"Plain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to assist me in again endeavouring to get round the Bight. As the road was very scrubby, and much impeded by fallen timber, I had previously sent on a man to clear it a little; and about ten o'clock I followed with the native boy. We got tolerably well through the scrub, and encamped in a plain about sixteen miles from the depot, where there was good grass. The weather being cool and showery, our horses would not drink more than a bucket each from ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... Marie, and know her to be a sweet and noble-hearted girl, neither do I wish that she should marry my son. I would see him wed to some English woman, and not dragged into the net of the Boers and their plottings. Still, it is plain that these two love each other with heart and soul, as doubtless it has been decreed that they should love. This being so, I tell you that to separate them and force another marriage upon one of them is a crime before God, of which, I am ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... friends; he frequented the theater, he indulged his passion for the opera; he learned how to dine, and to appreciate the delights of a brilliant salon; he was picking up languages; he was observing nature and men, and especially women. That he profited by his loitering experience is plain enough afterward, but thus far there is little to prophesy that Irving would be anything more in life than ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... that the latter country finds it as difficult as do the islands to get along without that trade; and its lack cannot be supplied with merchandise from these kingdoms. The wares taken to Acapulco are plain and figured velvets, satins, and damasks; grograms, taffetas, and picotes; headdresses and stockings; silk, loose and twisted, in skeins, that reeled on spindles, and woven; thread; tramas, [60] ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... doubtless, plain enough to be well made out fifty yards away. There they came to a halt again. Then I called out to Andrew to light the fire in the skull, and set the jaw wagging, having so balanced it, that having been once set going it would wag for two or three ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... aspect; rather, be assured that I have ever loved thee and held thee dear above all other men; the mien which I have worn was but prescribed by fear of another and solicitude for my fair fame. But a time will soon come when I shall be able to give thee plain proof of my love, and to accord the love which thou hast borne and dost bear me its due guerdon. Wherefore be comforted and of good hope; for, Messer Francesco is to go in a few days' time to Milan as podesta, as thou well knowest, seeing that for love of me ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... face of the earth will I ever do with this thing?" whispered Lucindy, for the first time betraying fear. "I can't get it back to-night, that's as plain as the nose on your face. Oh, grief! she may inquire after it as soon as I go in! It'll be just like my luck for her to want to wear it to-night. Maybe she expects some one to spend the evening with them, and that's ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... to say, that he who does evil, and not good, is not temperate; and that he is temperate who does good, and not evil: for temperance I define in plain words to be the doing ...
— Charmides • Plato
... keep up this artificial flow of low comedy. The plain fact of the situation is that we're being hustled toward an amphibious thing with paddle-wheels named The Skylark, and I haven't ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... valuable treatise is Prof. Charles A. Wiley, of Fort Plain, N.Y. The instructions are valuable and the selections admirable; and we can very cordially recommend it to all who would improve either in speaking or reading. Such a book is worthy a place in ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... and Reasonings of Children" (194), and President Hall has written about "Children's Lies" (252a), but we are still without a correspondingly accurate and extensive compilation of "The Thoughts and Reasonings of Parents," and a plain, unbiassed register of the "white lies" and equivoques, the fictions and epigrammatic myths, with which parents are wont to answer, or attempt to answer, the manifold questions of their tender offspring. ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... window in Madam Rachel's bedroom, where the children used to sit and talk with her just before going to bed, there was a little platform, with a plain roof over it, supported by small square posts, altogether forming a sort of portico. Below this window there were two doors, opening from the middle out each way, so that when the window was raised, and the doors were opened, ...
— Caleb in the Country • Jacob Abbott
... circumstances justified surrender after a short resistance they were present in this case. It might even be thought that resistance was a useless sacrifice of life; but such was not Captain Cock's view. He held it to be his plain duty not only to keep the mails out of the hands of the enemy—which could be done effectually by sinking them at any moment—but to use every means in his power to preserve them for their proper owners, and not to abandon hope of delivering them at the office ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... advice we do not know, but a period of terrible agony had to be struggled through. It seems plain, from comparison of different lives, that in the forms of religion which make everything depend upon the individual person's own consciousness of the state of his heart and feelings, instead of supporting this by any outward ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... fireworks, Princess,' said he; and the next night all the will-o'-the-wisps in the country came and danced on the plain, which could be seen from the Princess's windows, and as she was looking out, and rather enjoying the sight, up sprang a frightful volcano, pouring out smoke and flames which terrified her greatly, ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... of the Stephen Fitzmaurice Smiths of Caxbury Manor. You may be only a family of professional men now—I am not inquisitive: I don't ask questions of that kind; it is not in me to do so—but it is as plain as the nose in your face that there's your origin! And, Mr. Smith, I congratulate you upon your blood; blue blood, sir; and, upon my life, a very desirable ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... Socrates, in the Phaedo, "does the soul light on the truth? for when it attempts to consider anything in conjunction with the body, it is plain that it is ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... and, considering the difficulty of the subject, with sufficient clearness. I have laid a foundation, whereon may be raised many excellent conclusions of the highest utility and most necessary to be known, as will, in what follows, be partly made plain. ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... dressed bery plain, came up to me and said, 'I hab been tole by my nurse dat you have been asking her if she had seen your wife.' I s'pose I looked hopeful like for she said at once, 'Me know nothing ob her, but I was interested about you. You are an escaped slabe, ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... might 'a' been enough, but now, my God! my God! as I stand here aside o' him, he bids me, plain as day, to speak a word beyent; ef I could only name it, ef I could only name it, what looks so cl'ar and beautiful ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... native's tracks for about half a mile in a nearly south direction, and then came upon a stony plain with a few large bushes growing at one end of it. He gave a yell of delight. They were needle-bushes. The party was saved. Here was water, stored by nature right in the middle of ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... entirely cut off from our friends and surrounded by our enemies, who are able to avail themselves of their mountain fastnesses and hiding-places, while we must march through the valley and across the open plain. But all these complaints are useless. We must do our duty! The soldier's life belongs to his oath and his king; and if he falls in the service, ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... apparently all bone, rested upon the breast, clutching a fold of the gown. The feet twitched nervously in the loosened thongs of old-fashioned sandals. Glancing at the others of the group, it was plain this sleeper was master and they his slaves. Two of them were stretched on the bare boards at the lower end of the pallet, and they were white. The third was a son of Ethiopia of unmixed blood and gigantic frame. He ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... no disguise as far as I'm concerned. I've joined this league for starting a model public-house in the parish; and in plain words, I've come to ask his Grace for a ...
— Magic - A Fantastic Comedy • G.K. Chesterton
... show places and "points of interest" in India that have a hundred times more attention in the guide books, but there is a simple tomb in Lucknow—it cost no more than many a plain farmer's tombstone in our country burying-places—which impressed me more than anything else I saw excepting only the Himalayas, the Taj Mahal and the view ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... threatening when they had come aboard. They lay about the deck growling together in talk. The slightest order was received with a black look, and grudgingly and carelessly obeyed. Even the honest hands must have caught the infection, for there was not one man aboard to mend another. Mutiny, it was plain, hung over ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Character, in "The Plain Speaker": How the main thesis differs from that in Emerson's Self-Reliance (page 1). (b) Walter Pater, Diaphaneite, in "Miscellaneous Studies": The substance of the ideal personality here delineated, and how it differs from the type suggested by Emerson. (c) Matthew Arnold, Doing as One ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... landlords flout "Fix'd Duty," for 'tis plain, With them the Anti-Corn-Law Bill Must go ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... enthusiasts who have got the notion somehow that animals or migratory game are roaming the snow on top of the grass—exactly how they got there is not explained—planning to photograph, hunt or trap; and just plain folk making the trip for the hell of it. We might have gone ourselves if it ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... description, announcing that his wife, his son and his daughter would all be killed, that he himself would be butchered in turn, and that do what he might his house would none the less be blown up. And as a measure of precaution the house was guarded day and night alike by a perfect army of plain-clothes officers. Then another article contained an amazing piece of invention. Some anarchists, after carrying barrels of powder into a sewer near the Madeleine, were said to have undermined the whole district, planning a perfect volcano there, into which one half ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... her hand, which in the first emotion of natural modesty, she had carried thither, he gave us rather a glimpse than a view of that soft narrow chink running its little length downwards, and hiding the remains of it between her thighs; but plain was to be seen the fringe of light-brown curls, in beauteous growth over it, that with their silk gloss created a pleasing variety from the surrounding white, whose lustre too, their gentle embrowning shade, considerably ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... preoccupation over the silent saluting gun he was still admiring. The approach of Don Miguel and Padre Esteban with a small bevy of ladies, however, quickly changed her thoughts, and detached the Senor from her side. Her first swift feminine impression of the fair strangers was that they were plain and dowdy, an impression fully shared by the other lady passengers. But her second observation, that they were more gentle, fascinating, child-like, and feminine than her own countrywomen, was purely her own. Their loose, undulating figures, guiltless of stays; their extravagance of short, ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... apparently tried to subdue her elegant daughter, yet it was plain to be seen that she greatly admired the flower of the family, and spoke thus merely from ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... narrow coastal plain backed by flat-topped hills and rugged mountains; dissected upland desert plains in center slope into the desert interior of the ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... sows; 150 Not being with civil forms confirm'd and bounded, For human dignities and comforts founded; But loose and secret all their glories hide; Fear fills the chamber, Darkness decks the bride. She vanish'd, leaving pierc'd Leander's heart With sense of his unceremonious part, In which, with plain neglect of nuptial rites, He close and flatly fell to his delights: And instantly he vow'd to celebrate All rites pertaining to his married state. 160 So up he gets, and to his father goes, To whose glad ears ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... rows and groups of men that he had dimly seen the previous night. They were getting a last draught of sleep before the awakening. The gaunt, careworn features and dusty figures were made plain by this quaint light at the dawning, but it dressed the skin of the men in corpselike hues and made the tangled limbs appear pulseless and dead. The youth started up with a little cry when his eyes first swept over this motionless mass of men, thick-spread ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... beautifully situated in a fertile plain 80 m. E. of Lisbon, once a strong place, and the seat of an archbishop; it ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... The cruiser's glow was plain above the horizon now. It was so close that they could make out its form against the background of stars. O'Brine was decelerating, and Rip was certain he was watching his screens for a sign of the enemy. He would see nothing, because the enemy was in the shadow of the asteroid. He ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... payment on a 200-acre farm adjoining, and with fitting up and stocking the old place, and with bad crops, the debts amounted altogether to more than $20,000. He did not tell any one of his good fortune. He was dressed in a plain business suit, without a single ornament. The watch he carried for convenience was merely a ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... MAN; and the RIGHTS of HUMAN NATURE cannot be indifferent to me. However, do not let me mislead you: I am not a man in that situation of life, which, as your subscriber, can be of any consequence to you, in the eyes of those to whom SITUATION OF LIFE ALONE is the criterion of MAN.—I am but a plain tradesman, in this distant, obscure country town: but that humble domicile in which I shelter my wife and children is the CASTELLUM of a BRITON; and that scanty, hard-earned income which supports them is as truly my property, as the most magnificent fortune, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... whites and yolks, beaten separately. Two pounds currants, three pounds of stoned raisins chopped, one nutmeg, a little cinnamon and other spices, half pint wine and brandy mixed, one pound citron cut in slices and stuck in the batter after it is in the tin. Bake slowly two to three hours. PLAIN CAKE.—Flour, three-quarters of a pound; sugar, the same quantity; butter, four ounces; one egg and two tablespoonfuls of milk. Mix ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... friend, We speak of what is; not of what might be, And how 'twere better if 'twere otherwise. I am the man you see here plain enough: Grant I'm a beast, why, beasts must lead beasts' lives! Suppose I own at once to tail and claws; The tailless man exceeds me: but being tailed I'll lash out lion fashion, and leave apes To dock ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... object now to be examined, in confirmation of the theory, is that change of posture and of shape which is so frequently found in mountainous countries, among the strata which had been originally almost plain and horizontal. Here it is also that an opportunity is presented of having sections of those objects, by which the internal construction of the earth is to be known. It is our business to lay before the reader examples of this kind, examples ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... a plain trail for the main body," remarked the guide; for we ourselves were continually passing broken weapons, mules that could not drag their limbs a step further, dead horses, and now and then a Royalist soldier curled up ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... while he was yielding to circumstances, not to be what circumstances were conspiring to make him. All that was involved in what he had suffered and sunk into, could not have been known to him at the time; but it was plain enough later, as we see; and in conversation with me after the revelation was made, he used to find, at extreme points in his life, the explanation of himself in those early trials. He had derived great good from them, but not without alloy. The fixed and eager determination, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... 'plain squares chequerwise, which is the best way if you intend to plough with horses between the hills. Others plant them in form of a quincunx, which is better for the hop, and will do very well where your ground is but small that you may overcome it with either the breast plough or spade.' ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... of a pistol shot, followed by many more, and a bullet whistled by Chester's ear. Two of the Belgian troopers fell, and several others groaned. It was plain that the conspirators, trapped as they were, would not give up ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... of hers looked odd enough mixed in with all the harem effects and wired-neck ruffs that the others wore down to work. But when it come to doin' her hair Ruby was in a class by herself. No spit curls or French rolls for her! She sticks to the plain double braid, wound around her head smooth and slick, like the stuff they wrap Chianti bottles in, and with her long soup-viaduct it gives her sort of a top-heavy look. Sort of dull, ginger-colored hair it is too. Besides that she's a tall, shingle-chested ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... Pierre; but it won't work. If you want to draw my fire, you'll have to hang more than an empty hat on a stick. In plain, flat English, I've got you cinched. If you want to feel the straps draw, just ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... and looked at Lucy Haines. Silently Lucy looked back at her. And without a word on the part of either, it was plain that one had ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... views of history, strictly AD USUM SERAPHINAE, did not weave their usual soothing spell over the Princess. It was plain that she had taken a momentary distaste to her own resolutions; for she continued to oppose her counsellor, looking upon him out of half-closed eyes and with the shadow of a sneer upon her lips. 'What boys men are!' she said; 'what lovers of big words! Courage, indeed! If you had to scour pans, Herr ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... That same odor had smote his nostrils when he entered the door. He reviewed from that starting-point the succeeding stages of his stay in Banbridge, the whole miserable, ignominious descent from a fictitious prosperity to plain, evident disgrace and want. He was returning to his desolate house. Martin had gone, wretchedly and plainly incredulous of Carroll's promise to finally pay him every cent he owed him. Maria had ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... something of a political aspect, and the prisoners had the best counsel to be procured, both at our local bar and in the capital. The evidence was almost entirely circumstantial, and when I came to work it up I found, as often occurs, that although the case was plain enough on the outside, there were many difficulties in the way of fitting all the circumstances to prove the guilt of the accused and to make out every link in the chain. Particularly was this so in the ...
— The Spectre In The Cart - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... wont to march but sterne precepts of grauitie and modestie. I sweare vnto you I thought his companie the better by a thousande crownes, because he had discarded those nice tearmes of chastitie and continencie. Now I beseech God loue me so well as I loue a plain dealing man, earth is earth, flesh is flesh, earth wil to earth, and flesh vnto flesh, fraile earth, fraile flesh, who can keepe you from the ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... this consideration on the part of our friends was not appreciated, was made plain, a moment later, when Old ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... Elizabeth Style merely copies the statements of French and Scotch witches. The devil appeared as a handsome man, and as a black dog! Glanvill denies that she was tortured, or 'watched'—that is, kept awake till her brain reeled. But his own account makes it plain that she was 'watched' after her confession at least, when the devil, under the form of a butterfly, appeared in ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... which, as it was labeled in full, I was surprised they had spared. Precious letters I found under heaps of broken china and rags; all my notes were gone, with many letters. I looked for a letter of poor ——, in cipher, with the key attached, and name signed in plain hand. I knew it would hardly be agreeable to him to have it read, and it certainly would be unpleasant to me to have it published; but I could not find it. Miriam thinks she saw something ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... husband ever imagine or discover what she was? If he did, he would leave her. She remembered a girl in the slums at home who had refused to be uplifted. "Aw, one fellow ain't enough. A plain ham is all right for some, but I want a club-sandwich." She shuddered now at the memory of the girl's words, and shrank together on her bed. Was she another of that sort, abnormal, degenerate, whose life must find its level at last in the sordid riot of promiscuity, disguising itself as ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... discovered there caused me a great deal of surprise. In its center was a dark, livid mark, as though it had been branded there by a hot iron, the plain and distinct imprint of a pet ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... they reared, and with great art Repaired each bulwark, turret, port and tower, And fortified the plain and easy part, To bide the storm of every warlike stoure, Till as they thought no sleight or force of Mart To undermine or scale the same had power; And false Ismeno gan new balls prepare Of wicked fire, wild, wondrous, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... respectable man, though his name was Richard—and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable independence besides two good livings—and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of useful plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable, with a good constitution. She had three sons before Catherine was born; and instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as anybody might expect, she still lived on—lived to ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... of the king is as perfect in my memory as if I saw him but yesterday. It was that of an elderly man, rather pale, and exactly like his pictures and coins; Dot tall; of an aspect rather good than august; with a dark tie-wig, a plain coat, waistcoat, and breeches of snuff coloured cloth, with stockings Of the same colour, and a blue riband over all. So entirely was he my object that I do not believe I once looked at the duchess; but as I could not avoid seeing her on entering the room, I remember that just beyond his Majesty ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... passed, out of love for thyself. Does not Tenu believe that it belongs to thee like thy dogs? Behold this flight that I have made: I did not have it in my heart; it was like the leading of a dream, as a man of Adehi (Delta) sees himself in Abu (Elephantine), as a man of the plain of Egypt who sees himself in the deserts. There was no fear, there was no hastening after me, I did not listen to an evil plot, my name was not heard in the mouth of the magistrate; but my limbs went, my feet wandered, my heart drew me; my god commanded this ...
— Egyptian Literature
... in which he expounds its principles. The main points of his theory are still valid; very few essentials need to be rejected; it might still be taken as a popular handbook on the subject. He writes for Roman citizens, and is therefore careful to avoid abstruse terms where plain ones will do, and Greek words where Latin are to be had. The style is bare, but pure and classical. An excellent critic says [12]—"Quo saepius eum perlegebam, eo magis me detinuit cum dicendi nitor et brevitas tum perspicacitas iudicii sensusque vorax et ad agendum ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... is our business to know. It is a part of the rational study, because it is the first step toward an enlightened scepticism, that is, towards a deliberate reconsideration of the worth of those rules. When you get the dragon out of his cave on to the plain and in the daylight, you can count his teeth and claws, and see just what is his strength. But to get him out is only the first step. The next is either to kill him, or to tame him and make him a useful animal. For the rational study of the law the blackletter ...
— The Path of the Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... was only a plain, outdoors Westerner. He did not know the conventional method of procedure. It did not even occur to him at first that Apartment 12 might still have secrets to tell him after the police and the reporters had pawed over it for several days. But his steps ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... seemed to pause for an answer, Peveril replied, "I have to learn, Major Bridgenorth, how the laws of England have become so far weakened as to require such support as mine. When that is made plain to me, no man will more willingly discharge the duty of a faithful liegeman to the law as well as the King. But the laws of England are under the guardianship of upright and learned judges, and of ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... of them worked well together. And it's queer, as I say, how Sid and Tonzo took to Jim. But they did. You'd think he was a regular brother. In fact all three of 'em seemed to be real blood brothers. Sid and Tonzo are Spaniards, but Sim is a plain Yankee. He used to say he learned to do trapeze ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... simple, and showed plainly an indifference to luxury, a dislike of show and of ostentation in its owner. The walls and ceiling were white. The bed, which stood against the wall in one corner, was exceptionally long. This fact, perhaps, made it look exceptionally narrow. It was quite plain, had a white wooden bedstead, and was covered with a white bedspread of a very ordinary type. There was one arm-chair in the room made of wickerwork with a rather hard cushion on the seat, the sort of cushion that resolutely refuses ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... then, my inquiries were successful; so far I might congratulate myself on making forward steps. And yet I was scarcely satisfied. It seemed too plain. Would Kaffar have allowed himself to be followed in such a way? I was not sure. On the one hand, he was very cunning, and, on the other, he knew but little of the means of ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... Illinois we have that deep, black soil and we just call it plain gumbo. It's all filled-in soil, and I never have reached the bottom. It's at least 20 feet thick. And these swamp hickories—I think Reed was the one that called them swamp hickories—thrive there. They can be two months under water six foot deep, and still bear wonderful crops. You can get ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... he felt them. After a silence of nearly a minute a voice came from the corner where the family ghost stood—a voice strong and full, but trembling slightly with suppressed passion. And this voice told Eliphalet it was plain enough that he had not long been the head of the Duncans, and that he had never properly considered the characteristics of his race if now he supposed that one of his blood could draw his sword against a woman. Eliphalet said he had never suggested that the Duncan ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... in religious sentiment, you hardly know what to do. Tell them God knows the heart. They reply, "He alone is the All-knowing, the Searcher of the hearts of men." You shrink from telling them in plain language that they are hypocrites and liars. You can tell them of the personal love of a personal Saviour, and this simple story will affect and has affected the minds of some of them more than all logic and eloquent refutation of their foggy ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... is not gregarious. He seems a whale-hater, as some men are man-haters. Very shy; always going solitary; unexpectedly rising to the surface in the remotest and most sullen waters; his straight and single lofty jet rising like a tall misanthropic spear upon a barren plain; gifted with such wondrous power and velocity in swimming, as to defy all present pursuit from man; this leviathan seems the banished and unconquerable Cain of his race, bearing for his mark that style upon his ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... one foot on the portable brass rail which rested on its six-inch legs by the roadside. His tired eyes shone anew with characteristic enthusiasm. It was plain that he imagined himself before ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... to overhang the springs, And stand by running waters, ye whose boughs Make beautiful the rocks o'er which they play, Who pile with foliage the great hills, and rear A paradise upon the lonely plain, Trees of the forest, and the open field! Have ye no sense of being? Does the air, The pure air, which I breathe with gladness, pass In gushes o'er your delicate lungs, your leaves, All unenjoyed? When on your winter's sleep ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... profits of trade were enormous. According to Weeden the customary profits at the close of the eighteenth century on muslins and calicoes were one hundred per cent. Cargoes of coffee sometimes yielded three or four times that amount. Weeden instances one shipment of plain glass tumblers costing less than $1,000 which sold for $12,000 in the ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... It is plain enough how we were forced into the war. The extraordinary insults and aggressions of the Imperial German Government left us no self-respecting choice but to take up arms in defense of our rights as a free people and of our honor as a sovereign Government. ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... been hundreds of presentations, of greater or lesser value, made to doctors and divines, soldiers and sailors, theatricals and concert-hall men, lawyers and prizefighters, with not a few to popular politicians and leading literary men &c. Lord Brougham (then plain Mr.) being the recipient at one time (July 7, 1812); James Day, of the Concert Hall, at another (0ct. 1,1878); the "Tipton Slasher" was thus honoured early in 1865, while the Hon. and Very Rev. Grantham Yorke, D.D., was "gifted" at the latter ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... Sir, that you risk more than you think by using violence; and to be plain with you, that it is not safe to marry a girl against her wish, for she might well have recourse to a certain revenge ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... he replied, after a second's consideration. A tall figure appeared before him, bowing. A lean, very dirty Chinese, who bowed repeatedly. In spite of the Oriental repression of feeling, it was plain that he was troubled. He extended a lean, claw-like hand, with a long and very dirty nail on the little finger, and offered a soiled letter ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... you reply in the affirmative I will at once come to see you, and with your permission will, among other things, show you a few plain, practical rules which I have interested myself in drawing up for our future guidance. Should you refuse to change your condition on my account, your decision will, as I need hardly say, be a great blow to me. In any event, I could ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... said steadily, "to hear it from Monsieur Laplanche himself. There are times when you say things which I do not understand. I have quite made up my mind that I will have things made plain to me ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... excellent example and an excellent reply: "Don Felix Amat, Archbishop of Palmyra, in the posthumous work entitled Idea of the Church Militant, makes use of these words: 'Jesus Christ, by His plain and expressive answer, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, has sufficiently established that the mere fact of a government's existence is sufficient for enforcing the obedience of subjects to it....' His work was forbidden at Rome," is ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... do not pretend to explain his behaviour at that time, or the mystery which followed; my readers must judge for themselves after I have stated the facts. That something had altered my old comrade very much was plain. He had lost his high spirits, and replied to my sallies with only a half-hearted smile. When I rallied him on this gloomy fit he dismissed the subject hastily, leading me to talk of John Humphreys and what the Court ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... persons in their low state of ignorance, who could not fail, as St. Paul says, to wrest them to their own destruction. The word of God should be wrapped in discreet mystery from the vulgar, who feel little reverence for what is plain and obvious. It was for this reason, that our Saviour himself clothed his doctrines in parables, when he addressed the people. The Scriptures should be confined to the three ancient languages, which God with mystic import permitted to be inscribed ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... was a romantic discovery. Though it had "popular prices"—plain omelet, fifteen cents—it had red and green bracket lights, mission-style tables, and music played by a sparrowlike pianist and a violinist. Mr. Wrenn never really heard the music, but while it was quavering he had a happier appreciation of the Silk-Hat-Harry humorous pictures ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... monopoly, must continue to excite the new enterprise by its unlimited rewards. It is unnecessary that we should exhibit statistics to show her how largely England has been benefited by persevering though frequently interrupted communication with the interior parts of that great continent; nor to make plain how, with better knowledge and more ready means of access, mercantile risks will be lessened and mercantile profits enlarged. It will be remembered that the Congressional committee to whom the question of establishing ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... some obstacles. Her paradise was not a tranquil one, for the little woman fussed, was over-anxious to please, and bustled about like a true Martha, cumbered with many cares. She was too tired, sometimes, even to smile, John grew dyspeptic after a course of dainty dishes and ungratefully demanded plain fare. As for buttons, she soon learned to wonder where they went, to shake her head over the carelessness of men, and to threaten to make him sew them on himself, and see if his work would stand impatient and clumsy ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... of it: not only this may be seen from the experiments cited, but it is at the same time evident that on the transference of the inflammable substance to the air a considerable part of the air is lost. But that the inflammable substance[B] alone is the cause of this action, is plain from this, that, according to the 10th paragraph, not the least trace of sulphur remains over, since, according to my experiments this colourless ley contains only some vitriolated tartar. The 11th paragraph likewise shews this. But since sulphur alone, and also the volatile spirit of ...
— Discovery of Oxygen, Part 2 • Carl Wilhelm Scheele
... utmost significance demand attention in this, a typical deliverance of the "imperator," uttered at the flood-tide of imperial success: two of them, both negative, are ominous; the third is positive and plain. There is no reference to the financial condition of France, or to the ecclesiastical situation. Russia was openly threatened. The boast of wealth referred to Napoleon's own "extraordinary domain." About ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... told her; and she said she'd give five dollars any day I'd stop in for it. An' then she spoke right out. 'I'm alone in the world,' says she, 'and I've got somethin' to do with, an' I'd like to have a plain stone put up to Eb Munson's grave, with the number of his rigiment on it, an' I'll pay the bill. 'Tain't out o' Mr. Down's money,' she says; ''tis mine, an' I want you to see to it.' I said I would, but we'd made a plot to git some o' ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... familiar to men as the blades of grass by the roadside, it seems superfluous to say any word of introduction or explanation on ushering a volume into the world of letters; but, lest the question arise as regards the direct intention or motive of an author, it is always safer that he make a plain statement of his object, in the preface page of his work, thus making sure that he will be ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... will pay fourteen dollars and no more in order to have the second utility, consisting in comeliness, added to the first utility, capacity to keep him warm. This man would give more than twenty dollars rather than go uncloaked; for it is plain that, if he will pay fourteen dollars for comeliness, he will give more than six for warmth. Probably he would pay one hundred dollars for the article if he had to, and in getting it for twenty he gets a large consumers' surplus. This is because ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... on the flag I see," he cried; "it's the cross of Christ, and it's marked with His blood. Look, don't you see it?" he eagerly asked. "There it is; I see it plain. And what are those words? How clear they shine, 'The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin.' Ah, that's it; I understand it all now. The blood of Christ! ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... he belonged. For hours and hours they waited, and every now and then a murmur ran through the crowd that the announcement was about to be made; but it died away as fast as it came, and the weary waiting began again. At last the strain grew too great, and it was quite plain that the smallest spark of disagreement would kindle ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... two of the most famous in the list of Charlemagne's twelve peers; and their exploits are rendered so ridiculously and equally extravagant by the old romancers, that from thence arose that saying amongst our plain and sensible ancestors of giving one a "Rowland for his Oliver," to signify the matching one incredible lie with ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... world by tasting of it. Don't let him eat a worm or sech, and he'll be all right," answered the beaming young mother of the toddler. "And, Miss Nancy, I was jest going to tell you that I have got a nice pattern of a plain kind of work dress if you would like to use it," she added as she pointedly did not look at my peasant's smock that hung in such lovely long lines that I found myself pausing much too often before one of the ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... enjoying the breeze that came up when the sun went down, and smoking and yarning. The "case" in question was a wretchedly forlorn-looking specimen of the swag-carrying clan whom a boundary-rider had found wandering about the adjacent plain, and had brought into the station. He was a small, scraggy man, painfully fair, with a big, baby-like head, vacant watery eyes, long thin hairy hands, that felt like pieces of damp seaweed, and an apologetic cringe-and-look-up-at-you ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... 1877, saw the Queen proclaimed Empress of India, The ceremony was most imposing, and in every way successful. Three tented pavilions had been constructed on an open plain. The throne-pavilion in the centre was a very graceful erection, brilliant in hangings and banners of red, blue, and white satin magnificently embroidered in gold, with appropriate emblems. It was hexagonal in shape, and rather more than 200 feet in circumference. ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... have done admirably, Captain," said the Doctor; "you have given one a splendid idea of distance in the way you have toned down the plain, from the grey appearance it has ten miles off to the rich, delicate green it shows close to us. And your mountain, too, is most aerial. You would make ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... if he is so very handsome? I like handsome men," mused Mollie. "He told me he was, and I know he must be, if he ever was a flirter of mine. Mr. Sardonyx is the plainest man I ever let make love to me, and even he was not absolutely plain. I shouldn't wonder if my captor were he, or else Doctor Oleander. Oh, why—why—why can't ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... that point the Spaniards were at a distance of about twenty-five miles above the confluence of the Alabama and the Tombigbee, and about eighty-five miles from the bay of Pensacola. The town was beautifully situated upon a spacious plain, and consisted of eighty very large houses; each one of which, it was stated, would accommodate ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... of the translation was to restore the Scriptures to their original purity and beauty, the Mormon Bible declaring that "many plain and precious parts" had been taken from them. The real object, however, was to add to the sacred writings a prediction of Joseph Smith's coming as a prophet, which would increase his authority and support the pretensions ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... Gray's Inn observed to his elder brother, in the course of fraternal converse; "but I think for inscrutability you put the topper on the lot. What do you expect to get out of this Haygarth estate? Come, Phil, let us have your figures in plain English. I am to have a fifth—that's all signed and sealed. But how about your share? What agreement have you got from ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... said the Rapparee, addressing himself to the squire, "is very plain and simple; but, Sir Robert, it was not a plot between me and Reilly—the plot was his own. It appears that he saw your daughter and fell desperately in love with her, and knowin' your strong feeling against Catholics, he gave up all hopes of being made ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... fact, more than once, corsairs from the Levant and from Morocco did so ascend it, and though they were driven back by the culverins of the citadel, they every time carried off to slavery some of the youths and maidens of the plain." ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... by their esprit de corps. Such, at the present day (1885), is the situation of a professor at Oxford, Goettingen, and Harvard Such, under the Ancient Regime, were a bishop, a member of the French Parliaments, and even a plain attorney. What can be worse than universal bureaucracy, producing a mechanical and servile uniformity! Those who serve the public need not all be Government clerks; in countries where an aristocracy has perished, bodies of this kind are ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... failed to correct, if indeed it has not aggravated, the very evils it was intended to prevent. It has not stimulated our commerce with the islands. Our participation in its establishment against the wishes of the natives was in plain defiance of the conservative teachings and warnings of the wise and patriotic men who laid the foundations of our free institutions, and I invite an expression of the judgment of Congress on the propriety of steps being taken by this Government looking to the withdrawal ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland |
