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Frankness   /frˈæŋknəs/   Listen
Frankness

noun
1.
The quality of being honest and straightforward in attitude and speech.  Synonyms: candidness, candor, candour, directness, forthrightness.
2.
The trait of being blunt and outspoken.  Synonym: outspokenness.






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"Frankness" Quotes from Famous Books



... with what frankness I communicate with you on this subject; that I hide nothing from you, and that I am endeavoring to turn our private friendship to the good of our respective countries. And can private friendship ever answer a nobler end than by keeping two nations at peace, who, if this ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... to which Patriot Paris and Patriot Legislative duly respond. King Louis and Mayor Petion have already had an interview on that business of the Twentieth; an interview and dialogue, distinguished by frankness on both sides; ending on King Louis's side with the words, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... according to his lights, and when time and experience showed the falseness of his views, he did not hesitate to renounce them. To this period of his political career Mr. O'Brien often adverted in after life, with the frankness and candour that distinguished him. "When the proposal to seek for a Repeal of the Act of Union was first seriously entertained," said O'Brien, "I used all the influence I possessed to discountenance the attempt. I did not consider that the circumstances and prospects of Ireland ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various

... 8vo..) and La Croze, (Hist. du Christianisme d'Ethiopie et d'Armenie, La Haye, 1739, in 12mo.,) have drawn their principal materials from the Jesuits, especially from the General History of Tellez, published in Portuguese at Coimbra, 1660. We might be surprised at their frankness; but their most flagitious vice, the spirit of persecution, was in their eyes the most meritorious virtue. Ludolphus possessed some, though a slight, advantage from the Aethiopic language, and the personal conversation ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... Petulengro, who was here diverting himself with several of his comrades; they all received me with considerable frankness. 'Sit down, brother,' said Mr. Petulengro, 'and take a cup ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... word "step" is somewhat misleading, nothing done with the feet being vital to the evolutions introduced by Fanchon. Fanchon's dance came from the Orient by a roundabout way; pausing in Spain, taking on a Gallic frankness in gallantry at the Bal Bullier in Paris, combining with a relative from the South Seas encountered in San Francisco, flavouring itself with a carefree negroid abandon in New Orleans, and, accumulating, too, something inexpressible from Mexico and South America, it kept, ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... and all that," she said, looking at him with steady frankness. "I remember your foolish argument for getting acquainted, too; but it won't lead to anything; it can't. I know myself ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... remain In all the South, like Lot in Siddim's plain, Who watch and wait, and from the wrong's control Keep white and pure their chastity of soul,) Now sick to loathing of your weak complaints, Your tricks as sinners, and your prayers as saints, Would half-way meet the frankness of your tone, And feel their pulses beating with ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... found around him the same good-natured kindliness as in the earlier days. The whole household seemed to shrug its shoulders after the example set by handsome Lisa. Auguste and Augustine turned their backs upon him, and little Pauline, with the cruel frankness of childhood, let fall some bitter remarks about the stains on his coat and the holes in his shirt. However, during the last days he suffered most at table. He scarcely dared to eat, as he saw the mother and daughter fix their gaze upon him whenever he cut himself a piece of ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... his example was open for others to follow—he could have had no money to give. He used to say himself, half jokingly: "I believe in a profitable philanthropy," which illustrates one of his characteristic traits—his absolute frankness. In fact, he was so open-hearted about himself that no account he ever gave of his private doings was ever flattering or exalted. He wore no phylacteries, and was as far away as possible from ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... smile of rare sweetness and beauty, he said: "Your candor and frankness deserve confidence in return, and I will give it so far as it is within my power to do so, and yet I fear that you will be disappointed. Your surmises are incorrect in many respects, and yet contain a great deal of truth, and I will try, so far as possible, to ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... is all nonsense. If Percy goes by gossip, I don't. I go by my own observation, and I see there is nothing at which to take exception. I watched her and Mr. Gardner together, and I do declare there was nothing but ease and frankness. I am sure he was more inclined to pay that sort of attention to me. He really is very entertaining. I must tell you some ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... this was absolutely the first time that Mrs. Baines had acknowledged, in presence of Constance, the marked and growing change which had characterized Mrs. Povey's condition during recent months. Such frankness on the part of her mother, coming after the decision about leaving school, proved indeed that Constance had ceased to be ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... court more beautiful in person, there were none who could rival her in intellect and wit. Though naturally timid, her reserve disappeared when in his presence. Though ever approaching him with the utmost possible deference and respect, she conversed with him with a frankness to which he was entirely unaccustomed, and which, at the same time, surprised ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... the surintendant, more astonished than annoyed by this frankness, "if there is nothing disagreeable predicted to you by your sword, I am to conclude that it is not disagreeable for you to ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... there was, and would always be, less real freedom and impersonal frankness, because there was so much more selfconsciousness; in fact because there was an unacknowledged but very strong mutual physical attraction. Edith had, however, felt until now merely the agreeable excitement of knowing that a man she liked, ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson

... inmates might lead to fatal consequences. The water was kindly given, but the owner and his family were very much exercised lest some misfortune might befall us near their house, so they encouraged us to move on with a frankness inspired by fear ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... Pan's frankness, and that something simple and careless about him, combined with his appearance, always created the best ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... walk. But, as ill luck would have it, just as Mr. Goethe was passing the comte's door, out came the comte in person, purely by accident, as we are told; but we suspect that the surly old German, either under his morning hopes or his evening disappointments, had talked with more frankness than prudence. "Good evening to you, Herr Goethe," said the comte; "you are come, I see, to pay your tribute of congratulation. Somewhat of the latest, to be sure; but no matter." "By no means," replied ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... said; and I felt quite pleased with his frankness, when if he didn't go and spoil it ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn

... affectionate smile came back to his face, so that as he looked at her he seemed a sun-god. But again there was something in his gaze that was not the frankness of a comrade, some smoldering fire that strangely stirred her blood ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... and sweep back the Atlantic tide of modern thought with their little ecclesiastical broom. The old ramparts are broken through and we must give the flood its course. The only spirit to meet it in is that of frankness and friendliness. Let us not foster in these questioning minds the suspicion that there is any part of religion that we are afraid to have examined. We smile at the bigoted Buddhist who, when the European ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... not only my money." He could laugh with her about it because he was shrewd enough to understand that it was not at all his wealth. Her cool frankness might have frightened away another man. It merely served to interest Ridgway. For, with all his strength, he was a vain man, always ready to talk of himself. He spent a good deal of his spare time interpreting himself to attractive and ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine

... of frankness, and the other took it for cordiality. He drew near a lamp, and looked at the name and street address on the card, and then said, "Ah, of Boston! My name is Ellison; I'm of Milwaukee, Wisconsin." And he laughed a free, trustful laugh of good companionship. "Why ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells

... there be anything good about my poetry or prose either," Scott wrote, in a passage that has often been quoted, "it is a hurried frankness of composition which pleases soldiers, sailors and young people of bold and active disposition."[383] I have tried to show that this quality was one which he not only enjoyed, in his own work and in that of other writers, but that as a critic he very seriously ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball

... from the Revolutionists of the vulgar, red-handed class. He consecrated his life to prevent Revolution. All his action in the conflict between Labor and Capital aimed at conciliation. He told the plutocrats their defects with brutal frankness, and if he promoted laws to curb them, it was because he realized, as they did not, that, unless they mended their ways, they would bring down upon themselves a Socialist avalanche which they could not withstand. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... much struck with the fellow's good humour and frankness, and more especially by the originality of character displayed in almost every sentence which he uttered, that I readily engaged him to guide us to Luarca; whereupon he left me, promising to be ready with his mare at ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... a woman's soul laid bare with absolute frankness. Europe went mad about the book, which has been translated into twelve languages. It betrays the freemasonry ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous

... a moment in silence. Only boors could in so many words refuse such a request, put with apparent frankness by a woman old enough to be their mother. Yet I must not be trapped into promising anything that could separate ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... whose delight was infinitely superior to her own, and whose joy in seeing her was redoubled by the affectionate frankness of her reception, stifled the emotions to which her sight gave rise, and denying himself the solace of expressing his feelings, seemed much less charmed than herself at the meeting, and suffered no word nor look to escape him beyond what could be authorised ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney

... a poor student, and humbly ask pardon for the thoughtless freedom with which he had enjoyed their too confiding hospitality. If he had any doubts of Frau Schomburg's motives and desires, they were speedily set at rest by the frankness with which she showed her disappointment, the vigour with which she scolded him, and the scorn with which she cast him off when her splendid ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... any other telepath in Washington—she thought she was the only one who had escaped our dragnet. Why don't all of you shoo—I want to do a little survey in depth here—a little motivational work. I think I can get more frankness out of her if there are ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker

... master was that particular spot. He at once sent for the students and asked who had worked on his picture. Van Dyck stepped out from the others and frankly confessed that he was the culprit. Rubens was so pleased with his frankness and also at the skill of the work that ...
— The Children's Book of Celebrated Pictures • Lorinda Munson Bryant

... suited it, how could Mrs. Cadwallader feel that the Miss Brookes and their matrimonial prospects were alien to her? especially as it had been the habit of years for her to scold Mr. Brooke with the friendliest frankness, and let him know in confidence that she thought him a poor creature. From the first arrival of the young ladies in Tipton she had prearranged Dorothea's marriage with Sir James, and if it had taken place would have been quite sure that it was ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... variegated background. Each dance was different. Warriors fully armed clashed shield and spear; witch doctors crouched and sprang; women stamped in rhythm; the elephant was hunted, the crops sown and gathered, all the activities of community and individual life were danced, the frankness of some saved from obscenity only by the unconscious earnestness of their exposition and the evidence of their symbolism that they were not the expression of the moment ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al

... note of dignity that would appeal to her—"is liable at some period of his career to charges of this sort. They are at once exaggerated and blackened, because he is a public man. To you I owe perfect frankness, and you shall have it. Meanwhile I do not ask—I know—that you will be just to me, and put the matter out of your thoughts till I can discuss it with you. Two days more till I see your face! ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Adams's Diary is profoundly interesting. He writes with a charming absence of reserve. If he thinks there is rascality at work, he sets down the names of the knaves and expounds their various villainies of act and motive with delightfully outspoken frankness. All his life he was somewhat prone, it must be confessed, to depreciate the moral characters of others, and to suspect unworthy designs in the methods or ends of those who crossed his path. It was the not unnatural result of ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... and repeated in a thousand books and on as many platforms. One of these propagandists was General von Bernhardi, who entered in more detail into the technical and strategical aspects of the programme. The rude and almost brutal frankness of both writers may be admired; but the want of real depth and breadth of view cannot be concealed and must be deplored. The arguments in favour of force, of unscrupulousness, of terrorism are—especially in Bernhardi[14]—casuistical ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter

... been possible for two natures so incapable of disguise—the one from simplicity and frankness, the other from ungovernable temper,—to have continued in relations of amity, notwithstanding their disagreement upon a question which was at that moment setting the world in arms, both themselves and the country would have ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... before you my view of the subject. I doubt not the considerations mentioned have fully occurred to you, and I trust they will finally produce in your mind the same result which exists in mine. I flatter myself the frankness with which I have delivered myself will not be displeasing to you. It has been prompted by motives which you could not disapprove. I remain, my ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... guarded and circumspect, has an air of restraint about it, which may produce distrust and apprehension on their part; whilst, on the other hand, Jack, who is not only unreflecting and inoffensive himself, but never suspects that others can possibly misconstrue his perfect good-will and unaffected frankness, has an easy, disengaged manner, which at once invites ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall

... say he admired beyond words Sir Alfred's behaviour and the line he adopted in that most difficult crisis before the war. "He assumes," said his appreciator, "an attitude of perfect frankness with all parties; he denies himself to no one who may give him any information or throw fresh light on the situation; to all he expresses his views, and repeats his unalterable opinions ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... hers by so much as a hair's breadth, her accusation would have stood and her cause been won. But not a flicker disturbed the steady patience of his look, and Hammersmith, who had made no effort to hide his anxiety to believe her story, showed his disappointment with equal frankness as ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... (though Protestant; but this belief is probably your own, and is held by many of those most valuable to me, your honoured brother among them), a faithful and obedient son, a leader beloved to rapture by his soldiers. If more could be to say, I would hasten to cry it aloud. You tell me, with noble frankness, he is a pretender for the hand of my beloved Margarita; already it has been my happiness to be aware of it. Senor Montfort, to see these two admirable young persons united in the holy bondages of weddinglock is the last and chief wish of my life. I earnestly beg your sanction of their unition. ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards

... in his present state of convalescence, rarely met except to quarrel. They spoke their minds to one another, with a refreshing frankness remarkable to hear. ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... surely an error of civilization. If a man can discuss such matters more easily with a woman who is not his wife, it is because there is no frankness in marriage. Dick, did it ever occur to you that a man and woman, strongly attracted toward one another, might live together many years without understanding ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich

... for Tristram has been somewhat dampened by Sonnenfels and Riedel; he sees now faults which should not have been imitated; the frivolous attitude of the narrator toward his father and mother is deprecated, and the suggestion is given that this feature was derived from Tristram's own frankness concerning the eccentricities and incapacities of his parents. He begs reference to a passage in the second volume[14] where the author alludes with warmth of appreciation to his real father and mother; that is, genuine regard overcame the temporary blindness, real affection arose and thrust out ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer

... frankness, an open and undisguised freedom of manner, in this address, which assured her. Her confidence returned, and she committed herself promptly to the issue. She felt her soul expand with the desire of contributing to his ultimate escape. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... other. Their common interests and pursuits had brought them together, and each had been attracted by the other's knowledge. And then gradually something had been added to this. Kennedy had been amused by the frankness and simplicity of his rival, while Burger in turn had been fascinated by the brilliancy and vivacity which had made Kennedy such a favourite in Roman society. I say "had," because just at the moment the young Englishman was somewhat under a cloud. ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle

... same career. When his friends the carriers and those who frequented the inn, asked him what he meant to do with his children, Pere Rogron explained his system with a conciseness which, in view of that of most fathers, had the merit of frankness. ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... there is anything amiss in your mind not arising from the troublesomeness of your situation, it is childish and unmanly not to disclose it. The frankness with which I have dealt towards you entitles me to expect that ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... and others of my fellow-citizens of France, have given me the example of making their voluntary and individual profession of faith, I also will make mine; and I do this with all that sincerity and frankness with which the mind ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... frankness of her words and manner misled the boy. The curious suspicion that for a moment had beset him ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... man scarce entering upon the prime of life, with a Gipsy complexion, but a bearing in which it is not difficult to recognise the soldier. He is talking to his protectress—for such she is—with a military frankness and vivacity, which even to that royal personage, accustomed though she be to exact all the respect due to her rank, appear by no means displeasing. The lady is verging on the autumn of her charms (their summer ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... story quickly, concisely and with a frankness he would perhaps not have shown to any one else in the world, for he did not even conceal his connection with Del Ferice. Corona listened intently, and her deep eyes told him plainly enough that she was interested. On his part he found an unexpected pleasure in telling her the tale, and he wondered ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford

... suffrage, by proclaiming that I will adhere to the doctrine of qualified suffrage, and will join our political enemies, the Democrats, in voting down every thing else. No, sir; for one, and I say it with entire frankness, I prefer a restricted and qualified suffrage substantially upon the basis that I have proposed. If the voice of this House be otherwise—if the sentiment of this Congress be that it is more desirable that universal suffrage ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... BURGUNDY. Pardon the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you for that. If you would conjure in her, you must make a circle; if conjure up Love in her in his true likeness, he must appear naked and blind. Can you blame her then, being a maid yet ros'd over with the virgin crimson ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]

... public libraries, will be sold for the benefit of Mr. Calhoun's family. Another volume will contain Mr. Calhoun's official papers, and another his Letters upon Public Affairs. This, we think, will be the most interesting of the series. Mr. Calhoun wrote always with sincerity and frankness, and his communications to his friends contain, much more than his speeches and state papers, the exhibitions of his feeling, his regrets, fears, expectations, and ambitions. His speeches will probably make three volumes; the collection formerly printed by the Harpers did not embrace half ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... ago that I shouldn't want to look out an' see the funeral go by. She's one o' the old neighbors. I s'pose I shall have to look, or I shouldn't feel right afterward," said Mrs. Crane mournfully. "If I hadn't got so kind of housebound," she added with touching frankness, "I'd just as soon go over with you an' offer to watch ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... all, of course, above criticism: sublime, adorable. To me the frankness of it and the impudence of it was, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various

... life he lives, especially at home, more or less a cavalier; he invariably goes a-horseback. His boot is always spurred, and his hand ensigned with the riding-whip. Aside from this he is known by his bearing—his frankness and firmness." Furthermore he is a man of eminent leisureliness, which Van Buren accounts for as follows: "Nature is unloosed of her stays there; she is not crowded for time; the word haste is not in her vocabulary. In none of the seasons is ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... Fernand in the same symbolic manner; and, as the light of the lamp played on his handsome countenance, his features assumed so decided an expression of truth, frankness, and sincerity, that Nisida was already more than half convinced of ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... entertaining reading. Captain Woolward writes sensibly and straightforwardly, and tells his story with the frankness of an old salt. He has a keen sense of humour, and his stories are ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie

... hereditary descent in mental qualifications, will find an instance to their purpose in the case of Andersen. His mother, we are told, was utterly ignorant of books and of the world, "but possessed a heart full of love!" From her he may be said to have derived a singular frankness and amiability of disposition—a fond, open, affectionate temper. For the more intellectual qualities, by which this temper, through the medium of authorship, was to become patent to the world, he must have been indebted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... he said: "You of all people should know that contact with me might give you an infection, although in the last few years my Wasserman test was always negative." Then she said heroically: "Frankness deserves ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein

... the man who employs subterfuge in his words and conduct. From the first page of this book, I have expressed myself so plainly and decidedly that all can see the tendency of my thought and hopes; and they will do me the justice to say, that it would be difficult to exhibit more frankness and more boldness at the same time. I do not hesitate to declare that the time is not far distant when this reserve, now so much admired in philosophers—this happy medium so strongly recommended by ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... home that even though he meant no slur upon sacred things he should carry his mocking spirit no more into them. Therefore, after a moment's thought, she turned toward him with a manner of mingled frankness and dignity, and said, "Mr. Gregory, I regret what has occurred this evening. I have a painful sense of the ludicrous, and you have taken unfair advantage of it. I am usually better and happier for going to our simple little meeting, but now I can think of the whole ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... he had met with her, or why he had left her, or whether the guilt was his of making of her an exile from her country and her friends. She despised herself for still loving him; but the passion was too strong for her—she owned it and lamented it with the frankness which was so preeminently a part of her character. More than this, she plainly told me, in the early days of our acquaintance, that she believed he would return to her. It might be to-morrow, or it might be years hence. Even if he failed to repent of his own cruel conduct, the man ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... in the karole (dance), and he does so, giving full description of her, of Lyesse, of Delight, and of the God of Love himself, with his bow-bearer Sweet-Glances, who carries in each hand five arrows—in the right Beauty, Simpleness, Frankness, Companionship, Fair-Seeming; in the left Pride, Villainy,[145] Shame, Despair, and "New-Thought"—i.e., Fickleness. Other personages—sometimes with the same names, sometimes with different—follow in the train; Cupid watches the Lover that ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... unfortunate habit which has led his contemporaries and his unfriendly biographers to charge him with hypocrisy. And it must be admitted that his preference for indirect methods of achieving a purpose exposed him justly to the reproaches of those who liked frankness and plain dealing. It is not unfair, then, to wonder whether the President was not thinking rather of his own convenience when he elected to address Congress by written message, for he was not a ready nor an impressive speaker. At all events, he established a precedent which remained unbroken ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... Donald had gone back to the city that day, and when he had bidden the boy farewell the old man had also parted with his great aspiration. Donald had come to him the week before, and with his usual frankness made known the fact that he could never entertain any further thought of entering the ministry, and had therefore abandoned all idea of returning to college. The sacrifice of his education was a great trial to Donald, but he could not ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith

... conversation with me, of my giving you the preference to all other Publishers, was perfectly correct. I had heard you described as a man of honour, frankness, and even generosity, and knew you to have the best and widest connexions; on which grounds, I might well say, and can still well say, that a transaction with you would please me better than a similar one with any ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... things could not be said at once. In spite of her simplicity and frankness, there was about her a baffling atmosphere. She was like a still pool with the depths as yet unsounded, an uncharted sea—with its mystery ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey

... officer. In his heart of hearts he rather pitied, not to say despised, Saltwell, for his want of the polish he possessed and his indifference to the elegancies of life, though he was not unable to appreciate his messmate's frankness of manner and truthfulness of character. His foible was his admiration for the poets, and his belief that he could write poetry ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... trial. Teive and Costa were found guilty of various offences against public order, and the evidence shows that there was ample reason for a judicial inquiry. Buchanan was accused of Lutheran and Judaistic practices. He defended himself with conspicuous ability, courage and frankness, admitting that some of the charges were true. About June 1551 he was sentenced to abjure his errors, and to be imprisoned in the monastery of S[a]o Bento in Lisbon. Here he was compelled to listen to edifying discourses from the monks, whom he ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... humbly recommend Her Majesty, when Her Majesty sees Lord Stanley to-day, to receive him with her usual kindness, to say that I had done full justice in my reports to Her Majesty to the motives by which he had been actuated, and to the openness and frankness of his conduct, to regret greatly the loss of his services, but to hope that he might be still enabled not to oppose and even to promote the accomplishment of what cannot now be safely resisted. I have the honour to be, ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... answering the call; and I had no suspicion then that the bull was anywhere near. I was not an expert caller. Under tuition of my Indian (who was himself a rather poor hand at it) I had practised two or three times till he told me, with charming frankness, that possibly a man might mistake me for a moose, if he hadn't heard one very often. So here was a chance for more practice and a bit of variety. If it frightened her it would do no harm, as we ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long

... break the ties that bind them, especially if they have tied them voluntarily. The secretary was therefore still living in domestic relations with the poet when Modeste's letter arrived,—in such relations, be it said, as involved a perpetual sacrifice of his feelings. La Briere admitted the frankness with which Canalis had laid himself bare before him. Moreover, the defects of the man, who will always be considered a great poet during his lifetime and flattered as Martmontel was flattered, were only the wrong side of his brilliant qualities. Without his vanity and his magniloquence it ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... hope of good and learned men everywhere, by reason of his frankness and the gentleness of his manners. He began to take an interest in the Arts before he understood them, and to understand them before he had full occasion to use them. The production of such a personality was an effort of humanity; and, ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... the "Life of Wolsey" by George Cavendish, who, as a gentleman of the great prelate's household, made part of his pomp, but had heart to love him in his pride and in his fall. "The History of Thomas Ellwood, written by Himself," is interesting for the frankness with which it makes Thomas Ellwood himself known to us; and again, for the same frank simplicity that brings us nearer than books usually bring us to a living knowledge of some features of a bygone time; ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood

... legation, and Consul General of France, during the revolutionary war; and, afterwards, as Charge d' Affaires; in which situations he was distinguished for his extraordinary capacity in the business of diplomacy, as well as for the integrity of his principles, and the frankness and amenity of his manners. By living long among us, he seems to have acquired not only an affection and respect for the American people, but an ardent admiration of our political institutions, which have adhered ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... he listened to this prattle, asked himself, for the third or fourth time, what he ought to think of the virtue of Miss Dimpleton. Sometimes the frankness of the grisette, and the remembrance of the large bolt, made him almost believe that she loved her neighbors merely as brothers or companions, and that Mrs. Pipelet had caluminated her; then again he smiled at his credulity, in thinking it probable that a girl so young, ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... on equal terms the experiences of the morning. Every night they closed the day with dinner and family prayers, the little girl gravely taking her part in the reading during the last year from her mother's Bible. And so it came that with the years their friendship grew in depth, in frankness and in tenderness. The doctor was widely read beyond the literature of his profession, and every day for a half hour it was his custom to share with the little girl the treasures of his library. The little maid repaid him with a ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... a counsel of eminence residing at Norwich. He went to sea with Lord Nelson, and was present at the battle of the Nile, but he early quitted the naval profession for that of the law, though he retained much of the frankness and gaiety of manner which distinguish seamen, and the activity and strength of frame which a seaman's habits create. He was afterwards Attorney General of the Bermudas, at the time when one of the Cockburn's ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper

... explained himself to Hermione with the extraordinary frankness of which he was only capable when he was with her, or was writing ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... sister I saw even less, except in the distance, but her, too, I met in her friend's room. Mademoiselle was talkative that day, the second of my attendance on her, and spoke of things with a terrifying frankness, sometimes in bad English, but oftener in her own tongue. She rehearsed her sensations during sea-sickness, criticised Miss Morland, and asked me about Barraclough, whom she had seen passing by her ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson

... been neutralized by a diastolic synthesis. To compute exactly the extent to which these evils have been developed he has devised a syncretic abacus, in which, on the principle of the spectroscope, the aplanatic foci are arranged in fluorescent nodules each equidistant from the metacentre. With a frankness that cannot be too highly commended, Professor Prawling admits that this instrument is founded on BENTHAM'S Panopticon. But the deviations from BENTHAM and the expansions of his machine are far more remarkable than the resemblances to it. Prawling—if ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various

... scene was reversed. Mirth and gaiety presided at paseos, confidence and frankness at the daily tertulias. Englishmen here had evinced their love of universal liberty, and were highly esteemed. Friendship and conviviality seemed to reign triumphant, and the security of the country, being the fruit of the labour of its children, ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel

... pleasing to many here present as, if I may judge from your expressions, my sentiments on other subjects have been. I shall express my opinions, however, on this subject as frankly as I have expressed them when they may have been more pleasing. I shall express them with the frankness of a man who is more desirous to gain your esteem than to gain your votes. I am for the original principle of the Reform Bill. I think that principle excellent; and I am sorry that we ever deviated from it. There were two deviations to which I was strongly opposed, and to which the authors of ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... angry, but it certainly had no foundation at all in fact. He had been liked, loved, and made much of, not for anything he had ever taken the trouble to do, but partly for his own sake, and partly on account of his position. Such charm as he had for women lay in his frankness, good humour, and simplicity of character. That he had appeared to be changeable in his affection was merely due to the fact that he had never been in love. He vaguely recognised the fact in his ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford

... cried. "Miles, a soldier. Mistress Forrester, I congratulate you on your home and surroundings. And now, pardon my frankness, I have travelled far to-day and I journey far to-morrow, I am a-hungered and a-thirst, madam; and afterwards, as your good husband and tried soldier and I have done our business, I shall be glad to press a ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn

... of frankness and good humour, said, they had met with afflictions enough to make them all sober, and enemies enough to make them all friends: that for his part he would live and die with them; and was so far from designing any thing against the Spaniards, that he owned they had done ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... whatever to this; on the contrary, she had enough romance in her disposition to admire all generous and chivalric qualities, and her cousin's patriotism only made her like him the better; but in spite of his frankness in most things, she had no idea that this affection for his native country was linked to and deepened by another kind of love. Lucia's name had never passed his lips, and she had no means of guessing how daily and hourly thoughts of one fair young Canadian girl were inseparably joined to the ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... hand." Then he took the cup and drank it off, and no sooner had it settled in his stomach than his head fell to the ground before his feet. Now his manners and fashions pleased the Caliph and the excellence of his composition and his frankness, and he said in himself, "I will assuredly make him my cup-companion and sitting-comrade." So he rose forthright and saying to Masrur, "Take him up," returned to the palace. Accordingly, the Eunuch took up Abu al-Hasan and carrying him ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... smell again that friture that ate so well, one Sunday at Argenteuil, twenty years ago, in the company of a young poet who must have had genius and two models who were certainly divine. And that group with the fat, young mother suckling her baby—there is all French frankness and French tenderness and family feeling without a trace of its ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell

... precisely on account of this elegy that I have cared to set down this cruel anecdote. My readers, to whom I have just narrated the facts with entire frankness, can see well that, instead of having merited reproaches, I should only have received praise for my restraint ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... the impassive silence he maintains about his doings as an artist. He might have told us all we want to know, and never shall know here about them. But while he revealed his personal temperament and his passions with singular frankness, he locked up the secret of his art, and ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... gales and squalls and waterspouts beat us from our course. Five days only should have landed us in Esperando. Our Jonah swallowed the bad credit of it with appealing frankness; but that scarcely lessened the hardships our cause ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... war have the British given more striking proof of their inherent quality of doggedness. Greatness, as Confucius said, does not consist in never falling, but in rising every time you fall. The British speak with appalling frankness of their blunders. They are fighting, indeed, for the privilege of making blunders—since out of blunders arise new truths and discoveries not ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... crosses with lumps of sugar, his questions probed at that hidden soul which she herself had never found. It was the first time that any one had demanded her formula of life, and in her struggle to express herself she rose into a frankness which Panama circles of courtship did not regard as proper ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis

... years, for certain theological opinions "committed to a minister (a supposed friend) for his judgment and advice only." This minister was the Rev. Roger Leys, who infamously betrayed the trust reposed in him, and made public the frankness of private conversation. ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer

... the naive indecencies of the text are rather gaudis-serie than prurience; and, when delivered with mirth and humour, they are rather the "excrements of wit" than designed for debauching the mind. Crude and indelicate with infantile plainness; even gross and, at times, "nasty" in their terrible frankness, they cannot be accused of corrupting suggestiveness or subtle insinuation of vicious sentiment. Theirs is a coarseness of language, not of idea; they are indecent, not depraved; and the pure and perfect naturalness of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... a very different temper was manifested among members of Congress, and from them spread forth and found support among the people. Two reasons promoted this. One, which was avowed with the frankness of indignation, was a jealousy of seeing so important a business preempted by the executive department. The other was a natural feeling of mingled hostility and distrust towards rebels, who had caused so much blood ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... to each campaign. The other idea which had grown in his mind during the weary siege was that the Tories were thoroughly dangerous and deserved scant mercy. In his second letter to Gage he refers to them, with the frankness which characterized him when he felt strongly, as "execrable parricides," and he made ready to treat them with the utmost severity at New York and elsewhere. When Washington was aroused there was a stern and relentless side to his character, in keeping with the force ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... who could set a clean-minded, wholesome, and hearty example. But Hugh was not of this type. His mind was full of mystical and poetical ideas of religion, and his artistic nature was intent upon expressing them. He was successful in a way, because he had by this time a great charm of frankness and simplicity; he never had the least temptation to draw social distinctions, but he desired to find people personally interesting. He used to say afterwards that he did not really believe in what involved a sort ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson

... affecting tableau; but the audience called out both Washingtons, and they came, hand in hand, bowing with the cocked hats pressed to their breasts, the elder smiling blandly, while the younger, still flushed by his exertions, nodded to his friends, asking, with engaging frankness, ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... militaire', which strikes a person accustomed to Courts at first with surprise, and perhaps with indignation; though, after a time, those of our sex, at last, become reconciled, if not pleased with it, because there is a kind of military frankness interwoven with the military roughness. Our ladies, however (I mean those who have seen other Courts, or remember our other coteries), complain loudly of this alteration of address, and of this fashionable innovation; and pretend that our military, under the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... need of some phrase, to pull the situation out of this pit into which it had fallen. He was a little unready, his faculties all as it were neglecting his needs and crowding to the windows to stare, and meanwhile she spoke again, with something of the frankness of ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... laughed at ministers in my letters; but at least with the decency of obliging them to break open the seal. You have more noble frankness, and send your satires to the post with not so much as a wafer, as my Lord Bath did sometimes in my father's administration. I scarce laughed more at the inside of your letter than at the cover—not a single button to the waistband of its beseeches, but ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... say, takes, as did Condorcet, the side of frankness in the controversy which was a test of democratic faith in this generation—whether "political imposture" is allowable, and whether a statesman should encourage the diffusion of "salutary prejudices" among the unlearned, ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford

... laugh of his friend. Indeed no one could. None had ever heard Nick speak an angry word. He brought sunshine with him everywhere, even when engaged in the most serious work of his profession. He was the hardest man in the department to comprehend, and yet he was without a peer in frankness and good nature. Nick's genial spirit had somewhat restored job to his usual equanimity, and Nick ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor

... though by no means closed against new ideas, lacked the eager inquisitiveness of that of Napoleon, who, before the process of imperial fossilization set in, welcomed discussions with men of all shades of opinion, and encouraged in them that frankness of utterance which at once widens and clarifies the views of the disputants. It is true that Pitt's private conversations are almost unknown. They appear to have ranged within political grooves, with frequent excursions into ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... am engaged to dine with the Spanish ambassador. I was introduced to him by an old brother officer; and instead of freezing me with a cold card of compliment to dine with him ten days hence, he, with the true old Castilian frankness, in a friendly manner, asked me to dine with him to-day—an honour I could not refuse. ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler

... Farrington. "First, because you are unworthy to be her under-gardener, much less her husband. You are, forgive my frankness, a blackguard, a thief, a murderer, a forger and a bank robber, so far as I know." He smiled. "Yes, I was an interested listener to your conversation with Fall. I have all sorts of weird instruments here by which ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace

... for you on a matter of the utmost importance, and I sincerely hope you will see fit to tell me in all frankness whatever you may know in regard ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... strikes the stranger in the American woman is her candour, her frankness, her hail-fellow-well-met-edness, her apparent absence of consciousness of self or of sex, her spontaneity, her vivacity, her fearlessness. If the observer himself is not of a specially refined or delicate type, he is apt at first to misunderstand ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... beauty and the love which it inspires. But in your situation, even that beauty may serve the interests of France, and it is for that motive that I come to solicit you." I replied to M. de Chauvelin with equal frankness. I told him that my sole intentions were to confine myself to the circle of my duties; that I had none but to please the king, and no intention of mixing myself up with state affairs. This was my plan I can assure you. I flattered myself that I could follow it, not dreaming of those ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... said, "and know the fiber that is in men. Examine me and tell me with the utmost frankness whether I had better take a course of liberal study. I am contemplating doing so, as my desire is in that direction. But if I am to make a failure of it, or practically so, I do not desire to begin. If you advise me not to do ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... gazing straight at Field's half hidden face. Field, the soul of frankness hitherto, the lad who was never known to flinch from the eyes of any man, but to answer such challenge with his own,—brave, fearless, sometimes even defiant. Now he kept the big binocular fixed on the distant hostile array, but his face was white, his hand ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... going to admit to you," said the colonel, with a fine show of frankness, "that I've put her away—no harm has come to her, you understand. She's at a little place at Putney Heath, a house I took specially for her, ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace

... and my heart stood still. So this was the end of it. Well, she had the right of me, though now I began to wish that I had been less honest, for sometimes women can forgive a lie sooner than such frankness. I said nothing, my tongue was tied, but a great misery and weariness entered into me. Stooping down I found the ring, and replacing it on my finger, I turned to seek the door with a last glance at the woman who refused me. Halfway thither I paused ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard



Words linked to "Frankness" :   honestness, frank, bluffness, honesty, communicativeness, ingenuousness



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