarrelsome perverseness. The policy of antiquity showed itself in straightforwardness; that of the present in deceit." The following is a saying worthy of Montaigne: "Of all people, girls and servants are the most difficult to behave to. If you are familiar with them, they lose their humility; if you maintain reserve to them, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... rights and dignities of his sovereign with vigor and effect. It is the union of these diverse, and yet not repugnant qualities, that gives to an embassador prestige, ascendency, and power over the minds of others, that acquires for him that reputation of wisdom, straightforwardness, and sagacity, which is the rarest and most valuable gift of a statesman. One part of the science of diplomacy may be, by even a dull man, mastered without any wonderful difficulties. It is that positive, fundamental, and juridical portion of the study ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... of honor and had a sense of humor seldom found in one of Indian blood, and was as ready to romp and roughhouse as a boy of twelve. His straightforwardness and his tender care of Mrs. Sherman caused the Major to rejoice every day that he had transferred him ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... but admire the straightforwardness of the brothers; their conventionality could not prevent them from feeling the dignity with which they acted on their convictions. The quixotic young fellows ought not to be cut for their behaviour! They could not ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... betrothed, Euthanasia, the shock to the poor mystical Beatrice is terrible. Finally she is met as a pilgrim wending her weary way to Rome. Assuredly, Shelley was justified in admiring this character. There is a straightforwardness in the plot into which the stormy history of the period is clearly introduced, which gives much interest to this romance, and it is a decided advance upon Frankenstein, though her age when that was written must not be forgotten. A book of this kind shows ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... the most widely acceptable among not only the young people of the passenger guards but also the male commonalty of the boiler deck. In a state of society which he, as "a type," reflected they saw themselves; saw their own spiritual image; their unqualified straightforwardness, their transparent simplicity of mind and heart, their fearlessness, their complacent rusticity, their childish notions of the uses of wealth, their personal modesty and communal vanity, their happy oblivion to world standards, ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... the fate of mankind must ultimately depend,' had to be paid (this was exactly the sense, though not the form, of his defence) by letting her do what she liked with Italy. There is a certain brutal straightforwardness in the line of argument. Lord Castlereagh did not say that independence was not a good thing. He had tried to obtain it for Poland and had failed; he had not tried to obtain it for Italy, because he was afraid of offending Austria. At least he had the courage to tell the truth, ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... gave rise to an engagement, which soon became general. On the whole, I come to the conclusion that, in the proceedings of the Chinese Plenipotentiaries and Commander-in-Chief in this instance, there was that mixture of stupidity, want of straightforwardness, suspicion, and bluster, which characterises so generally the conduct of affairs in this country; but I cannot believe that, after the experience which Sang-ko-lin-sin had already had of our superiority in the field, either he or his civil colleagues could have intended to bring on a conflict ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... and in a few words told him that which he had seen. But the soul of William Douglas was utterly devoid of suspicion, both because he held himself so great that none could touch him, and also because, being high of spirit and open as the sky, he read into the acts of others his own straightforwardness and unsuspicion. ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... them with the sunlight dancing on his close-cropped hair and shapely head. His eyes were dark, and heavily shaded with thick brows and long curling lashes, but the eyes brightened with every laughing word,—were full of life and health and straightforwardness and fun. She could not but note how clear and brave and wide-open they were, despite the little wrinkles gathered at the corners and a faint shading underneath. His forehead, what could be seen of it when he tossed ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... upon the boat. She was very young,—fresh from Smith College,—and she still possessed many both of the virtues and of the faults of a child. She had the frankness, the trusting confidence, the innocent straightforwardness, the high spirits, and also the loquacity and the want of reverence. But even her faults caused amusement, and if she had preserved many of the characteristics of a clever child, she was none the less a tall and handsome woman, ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... human enough to be pleased with the very obvious homage of a charming young woman. For Helena's homage was very obvious indeed. Accustomed always to do what she pleased, and say what she pleased, Helena, at three-and-twenty, had a frankness of manner, a straightforwardness of speech, which her friends called original and her detractors called audacious. She would argue, unabashed, with the great leader of the party on some high point of foreign policy; she would talk to the great chieftain of Opposition as if he were ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... it was, he would say the unkindest things even to his greatest friends, and afterwards bitterly regret having said them. His manners were rude and abrupt, but his great genius, combined with the absolute simplicity and straightforwardness of his character, won him his way everywhere. A personality so rare as Beethoven's had a charm for those who worshipped genius, and thus he was forgiven speeches which no one else in his position would have dared to utter. He manifested complete indifference with regard to what people said of him ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... which was wrought outside of them, is plainly visible in the change in the style of Art. Byzantine models stiffened, formalized, and gradually destroyed the spirit of the early paintings. Richness of vestment and mannerism of expression took the place of simplicity and straightforwardness. The Art which is still the popular Art in Italy began to exhibit its lower round of subjects. Saints of all kinds were preferred to the personages of Scripture. The time of suffering and trial having passed, men stirred their slow imaginations with pictures of the crucifixion ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... the other duties inculcated in this Degree of less importance. Truth, a Mason is early told, is a Divine attribute and the foundation of every virtue; and frankness, reliability, sincerity, straightforwardness, plain-dealing, are but different modes in which Truth develops itself. The dead, the absent, the innocent, and those that trust him, no Mason will deceive willingly. To all these he owes a nobler justice, in that they ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... bear so great a burden. Her eyes were gray, limpidly tender and shy, drooping under weighty lids, so that they seldom seemed more than half opened and commonly sought the ground rather than the bolder excursions of straightforwardness; they seldom looked for longer than a glance, climbing and poising and eddying about the person at whom she gazed, and then dived away again; and always when she looked at any one she smiled a deprecation of her boldness. She had a small white face, ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... the necessity of throwing them overboard at a hazard. To be the bearer of any despatches in time of peace cannot be incorrect for a ship on discovery more than for any other; BUT WITH A PASSPORT, AND IN TIME OF WAR, IT CERTAINLY IS IMPROPER." With characteristic straightforwardness, Flinders did not hesitate to tell King himself that the despatches had cast suspicion on him:* (* Historical Records 6 105.) "I have learned privately that in your despatches to the Secretary of State there is mention of Spanish America, which rendered me being the bearer, ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... lacking in conceit, and she could not realize, since her sympathy was unquickened by a responsive affection, that a love of short growth could mean much to its possessor. This lack of appreciation of love's intensity was increased by the fact that her own simplicity of thought and straightforwardness of character always had prevented her from taking seriously any man's attentions until they resolved ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... the same time felt pitifully sorry for him—it must be intensely humiliating to have to explain this way—and yet the only thing Oliver could do was to take the largest advantage possible of his very humiliation and straightforwardness—the truth could still do nothing at ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... Anderson junior get hold of you, and teach you his tricks, you'll never be good for anything. He seems good-natured now, but he will turn against you, as he did with Harry. I know how it is, and you had better take my word, and trust to me and straightforwardness, when you get into ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... never brought into a court of justice," and described us as "two enthusiasts who have been actuated by a desire to do good in a particular department of society." He then went on to a splendid statement of the law of population, and ended by praising our straightforwardness and asserting Knowlton's honesty of intention. Every one in court thought that we had won our case, but they had not taken into account the religious and political hatred against us and the presence on the jury of such men as Mr. ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... of the Revolution, as were thousands of others walking the Paris streets, or busy with villainies in country places; character was complex by force of circumstances, which, under other conditions, might have been simple and straightforward. With some a certain straightforwardness remained, not always directed to wrong ends. It was so in Lucien Bruslart. It was not easy for him to be a scoundrel, and self was not always master. Even with Pauline Vaison in his arms he thought of Jeanne St. Clair, and shuddered at the way he had spoken of her to this woman. What would happen ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... had not received any food supplies for some days and were actually on the point of starvation. Not being able to stand their misery any longer, he had taken the bull by the horns and, with the utter confidence and straightforwardness of a fearless nature, had simply come over to us, the enemy, for help, offering a little barrel of water which his companion carried on his head and a little tobacco, in exchange for some provisions. The major ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... narrower sense, is strong and good, and does its part to make the book, except for the Wiclif Bible, unquestionably the greatest monument of English prose of the entire period before the sixteenth century. There is no affectation of elegance, but rather knightly straightforwardness which has power without lack of ease. The sentences are often long, but always 'loose' and clear; and short ones are often used with the instinctive skill of sincerity. Everything is picturesque and dramatic and everywhere there is ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... period of his history, Pliny, Solinus, Eutropius, Orosius, Gildas. From the advent of Augustine his work becomes his own; he collects documents, memoranda, testimonies, frequently legends, and publishes the whole without any criticism, but without falsifications. He lacks art, but not straightforwardness. ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... The unadorned straightforwardness of the relation made it an amazing thing to hear, even more amazing than it would have been made by a more imaginative handling. Her obvious inability to cope with the unusual and villainous, combined with her entire willingness to obliterate herself in any manner in ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... for yourself, and stick to it! Above all, don't be ashamed of sticking to it! No woman was ever yet the better or the more attractive for cultivating her talent for flirting. Don't you know that it is your very genuineness and straightforwardness that ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... state of life, Toni's lack of social experience weighed very lightly. She had not, perhaps, the manner or style of the girls one met in Mayfair or Belgravia, but she was simple and natural and unaffected; and Herrick found himself hoping that Mr. Rose knew how to value the traits of simplicity and straightforwardness at their true worth. ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... offered, but was not the least offended at any objections I made to what he said. It is undoubtedly the best way to behave with frankness to him." These last are Dickens's own words; let them modestly be a memorandum to your Lordship. This King goes himself direct to the point; and straightforwardness, as a primary condition, will profit your Lordship with him. [Dickens (in State-Paper Office, 17th ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... secret she admired her daughter's candour, her downrightness and straightforwardness, her disdain of conventions and hypocrisies. Frances was not glad, she knew she was not glad, any more than Dorothy was glad, to see her mother and her sisters. She only pretended. In secret she was afraid of every moment she would have to live with ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... breath; Ashton-Kirk looked at Scanlon, and that gentleman nodded his satisfaction with the apparent straightforwardness of the story. ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... words the most choice and perfect; and in like manner the sublimity of simplicity in Marlowe's conception and expression of the agonies endured by Faustus under the immediate imminence of his doom gives the highest note of beauty, the quality of absolute fitness and propriety, to the sheer straightforwardness of speech in which his agonizing horror finds vent ever more and more terrible from the first to the last equally beautiful and fearful verse of that tremendous monologue which has no parallel in ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... and China, which to them was the true and only Middle Kingdom, but "a Border land;"—it offends them as the vaunting language of a Buddhist writer, whereas the reader will see in the expressions only an instance of what Fa-hien calls his "simple straightforwardness." ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... property; develop the resources of the country; foster all the virtues you can find in the native mind; but till you can give him the energy, the integrity, the singleness of purpose, the manly, honourable straightforwardness of the Anglo-Saxon; his scorn of meanness, trickery, and fraud; his loyal single-heartedness to do right; his contempt for oppression of the weak; his self-dependence; his probity. But why go on? When you make Hindoos honest, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... this brave and justly-famous Boer officer to us were his straightforwardness and unostentatious manner, his truthfulness, and the utter absence of affectation that distinguishes him. I am certain that he has written his simple narrative with candour and impartiality, and I feel equally ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... with my own childish recollections of the interview between them. Indeed there was such an air of simple straightforwardness about his whole communication, while at the same time it accounted so thoroughly for the warning my uncle had given me against him, that I felt I might trust him entirely, and so would have told him all that had taken place at the Hall, but for the share his daughter had borne in it, ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... the aforesaid rumor. Finding his supposed plan the subject of curious gossip, Schiller was led to look more closely into the subject. He read Tschudi's 'Chronicon' and found it Homeric and Herodotean in its simple straightforwardness. The legend fascinated him and he began to see in it the material of a popular drama that should take the theatrical world by storm. He was eager for such a triumph, and the more so because 'The Bride of Messina', as staged by Iffland in Berlin, had met only ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... perfect straightforwardness, omitting nothing, adding nothing, he gave her the narrative of that fatal night's events, from the first moment he had laid eyes on the wonderfully-disguised woman, till her cudgel-blow had laid him senseless ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... not been the slightest attempt at rhetorical display, but only an endeavor to tell in plain, simple language the story of the life and work of one who was born into the simplicity and straightforwardness of the Society of Friends and never departed from them. The constant aim has been to condense, but it has not been an easy task to crowd into limited space the history of nearly eighty busy, eventful years, comprising a revolution in social and legal customs. If the reader discover some ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... themselves on the score of expediency—I don't quite know how they put it—but it has much to answer for. I never find that my Roman Catholic friends are true, as my Protestant friends are. There is always a something kept back, a reservation; a want of straightforwardness, even when there is no positive deception—I can't describe the thing I mean, but it is quite perceptible, and causes an uneasy feeling of distrust, which is all the more tormenting from its vagueness and want of definition. The low-class ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... unpleasant epithets were bandied about, much as in the present day, in similar cases. The result was that two theories were evolved, both extremely interesting as illustrations of the hair-splitting, chop-logic tendency which, amidst all their straightforwardness, was so strongly characteristic of the Elizabethans. The first suggestion was, that although the devil could not, of his own inherent power, create a body, he might get hold of a dead carcase and temporarily restore animation, and so serve his turn. This belief was held, amongst ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... circumstances, or of connivers, seemed to give Mr. Thorn unlimited facilities in the same kind. Fleda was quick-witted and skilful enough to work herself out of them once in a while; more often the combination was too much for her simplicity and straightforwardness. ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... reason? Secondly, that this spirit of directness, the result of Evolution, is beginning to show itself in many other directions, as we may note by the great popularity of the answer to the question, "How not to worry," which is briefly, Don't! Thirdly, that enlightened by this spirit of scientific straightforwardness, man is ceasing to seek for mental truth by means of roundabout metaphysical or conventional ethical methods (based on old traditions and mysticism), and is looking directly in himself, or materially, for what Immaterialism or Idealism ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... people there, hang up your hat in her noble hostelry.' Madam, I have taken that advice, and heartily rejoice at doing so. I am a man of few words, very few words—as you must have seen already—but of the strictest straightforwardness in deeds. And now again, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... thoughtful for a moment. The straightforwardness of her reply seemed to perplex him ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... having been charmed with the sensible serenity of Miss Fairbairn's conversation, and with the candour and straightforwardness that distinguished her, had cultivated her acquaintance with assiduity, and was at that moment thinking how fortunate she ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... altogether," she began, to break the silence in some way, but, poor girl, that was just what she ought not to have spoken about at such a stupid moment to a man so stupid as I was. My heart positively ached with pity for her tactless and unnecessary straightforwardness. But something hideous at once stifled all compassion in me; it even provoked me to greater venom. I did not care what happened. ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... Mattie had found Jennie to be a lovely, intelligent, and more than ordinarily educated girl. While unused to society, yet there was an honest straightforwardness about her that was very charming. The two ladies became easily intimately acquainted with her. Her whole soul was devoted to her mother, and the hope that Dr. Jones had inspired shone from her eyes. She became quite cheerful and merry. And the effect upon the poor invalid was not less visible. She ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... that Pope John XXII., having allotted a piece of land to his nephew, Arnaud de Via, for the erection of a new episcopal palace, was content to modify and enlarge the old one for pontifical uses, and that Benedict XII., with characteristic straightforwardness, purchased the new fabric from Arnaud's heirs and, having handed it over to the diocesan authorities, proceeded to transform the old building into a stately and spacious apostolic palace for the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... his best to restore peace and to promote order. But his character was merely that of a practical, common-sense, fighting West Saxon, brought up in the camp of his father and brothers, and doing his rough work in life with the honest straightforwardness of a simple, hard-headed, religious, but only half-educated ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... never occurred to him that he was as other men—with, perhaps, a dash of straightforwardness added; he regarded himself as a monster of depravity. One evening I found him in his chambers engaged upon his Sisyphean labour of "tidying up." A heap of letters, photographs, and bills lay before him. He was tearing them up and throwing them into ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... a moment as though she would read him through and through; as though, in spite of all their candour, there was some lingering uncertainty as to his perfect straightforwardness; then, as if satisfied, she said at last: "Yes, but with a difference. I have no doubt which memory it will be. You will not wish to be again on the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... leap may make him a waif for the laemmergeier or land him among the buried villages of the last century. He toils on until success or starvation sends him home. In the former case he out-generals his shy game after a series of manoeuvres to which the deepest stratagems of our Indians are straightforwardness personified. He gets a long shot at a distance that would make the musket or buckshot as useless as a sabre. The certainty may be apparent that the animal, if hit mortally, must fall some hundreds of feet, perhaps into an inaccessible chasm. There is no help for that. Now or never! The short ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... danger of all this interference, as at first? She could scarcely satisfy her mind how she would wish him to act in the contingency! She was sincerely fond of Kate, she knew all the traits of honesty and truth in that simple character, and she valued the very qualities of straightforwardness and direct purpose in which she knew she was herself deficient. She would have liked well to secure that dear girl's happiness, and it would have been an exquisite delight to her to feel that she had been an aid to her welfare; and yet, with all this, there ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Holland accuses the king of treachery and duplicity, and Lewis (Administrations of Great Britain, p. 294) repeats this charge in milder terms. But the documents quoted do not prove any want of straightforwardness, and the king's conduct was the logical consequence of his ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... he at length observed, "and this document is a very clever stroke of business; though at first it sounded rather pert, as if she were bound to make a joke of the affair. But there is a straightforwardness and an appreciation of Miss Minturn's position in it that rings true. Really, I begin to think that girl is a power for good in the school, in spite of her fanaticism and heresy. Hum!"—reading ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... whom it was said by a great statesman, that she was the most truthful being he had ever met. And we saw what a revolution it would work in society, in commerce, and in Christian work, if every one of us had that downright sincerity and straightforwardness which characterized her. ...
— The After-glow of a Great Reign - Four Addresses Delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral • A. F. Winnington Ingram
... obtained more readily by cultivating the friendship of boys than by consulting the older folks. This tendency to disguise or to distort the truth, though it has its natural basis in a desire for self-protection, gives the Manbos a reputation for lack of that straightforwardness and frankness that is so noticeable among the Mandyas, even after very short acquaintance. This lack of frankness, coupled with a certain amount of natural shrewdness, makes the truth difficult to discover, unless the suggestion made before be carried out, or unless one is willing ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... to greatness consists, perhaps primarily, in the simplicity, straightforwardness, and general human interest of his appeal. He wants no commentaries, no introductions, no keys, no dismal Transactions of Dumas Societies and the like. Every one that thirsteth may come to his fountain and drink, without mysteries of initiation, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... easily distinguished spiritual and physical, was reassured. Once in a while a look or a phrase from him gave her vague uneasiness; but on the whole she felt that, in addition to clear conscience from straightforwardness, she had a further reason for being glad Chance had forced upon her the alternative of telling him or lying. She did not inquire into the realities beneath the surface of their life—neither into what he thought of her, nor into what she thought of him—thought ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... he was to conduct himself with the frankness and straightforwardness of a sneak-thief. Not a soul in New York was to know where he had gone. Not a soul in Hunston must dimly suspect what he had come for. It must be gum-shoe work from start to finish, and the Cypriani's motto would be the inspiring word, "Sh-h-h." Though he had ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... of years, and absorbed by the cares which the general direction of the Company entailed, M. Garnier left the entire superintendence of the Paris house to M. Carbon, the director. M. Carbon was the embodiment of kindness, joviality and straightforwardness. He was no theologian, and was so far from being a man of superior mind, that at first one would be tempted to look upon him as a very simple, not to say common, person. But as one came to know him better, one was surprised to discover beneath this humble exterior, one of the rarest things in ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... man who had chafed me raw when I first came aboard, seemed the least equivocal of the men forward or aft. In fact, there was nothing equivocal about him. One was struck at once by his straightforwardness and manliness, which, in turn, were tempered by a modesty which might be mistaken for timidity. But timid he was not. He seemed, rather, to have the courage of his convictions, the certainty of his manhood. ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... been much easier to give us studied theories and speculations instead of the facts we needed, and we are by no means inclined to let the crudity of parts of the present book abate from our admiration of its honesty and straightforwardness. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... With stern straightforwardness the Whig bulletin over the way had promptly set forth the corrected result, and the crowd, now swollen by more deserters from the tame gatherings in the little theatre and the court-house, was clamoring for a sight of the victor whom everybody knew was within hearing. Shelby's jubilant ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... talk so, Lot Gordon?" cried Madelon, angrily, for Lot's covert meanings fretted her straightforwardness beyond endurance. "You know that I have just ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... roused myself to greet the men. I looked with aversion, and yet with a certain fascination on the serene, clear features of these scalp takers. Yet, since, in the days following, this aversion could not but wear away in face of the simplicity and straightforwardness of the frontiersmen, I had to acknowledge that the atrocious deed was more a product of custom ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... and unsettlement of habits, he had preserved an elastic and elevated turn of mind, desirous of serving the interests of a 'free and noble learning,' and a knightly courage, which urged him to the fight with a frankness and straightforwardness not often found among his fellow-Humanists. Whilst laughing at Luther's controversy as a petty monkish quarrel, he himself dealt a heavy blow to the traditional pretensions of the Papacy by the republication of a work by the famous Italian Humanist Laurentius Valla, long since dead, on the ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... now he felt himself caught in the meshes of a stupid, empty, valueless, frivolous life, out of which he saw no means of extricating himself even if he wished to, which he hardly did. He remembered how proud he was at one time of his straightforwardness, how he had made a rule of always speaking the truth, and really had been truthful; and how he was now sunk deep in lies: in the most dreadful of lies—lies considered as the truth by all who surrounded him. And, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... in bookkeeping. One of his friends happened to be engaged in large financial transactions in connection with an important joint-stock company. He wished to be of service to him in keeping an eye on the employment of the capital, the straightforwardness of the operations; but he was a lawyer, little familiar with financial methods, with the terms employed in banking. Could not M. Joyeuse in the course of a few months, with three or four ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... conversation, the sentiments that such a rare and amiable person would underscore in his Horace. (From a not unimportant angle Ronsard is a minor Horace.) These things are the warp of his poetry; they range from the familiar 'Le temps s'en va' to the masterly straightforwardness of ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... Gartok, with the simple straightforwardness peculiar to the uncivilised. "Once I met one of the Fire-spouters when I was out hunting at the Whale River. He was alone, and friendly. I asked him to show me his spouter. He did so, but told me to be ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... much closer relation with his aunt and Vera. His naturalness and genuine affection, the friendly intimacy of his conversation, his straightforwardness, his talkative humour, and the gleaming play of his fancy were a distraction and a consolation to both of them. He often drew a laugh from them, but he tried in vain to distract them from the grief which hung like a cloud over them both and over the whole ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... CHAP. II. 1. The Master said, 'Respectfulness, without the rules of propriety, becomes laborious bustle; carefulness, without the rules of propriety, becomes timidity; boldness, without the rules of propriety, becomes insubordination; straightforwardness, without the rules of propriety, becomes rudeness. 2. 'When those who are in high stations perform well all their duties to their relations, the people are aroused to virtue. When old friends are not neglected by them, the people are preserved from ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... virtue of traders, who soon find that it is the best policy to be fair and just in their dealings. We may well believe that this intelligent people had the wisdom to see their true interests, and to understand that trade can never prosper unless conducted with integrity and straightforwardness. The very fact that their trade did prosper, that their goods were everywhere in request, is sufficient proof of their commercial honesty, and of their superiority to those tricks ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... spectacles. In Germany Auerbach had, in his "Black Forest Village Tales" (1843, 1853, 1854), discarded the healthful but unflattering realism of Jeremias Gotthelf (1797-1854), and chosen, with a half-didactic purpose, to contrast the peasant's honest rudeness and straightforwardness with the refined sophistication and hypocrisy of the higher classes. George Sand, with her beautiful Utopian genius, poured forth a torrent of rural narrative of a crystalline limpidity ("Mouny Robin," "La Mare au Diable," "La Petite Fadette," ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the lack of straightforwardness which vitiated the dealings of the Conference with the public turned upon the Bullitt mission to Russia. Mr. Wilson, who in the depths of his heart seems to have cherished a vague fondness for the Bolshevists there, which he sometimes manifested ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... wit and a fluent tongue are valuable auxiliaries. But force of character, consciousness of power, masculine ability in grappling with complicated questions, and that species of eloquence, the effect of which arises rather from earnestness, straightforwardness, and elevation of sentiment, than from sparkling or elaborate rhetoric, give a man a position in the House of Commons which leaves him little in need of such other gifts as ...
— M. P.'s in Session - From Mr. Punch's Parliamentary Portrait Gallery • Harry Furniss
... to separate the West from the Union, which was one of the chief objects of Spanish diplomacy. [Footnote: History of Louisiana, Charles Gayarre, in., 198.] He was obliged to try to earn the money by leading the separatist intrigues in Kentucky, but it is doubtful if he ever had enough straightforwardness in him to be a thoroughgoing; villain. All he cared for was the money; if he could not get it otherwise, he was quite willing to do any damage he could to his country, even when he was serving it in a high military position. But if it was easier, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt |
