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More "Straightforward" Quotes from Famous Books



... about the situation here. He came to Portumna about eight years ago; one of his reasons for accepting the position here offered him being that he wished to take over a piece of property near Woodford from his brother-in-law, who found he could not manage it. As a practical farmer, and a straightforward capable man of business, he has gradually acquired the general confidence of the tenants here. That they are, as a rule, quite able to pay the rents which they have been "coerced" into refusing to pay, he fully believes. ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... In a plain, straightforward manner, Phil told his side of the story. Several times Job Haskers wanted to interrupt him, but Doctor Clay would not permit this. Then Ben was questioned, and after that the master of ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer

... gloomy set of young faces were gathered together in the Eyry—fifteen of the Knights of the Rose—and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... talk like sensible, straightforward people," quoth the General. "The reverend Pere de la Chaise—one of the Jesuit oracles—gives the King absolution every year, and authorises him to receive the Holy Sacrament at Easter. If the King's confessor—thorough priest as he is—pardons his intimacy with madame, ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... affliction that Gibbon the historian dreaded so much; viz. that of seeing a refutation of himself, and his own answer to the refutation, all bound up in one and the same self-combating volume. Besides, he would have cross-examined me before the public in Old Bailey style; no story, the most straightforward that ever was told, could be sure to stand that. And my readers might be left in a state of painful doubt whether he might not, after all, have been a model of suffering innocence—I (to say the kindest thing possible) plagued with the natural treacheries of a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... bank, managing a little farm, contracting for building, contracting for hauling—onwards to a larger farm, larger buildings, big contracts in rising towns, somehow or other grinding money out of everything by force of will, bending everything to his purpose by stubborn sinew, always truthful, straightforward, and genuine. Consider what immense labour this represent! I do not think many such men can be found, rude and unlettered, yet naturally gentleman-like, to work their way in the world without the aid of the Lombard Street financiers; in village life, remember, where all is stagnant and dull—no ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... "here I am poking at the bygone years like an old maid with the heartache and here's the whole world terribly alive and needing attention. And here's Cynthia's boy back from India, and a real Green Valley kind of minister, I do believe; a straightforward chap to tell us of life, its miracles and mysteries; of God and eternity as he honestly thinks, but mostly of love and the little happy ways of earthly living. A man who won't be always dividing us into sheep and goats but will ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds

... the admiral, "I can't carry it on, you see. I never could go on with anything that was not as plain as an anchor, and quite straightforward. I must just tell ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... Scaligers, Casaubons, and Vossius's, though he would have been considered a prodigy of reading in these days of superficial acquisition. But he had original gifts far transcending scholarship. He had a manly, straightforward, vigorous understanding, which, united with an honest integrity of purpose, kept him right when greater men went wrong. How invaluable a phalanx would the battalion of folios which the reign of James the first produced now afford us, if the admirable mother-wit and single-minded sincerity of Reginald ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts

... not too enquiring,[161] never loses prosperity. By administering justice, by attending to these three, viz., concealment of his own weaknesses, ascertainment of the weaknesses of foes, and keeping his own counsels, as also by the observance of conduct that is straightforward, the king, O delighter of the Kurus, obtains prosperity. If the king becomes mild, everybody disregards him. On the other hand, if he becomes fierce, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... of his friendly interest, did not hesitate to give him a full account of his plans in life, and especially of his desire to relieve his father of the burden of poverty. His straightforward narrative made a very favorable impression upon Maurice, who could not help reflecting: "How far superior this boy is to Luke ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger

... like the way this beggar pleads. And yet after I pass him and remember his calculating expression, his mountebank tricks, I grow fond of him—theoretically. My thought warms to him as a creature of intelligence, of straightforward and amusing cynicisms. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht

... had known he would bite," said Frank, afterwards, "I'd have done it." For he did not know at the time that this was the very best way to avoid being bitten. The dog, astonished by this straightforward proceeding, and probably thinking that one who advanced unflinchingly, with so brave a face, without weapons, must have honest business with his master, stepped aside, and growlingly let ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... was natural and straightforward; there was no circumspection, no maneuvering for time or advantage. Hot words of love burst forth from the young warrior's lips, with heavy breathing behind the folds of the robe with which he sought to shield ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... glazier was a far-seeing and cunning man—too far-seeing and cunning to allow himself to thrive by simple and straightforward means—and he held his peace, till he could read more plainly the meaning of this riddle, merely added carelessly, 'Well—marriage do alter a man, 'tis true. I should never ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.

... of interest in the subject under discussion, and have been at some pains to understand it. I am inclined to tell the House what I think of it." So you find him on the floor, or "on his legs," in parliamentary phrase, carrying this intention into effect in a simple, business-like, straightforward way. But if our friend is very long, or threatens to be tedious, I fear that unequivocal and increasing indications of discontent will oblige him to resume his seat ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... you ever hear anything more delightfully naive? He "gave" her the evening out. That's how they think of us—as their servants. The gentleman hasn't the courage to be straightforward about it. The butler blurts out the truth. Why are we meeting here instead of at our ...
— The Master of Mrs. Chilvers • Jerome K. Jerome

... have to mention the name of one expert whose testimony will, I believe, be found as accurate, as sincere, as straightforward as if it were the preaching of the gospel. I do it with great pleasure, and I ask you to read the testimony of Charles L. Clarke along with that of Thomas A. Edison. He had rather a hard row to hoe. He is a young gentleman; he is a very well-instructed man in his profession; ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... lived a bit more than three hundred years after Christ. He was the son of a Roman soldier, a Christian, stationed in Palestine, which was a Roman colony. St. George was one of those brave, straightforward boys who are afraid of nothing—neither of themselves and their weakness, nor of other people and their unkindness. He practised "not giving in to himself," like a good Cub; and he thought a great deal of his honour, like a good Scout. And he knew that everything ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay

... used no arts for it, sister; she is a straightforward little hussy, and that is one thing I like about her; though I was as near as possible being provoked with her once or twice to-day. There is only one thing I wish was altered she has her head filled with strange notions absurd for a child ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... fisherman, simple-hearted and straightforward as a child, ignorant of the deceptions practised in court, answered frankly, "Sire, I belong to no royal or princely family, I am a simple fisherman and your loyal subject. I procure my gold by means of this magic ring, and at any time I can have ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko

... Barry at full speed, in a fog. He was a clever, but an indiscreet navigator. I was mildly rebuking him by the door of his chart-room for his foolhardiness, but he laughed quietly, said he intended to make a good passage, which his owners expected, and that when the problem was straightforward he used science, but that when it was all a fog he trusted mainly to his instinct, or whatever it might be, to inform him in time. I was not to be alarmed. We should have the Lizard eight miles on the starboard beam in another hour ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson

... answered, "but only in case I am compelled, I shall take the one possible, straightforward course, and shall tell to Lady Rollinson the story ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray

... to ring the bell when the girl looked at him, and her eyes brightened because Ted Strong, straight and stalwart, with his fine, handsome head and straightforward, honest eyes, was a person very good to ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor

... opinions differing from their own without being dishonest. They cannot doubt that they have been honest toward themselves, and as a consequence they cannot conceive how others, who are of a different mind, can be equally honest, and have come by their convictions by a straightforward path. Often it has been very difficult for them to break with their old faith, cherished from childhood, and they can only look upon it as cowardice and weakness if others, as they think, have not made or wished to make this sacrifice. But we shall let the horseherd who emigrated to America ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller

... can't you say a simple thing simply, Larry, without all that Irish exaggeration and talky-talky? The syndicate is a perfectly respectable body of responsible men of good position. We'll take Ireland in hand, and by straightforward business habits teach it efficiency and self-help on sound Liberal principles. You agree with ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw

... you know about the state you talk of?" said Mme. Bonacieux, shrugging her shoulders. "Be satisfied with being a plain, straightforward citizen, and turn to that side which ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... some way for her deficiencies and lack of opportunities, that gallant determination to get the better of her upbringing and her surroundings. A fight always appeals to me, you know. I like the courage that is in the girl—I am sure it is courage—and her straightforward effort to get the best out of life, to learn the things she was never taught, to make ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... must be said of him. He was a better-looking man, certainly, than Mr. Gilmore, though perhaps his personal appearance did not at first sight give to the observer so favourable an idea of his character as did that of the other gentleman. Mr. Gilmore was to be read at a glance as an honest, straightforward, well-behaved country squire, whose word might be taken for anything, who might, perhaps, like to have his own way, but who could hardly do a cruel or an unfair thing. He was just such a man to look at ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... befits his greatness, which is today universally recognized. The longer he speaks the more the peculiar attractions of his way of speaking become manifest. His expression is original and fresh, pithy and robust, honest and straightforward." ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... "I seem to be always making mistakes about women, and perhaps that is the reason. They show themselves capable of some deep affection or some great self-sacrifice, and I respect and admire them, and think they are like that all through. And the day comes when they are not quite straightforward, or are guilty of some petty meanness, which a man who is not fit to black their boots would never ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... to lay a good deal of stress upon their intellectual resources as compared with the presumptive spiritual poverty of the affluent. Country folk encourage themselves by asserting their fundamental value to society and by extolling their own simple straightforward virtues, which present so marked a contrast to the devious machinations of city-dwellers. Booker Washington's reiterated assertion that if he were to be born again he would choose to be a Negro because the Negro race is the only one which ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... "be quiet, both of you, and let me say my say." (To Robert.) "You had better turn your head away, for I am a straightforward man, and I'm going to show her you are not a villain, but a madman. This Robert Penfold wrote me a letter, imploring me to find him some honest employment, however menial. That looked well, and I made him my gardener. He was a capital gardener; but one fine day ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... serious, Jack was much more so when he made his statement, which he did in straightforward ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables

... day. Wasted time was paid for just the same as that properly applied. And when Apollonius himself tried to put an end to the old method of jogging along, his brother saw in him again the time-server of the inspector and the council, while he saw himself as the straightforward man who disdained such tricks. He persuaded himself that Apollonius wanted to unseat him altogether, and had even worse intentions in his mind—in which, however, he should not succeed with all his cunning, although ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... his eyes. They were as blue as the sides of a certain type of box of matches. When you looked at them carefully you saw that they were perfectly honest, perfectly straightforward, perfectly, perfectly stupid. But the brick pink of his complexion, running perfectly level to the brick pink of his inner eyelids, gave them a curious, sinister expression—like a mosaic of blue porcelain ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... hand is held slightly arched, palm down, nearly at arm's length before the breast; the right extended, flat, palm down, and pointing forward, is pushed from the top of the breast, straightforward, underneath, and beyond the left. (Shoshoni ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery

... always wore a placid and benignant expression. He had no enemies, and many friends. His society was particularly sought by fashionable ladies and eminent savants. While affable and courteous, he was not given to flattery. He was plain and straightforward in all he said and did, thus presenting a striking contrast to diplomatists generally. Indeed, he was a universal favorite, which John Adams, when he came to be associated with him, could not understand. Adams ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord

... writing it. * * * * * I have found in every chapter important truths, which I, as a would-be-farmer, needed to know, yet which I did not know, or had but a confused and glimmering consciousness of, before I read your lucid and straightforward exposition of the bases of Agriculture as a science. I would not have my son grow up as ignorant of these truths as I did for many times the price of your book; and, I believe, a copy of that book ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring

... Scott has produced a book for which there should be a considerable public.... He writes a straightforward, vigorous style, and has a keen eye for effective incident. This book is made especially useful by the inclusion of a number of informing ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott

... but, for some unknown reason, had never come to Canada to perform the duties of his office. The triumvirate on whom was imposed the noble task of saving and reviving New France was thus complete. The Marquis de Tracy was an able and clear-sighted commander, the Sieur de Courcelle a fearless, straightforward official. But the part of Jean Talon in the common task, though apparently less brilliant, was to be in many respects the most important, and his influence the most far-reaching in the ...
— The Great Intendant - A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672 • Thomas Chapais

... There was a note of exasperation in Muriel's voice. She saw that he had an object in view, but his method of attaining it was too tortuous for her straightforward understanding. ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... Ivanovitch's arrival, Olga Ivanovna had been betrothed to a neighbour, Pavel Afanasievitch Rogatchov, a very good-natured and straightforward fellow. Nature had forgotten to put any spice of ill-temper into his composition. His own serfs did not obey him, and would sometimes all go off, down to the least of them, and leave poor Rogatchov without any dinner... but nothing could ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... met her and explained briefly that they had been doing wrong, and that he and Woodell had talked. She turned pale, then red, but said little. Of the struggle in the night Jenny never learned. She inferred, of course, that her lover had gone in a straightforward way to Harlson, and that his demands had been acceded to. She was gratified, perhaps, that she had become a person of much importance. She thought more of Woodell and less of Harlson, because of the issue of the debate, ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo

... resources of their country in the battles of Leuktra and Koronea, Corinth and Mantinea. Still, nothing is more honourable to Agesilaus than the promptitude with which he withdrew from Asia, nor can we easily find another example of straightforward obedience and self-sacrifice in a general. Hannibal was in great difficulties and straits in Italy, and yet yielded a very unwilling obedience when summoned home to protect Carthage, while Alexander merely sneered at the news of the battle between Agis and Antipater, observing, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... she will be straightforward with him," was his reflection. "But she is a Wyndham of the Wyndhams, and everyone knows that her father didn't suffer over-much ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell

... morning, although I wished to do so. I hardly know why I waited until Friday; it was not only unreasonable on my part, but also not quite straightforward. How is it that, even when circumstances might enable us to act according to our impulses, some unexpected inconsistency in our own selves throws a bar across the path? I begin to think that it must ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema

... to all appearance solid for him, an astounding change in four years. An organization of Civil War Veterans was electioneering for him among old soldiers. Powerful Democratic and independent sheets which had once vilified now extolled him. He was sincere, straightforward, and fearless. His demand at Kansas City that the platform read so and so or he would not run, while probably unwise, showed him ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... with some strictness. I don't myself believe there's any harm in him. To tell you the truth,' and here he hesitated a little—'to tell you the truth I feel more anxious about Justin. There is a touch of the bully in him that I don't like, and— I don't feel sure that he is always quite straightforward and truthful.' ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth

... man never find it out. She had not made any advances herself when she wished to get him back, but she had wanted to make them; and she knew he would not have noticed it if she had done the boldest sort of things to encourage him, to let him know that she liked him; he was so simple, in his straightforward egotism, beside ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... in five, turns at right angles to the left, runs in a curve for about thirty yards to a brick bridge over the dry ditch that had once been the Otterbourne, and then bends sharply to the right again round a dense clump of trees and goes on, a simple, straightforward, peaceful high road. There had been one or two horse-and-van and bicycle accidents in the place before the shop Bert and Grubb took was built, and, to be frank, it was the probability of others ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... know you. What an old crabstick like me can see in you is just the very last thing that a dainty young girl wants. I'll tell you to a hair if you're the man for an orchestra—but a woman's heart is far too deep for a music-master. And then, to be frank with you—you know that I'm a blunt, straightforward fellow—you'll not give thank'ye for my advice. I'll persuade my daughter to no one—but from you Mr. Sec—I would dissuade her! A lover who calls upon the father for help—with permission—is not worth a ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... Wickham's solicitor, was a jovial, hearty man, tallish, bald and ruddy-looking. In his spare time he played at being a country gentleman. He had a fine, straightforward eye and a direct manner that inspired one with confidence. He was dressed in complimentary mourning, but for the moment his natural hearty manner threatened to get the ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... days' march from the river. Lomalindela, it seemed, had received my envoy with a very considerable display of austerity, and had submitted him to a most rigorous cross-questioning; but, luckily, the Tottie had nothing to conceal, and was therefore able to tell a perfectly straightforward story, which, as Piet believed, had not only allayed the monarch's suspicions, but had also aroused in him a very lively curiosity to see the white man and his wonderful fire tubes which slew from afar. The result of the mission was therefore, on the whole, quite satisfactory, ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... hall. From where he sat Anthony caught the gleam of Juliet's crisp linen skirt. Presently she came slowly down. As she turned upon the landing she met Anthony's eyes looking up. In a fashion quite unusual to the straightforward gaze of his friend her eyes fell. He saw that her cheeks were pale. He ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond

... that she had forgotten there were any other trousered beings extant. Later on you found this a decided error. Item, she had a quite incredible amount of yellow hair, that was not in the least like gold or copper or bronze—I scorn the hackneyed similes of metallurgical poets—but a straightforward yellow, darkening at the roots; and she wore it low down on her neck in great coils that were held in place by a multitude of little golden hair-pins and divers corpulent tortoise-shell ones. Item, her nose was a tiny miracle of perfection; and this ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell

... lord's advice, and went straightforward with him through many great adventures, helping him with loving good-will as often as he was permitted, sometimes as his pioneer, and sometimes as his finisher of troublesome work, such as a slaughter of some ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... will you not be simple with me—honest and straightforward? If you are so selfish as that, why did you let them ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw

... so, telling a straightforward story, to which the professor listened with interest that was apparent, although he now and then pressed his hand to his head, as if the ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish

... Red House wearily begged us to explain, so Oswald did, in that clear, straightforward way some people think he has, and that no one can suspect for an instant. And he ended by saying how far from comfortable it would be to have Mr. Turnbull coming with his thin mouth and his tight legs, and that we were Bastables, ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit

... another month, and the President was authorized to lay, regulate, and revoke embargoes during the recess of Congress. Congress regarded the embargo policy as a cheap way out of a difficult situation, but this method was really not only far more costly to the nation than would have been the straightforward course of arming for defense, but at the same time accomplished nothing. Dayton of New Jersey proposed to supplement the embargo by the sequestration of all debts due from citizens of the United States to British subjects. Clark of New Jersey outdid his colleague by proposing ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... confusion of feudal society was that the control, not only of local but of general interests, was divided amongst a thousand hands, and broken up in a thousand different ways; the absence of a central government prevented the nations of Europe from advancing with energy in any straightforward course. ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... celebrated geometer discharge the same duty at the Academy of Sciences; you have appreciated his liberality of mind, his enlightened benevolence, his unvarying affability, his straightforward and conciliatory disposition: add in imagination to so many rare qualities the activity which youth, which health can alone give, and you will have again conjured into existence the Secretary of the Institute of Egypt; and yet the portrait which I have ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... chamber had been chosen next the bride's when she prepared Count Nobili's room. Pipa was straightforward and simple in her notions of matrimony, but, like a wise woman, she ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot

... affection of such relatives; all who had loved and served him were dear to her; and at a time when so much of treachery and insidious policy lurked around her, even in the garb of seeming devotion to her cause, the unwavering fidelity and straightforward conduct of Morales, combined as it was with his deep affection for Alfonso, permitted her whole mind to rest on him, secure not only of his faithfulness, but of vigilance which would discover and counteract every evil scheming of seeming friends. Her constantly ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... when I thought I knew your character so well, too! Learn, that there is no one I despise so much as a male flirt. Oh, Frank! I did not think you had a grain of such little-mindedness in you! I believed you to be straightforward, and earnest, and true. I'm sadly disappointed in you, my boy; sadly disappointed!" and ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... a single pistol in the folds of his shawl. Although the captain was the tallest and most powerful man in the ship, he did not strikingly excel many of his men in this respect; and the only difference that an ordinary observer would have noticed was a certain degree of open candour, straightforward daring, in the bold, ferocious expression of his face, which rendered him less repulsive than his low-browed associates, but did not by any means induce the belief that he was a hero. This look was, however, the indication of that spirit which gave him the pre-eminence among the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... eyes now glancing over it for perhaps the twentieth time, now at the face of one or the other of her companions, as Lottie rattled on in her usual gay, flighty style, and Aunt Wealthy answered her sometimes with a straightforward sentence, and again with one so topsy-turvy that her listeners could not forbear ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley

... open," says Aggy, "from pretty little kittens in white to chawin' the ear off my fellow-man; but, to speak honest and straightforward, we ain't got the sinews of war to start a campaign in such a ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips

... . . . No, I'm playing the humbug in my turn, and I'll own up. It was wicked, if you will: but it was great in its way, and determined . . . and women, you know, always fall slaves to that sort of thing. It was straightforward, too: Jimmy said Jack had given his man fair warning. Jimmy—but you know that boy's way—gave me the impression that he didn't condemn Jack's craze as unsportsmanlike: merely for being, as he put it, ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... the mysteries of which he had ever heard none equaled this, and it seemed to become more complicated every instant. He was at once perplexed by this insoluble problem, and vexed because it was insoluble. To his calm and straightforward mind nothing was so aggravating as a puzzle which could not be explained. He abhorred all mysteries. Yet here he found one full before him which baffled his utmost powers of comprehension—one, too, in which he himself was intermixed, and in which he saw Mrs. Hart and ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... and his military subordinates made enough of a start to draw the fire of white segregationists. The secretary answered charges and demands in a straightforward manner. When, for example, a congressman complained that "white boys are being forced to sleep with these negroes," Forrestal explained that men were quartered and messed aboard ship according to their place in the ship's organization without regard to race. The Navy made no attempt to ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... they really think? I am not going to indulge in any guesswork on this matter. I am simply going to disclose some important statements made at a secret meeting attended by many of the business directors of the German Empire. The meeting was for the purpose of discussing actual conditions in a straightforward manner, therefore no member of the Press, German or ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... epitome of all the qualities which for the last two centuries had contributed to the degradation of Italy in the persons of the despots. Gifted originally with good abilities, he had so accustomed himself to petty intrigues that he was now incapable of taking a straightforward step in any direction. While he boasted himself the Son of Fortune and listened with complacency to a foolish rhyme that ran: God only and the Moor foreknow the future safe and sure, he never acted without blundering, and lived to end his days in the intolerable tedium of imprisonment ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... straightforward people, and dive at once to the bottom of a subject. "Why do not the Portuguese devote themselves so largely to the cultivation of grain that there need never be danger of famine?" you will now ask. My answer to this is: The people do not own ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... shrub, so that the size of their burthens is large in proportion to its weight. Instead of being borne on the head, they are carried in a way that forms a complete bushy background, against which the shrouded form of the woman is undistinguishable a few hundred yards away. Instead of keeping a straightforward course, the women seem to be doing an unnecessary amount of erratic wandering about over the road, which, until quite near, gives them the queer appearance of animated clumps of brush dodging about among each other. I ask them whether there is water ahead; ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... all the court. She resolved to cast aside reflection, to dry her tears, and she took a thick folio volume placed upon a table inlaid with enamel and medallions; it was the 'Astree' of M. d'Urfe—a work 'de belle galanterie' adored by the fair prudes of the court. The unsophisticated and straightforward mind of Marie could not enter into these pastoral loves. She was too simple to understand the 'bergeres du Lignon', too clever to be pleased at their discourse, and too impassioned to feel their tenderness. However, the great ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny

... first step, after examining the drawers and cupboards and finding them empty, was to take careful measurements of the entire cabinet, particularly of the thicknesses of its sides, back, and partitions. It proved a piece of furniture of absolutely simple and straightforward construction. After long examination and careful soundings he came to the conclusion that a secret ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold

... very extraordinary," thought Gerald. "This man's answers are so straightforward that I suppose I must have been mistaken." He did not further question the prisoner. The boats at length reached the ship, and the captives were sent below under a guard. Mr Foley, at Gerald's suggestion, gave orders ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... sleep her mind, in spite of her, had imaged for her again the interesting, clever-looking face of the stranger under the roof, with his clear, straightforward glance that seemed to see so much, his smile which disclosed splendid teeth, his strongly moulded chin. And she had owned, frankly, driven to the confession just to see if it wouldn't ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond

... Phillips, choosing instinctively the only person on the island likely to be in full sympathy with her. Phillips was older than she was. He was twenty-eight; but he was a simple, straightforward young man with his boyish taste for adventure unspoiled. He was also deeply in ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham

... England. They were a class that did something else than celebrate their forefathers' day, and eat parched corn in remembrance of that time. They were neither Democrats nor Republicans, but men of simple habits, straightforward, prayerful; not thinking much of rulers who did not fear God, not making many compromises, nor ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau

... broad, bold, fair-play English. He was no screened assassin of character, either with pen or pencil; no journalist's hack to stab in secret—concealing his name, or assuming a forged one; no masked caricaturist, responsible to none. His philosophy was of the straightforward, clear-sighted English school; his theories—stern, simple, and unadorned—thoroughly English; his determination—proved in his love as well as in his hate—quite English; there is a firmness of purpose, a rough dignity, a John-Bull look in his broad intelligent ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... publish his own, and sold him his six-shilling Clapham novels in Lucerne for two francs. He dismissed with indignation the idea of breakfasting on a roll, and bacon and eggs were added unto him. In short, by a straightforward policy of studying nobody else, he compelled ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle

... the ethical, the Greeks were brought by their religion into harmony with the world. Neither the perplexities of the intellect nor the scruples of the conscience intervened to hamper their free activity. Their life was simple, straightforward and clear; and their consciousness directed outwards upon the world, not perplexedly absorbed ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... the sport, the Editor of the GUIDE asked him to say a few words to the ball players of the United States through the medium of this publication, and he has graciously consented to do so in the following pithy and straightforward talks: ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster

... condensed statement—as clear and simple as compact—a most beautiful specimen of scientific work. Dr. Wallace, though not an orator, is likely to become a favourite as a lecturer, his manner is so genuinely modest and straightforward." ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant

... the mill, Mr. and Mrs. Greely were always so glad to see them. They had no children of their own and they liked the straightforward, dependable boy, while the little girl with her sweet, shy ways, was always a delight. Mrs. Greely would often stop her spinning to get a little treat for them, which they would eat while the corn was being ground, and going ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins

... came no more, feeling the wound to his pride, but without the urgent need felt by John to set himself in a better position with himself. He would have thought nothing of accepting Leila's challenge, but very much wanted to see the polite girl-boy brought to shame. In fact, even the straightforward Squire, with all his ready cordiality, at times found John's extreme politeness ridiculous at his age, but knew it to be the result of absurd training and the absence of natural association with other and manly boys. To Tom it was unexplained ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... trees and towns saw themselves in him, as in a mirror. He carried the canoes lightly on his broad breast; there was no need to work hard against an eddy: but idleness became the order of the day, and mere straightforward dipping of the paddle, now on this side, now on that, without intelligence or effort. Truly we were coming into halcyon weather upon all accounts, and were floated ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... season, is earnest and serious enough to disarm hostile criticism; and his loose and flippant productions are read leniently in the light of this pathetic confession. It is a self-revelation truly, but it is honest, straightforward, and manly. There is nothing plaintive or mawkish ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun

... to have to register facts of this kind, but I most certainly think it is the duty of any Englishman to expose the deeds of men who obtain high sounding posts and can only manage to keep them by intrigue and by suppressing the straightforward work of really able officers (which does not agree with theirs) to the eventual expense and loss of ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... presented themselves at once. Either of them, I thought, would certainly prove fatal. I could, in the first place, do the completely straightforward thing: take back the dead man, tell my story, hand over the notes and diamonds, and trust to the saving power of truth and innocence. I could have laughed as I thought of it. I saw myself bringing home the corpse and giving an account of myself, boggling with sheer shame over the ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley

... is almost pitifully straightforward, man. Everything that is in Grizel must out. She can ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... people who kept the faith as to bearing messages and giving safe conduct to Archer's people in the field. It was all past Archer's comprehension and that of the officers present. There was no Gray Fox there who knew Indians as they knew themselves. There was no genial, straightforward "Big Chief Jake," the fearless soldier leader from the lower reservation, from Camp Apache and the San Carlos, the man on whom the Gray Fox leaned, the man whom the hostiles dreaded, the "friendlies" ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... fiction of his literary, newspaper and oratorical incense burners. And so it is that everywhere the conviction prevails that whatever fraudulent methods Vanderbilt employed in his later career, he was essentially an honest, straightforward man who was compelled by the promptings of sheer self-preservation to fight back at unscrupulous competitors or antagonists, and who innately was opposed to underhand work or fraud in any form. Vanderbilt is in every case portrayed ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... result?" asked the superintendent, who had listened with great interest to the boy's thrilling, yet straightforward, account of his hazardous ride. "You took a ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various

... This pleasant, straightforward speech restored her confidence. "I think I was about to say, sir, that it may seem strange to you that I should so suddenly ask your ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... dancer to discriminate these particular forms, the discrimination of which might fairly be expected of any animal with an image-forming eye, but because they demonstrate an important characteristic of the dancing mouse, namely, its indifference to the straightforward or direct ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes

... me to be very straightforward. None but a friend to the children would speak of the beacon so familiarly, yet so discreetly—"the signal agreed upon." Nor would an enemy advise caution as to any being admitted to ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... face. At the end of his recital, he felt convinced that what he told the girl had previously been unknown to her. Moreover, Morgan became sensible of a growing feeling of interest and confidence in the girl. Her sweetness seemed so genuine, her dark blue eyes so frank and honest in the straightforward way ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne

... in the autumn of 1834; and thus George III. himself acted at the end of the month of which we are speaking. But to retain them in their offices, and to employ an unofficial declaration of his dissent from them to defeat their policy, is neither consistent with the straightforward conduct due from one gentleman to another, nor with the principle on which the system of administration, such as prevails in this ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... do otherwise than he did. Yesterday I know the Duke dined with Peel, who I have no doubt persuaded him to send this excuse. The Government are in exceeding delight at the Duke's conduct ever since he has been in opposition, which certainly has been very noble, straightforward, gentlemanlike, and without an atom of faction or mischief about it. He has done himself great honour; he threw over Aberdeen completely on that business about foreign policy which he introduced soon after the meeting of Parliament, and now he is assisting ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... be funny people," she said to Ozma. "They don't seem to do anything in a bold straightforward manner. In making this passage they forced everyone to walk three times as far as is necessary. And of course this trip is just as tiresome to the Flatheads as ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... we have a perfectly fair and straightforward question, deserving an equally clear and straightforward answer: and such as would be given at once if addressed by any Catholic enquirer to his Bishop. But how does the Anglican Archbishop proceed to calm and comfort this helpless, agitated soul, groping painfully ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan

... acquainted with the sculptor David. There was a something in his demeanor and in his straightforward manner that reminded me of Thorwaldsen and Bissen, especially of the latter. We did not meet till towards the conclusion of my residence in Paris. He lamented it, and said that he would execute a bust of me if I ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen

... never feel that he is writing for effect, still less to perform an uncongenial piece of task-work. He writes because he had something to say which was worth saying, a message to deliver on which the highest interests of others were at stake, which demanded nothing more than a straightforward earnestness and plainness of speech, such as coming from the heart might best reach the hearts of others. He wrote as he spoke, because a necessity was laid upon him which he dared not evade. As ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... gambler though I may be, give up now. Look here, Mayne, my lad, here is my decision. I am going to try and get a couple of good fellows from down below to come in as partners. So as soon as it is light you had better get back to the Fort, explain your position, and I know Mr Raydon to be so straightforward and just a man, that he ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn

... so straightforward and transparent a character as "Old Put" should have become the subject of controversy. Too much is claimed for him by some disputants, and much too little is conceded to him by others. He was certainly ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... self-bestowal. And indeed this it might have turned out to be had he but approached it by a discreet circuit through the simplest feminine essentials of negative make-believe. But to spring out upon it in that straightforward manner—! From May to February her answer to this was the only prompt reply he ever received from her. It crowds our story backward for a moment, for it came on one of those early Peninsula days previous to ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... thank you most heartily for all your kindness to my son,' said old Mr. Winkle, in a bluff, straightforward way. 'I am a hasty fellow, and when I saw you last, I was vexed and taken by surprise. I have judged for myself now, and am more than satisfied. Shall I make ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... he said, "I wass ussed to think you an honest, straightforward man, though you wass a churchman, and are you mean to tell me now that you donno that Valmai Powell have a small child on the 30th ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... accomplished in India must be called gigantic. He created organization out of chaos; he marched straightforward upon the course which Clive had already marked out as the path of the East India Company's glory. The East India Company was not very eager to advance along that path. Hastings spurred its sluggish spirit, and, though he was not able to do all that his daring nature dreamed ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... A straightforward man... at any rate! this was what appealed to her. It is a well-known fact, though not very easy to understand, that Russians are the greatest liars on the face of the earth, yet there is nothing they respect more than truth, nothing they sympathise with more. And then Solomin, in Mariana's ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev

... was as far as he could go. Now that to go farther had become what he called a duty the perversity of his nerves was such that they refused. It was like him. He could always do the forbidden, the dare-devil, the crazily mad; but when it came to the reasonable and straightforward something in him balked. Here he was at what should have been the beginning of the end, and the demon which at another time would have driven him on was holding him back. Temptation had worked itself round ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... few straightforward questions about Miss Lucy Graham, madam," he said. "Will you do me the favor to answer them without asking my ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon

... seclusion in Marcella's boudoir. Hence, likewise, Marcella's subsequent preference, in her temperance propaganda, for straightforward means which no gentleman could affect to misunderstand. She relied chiefly thereafter upon some highly colored charts depicting the interior of the human stomach in varying stages of alcoholic degeneration. ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... doctrine of the Wages Fund; the notion that the sum which can at any time be paid in wages is equal to the quantity of capital, alias consumable goods, which happens to exist. To this day it blocks, with an undergrowth of obscurantist controversies, the way to a straightforward account of the ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson

... knew him; and therefore blushed slightly, and said, awkwardly, something about being sure—looking at Mr. Plumer and hitching the right leg of his trouser as he spoke. Mr. Plumer got up and stood in front of the fireplace. Mrs. Plumer laughed like a straightforward friendly fellow. In short, anything more horrible than the scene, the setting, the prospect, even the May garden being afflicted with chill sterility and a cloud choosing that moment to cross the sun, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... "because you used the freedom and liberty of an English subject in choosing a wife? For shame! it is this distrust of the Queen's justice, this apprehension of danger, which cannot but be imaginary, that, like scarecrows, have induced you to forsake the straightforward path, which, as it is the best, is ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... tenderness. The face, du reste, was that of a healthy, fair-skinned English girl, liable to honest change from pale to pink, according to the dictates of an arbitrary climate. Her eyes were of a dark grey-blue, straightforward and steady, with a shadow of thought in them which made wise people respect her presence. She was not painfully beautiful, like the heroine of a novel—nor abnormally plain, like the antitype who has found her way into fiction, ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman

... gables over them, whenever any thing displeased him. Rosy cheeks, tight-drawn, close-shaven, and gleaming with friction of yellow soap, added vigor to the general expression of his face, which was firm and quick and straightforward. The weather being warm, and the tropics close at hand, Major Hockin was dressed in a fine suit of Nankin, spruce and trim, and beautifully made, setting off his spare and active figure, which, though he was sixty-two years of age, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... business, there is much more than sale, exchange, price, payment; for there is the sacred faith of man in man. When we repose perfect confidence in the integrity of another; when we feel that he will not swerve from the right, frank, straightforward, conscientious course, for any temptation; his integrity and conscientiousness are the image of God to us; and when we believe in it, it is as great and generous an act, as when we believe in the rectitude ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... who came in contact with him failed to appreciate the strength of his personality, and he threw himself resolutely on the side of truth. Those who lived on injustice and untruth would willingly have destroyed him because he exposed them relentlessly to public odium; the honest and straightforward placed him on a pedestal as a just man. "Good old Quirk" was a synonym for strength and uprightness ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin

... exerted in the condemnation of No. 90, but it was arbitrary power acting under the semblance of a judicial inquiry, with accusers, examination, trial, judges, and a heavy penalty. The act of a court of justice which sets at defiance the rules of justice is a very different thing from a straightforward act of arbitrary power, because it pretends to be what it is not. The information against Dr. Pusey, if accepted, involved a trial—that was the fixed condition and point of departure from which there was no escaping—and if a trial be held, then, if ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... depart, Our little clippings fade and bleach: There is no virtue and no art Save in straightforward Saxon speech. ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley

... example of what Jack had done for himself, even so far as they knew, had excited a strong desire for improvement among them. They, however, were doubtful as to others, and agreed that it would not do to propose it in a straightforward manner, but that a good deal of ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty

... human being have I ever descried on the "shade-deck" or on the towering bridge. The genii of the hundred-league boots remain not only inaccessible but invisible. The effect is inhuman, uncanny. All the luxury of the saloons and staterooms does not compensate for the lack of a frank, straightforward deck. The Lucania, in my eyes, has no individuality as a ship. It—I instinctively say "it," not "she"—is merely a rather low-roofed hotel, with sea-sickness superadded to all the comforts of home. But a first-class hotel it is: the living good and plentiful, ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... color he substituted a pure straightforward rendering of fact, as far as was in his power; and that not of such fact as had been before even suggested, but of all that is most brilliant, beautiful, and inimitable; he went to the cataract for its iris, to the conflagration for its flames, asked ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... wound to his pride, but without the urgent need felt by John to set himself in a better position with himself. He would have thought nothing of accepting Leila's challenge, but very much wanted to see the polite girl-boy brought to shame. In fact, even the straightforward Squire, with all his ready cordiality, at times found John's extreme politeness ridiculous at his age, but knew it to be the result of absurd training and the absence of natural association with other and manly boys. To Tom it was unexplained and caused that very common feeling of vague suspicion ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... should he, were you to say so. No, no, Boyle, just try a plain, straightforward paragraph about my death; we'll have it in Falkner's paper to-morrow. On Friday the funeral can take place, and, with the blessing o' God, I'll come to life on Saturday at Athlone, in time to canvass ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... was fifty cubits long, men may take many a step straightforward therein, and be but in the porch yet; even as we have seen men go as one would think till they are out of view, in the porch of this church in the wilderness; but presently you have them ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

... whose account Cerizet had just been condemned on a criminal charge. "I maintain that the new way is infinitely less fraudulent, less ruinous, more straightforward than the old. Publicity means time for reflection and inquiry. If here and there a shareholder is taken in, he has himself to blame, nobody sells him a pig in ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac

... a very different footing. His authenticity is undoubted; his language is simple and straightforward. He was born in or about the year 672, only two hundred years after the landing of the first English colonists in Thanet. Scarcely more than a century separated him from the days of Ida. The constant lingering warfare with the Welsh ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen

... change in her environment, Ponatah remained in many ways quite aboriginal. For instance, she was embarrassingly direct and straightforward; she entirely lacked hypocrisy, and that which puzzled or troubled her she boldly put into words. There came a time when Bill discovered that Ponatah's eyes, when they looked at him, were more than friendly, that most ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... idea where you dropped it," went on Mr. Woodward, and I was astonished to see how coolly this man, who always pretended to be so straightforward, could inquire about ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer

... soul,—the thirst for daily affection. And then they drifted off to college, and Mr. Tutt inquired casually if Payson had seen much of his father, who, he took occasion to remark, had been a good type of straightforward, honest, hard-working ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... "And this straightforward, honourable man employed intrigues which he had hitherto abhorred. He finally contrived that there should be a competition for the picture which other artists were permitted to enter into. Then he shut himself up in his room, and ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... and Navy excellent leaflets and booklets were issued dealing with the question in a very straightforward and ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser

... matter could, for opening plain men's eyes to the logical pitfalls among which they go stumbling and crashing, when they think they are disputing like Socrates or reasoning like Newton. They would see how a proposition or an expression that looks straightforward and unmistakable, is yet on examination found to be capable of bearing several distinct interpretations and meaning several distinct things; how the same evidence may warrant different conclusions, and what kinds of evidence carry with them what degrees of validity: ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 1: On Popular Culture • John Morley

... the Marquis de Croisenois was looked upon as one of the most talented and witty men in Parisian society, and in this case the opinion of the world was a well-founded one. Many men envied him, but he had no enemies, and his honest and straightforward conduct was beyond all doubt. He had the noble instincts of a knight of the days ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... the color of what he said himself; and so this kind of conversation only vexes and bores, and is wearisome; but Joan's talk was fresh and free, sincere and honest, and unmarred by timorous self-watching and constraint. She said the very thing that was in her mind, and said it in a plain, straightforward way. One can believe that to the King this must have been like fresh cold water from the mountains to parched lips used to the water of the sun-baked puddles of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the type of a straightforward, athletic girl to be successful as a practical Motor Maid. She took her car, as she did her class-mates, to her heart, and many a grand good time did they have all together. The road over which she ran her red machine had many an unexpected turning,—now it led her into ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard

... paid or not. The bank uses its best judgment in taking the risk. If the note dealer in selling notes to a bank makes what he believes to be fair and honest representations regarding any particular paper—statements of such a straightforward type that upon them no charge of false pretenses can be made to rest—he simply guarantees the note genuine as to names, date, amount, etc., and that in selling it he conveys a good title to the paper. ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various

... 1834; and thus George III. himself acted at the end of the month of which we are speaking. But to retain them in their offices, and to employ an unofficial declaration of his dissent from them to defeat their policy, is neither consistent with the straightforward conduct due from one gentleman to another, nor with the principle on which the system of administration, such as prevails ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... vanity, and please us for the moment; but who places any confidence in those by whom it is employed. We know that it is only uttered to cajole and decieve, and when the novelty wears off, the repetition awakens indignation and disgust; but who mistrusts the blunt, straightforward speech of the land of Burns—for good or ill, it strikes home to ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... from Zurich," he replied indifferently; "and it was perfectly natural under the circumstances that the letter should have been written. The letter was straightforward enough, only, of course, it necessitated Uncle John's sending me ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner

... uncertainty and some difficulty unless considerable expenditure is made in testing and reproportioning. When the product of the crusher is screened the task of proportioning the sand to the stone is a straightforward operation, and the screened out chips and dust can be used as a portion of the sand if desired. The only saving, then, in using crusher-run stone direct is the very small one of not having to screen out the fine material. The conclusion must be that the ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... peril, what but the happiest genius could have suggested to Mr. Tiffany, an instant and straightforward flight from the house; in which he immediately engaged, making up the road—the Captain with his musket, and Mopsey with her hearth-broom, close at his heels. If Mr. Tiffany Carrack had promptly employed his undoubted resources of youth and activity, ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews

... who were growing up around him. He was himself but a common sailor, who had enjoyed only a few advantages of education, his only acquirements the simple lessons which had been taught him in his boyhood, and a new but straightforward and earnest desire to serve God in the way which God should teach him, and in penitence and faith to walk himself and to lead others to walk in the way that ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous

... the young officer of the White Hawk was growing more and more contagious, and the men gave a cheer as they span the boat along, every smart sailor on board thinking about the frank, straightforward lad who had so bravely gone on the ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... had her appearance awakened his interest to the point of enthusiasm, but there was something irresistibly attractive to him in her lack of affectation and audacious frankness. Over and over again he thought of her happy face, her straightforward way of looking at things and, last but not least, her evident pleasure in meeting him. And when he reflected on the hopelessness of their ever meeting again, a feeling of depression seized him. ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco

... Uncle John, carelessly. "You're said to be a good man, Mr. Hopkins; a leetle too honest and straightforward for a politician; but that's ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne

... no line in his face seemed to betray either surprise or ill-will. Then her sense of patronage grew into one of sympathy and pity. "He must either be weak-minded or very unhappy," thought she, "and what right have I then to treat him harshly." And she continued her simple, straightforward talk with the young man, until he, too, grew almost talkative, and the sadness of his smile began to give way to something which almost resembled happiness. She noticed the change and rejoiced. At last, when the sun had sunk behind the western mountain tops, she rose and bade him good-night; ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... in his dealing with the Indians, was honest and straightforward with the men of his own race, and looked for similar treatment from them. One can therefore imagine his surprise and indignation when he was informed that he had no legal right to an acre of the land which he had discovered, and into which he had led many families ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson

... little, a very little, falling of his idol from the high pillar upon which he had set her up, in that she should at any time have been guided by mercenary and worldly motives; there had been at the same time a very great amount of respect for her brave and straightforward confession of her error at a time when most women would have found themselves unequal to the task of drawing back from the false position into which they had drifted. No, he could not ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... his time for rising. Immediately on getting up he sits down to the table, and while there and afterwards he attends to his business affairs. He is considered brave, strong, and generous, and it is said he lays great store by straightforward men. He is terrible in revenge—so many tell me. A man of strong good sense, and thirsting for greatness and fame, he seems more eager to seize States than to ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius

... but somehow couldn't. After all, the straightforward course was probably the best. For this would have to be a lifelong concealment. It was impossible to conceal a thing for ever; sooner or later he would find out. But the doctor rose up in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... always believed that love was as simple and straightforward as finding the end of a blind alley. There was good reason for me to change my belief as the days passed and nothing was said on ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay

... keep me waiting. In two minutes the door opened, and this fine, well-poised woman was telling her story in the straightforward ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... side-approach by dint of his appreciation of the irony of Nature and Fate. Almost every other grace of matter and form that can be found in prose may be found at times in his. He is generally thought of as, and for the most part is, a rather plain and straightforward writer, with few tricks and frounces of phrase and style. Yet most of the fine writing of these latter days is but as crumpled tarlatan to brocaded satin beside the passage on Coleridge in the English ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... with much pleasure, therefore, that Mr. Low brought them together, and they took to one another immediately. "I like your sculptor. What a splendid straightforward and simple fellow he is," said Stevenson; and St. Gaudens's comment after their first meeting was: "Astonishingly young, not a bit like an invalid ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton

... his talk today struck me as being straightforward and outspoken. But Kid has been drawing inferences. He keeps hammering at it that Blake must be in thick with his father-in-law, and that all millionaires round-up their money in ways that would make a rustler go ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... platform was a moving platform. To take but one instance, he was a Radical like Dickens; all really representative Victorians, except perhaps Tennyson, were Radicals. But he seems to have thought of all reform as simple and straightforward and all of a piece; as if Catholic Emancipation, the New Poor Law, Free Trade and the Factory Acts and Popular Education were all parts of one almost self-evident evolution of enlightenment. Dickens, being in touch with the democracy, ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton

... would then be convenient enough to stop. Happily for us, the valour of our soldiers and those of our Allies, the splendid success of our Fleet and our merchantmen In bringing over American troops and their food and equipment with astonishing speed, and the straightforward diplomacy of President Wilson, combined to achieve victory nearly five months earlier than the most sanguine had dared to expect. With the very pleasant result—though it is a small matter when compared with the end of the ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers

... brother) was a merchant resident in London; and to this near relative he referred me, if I wished to make inquiries about him. The names of his bankers, authorized to give me every information in respect to his pecuniary affairs, followed. Nothing could be more plain and straightforward. I wrote to his uncle, and I wrote to his bankers. In both cases the replies were perfectly satisfactory—nothing in the slightest degree doubtful, no prevarications, no mysteries. In a word, Mr. Marmaduke ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... to trap Joan into indiscreet admissions and dangerous pretensions. But nothing came of it. Joan's answer was simple and straightforward, and the smooth Bishop was not able to find any fault with it. She said that when she met with people who doubted the truth of her mission she went aside and prayed, complaining of the distrust of these, and then the comforting Voices were heard at her ear saying, soft and ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... strange way they aren't expecting. If I was to have died, I couldn't help laughing at some things he said; and yet I don't think I ever felt more solemnized. He sat up there in a sort of grand, straightforward, noble way, and told all the way the Lord had been leading of him, and all the exercises of his mind, and all about the dreadful shipwreck, and how he was saved, and the loving-kindness of the Lord, till the Doctor's spectacles got all blinded with tears, and he couldn't see ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... my presentation to the supreme king. After much preliminary talk between the Kralahome and myself, through the medium of the interpreter, it had been arranged that my straightforward friend, Captain B——, should conduct us to the royal palace, and procure the interview. Our cheerful escort arrived duly, and we proceeded up the river,—my boy maintaining an ominous silence all the while, except once, when he shyly confessed ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... with Barbara and Bevan and Elise and Toby and Markham and the servants; to tell Fanny himself before any of them could get in first. The more he thought about it the more he was persuaded that this was the only right, the only straightforward and manly thing to do; at the same time it occurred to him that by suppressing a few unimportant details he could really give a very satisfactory account of the whole affair. It would not be necessary, for instance, to tell Fanny what his intentions had been, if indeed ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair

... entirely free from sentimentality and the least demonstrative of mankind, yet he was capable of delicate and tender feelings, not always detected by those towards whom they were directed. He was simple, straightforward, frank, and generous. It was delightful to do business with him, for he never hesitated nor went back upon himself. Modest and free from self-consciousness, he was aware both of his powers and of their limitations. I once tried ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... prelates, lawyers, and Joan lasted two hours. At first they appeared to doubt the Maid, but her frank and straightforward answers to all the questions put her impressed them with the truth of her character. They were, according to the old chronicles, 'grandement ebahis comme une ce simple bergere jeune ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... before yourself? "Why, then, did I send it to anyone before you?" I was pressed by the man to whom I sent it, and had no copy. And—well! I am nibbling at what I must, after all, swallow—my "recantation"[486] did seem to me a trifle discreditable! But good-bye to straightforward, honest, and high-minded policy! One could scarcely believe the amount of treachery there is in those leaders of the state, as they wish to be, and might be, if they had any principle of honour in them. I had felt it, known it—taken ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... said Mrs. Lasette, "while Annette is very bright and intelligent as a pupil, she has been rather slow in developing in some other directions. She lacks tact, is straightforward to bluntness and has not any style about her and little or no idea of company manners, but she is never coarse nor rude. I never knew her to read a book whose author I would blush to name, and I never heard her engage in ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... Springing from bed, he wrapped himself in his dressing-gown, and walked hastily to and fro in the apartment for a few minutes in silence. At last he paused before Walter and grasped his hand. "You are a straightforward, warm-hearted fellow," he exclaimed. "But the more I am convinced of that, the less disposed am I to part with you. Will ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... thinks the defence will be mainly reserved. Only a little more than a fortnight to the assizes! The time is so short. But now this man has turned informer, they say the case is quite straightforward. With all the other evidence the police have there will be no difficulty in ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... does anybody," said Sally. "Moses Pennel isn't one that says and does things straightforward because he feels so; but he says and does them to see what you will do. That's his way. Nobody knows why he has been going on with me as he has. He has had his own reasons, doubtless, as ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... maids. Among the outdoor attendants was John Brown, who in 1858 was attached to the Queen as one of her regular attendants everywhere in the Highlands, and remained in her service until his death. "He has all the independence and elevated feelings peculiar to the Highland race, and is singularly straightforward, simple-minded, kind-hearted and disinterested; always ready to oblige; and of a discretion ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne

... honourable, straightforward gentleman," I suggested ironically. "I can imagine a lady such as you describe Queen Inez to have been being peculiarly unfitted to ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties

... of every year of his accumulating successes. It was a thing which his neighbors and associates and family felt in his presence but could not name—a thing which made him turn his eyes away from a frank, straightforward look and forbade him to look his fellows in the face save by an exertion of ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright

... go home then," came the order, which is testimony to the consideration he had for his employees when he was addressed in a manly, straightforward way. ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard

... Bogardus's judgment and her straightforward business habits. Other matters he left alone. But Cerissa was ambitious and emotional, and she stayed indoors, doing little things and thinking small thoughts. She resented her commanding neighbor's casual manners. ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... selfishness of officials, the sycophants of the colonial office, and the scandalizers of himself and the country, and tormented by the suspicions of the Assembly, which were the result of such sycophancy and scandal, Sir George pursued a most straightforward and honorable course as a Governor-in-Chief, expressed his gratitude, and would transmit the address to the Prince Regent, to be governed by His commands. The Regent approved of the donation and was rejoiced that Sir George had deserved it; but the Legislative ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... whether his son called the book of Genesis a myth or a gospel; but he had said much, very much as to the folly of risking the fellowship; and more, a great deal more, as to the madness of throwing it away. But now he was quite ready to own himself wrong, and did do so in the most straightforward manner. After all, what was a fellowship to a man just about to be married? In his position Bertram had of course been free to speak out. If, indeed, there had been any object in holding to the college, then the expression of such opinions, let ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... must have been some one with whom Lord Loudwater was so familiar that he took no notice of his or her movements, for he came up to him from the front, or walked round the chair to the front of him, and stabbed him with a quite straightforward thrust. Lord Loudwater should have actually seen the knife—unless by ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson

... this paper the author presents a straightforward statement of facts concerning the disfranchisement of the Negro in the Southern States. Mr. Chesnutt, who is too well known as a writer to need any introduction to an American audience, puts the case for the Negro to the American people very plainly, ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.

... it a very manly and straightforward letter. He had not acted so very badly after all, she thought; her father's strong will had evidently coerced him, and she knew how strong that will could be. He had meant no harm; he had only said pleasant things because it was his nature to say them; if ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... into a dishonest man. Monastic religion is like a varnish, it only serves to bring out the true colour, and is powerless to alter it by more than a shade. Those who have lived in religious communities know that human nature is the same there as in the world—that a man who is not straightforward may grow in monastic zeal day by day, but he will never grow straightforward. On the other hand, if a man be a good man, religion will make him better, but it must not be a religion that ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... which he held up as a pattern of imitation, when in his heart he did not consider it admirable at all, when he was making no effort at the austerities which he was lauding. The histories of the Saints are written as ideals of a Christian life; they have no elaborate and beautiful forms; single and straightforward as they are,—if they are not this they are nothing. For fourteen centuries the religious mind of the catholic world threw them out as its form of hero worship, as the heroic patterns of a form of human life which each Christian ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... Inquiry into Prison Discipline. The same year he was elected M.P. for Weymouth, a borough for which he continued to sit till 1837. In the House of Commons he had a high reputation as an able and straightforward speaker, devoted to philanthropic schemes. Of these plans the most important was that for the abolition of slavery in the British colonies. Buxton devoted his life to this object, and through defeat and opposition, despite the attacks of enemies and the remonstrances ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... to Don Juan," exhorted another; "it is the only sincere thing you have written, and it will live after all your Harolds have ceased to be 'a schoolgirl's tale, the wonder of an hour.' It is the best of all your works—the most spirited, the most straightforward, the most interesting, the most poetical." "It is a work," said Goethe, "full of soul, bitterly savage in its misanthropy, exquisitely delicate in its tenderness." Shelley confessed, "It fulfils in a certain degree what I have long preached, ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... discussion. Consequently, by force of the past selective adaptation of men's habits of thought, it happens that the requirements of beauty, simply, are for the most part best satisfied by inexpensive contrivances and structures which in a straightforward manner suggest both the office which they are to perform and the method of serving their end. It may be in place to recall the modern psychological position. Beauty of form seems to be a question of facility of apperception. ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... a perfectly fair and straightforward question, deserving an equally clear and straightforward answer: and such as would be given at once if addressed by any Catholic enquirer to his Bishop. But how does the Anglican Archbishop proceed to calm and comfort this helpless, agitated soul, groping painfully in the ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan

... girls had admired and loved each other, notwithstanding the difference in their natures. Dorothy was one of the happy persons whose attraction was so apparent that few natures resisted it. She was handsome and straightforward and sweet tempered. One girl in a family of six brothers, she had learned a freemasonry of living, and had not the sensitiveness and introspection that troubles so many young girls. Her mother was dead, yet she and her father had been ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook

... task of a wise life and labor as the most difficult task, of self-knowledge, self-mastery and self-improvement,—tasks that are not finished in this life but only through death prepare us for the stage where the true consummation begins. These beautiful and straightforward words could just as well stand in an alchemistic discussion on the terrestrial and celestial. But this ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... her suspense no longer, and in spite of the opposition of husband and daughters, she sent for Aglaya, determined to get a straightforward answer out of her, once ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... had been learning from Astumastao some new designs in beadwork, at which she was very skillful, had retired, and the two young people and the aunt were now left alone, she, in her clear, straightforward manner, told what was uppermost in her heart. It was of a purpose which had been growing there for years, but which she had only seen the possibility of carrying out since her uncle's death. She said she believed they ought to have a missionary to teach them the truths ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... a trifle loppy and loose-jointed, looking me squarely in the face in a straightforward, honest manner, a twinkle where her shoe-button eyes ...
— Raggedy Ann Stories • Johnny Gruelle

... ought to have asked for the security, George, and when you never ought to have got it, all things considered. But what's done can't be undone. You are always an honourable and straightforward fellow, as far as lays in your power, though a little flighty. On the other hand, you can't admit but what it's natural in us to be anxious with such a thing hanging over our heads. So forget and forgive all round, George. Come! Forget and forgive ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... quite approve of these dreams. But Joseph had not really meant to boast. It was the wonder of the dreams that made him repeat them. If he was proud of his coat of many colours, it was only because it was a gift from his father. He was a straightforward good-natured boy, clever and brave, and ready to take his turn in watching the flocks or helping his brothers with their work ...
— Joseph the Dreamer • Amy Steedman

... by those who perhaps had been before prejudiced against her. Various were the characters she assumed in society—assumed to suit her own purpose, made up of art; even at home she sometimes found herself seeking for design, as if it were impossible to go straightforward, to act without some reason. We shall find, however, as we proceed, that she had one confidant at home, to whom, when exhausted by the fatigue of planning, she would confess herself, and who was generally ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... them. Poor Lady! do what she would, she found it hard enough to please all parties while alive; must she be condemned over and above in aeternum to be wrong whatsoever she did? Why is she not to have the benefit of the plain straightforward interpretation which would be allowed to any other human being; namely, that she approved of such fine talk as long as it was proved to be sincere by fine deeds: but that when these were wanting, the fine talk became hollow, fulsome, a fresh cause of anger and disgust? Yet ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... never cared. I should have known it if he had made love to me every day of his life. I could never guess whether he knew what people said about us—he listened so little to what people said; and cared still less, when he heard. He was always quite honest and straightforward with me; he treated me as one man treats another; and yet at times I felt he must see that with me it was different. If he did see, he made no sign. Perhaps he never noticed—I am sure he never ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton

... where they can be by themselves. But these and other remedies are utterly futile, because they are in collision with God's plan, as indicated by certain manifest facts. Meantime, while men are so busy trying to get around the difficulty instead of solving it in a straightforward way, the problem gets a little bigger every year. The caste question agitates our great religious assemblies. The spoliation of the civil rights of the Negro is one of the most menacing features in our politics. Bitter race prejudices ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various

... him straightforward like de trufe: 'Dar's nobody in de house heah but wat you kin see for axin' for 'em, as far as I knows on. Wat young gal do you 'lude to, masta?—Bridget Maloney, I spose, dat Irish heifer wat does de chambers ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... pedestrian in shoes neither envies him who rides nor despises him who goes unshod; and lastly, it is possible that under his rags, his feet in the dust, the third man has a hatred of simplicity, of labor, of sobriety, and dreams only of idleness and pleasure. For among the least simple and straightforward of men must be reckoned professional beggars, knights of the road, parasites, and the whole tribe of the obsequious and envious, whose aspirations are summed up in this: to arrive at seizing a morsel—the biggest possible—of that prey which the fortunate of earth consume. And ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner

... him; and therefore blushed slightly, and said, awkwardly, something about being sure—looking at Mr. Plumer and hitching the right leg of his trouser as he spoke. Mr. Plumer got up and stood in front of the fireplace. Mrs. Plumer laughed like a straightforward friendly fellow. In short, anything more horrible than the scene, the setting, the prospect, even the May garden being afflicted with chill sterility and a cloud choosing that moment to cross the sun, cannot be imagined. There was the garden, of course. Every one at the same moment ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... once a week) to dispense with thee on Sunday. No paper is so untrammelled as thou art, for thou hast no shackles but those thou thrustest thine own wrists into; and I prize thee more than a whole sheaf of thy compeers, who always try to decide safely by deciding last. Thou art prompt, brave, and straightforward. In nine cases out of ten, when there are two cages open, thou dashest impetuously into the right one. Verily, thou art a little more headstrong than strong-headed, and a little less long-headed than headlong; ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Patty. "I like to hear secrets." Now, how very absurd it was in Mr. Verdant Green wasting time in beating about the bush in this ridiculously timid way! Why could he not at once boldly secure his bird by a straightforward shot? She did not fly out of his range - did she? And yet, here he was making himself unnecessarily hot and uncomfortable, when he might, by taking it coolly, have been at his ease in a moment. What a foolish young man! ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... a few straightforward questions about Miss Lucy Graham, madam," he said. "Will you do me the favor to answer them without asking my motive ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon

... depends for effect upon truth logically and earnestly presented. If such a style, everywhere perfectly kept up, was in any degree artificial, how matchless the art which concealed the art! So plain and straightforward are many of the speeches, that one is tempted to refer their wonderful power when spoken to some richness of elocution not appreciable now. Says Hume, treating of Demosthenes' manner, "Could it be copied, its success would be infallible over a modern assembly. It is rapid harmony exactly ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... went to sleep her mind, in spite of her, had imaged for her again the interesting, clever-looking face of the stranger under the roof, with his clear, straightforward glance that seemed to see so much, his smile which disclosed splendid teeth, his strongly moulded chin. And she had owned, frankly, driven to the confession just to see ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond

... I never knew such a man as you!" said the doctor as he sat down beside his friend. "I really wish your mother was here; everything would be clear and straightforward then and she would soon put things in right train. You sent for me three times yesterday only to ask me the same question, though ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri

... to go to parties at the Viceregal Lodge," said Phyl, flushing to think of what a snob she had been when only a few days back she had criticised the Hennesseys and their set in her own mind. These honest, straightforward good people were not snobs, whatever else they might be, and if her desire for America had been prompted solely by the desire to escape from the social conditions that environed her friends, she would now have smothered it and stamped on it. But the call ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... knives, others tomahawks, others revolvers, others clubs, others axes, others beer mugs and chairs, and others swore there had been no fight at all. However, fight or no fight, the testimony was straightforward and uniform on one point, at any rate, and that was, that the fuss was about two dollars and forty cents, which one party owed the other, but after all, it was impossible to find out which was the debtor and which ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various

... time, some malignant emissary of fate sent him bubbling and gasping down into the depths. He was up again in a moment, striving, battling, buffeting. Nothing could make JOHNNIE despair, no disappointment could warp the simple straightforward sincerity, the loyal and almost childlike honesty of his nature. And if here and there, for a short time, fortune seemed to shine upon him, you may be sure that there was no single friend whom he did ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various

... while his full open countenance was much bronzed by exposure to the weather. Of beneficent dispositions and social habits, he enjoyed the friendship of many of his gifted contemporaries. Thoroughly earnest, his writings partake of the bold and straightforward nature of his character. Some of his prose productions are admirable specimens of vigorous composition; and his poetry, if not characterised by uniformity of power, never descends into weakness. Triumphant in humour, he is eminently a master of the plaintive; his tender pieces breathe a deep-toned ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... she was, Mrs. Patterson's faith was unshaken in the child who had always seemed so straightforward and honorable. Miss Drayton wanted to believe in Anne, but she remembered the uncle whose story they had not told Mademoiselle; after all, they knew little of the child; nothing of her family, except that her uncle had used his employer's money and had fled from justice. Was the taint ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin

... a fig if a man is handsome or not," she said bluntly. "If he's just manly and straightforward and kind, that's all I expect him to be. Now look here—we have dinner at half-past seven in this establishment. It's only supper really, but we all put on our best blouses—if we've got any—and call it dinner. I'll call for you on the ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres

... lithe man, with not a redundant ounce of flesh on him. He was as straight as an arrow, bore on his shoulders a fine head that gave evidence in its contour of equal benevolence and force, and was a practical, fearless, straightforward, true man. He enjoyed humor, and though he had a happy way of evoking it from others, possessed or exhibited very little himself. Jim was better than a theater to him. He spent so much of his time in the conflicts of his profession, ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... no doubt in the presence of FitzGerald the "slim" old Lowestoft longshoreman raised his mighty voice in wrath and indignation that he should have begotten a son to disgrace him so cruelly! FitzGerald was too open a man, too honest-hearted, too straightforward to understand that a father could encourage his son insidiously, and swear at him, FitzGerald, at the same time as he deprecated that son's conduct. But FitzGerald's eyes, long closed by kindness, were partly open at last. He would ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth

... as in every part of these transactions, his conduct was honourable and straightforward. He would not continue in office when thwarted by the king on a question of great importance, nor would he consent to disappoint hopes which he had encouraged and by which he had benefited. That he was influenced by any other motive, such as that his ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... could be. His manner was straightforward, and from what she could see, his face was honest; still she felt somewhat suspicious. There had been rumours lately of poachers being about. Perhaps he was a thief, and would go to the Low Farm when all the men had ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke

... lawyers. He held (with Blackstone) that law is for the purpose of securing justice, and he would never make use of any technicality for the purpose of thwarting justice. When others maneuvered, he met them by a straightforward dealing. He never did or could take an unfair advantage. On the wrong side of a case, he was worse than useless to his client, and he knew it. He would never take such a case if it could be avoided. His partner Herndon tells how he gave ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham

... side. This policy skilfully pursued by Tissaphernes (who had a genius for intrigue and did not require an Alcibiades to give him lessons in state-craft), more clumsily by Pharnabazus, whose character was comparatively sincere and straightforward, prevailed until the younger Cyrus made his appearance upon the scene, when a disturbing force came into play which had disastrous effects both on the fortunes of Greece and on those of Persia. The ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson

... man, not very different from his white brother, except that he is undeveloped. In his natural state he is kind and affectionate in his family, is hospitable, honest and straightforward with his fellows,—a true friend. If you are his guest, the best he has is at your disposal; if the camp is starving, you will still have set before you your share of what food there may be in the lodge. For his friend he will die, if need be. He is glad to perform acts of kindness ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell

... savage's innate difficulty in comprehending the laws of honour and morality. It is possible to believe that, with good training from his infancy, Hugo Luttrell might have developed into a trustworthy and straightforward man, shrinking from dishonesty and cowardice as infamy worse than death; but his early education had been of a kind likely to foster every vice that he possessed. His father, a cousin of the Luttrells of Netherglen, after marrying a lovely ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... not know of anything," was the answer. "Of course, I have seen paragraphs in scandalous journals concerning his wealth, but I knew Ewart Wilkinson extremely well. He was, and always has been, I am convinced, a perfectly straightforward man." ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner

... apprehension of a higher standard of veracity than that which was generally observed among his own people. Moreover, in the Iliad, Achilles is represented as saying: "Him I hate as I do the gates of Hades, who hides one thing in his heart and utters another;" and it is the straightforward Achilles, rather than "the wily and shiftful Ulysses," who is the admired hero of the Greeks.[3] Plato asserts, and argues in proof of his assertion, that "the veritable lie ... is hated by all gods and men." He includes in the term "veritable lie," or "genuine ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull

... marked. He impressed every one, at first sight, as a strong, sturdy, resolute, fearless man. Lincoln's herculean stature has already been described. A stranger who listened to him for five minutes would say: 'This is a kind, genial, sincere, genuine man; a man you can trust, plain, straightforward, honest, and true.' If this stranger were to hear him make a speech, he would be impressed with his clear good sense, by his wit and humor, by his general intelligence, and by the simple, homely, but pure and accurate language he used. In his long residence at Washington, Douglas had acquired the ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... detailing are of so extraordinary a character that I am quite prepared to meet with an unusual amount of incredulity and scorn. I accept all such beforehand. I have, I trust, the literary courage to face unbelief. I have, after mature consideration, resolved to narrate, in as simple and straightforward a manner as I can compass, some facts that passed under my observation, in the month of July last, and which, in the annals of the mysteries of physical ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... abused by the Whigs—which we regard as almost a necessary tribute to his name; that he has received an ultra share of libel from the Radicals—which we regard as equally to his honour; and that he is looked on by all the neutrals, of whatever colour, as a personage too straightforward to be managed by a bow and a smile. Yet, for all these things, we like him the better, and wish, as says ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... when the utterly absurd decision announced in the papers, after a tedious delay had led the public to expect an exhaustive statement, gave rise to general disappointment and excited the utmost dissatisfaction, it became manifest that a manly, straightforward course on their part was not to be hoped for, and that any protest against the consummation of the ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... justify a temporary dictatorship. In that there is nothing at variance with Liberalism. But the Parliamentary dictatorship in Ireland has lasted a great deal too long to be called temporary, and its stupid shambling operations are finally and decisively condemned by their consequences. That is a straightforward utilitarian argument, and has nothing whatever to do with inherent and divine rights, or any ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... quite prepared as to the precise answer it would be best for him to make; in fact he was taken a little aback at the suddenness of the question. He had expected that some days would elapse before Sir Jasper would broach the subject, but being of a straightforward and truthful nature, he frankly stated what he thought respecting his future. "Of course," he said, "Sir Jasper, I shall be guided entirely by any suggestions you may kindly offer, for to you I owe everything. The only path ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... written perhaps in moments of passion in a less enlightened age, that they recognized the indelicacy of insulting the religion of the country in which they lived, and that therefore such passages should henceforth be deleted. But instead of adopting this straightforward course, which might have put an end for ever to attacks on the book they held sacred, the Rabbis proceeded to deny the existence of the "alleged blasphemous and immoral expressions" and to declare that "the odious facts related in the Talmud concerning ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... position, but with hands resting on the hips. Raise the right thigh until at right angles with the body, leg at right angles with thigh, thrust the leg straightforward to a horizontal position, then sweep the leg back to standing posture. Repeat with the ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk

... such is history. If I were called upon to symbolize God and man in the simplest form, I would draw a straight line and a circle, and of the line I would say, 'This is God, for he alone moves forever straightforward,' and of the circle, 'This is man—such is his progress.' I do not mean that there is no difference between the careers of nations; no two are alike. The difference, however, is not, as some say, in the extent of the circle ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... Curio with the assistance of the able Gaius Caninius Rebilus, who possessed experience in war. Sicily was occupied by him without a blow; Cato, without a proper army and not a man of the sword, evacuated the island, after having in his straightforward manner previously warned the Siceliots not to compromise themselves uselessly by ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... noblemen," said Mr Eglantine; "nothing but pleasure from morning till night; no affectation neither—no HOTURE; but manly downright straightforward good fellows." ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray

... after him thoughtfully. Nothing could have been more considerate than the Westerner's manner, nothing could have been kinder than his prompt action—Bennington saw that his pony, now cropping the brush near at hand, was black with sweat—nothing could have been more straightforward than his assistance in the matter of the claims. And yet Bennington de Laney was not satisfied. He felt he owed the sudden change of front to a word spoken in his behalf by the girl. This was a strange influence she possessed, thus to alter a ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White

... preliminaries are necessary and among them is the important issue of his marriage. Both he and Balarama require wives and the question is how are they to get them. Balarama's problem is easily settled by a marriage to Revati, a princess. Krishna's, on the other hand, is less straightforward and he is still undecided when news is brought that the Raja of Kundulpur has a daughter of matchless loveliness, her name Rukmini. Her eyes, it was said, were like a doe's, her complexion like a flower, her face ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer

... in the present day. My Catholicism was that of Scripture, of the councils, and of the theologians. This Catholicism I loved, and I still respect it; having found it inadmissible, I separated myself from it. This is a straightforward course, but what is not straightforward is to pretend ignorance of the engagement contracted, and to become the apologist of things concerning which one is ignorant. I have never lent myself to a falsehood of this description, and I have looked upon it as disrespectful to the ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... the credit. It is instructive to read the full record[1] of this tedious and difficult piece of diplomacy, for it serves as an interesting example of Oriental subtlety and circumlocution, contrasted with the straightforward dealing of ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... so "easy" to write in English as in Latin, and of the consequent advisableness of keeping to a sober beaten path, to a kind of style which is not much more English (except for being composed of good English words in straightforward order) than it is any literary language framed to a great extent on the classics, shows itself in him. One might translate passage after passage of Ascham, keeping almost the whole order of the words, into very good sound Latin prose; and, indeed, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... You cannot go back now. I have told you that you will be well treated. Please to recollect that if our colonel chose he could commando everything you have brought for the use of our force; but he prefers to treat all of your people who bring supplies as straightforward traders. ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn

... chief lieutenant of the Baden artillery, although only in his twenty-ninth year, had already spent fourteen years in military service, and was highly esteemed for his soldierly qualities and straightforward bearing. He was tall, remarkably handsome, of an impetuous temperament, and his natural strength had been well developed by constant practice in manly and athletic exercises. Herr Heller von Thalermacher, or rather the firm of which he was the ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... touch marks a point of 'business.' And for the most part the speeches are as straightforward as prose; are indeed written with a deliberate aim at a sort of ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... can make hard things easy to follow, it is a style like Bergson's. A 'straightforward' style, an american reviewer lately called it; failing to see that such straightforwardness means a flexibility of verbal resource that follows the thought without a crease or wrinkle, as elastic silk underclothing follows the movements of ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James

... at six, just after the morning prayer, M. Merovee came into the school-room and made us a most straightforward, manly, and affecting speech; in which he told us he meant to keep on the school, and thanked us, boys and ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... diligent search after it, but could not find it among the dead, nor was it ever known what became of it. Upon the former engagement near Trebia, neither the general who wrote, nor the express who told the news, used straightforward and direct terms, nor related it otherwise than as a drawn battle, with equal loss on either side; but on this occasion, as soon as Pomponius the praetor had the intelligence, he caused the people to assemble, and, without disguising ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... individual worth on the basis of manhood become realized by the people and incorporated into the government and customs of the land, will abnegating obsequiousness, as well as haughty lordliness, be replaced by a straightforward manliness, in which men of whatever grade of society will frankly face each ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... could make themselves quite agreeable at Angeline's tea-table. And then Angeline, good, kind Angeline, with her face still bright with gentleness and love, was always so happy When Mattie called. Then there was something so simple, so frank and straightforward in Mattie's nature. Angeline could not help loving her. And the affection she cherished for Tite, who was the idol of her thoughts, strengthened the ties ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... you care enough for him to run that dangerous risk?' But she obstinately kept her own counsel. The professional manner that he ridiculed so often was apparently useful in just such cases as this. It covered up incompetence and hypocrisy often enough, but one could not be human and straightforward with women and fools. And women and fools made up the greater ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... follow the crew of the yacht through many adventures, let us make their acquaintance at once. At the helm stood Harry Hamilton, a boy of sixteen, strong of build and an athlete of renown within the circles of his school. Honest and straightforward in all his dealings, and with a cheery disposition, he commanded the respect and admiration of his fellows, and because of his natural characteristics, was usually looked upon as the leader in their sports. With ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich

... it does no work but it sustains an equal opposite reaction.[5] The guidance exercised by life or mind is managed in an unknown but certainly different fashion: "determination" can sustain no reaction—if it could it would be a straightforward mechanical agent—but it can utilise the mechanical properties both of rail and of engine; it arranged for the rail to be placed in position so that the lateral force thereby exerted should guide all future trains to a desired destination, ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge

... be most likely to attract attention, to excite interest, and to convince. If the reader will glance at Rosee's advertisement, which is reproduced on page 55, he will be struck with the well-nigh irresistible charm of his unaffected, straightforward bid for patronage. Having no advertising fetishes to warp his judgment, he told an interesting story in a natural manner, carrying conviction. It matters not that some of the virtues attributed to ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... doing—muddling your brains with French wines?—that you could not reason clearly when relieved of my baleful fascination? Were you not protected on the following day by two men, who were more your friends than mine? I proposed a straightforward bargain, which you understood as well then as you do now. You realized to the full what the interests of the country demanded, and in a rare moment of disinterested patriotism you agreed to a compromise in which ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... Brant, you can tell him plainly that I have carefully considered his proposition—and that is the exact truth—and that I find it will be wise for me not to accept it. He is a man of affairs, and will understand that I have given him a straightforward, practical answer, and he will be satisfied. You must not be sharp with Mr. Hemphill, as I know you will be inclined to be. Please remember that I was once in love with him, and respect my feelings as well as his. Besides, he is good, and he is in earnest, and he deserves ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton

... with a strange dismal foreboding as though he were being drawn along upon some path that he did not want to follow. What was his father mixed up with all this business for? Why were such men as Thurston in existence? Why couldn't life be simple and straightforward with people like his father and himself and that girl Maggie alone somewhere with nothing to interfere? Life was never just as you wanted it, always a little askew, a little twisted, cynically cocking its ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... bothered no more about it, but went cheerfully to work, not altogether displeased at the prospect of new adventures, which would enable him to by and by go back to the old folks with plenty of dollars, and a stock of startling yarns to reel off. He was a steady, straightforward lad, though somewhat thoughtless at times, and resolved to be a steady, straightforward man. The vessel first called into the Sandwich Islands, and there shipped a gang of Hawaiian natives to help load the guano, then she sailed away to the southward for McKean's Island, one of the ...
— "The Gallant, Good Riou", and Jack Renton - 1901 • Louis Becke

... agitation. His pride, his plebeian fastidiousness, was revolted. Clenching his fists and scowling with disgust, he wondered how he, the son of a village priest, brought up in a clerical school, a plain, straightforward man, a surgeon by profession—how could he have let himself be enslaved, have sunk into such shameful bondage to this weak, ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... should write healthy, hearty, straightforward English! Oh, for Cobbett! There are indeed some great men who write twistedly simply because they cannot help it, but their honesty is proved by the mass they turn out. What do you turn out, you higglers and sticklers? Perhaps a ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... The quiet, straightforward way he said this made a good impression. Mildrid trembled; for she felt that this gave things a different look. Hans had his cap on, for in their district it was not the custom for a passer-by to take off his hat when ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... I am not accustomed to these strong emotions," replied Mr. Sheldon, huskily; "I cannot stand them. Pray let us avoid all sentimental discussion. I am anxious to do my duty in a straightforward, business-like way. I don't want gratitude—or fuss. The five thousand pounds are yours, and I am pleased to find you consider the amount sufficient. And now I have only one small favour to ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... international statesmanship. Let us be fair. German merchants, German traders had the reputation of being as upright and straightforward as any traders in the world. But if the currency of German commerce is to be debased to the level of her statesmanship, no trader from Shanghai to Valparaiso will ever look at a German signature again. This doctrine of the scrap of ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... most of her days at Linndale, and he had a vague idea that she and Rodney together had been elaborating still further on the plans for the house. It was the furtiveness of it rather than the fact itself that troubled him. He was open and straightforward himself. Why couldn't Natalie be frank ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... a clue to the rest. As realization of Iredale's doings came to me I thought of the notorious 'Traffic in Yellow.' That night I pondered long over the whole thing. I had learned to like Iredale better than any man I have ever known. He had always seemed such an honest, straightforward man. And all of you folks were so fond of him. It was a painful awakening; but there was worse to come, for, as I lay awake thinking, there flashed through my brain the recollection of what you had told me of Grey's death and his reference to the notice in ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... difficulty was to reach it. I had heard of a path, but I soon gave up the attempt to find it. As there was not a human being to be seen who could give me any counsel, I commenced climbing the hill in the direction that I wished to take. It was anything but straightforward walking. The lower part of the steep was strewn with loose stones like shingle, that slipped under the feet, so that I had to proceed in zigzag fashion, taking advantage of every bush of juniper and box and root of hellebore as a foothold. But the vegetation ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... Monastic religion is like a varnish, it only serves to bring out the true colour, and is powerless to alter it by more than a shade. Those who have lived in religious communities know that human nature is the same there as in the world—that a man who is not straightforward may grow in monastic zeal day by day, but he will never grow straightforward. On the other hand, if a man be a good man, religion will make him better, but it must not be a religion that runs ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... by treachery; but by acquired wealth, by knowledge, talent, and by virtue itself. In a word, they mean—and everybody agrees with them—that the greatest capacity is entitled to the greatest reward; and, to use the mercantile phraseology,—which has, at least, the merit of being straightforward,—that salaries must be governed by capacity and ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... observe, Mr. Haynes was an active, energetic salesman. He appeared to understand his duties thoroughly, and to go about them in a straightforward manner. So far as his personal habits were concerned, they seemed irreproachable. He was neatly but plainly dressed, wore no jewelry, and carried a plain silver watch, which, when new, probably did ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... who was fast losing her temper. "Sibyl is a good, straightforward, honorable girl. Betty is ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade

... second conference between the powers was made by Sir Edward Grey with the same straightforward desire for peace as in 1912 and 1913. The German Chancellor rejected this means of averting the war. He who does not will the means must not complain if the conclusion is drawn that he did ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times

... place, and I do not do so to put you in the wrong, but to make the position clear, for these matters are very plain. You came and made a certain proposal. The British Government gave a clear reply—they refused to accept it. The reply was entirely straightforward and quite intelligible; and at the same time the British Government said: "We are desirous of peace; will you make other proposals?" You said: "No, we have no authority to do so without consulting the people." We admitted that argument. Then ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell

... It should, of course, be read before Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes, which is avowedly its second part, a small piece of Eve et David serving as the link between them. But it is almost sufficient by and to itself. Lucien de Rubempre ou le Journalisme would be the most straightforward and descriptive title for it, and one which Balzac in some of his moods would have been ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... be among the least of his qualities." La Bruyere summed up his attacks in a preface to the eighth edition of the "Caracteres" in 1694. He then retired again to his independence as a crafty old bachelor, and Saint Simon gives us a pleasant snapshot of him in these latest years, "a very straightforward man, capital company, simple, with nothing of the pedant about him, ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse

... with a man blind from birth, and the Jews ask Jesus if he was blind because he sinned; this clearly indicates that they were referring to sins committed in the course of a former existence[170]; the thought is, therefore, quite a natural, straightforward one, referring to something well known to everyone and needing ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal

... day it was announced to Lady Catharine, at Kerton Manor, that Bruce was waiting for her in the drawing-room. It was with a diffidence and sense of guilt very strange to her pure, straightforward nature ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... when they rose to their feet, "was the most honest, simple, straightforward prayer I ever heard offered. Thank you, Bob, for including me. If the Lord hears prayers, Bob, He heard yours, for it was honest and from the heart ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace

... with disapproval over her own brown hair and eyes. To be sure the one was curly and the others straightforward and earnest, while her gipsy little face and figure were considered attractive by most people and by those who loved ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown

... were withdrawn, and Samoa plunged again for a period of weeks into her original island-obscurity, Becker opened his guns. The policy was too cunning to seem dignified; it gave to conduct which would otherwise have seemed bold and even brutally straightforward, the appearance of a timid ambuscade; and helped to shake men's reliance on the word of Germany. On the day named, an ultimatum reached Malietoa at Afenga, whither he had retired months before to avoid friction. A fine of one thousand dollars ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... towards its prey. The captain of these tides, travelling up through the Atlantic at a thousand miles an hour, enters the English Channel, and drives on to the Thames. Presently retreating, it meets another pursuing Antarctic wave, which, thus opposed in its straightforward course, recoils into St. Michael's Bay, then plunges, as it were, upon a terrible foe. They twine and strive in mystic conflict, and, in rage of equal power, neither vanquished nor conquering, circle, mad and desperate, round the Channel ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... not entirely easy; the simple, direct way very seldom is. Byways are apt to have softer grass for the feet, deeper shade from the sun, smoother banks to rest upon. The direct, straightforward way often goes on mercilessly up the steep hill, having sharp flints in its pathway, cold winds, dry dust, untempered glare. But the man who dares it with steady eyes usually arrives first at the goal, tempered metal ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... worship in which he had ever joined. My impressions of it are as clear as yesterday's—the unadorned simplicity of the fabric, emphasizing by contrast the blaze of light and colour round the altar; the floating cloud of incense; the expressive and unfussy ceremonial; the straightforward preaching; and, most impressive of all, the large congregation of men, old and young, rich and poor, undergraduates and artisans, all singing Evangelical hymns with one heart and one voice. It was, ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... drew a chair from the wall; for once he was glad to be seated. He told his story in a crisp, straightforward fashion, avoiding side issues, and his listener heard him out ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell

... such cruel feelings toward one who had never done him any willful wrong. But as events proved Jasper was of an exceeding cruel and malignant nature, and his wickedness was all the worse because it was of a cold and calculating sort. If a man gave him an honest straightforward blow or buffet, it was not Jasper's way to strike back there and then, face to face, but rather to wait until some evil chance presented itself—and then, his adversary's back being turned, Jasper would plant a dagger between his shoulders. In other words, he bided his time, and when he ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher

... spoke reflectively; then with a straightforward honesty he went on: "It rather seems to me that once in a great while there rises in the world a marvel-man. To such a spirit the impossible is possible and opportunity is pliant. He may become the greatest boon or the greatest scourge of ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... not visionary enthusiasts who mistook dreams for realities? This question admits of a short and satisfactory answer. No proof whatever exists that they were visionary men, but abundant proof to the contrary. Their narratives are calm, unimpassioned, and straightforward, without expatiation on the greatness of Christ's character and works and the wickedness of his enemies, as is the way of all excited enthusiasts. What Paul said to Festus applies in its full force to ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... station we found the Wali's carriage and a troop of soldiers as a guard of honour, and we then journeyed in it to our house. The next morning Mr. Kennedy visited the Consulate, and apparently found everything straightforward and satisfactory, and he paid official calls with Richard. During the next few days I showed him most of the sights of Damascus, and one evening I gave a large soiree in his honour. Mr. Kennedy was fain to own that in its way it was unique. He had never seen a party like the one I was able to ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... Empire at the expense of independent fringes. The Ukraine, Lithuania, Esthonia, and Latvia, and even Poland and Finland, looked askance at such a policy, and naturally could not be brought into a crusade to carry it out. The straightforward line to take would have been to recognize these emancipated States on the principle of self-determination and limit our action to their defence. Hatred and haste had, however, betrayed the Allies into armed intervention in the domestic politics of Russia proper, ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... harvest, plenty of cattle, and the like, and are expressed in a tone of childlike familiarity that sounds strange in our ears. They make no attempt to veil their desires with mystic solemnity, but ask, in simple, straightforward fashion, that God should make the barley ripen and the cow calve successfully, that He should prevent their horses from being stolen, and that he should help them to gain ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... whether or not she would act on the suggestion which had been put into her head down-stairs. She was on the point of yielding to the impulse of her own good-natured, though coarse feelings; but at last—] "I—I—dare say, Mr. Titmouse, you mean what's right and straightforward," ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... the Arno, turning it to pure gold under the bridges." Sometimes they were joined by Hiram Powers, who was one of their earliest friends in Florence, "our chief friend and favorite," Mrs. Browning said of him, and she found him a "simple, straightforward, genial American, as simple as the man of genius he has proved himself need be." Another friend of these early days was Miss Boyle, a niece of the Earl of Cork, somewhat a poet, withal, who, with her mother, was domiciled in the ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting

... undisturbed that I have never had cause, then or now, to regret the civilized society from which I had voluntarily withdrawn myself, persuaded that if my character and habits incapacitated me for the dubious and not always straightforward transactions of the commercial world, the same moral qualities which impeded me from becoming a business man might find good ground for bringing forth fruit in the pure hearts and minds of a primitive people, who knew neither ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... dovetailed with my own ideas, and oddly enough there was something positively wholesome in the notion of the straightforward crookedness of a mere ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer

... feet unsteadily, his face white with pain. "Jean! What has happened? What have I done? What lies has anyone been telling you?" He spoke in a sharp voice; yet, even in the midst of his bewilderment, he could not but admire her straightforward cutting to the heart of the matter. There was no coquetry or false gentleness about her. That was the pattern of his own nature and he loved ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... sturdy, resolute, fearless man. Lincoln's herculean stature has already been described. A stranger who listened to him for five minutes would say: 'This is a kind, genial, sincere, genuine man; a man you can trust, plain, straightforward, honest, and true.' If this stranger were to hear him make a speech, he would be impressed with his clear good sense, by his wit and humor, by his general intelligence, and by the simple, homely, but pure and accurate language he used. ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... true that the majority of doctors are straightforward and honest in their interpretation of the indications for therapeutic abortion, it was made clear that even at the present time there are some who are inclined to terminate pregnancy for reasons which would not ...
— Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Various Aspects of the Problem of Abortion in New Zealand • David G. McMillan

... letter also she received an answer, though after a little interval. Mr. Dillwyn wrote, he regretted Lois's determination; regretted that she thought it necessary; but appreciated the straightforward, unflinching sense of duty which never consulted with ease or selfishness. He himself was going, he added, on business, for a time, to the north; that is, not Massachusetts, but Canada. He would therefore not see Mrs. Barclay ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner

... this porch was fifty cubits long, men may take many a step straightforward therein, and be but in the porch yet; even as we have seen men go as one would think till they are out of view, in the porch of this church in the wilderness; but presently you have them without the ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

... which in fact is one of the greatest hinderances to progress;—for when one's immediate aim is not truth itself, but the glory which attends the acquisition, he meets a thousand sidelong impulses from the straightforward search. ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington

... sort. His conjectures were put to the rout. He rallied his ideas. He weighed everything in the space of a second. Thenardier was one of those men who take in a situation at a glance. He decided that the moment had arrived for proceeding straightforward, and quickly at that. He did as great leaders do at the decisive moment, which they know that they alone recognize; he abruptly unmasked ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... Bounderby. 'Do you suppose if there was any offence given me, I shouldn't name it, and request to have it corrected? I am a straightforward man, I believe. I don't go ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... I didn't," was General Petain's reply, "but they tell such a straightforward story that I am of the opinion you must be mistaken as to ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes

... first of its disadvantages is in the difficulty of interpreting the doctrine into practical policy. There has seemed to be one straightforward way of interpreting it. Investigations have been made from time to time of the commodities and services on which the working class household tends to spend the bulk of its income. As a result of these investigations budgets have been drawn up which were deemed sufficiently representative of ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis

... The straightforward parson was, indeed, as inaccessible to French words as to French principles. Adele had somehow a smack in it of the Gallic Pandemonium: Adaly, to his ear, was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... the Editor of the GUIDE asked him to say a few words to the ball players of the United States through the medium of this publication, and he has graciously consented to do so in the following pithy and straightforward talks: ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster

... everything that is idiotic; it pronounces a curse upon "intellect," upon the superbia of the healthy intellect. Since sickness is inherent in Christianity, it follows that the typically Christian state of "faith" must be a form of sickness too, and that all straight, straightforward and scientific paths to knowledge must be banned by the church as forbidden ways. Doubt is thus a sin from the start.... The complete lack of psychological cleanliness in the priest—revealed by a glance ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche

... stern independence of Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, and of other Highland chieftains, and too greatly resembles the code of politics adopted by the Earl of Mar. But those who knew Sir John Maclean intimately, considered him a man of straightforward integrity; they deemed him above dissimulation, and have placed his name among those who despised every worldly advantage for the sake of principle, and who loved the cause which he had espoused ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... to think of the cardinals and the transaction of business in the Vatican; cardinals and ministers alike are the dupes of convention. Only those who are estranged from habits and customs can think straightforward. ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore

... brief. The white-sheeted body of the Martian lay on the table where he had been slain. The captain of the liner called Penrun as the chief witness. He told a straightforward story of a chance acquaintance with Lozzo who, he said, seemed to be afraid of something. He had declared, so Penrun testified, that he was being hounded for a map of some kind and he wanted Penrun to see it. Then the murder ...
— Loot of the Void • Edwin K. Sloat

... her eyes to his face. The sadness still dwelt in their depths, but above floated the soft flame of love and trust. She had no coquetry in her straightforward and ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... beginning to have a different opinion of you. You are not as straightforward as a ffrench ought to be—and, though I'm ashamed to say it of you—but you ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne

... more ways than one of losing a child," observed Phoebe, in her straightforward way. "If Mrs Rowland thinks so long beforehand of the one way, it is to be hoped she keeps Miss Matilda up to the thought of the other, which must happen sooner or later, while marrying ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... ignorant, wild, fanatical, and irrational. But no one seemed to be able, or to be expected, unless he avowedly took the buffoonery line which some of the Evangelical preachers affected, to speak in the pulpit with the directness and straightforward unconventionality with which men speak on the practical business of life. With all the thought and vigour and many beauties which were in the best sermons, there was always something forced, formal, artificial about them; ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... although he does not commit himself in his Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture. "I am afraid," he says, in a letter to the Rev. J. W. Belcher, "that the objections to demoniacal possession involve in germ the rejection of all belief in the supernatural." This is wonderfully clear and straightforward for the Grand Old Man. Give up the belief that mad people may be tenanted by devils, and you should immediately join the National Secular Society. You have taken the first decisive step on the broad road of "infidelity," and nothing ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote

... better way," she said. "Monsieur le Baron is doubtless very angry with you, and I am sure that this is chiefly because he does not know you. For instance, if some one were to tell him that you are a straightforward, courageous young man, a gentleman with an unquenchable taste for danger, that you are not a low-born adventurer and intriguer, that you have nothing in particular against his government, he might not be quite so angry. Pardon me if I say ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... dishevelled hair covered with scraps of paper. In the meantime, Marguerite was regretting the necessity of confiding in this man, for the more she looked at him, the more she was convinced that he was not an honest, straightforward person; and she would infinitely have preferred a cynical scoundrel to this plausible and polite gentleman, whom she strongly suspected of being a hypocrite. She remained silent, waiting for M. Fortunat to dismiss the young ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... at once minute and comprehensive, which he had acquired into the character and wants of the people and the cause he came to serve. "Of all those who came to help the Greeks," says Colonel Napier, (a person himself the most qualified to judge, as well from long local knowledge, as from the acute, straightforward cast of his own mind,) "I never knew one, except Lord Byron and Mr. Gordon, that seemed to have justly estimated their character. All came expecting to find the Peloponnesus filled with Plutarch's men, and all returned ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... title of the play had not prepared us, afford fair warning of the way in which things have got to go. In fact it is all very simple and straightforward, and (on the constructive side) Hellenic. Perhaps indeed the treatment is a little too direct, and the tragedy moves too quickly to its consummation (thirty or forty minutes suffice for the reading of it). It might serve its ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various

... not go out on the gallery now and tell her we want her?" exclaimed Pierre. "The colonel says it is best to be straightforward in ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... progressing slowly, and had reached that very important part where the "fly," as an ocular witness, gives his substantial and straightforward evidence. I had a little narrow block between my fingers, and was glancing carefully among the unused pieces for its mate, repeating ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... think one must at least acquit Rumania of any responsibility for her own undoing. Her case as represented by the King seems a just and sufficient reason for her having entered the war. Her action during the war has been straightforward and direct, and I have never heard of any reason to believe that the King or the Rumanian High Command has ever looked back in the furrow since they made the decision to fight on the side of the Allies. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... occupying the attention of biologists for a hundred years and more, but it is distinctly implied that this was not the case. When Mr. Darwin said it was "conceivable that a naturalist might" arrive at the theory of descent, straightforward readers took him to mean that though this was conceivable, it had never, to Mr. Darwin's knowledge, been done. If we had a notion that we had already vaguely heard of the theory that men and the lower animals were descended from common ancestors, we must have been wrong; it was not this that we ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... close our account of the century with a few words about Dr. Bernard, a stiff, hard, and straightforward reader, whose library of medicine and general literature was sold by auction in 1698. 'Being a person who collected his books not for ostentation or ornament he seemed no more solicitous about their dress than his own'; and therefore, says the compiler of his catalogue, 'you'll find that a ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton

... down; and twice they were severely chastised. The first rebellion was crushed by Oliver Cromwell; the second by William the Third. Those great men did not use their victory exactly in the same way. The policy of Cromwell was wise, and strong, and straightforward, and cruel. It was comprised in one word, which, as Clarendon tells us, was often in the mouths of the Englishry of that time. That word was extirpation. The object of Cromwell was to make Ireland thoroughly Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. If he had lived twenty years longer he might perhaps ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... than such systematic corruption of our moral sanity, the plainest pessimism, so that it be straightforward; but better far than that the world of chance. Make as great an uproar about chance as you please, I know that chance means pluralism and nothing more. If some of the members of the pluralism are bad, the philosophy of pluralism, whatever broad views it may deny me, permits ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... returned to this place a few days ago as representative of Hanover; I learn from him, however, with regret, that his further stay here is in no wise assured. Not only is his a straightforward character that awakens confidence, but he is also the only one of my colleagues who has sufficient independence to give me anything more than passive assistance when I am obliged to protest against the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... with a very considerable display of austerity, and had submitted him to a most rigorous cross-questioning; but, luckily, the Tottie had nothing to conceal, and was therefore able to tell a perfectly straightforward story, which, as Piet believed, had not only allayed the monarch's suspicions, but had also aroused in him a very lively curiosity to see the white man and his wonderful fire tubes which slew from afar. The result of the mission was therefore, on the whole, quite satisfactory, ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... man could be. His manner was straightforward, and from what she could see, his face was honest; still she felt somewhat suspicious. There had been rumours lately of poachers being about. Perhaps he was a thief, and would go to the Low Farm when all the men had gone home from work, and Mrs. Shaw would be unprotected. She reflected ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke

... about him," Willa invited. "I'm interested after what he did, although I really liked him before that; he is so strong and clean and straightforward." ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... that it is money fraudulently got, that really belongs to somebody else; and the gambler would feel that if the president takes it, he cannot think very disapprovingly of the manner in which it was acquired. I think it would be more honest and straightforward to take his name with ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... the Dryad's Bubble and saw Gilbert Blythe coming down through the dusky Haunted Wood. She had a sudden realization that Gilbert was a schoolboy no longer. And how manly he looked—the tall, frank-faced fellow, with the clear, straightforward eyes and the broad shoulders. Anne thought Gilbert was a very handsome lad, even though he didn't look at all like her ideal man. She and Diana had long ago decided what kind of a man they admired and their tastes seemed exactly similar. He must be very ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... discuss the questions upon which they were to mediate for their sovereign. I did this immediately, appointing for this purpose certain members of my Council whom I, considered the best informed for that particular negotiation, and men of straightforward principles. These men, in company with the aforesaid ambassadors, examined the treaty presented by the latter, which seemed to have been drawn up and authorized by the Catholic King and Queen, my grandparents, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair

... work of such a character that the most clear cut and definite directions can be given regarding it, so that failure to carry out these directions will constitute direct disobedience of a single, straightforward order. ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor

... (Macmillan), Prof. William Bennett Munro of Harvard has made a valuable addition to this literature. He gives a detailed account of the way in which municipal government is formed and carried on in France, Germany, and England. The style is clear, straightforward, and unpretentious, and the treatment is steadily confined to the subject in hand without any attempt to point a moral or aid a cause. At the same time references to American municipal methods frequently occur as incidents of the explanation of European procedure, and ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... more than ever. But this was no time for reticence. My concern was with the patient and his present needs. After all, I was, as Thorndyke had said, a doctor, not a detective, and the circumstances called for straightforward speech and ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman

... said he, "but I have thought so much about them, and I have studied and consulted so much about them, that I think I have provided against all the dangers we have reason to expect. To me the whole business seems like very plain, straightforward sailing." ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton

... Alicia cried. "No! Don't tell me. It is all so peaceful now, and simple, and straightforward. You think such extraordinary things. He comes here quite often, to talk about her. He is coming this afternoon. So I have impressions too—and ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... is that it is plentifully thought of and talked of among the girls, and hidden away from the mothers and any older friends. Either do not speak of it at all, or let it be an open straightforward thing, instead of a Rosa Matilda mystery. So often a girl feels a delightful spice of impropriety in any remark about a man or a boy. If she had more to do with them she would not be so silly—unless she had a very odd sort of menkind ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby

... that your thoughts are always straightforward and—well, honest, like yourself.... But we mustn't waste time. I don't know when we shall have another opportunity to be together like this, and there are some things I must say to you. Cap'n Kendrick, you ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... all about it, so I can get it right," he continued in a straightforward tone—the tone of the physician, not the lover. She had relied on him, and he intended to give her the best counsel of which he was capable. The ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith

... secret. The Major's astonishment and wrath may be conceived, at finding that his old PROTEGEE Mary, instead of being a comfortable widow, was the persecuted wife of one of the greatest bushrangers known. At first he was stunned and confused, but, ere he slept, his clear straightforward mind had come to a determination that the first evil was the worst, and that, God give him grace, he would hand the scoundrel over to justice on the first opportunity, sure that he was serving Mary ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... replied, "I am the only member of the family living here, and I and the palace are entirely at your disposal." From first to last we found this gentleman perfectly straightforward, and most amiably willing ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... acted at this period with cunning selfishness, both by Scott and by Constable. He well knew that it was to Constable alone that his firm had more than once owed its escape from utter ruin and dishonor; and he must also have known, that had a fair straightforward effort been made for that purpose, after the triumphant career of the Waverley series had once commenced, nothing could have been more easy than to bring all the affairs of his "back-stock," etc., to a complete close, by entering ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... himself to the following of what, in the old mythology of love, was prettily called NONCHALOIR; and in an odd mixture of feelings, a fling of self-respect, a preference for selfish liberty, and a great dash of that fear with which honest people regard serious interests, kept himself back from the straightforward course of life among certain selected activities. And now, all of a sudden, he is unhorsed, like St. Paul, from his infidel affectation. His heart, which has been ticking accurate seconds for the last year, gives a bound ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the rhymes where they are peculiar are often repellent, and so far from adding charm to the verse that they appear as obstacles. This must not blind one from recognizing that Gerard Hopkins, where he is simple and straightforward in his rhyme is a master of it—there are many instances,—but when he indulges in freaks, his childishness is incredible. His intention in such places is that the verses should be recited as running ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... with as finished an air of being unaware of him (particularly if he be a rather shabby painter no longer young) as if the encounter took place on a city sidewalk; but this woman was not of that priggish kind. Her straightforward glance recognised my existence as a fellow-being; and she further acknowledged it by a faint smile, which was of courtesy only, however, and admitted no reference to the fact that at the first sound of her voice ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington

... voluntarily seeking their companionship and sharing their modest hospitality, they met on terms of perfect equality; but when associated with his own surroundings he seemed transformed into a person of fashion, haughty and aloof. It was quite absurd. Stephen was as simple and straightforward in one relation as the other, but perhaps the truth was that Deena was ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... of simple, straightforward folk is formidable indeed; they are exactly like children, setting their unsuspected snares with the perfect craft of ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... sure that if he was right, as a natural consequence Stephen was wrong, even blasphemous, and as such worthy of death. Therefore, he had no scruples about instigating the death of such a one. Notwithstanding all this uncompromising and straightforward religiousness, he needed to be brought from death ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... discriminate these particular forms, the discrimination of which might fairly be expected of any animal with an image-forming eye, but because they demonstrate an important characteristic of the dancing mouse, namely, its indifference to the straightforward or direct way of ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes

... whom he could have but little sympathy, and whose opinions he knew to be in reality diametrically opposed to his and to the present policy at home, the Governor steered clear of intrigue and personal quarrels by his intensely straightforward and able conduct. He was in the habit of almost daily seeing Mr. Rhodes, financiers from Johannesburg, military men thirsting for war, who were commencing to arrive from England, as well as his Cabinet Ministers. To these latter he probably ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... if a man is handsome or not," she said bluntly. "If he's just manly and straightforward and kind, that's all I expect him to be. Now look here—we have dinner at half-past seven in this establishment. It's only supper really, but we all put on our best blouses—if we've got any—and call it dinner. I'll call for you on the way down and we'll go in together. I'll tell Mrs. Elders you ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres

... of her sanity produced in Rebecca's mind a teasing compound of wrath and uneasiness. These people seemed to find something fundamentally irregular in her behavior. What could it be? The situation was intolerable, and she set to work in her straightforward, energetic way to bring ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... the straightforward Isa said, "Oh! no, that is nothing," and walked away, Charlton looked after her and said, "What a charming woman!" He felt more than he said, and he immediately set himself loyally to work to enumerate all the points in which Miss Helen Minorkey was superior to Isa, and said that, ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... truth, my dear M'Mahon, we were talking about you, discussing, in fact, the same subject not many minutes ago; and what you tell me now is only an additional proof that Clinton, who is sometimes harshly spoken of by the way, is a straightforward, honest man." ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... A straightforward story of school-life, and of the duties and temptations of young men entering upon the work of life. The kind of book to rejoice the heart of the boy who gets it as a ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various

... have perhaps never been very far away from civilisation, will be inclined to think that some of the incidents are exaggerated. I can only assure them that I have toned down the facts rather than otherwise, and have endeavoured to write a perfectly plain and straightforward account of things ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson

... from the wax out, oblivious to the flippant comments of gathering crowds. It's all a part of that civic candor somehow. Nowhere I think are eyes so clear, glances so direct and expressions so frank as in California. Nowhere is conversation and discussion more straightforward and courageous. ...
— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin

... upon her. She forced into her face a look of pious admiration, and he at once departed. Hermione opened the book rather furtively. She had the unpleasant sensation of doing a surreptitious action, and she was an almost abnormally straightforward woman by nature. The book was large, and contained an immense number of inscriptions and signatures in handwritings that varied as strangely as do the characters of men. She turned the leaves hastily. Where had Emile written? Not at the end of the book. She remembered that his signature had ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... Trial), but it scarcely required an effort. Mr. Ward Beecher being present in his pew, I sent to invite him to come round before he left. I found him to be an unostentatious, evidently able, straightforward, and agreeable man; extremely well-informed, and with ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... at times with considerable unconscious humor. He held back nothing save the name of the man who had killed Brent, positively refusing to divulge Brevoort's name. His attitude was convincing—and his story straightforward and apparently without a flaw, despite a spirited cross-examination by the State. The trial was brief, brisk, and marked by no wrangling. Sheriff Owen's testimony, while impartial, rather ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... feeling, the foreign student comes to form such a liking. A pleasant picture is presented to us in one passage of the Analects. It is said, 'The disciple Min was standing by his side, looking bland and precise; Tsze-lu (named Yu), looking bold and soldierly; Yen Yu and Tsze-kung, with a free and straightforward manner. The master was pleased, but he observed, "Yu there!— he will not die a natural death [2]."' This prediction was verified. When Confucius returned to Lu from Wei, he left Tsze-lu and Tsze-kao [3] engaged ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge

... would be happy. Instead of that—instead of saying once for all to this young man, who is more in love with her than any other man will ever be: 'There, take her, I give her to you,' which would be the straightforward, sensible way, you go on encouraging the caprices of a child who will end by wasting, in the life you are permitting her to lead, all the good qualities she has and keeping nothing ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)

... nothing," he assured her. "He has been perfectly straightforward about himself, and I am satisfied that he will make you an ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... euphonious name of Lady Waddilove,—a name frequently upon the lips of the inheritor of her abigail,—with a fire that might be called brilliant, was of that modest species which can seldom encounter the straightforward glance of another; on the contrary, it seemed restlessly uneasy in any settled place, and wandered from ceiling to floor, and corner to corner, with an inquisitive though apparently careless glance, as if seeking ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... spoken with a little show of relenting but she had committed herself to coldness. In her soul of souls she wanted to bid him take a chair and tell her frankly all about it, assure him that after a moment of blind anger she had never doubted his straightforward desire to serve her. He began ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... any way out of it. If it had been the tall man alone I would have walked all the way back to Lanesport rather than stay. I never saw anyone whom I disliked so much, from the very first instant. But the Professor seemed perfectly straightforward. The cars had stopped, and I was left here on Rogers's Island, and might as well make the best of it. Besides if Captain Bannister were coming in the morning it was foolish to lose ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson

... Mrs. Bogardus's judgment and her straightforward business habits. Other matters he left alone. But Cerissa was ambitious and emotional, and she stayed indoors, doing little things and thinking small thoughts. She resented her commanding neighbor's casual manners. There ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... originally made subject to it, and he himself openly took their part against his own city when the matter was referred to the general council of the Achaean league. But these things happened afterwards. At the time of which we speak he carried on war in Crete with the Gortynians, not in a simple straightforward manner, as one would expect a Peloponnesian, and especially an Arcadian would do, but he adopted the Cretan character, and by using all their subtle devices and ambushes against themselves, proved ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... brother Askurry; but there was in him a love of deceit for deceit's sake, which spoiled all his cleverness, for it made him uncertain what he would do in the end. This indeed is always the case with deceitful people. They know that what they say and do is not straightforward and true, and so they are like sailors without a compass. They have no fixed pole by ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel

... is soon to leave the hospital. His leg was so badly broken that he will have to walk with either a crutch or a couple of canes. In one way, I feel sorry for the old fellow, but he brought the accident on himself. What a shame that a man with his education couldn't have remained honest and straightforward. ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield

... at this time: I have specimens of both sides of it. My letters are long and detailed, almost school-diaries. Roger's are few, short and immensely impressive. He had a straightforward, utterly unimaginative style that strikes the heart like Defoe's. He gave the strongest sense of great events always happening, of high seas, bright, strange coasts, racy, vital talk—and all in ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... picturesqueness of the two general views is sufficient excuse for presenting them, but they contain much more to the student of architecture who cares to look for it. The two detailed views give an excellent idea of the simple, straightforward methods ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 1, No. 10, October 1895. - French Farmhouses. • Various

... the charges against him of being "an infidel," or guilty of "infidelity," he himself, with that straightforward and happy confidence which made some men ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... scrap—the vehicle this time was an indelible pencil, which the writer appeared to have moistened with his tongue every now and then, some letters being thicker and darker than others. The message, if mysterious, was straightforward enough. "Sir," it ran, "if so be as you'd like to have a bit of news from one as has it, take a walk through Hobkin's Hole tomorrow morning and look out for Yours ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher

... him with Sir Huon and the Lady Esclairmonde stepping just as they stepped to avoid the track of Cold Iron in a furrow, or walking wide of some old ash-tot because a man had left his swop-hook or spade there; and all his heart aching to go straightforward among folk in housen all the time. Oh, a good boy! They always intended a fine fortune for him—but they could never find it in their heart to let him begin. I've heard that many warned them, but they wouldn't be warned. So ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling

... body of the court-house; the Major proceeded, full sail, in his speech—his course aided by being on the popular current, and the "sweet voices" of the multitude blowing in his favour. On concluding (as "the boys" thought) his address, which was straightforward and to the point, a voice in the crowd proposed "Three cheers for the owld Major." Three deafening ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... into by a misconception of truth, misstatements, ignorance of their interests, and the sort of village-like gossip which causes every man to think he is a judge of character, when he is not even a judge of facts. The abuses of absolutism are straightforward, dogged tyranny, in which the rights of the mass are sacrificed to the interests and policy of a prince and his favourites. Now, in a large country, popular excesses in one part are checked and repressed by the power and interests of the other parts. It is not an easy matter ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... for the first time in her life she was dissatisfied with herself. Not that she was in the least aware of the deterioration of her character. She took no count of the endless little meannesses and falsehoods which she was driven into by her position. Simple straightforward action was impossible. This much was evident to her, that whatever course she took now, she must end by forfeiting some one's good opinion: Hardy's first—well, she could get over that; but Ted's? Katherine's? Wyndham's?—if he ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... to write a book, too," Mrs. Barnes said. "Why, I declare that some of those we get from the library—we subscribe to a library, Mr. Fitzgerald—are just as simple and straightforward that a child might have written them. No plot whatsoever, no murders or mysteries or anything of that sort—just stories about people like ourselves. I don't see how they can pay people for writing stories about people just like those ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... and spoke with a dogged determination which was quite new in his old friend's experience of him. Without waiting to be questioned, he told his story in his usual straightforward way. He had overtaken Midwinter on the road; and—after trying vainly first to induce him to return, then to find out where he was going to—had threatened to keep company with him for the rest of the day, and had so ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... Chamber seemed to change with Vignon in the tribune. He was slim, with a fair and carefully tended beard, blue eyes and all the suppleness of youth. He spoke, moreover, like a practical man, in simple, straightforward language, which made the emptiness of the other's declamatory style painfully conspicuous. His term of official service as a prefect in the provinces had endowed him with keen insight; and it was in an easy way that he propounded and unravelled the most ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... awkwardly, and, if they do, whether a slight shifting of them will clear all the important parts; it often will, and then all is well; but I do not shrink from slightly altering even the position of a head or hand, rather than give a laboured look to what ought to be simple and straightforward by "coaxing" the bars up and down all over the window to fit in with the numerous heads ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall

... he yearned to go to her and tell her how he approved of her conduct. Alas, Philip! Sylvia, though as modest a girl as ever lived, was no prude, and had been brought up in simple, straightforward country ways; and with any other young man, excepting, perhaps, Philip's self, she would have thought no more of making a rapid pretence of kissing the hand or cheek of the temporary 'candlestick', than our ancestresses did in a much higher rank ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... march of events and that of men in this curious sixteenth century, we ought never to forget that public policy had for its element a perpetual craftiness and a dissimulation which destroyed, in all characters, the straightforward, upright bearing our imaginations demand of eminent personages. In this, above all, is Catherine's absolution. It disposes of the vulgar and foolish accusations of treachery launched against her by the writers of the Reformation. This was the great age ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... of Milan brought this letter to Vittoria. She despatched Luigi with her reply, which met the charge in a straightforward affirmative. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... this, and when he saw them walk away together, while 'Lena appeared wholly unconcerned, he began to think that possibly Mrs. Livingstone was mistaken when she hinted of an engagement between her niece and Mr. Everett. Knowing John Jr.'s straightforward way of speaking, he determined to sound him, so he said, "Your sister and Mr. Everett evidently prefer each other's society ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... coming, as to have him before me—so long as I knew he was indeed coming. I was just a little anxious lest I should not find him altogether so beautiful as I was imagining him. That he was good, I never doubted: could I otherwise have fallen in love with him? And his letter was so straightforward—so manly! ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald

... tears, and she took a thick folio volume placed upon a table inlaid with enamel and medallions; it was the 'Astree' of M. d'Urfe—a work 'de belle galanterie' adored by the fair prudes of the court. The unsophisticated and straightforward mind of Marie could not enter into these pastoral loves. She was too simple to understand the 'bergeres du Lignon', too clever to be pleased at their discourse, and too impassioned to feel their tenderness. ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny

... which writing men call "immortality." But if there is need for the world to be told further that George Borrow was a good man, that he was a most winsome and a most charming companion, that he was an English gentleman, straightforward, honest, and brave as the very best exemplars of that fine old type, the world is now told so—told so by two of the few living men who can speak of him with authority, the writer of the above letter ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... like an old maid with the heartache and here's the whole world terribly alive and needing attention. And here's Cynthia's boy back from India, and a real Green Valley kind of minister, I do believe; a straightforward chap to tell us of life, its miracles and mysteries; of God and eternity as he honestly thinks, but mostly of love and the little happy ways of earthly living. A man who won't be always dividing us into sheep and goats but will show us the sheep ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds

... young brother surpassed even the tenderest affection of such relatives; all who had loved and served him were dear to her; and at a time when so much of treachery and insidious policy lurked around her, even in the garb of seeming devotion to her cause, the unwavering fidelity and straightforward conduct of Morales, combined as it was with his deep affection for Alfonso, permitted her whole mind to rest on him, secure not only of his faithfulness, but of vigilance which would discover and counteract every evil scheming of seeming friends. Her constantly chosen ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... "Hamlet" or "Lear," that here is verse at once capable of the highest sublimity and capable of sustaining its theme, of lifting and lowering it at will, with endless resource in the slide and pause of the caesura, to carry it on and on. We feel it to be adequate, too, for quite plain straightforward narrative, as in ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... and therefore blushed slightly, and said, awkwardly, something about being sure—looking at Mr. Plumer and hitching the right leg of his trouser as he spoke. Mr. Plumer got up and stood in front of the fireplace. Mrs. Plumer laughed like a straightforward friendly fellow. In short, anything more horrible than the scene, the setting, the prospect, even the May garden being afflicted with chill sterility and a cloud choosing that moment to cross the sun, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... he had been a guest from the other world, but not disbelieving his story in the least. He had seen, as most old navy men, so many strange things happen, that he was prepared to give credit to any tale when told, as Tom's was, with a straightforward and unboastful simplicity. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... Springfield, Massachusetts, near which place he owned a farm. He had a moderate fortune, and he was a most estimable man. Mr. Chapman had known him for many years, during which time he had always borne himself in an upright, straightforward manner, free from all reproach. Lately, however, he had become involved in some very serious difficulties in the West, and Mr. Chapman had advised him to see me, and obtain my assistance in extricating himself from his ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton

... am not, as I told you; being weary and ill; neither do I much care now to use what, in the very truth, are but tricks of literary art, in dealing with this so grave subject. You see I write you my letter straightforward, and let you see all my scratchings out and puttings in; and if the way I say things shocks you, or any other reader of these letters, I cannot help it; this only I know, that what I tell you is true, and written ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin

... too abruptly; and give you a shock, which a gentleman could have spared you, or at all events lessened very much; I hope you will give me credit for meaning well. I wish to be careful and considerate, and I trust that in a straightforward person like me, you'll take the ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... to show that his feeling, even were it a little embittered by the memory of their midnight conference and his hopes therefrom, went no farther than the conduct of his majesty justified. It was no wonder that the straightforward old man, walking erect to ruin for his king, should fret and fume, yea, yield to downright wrath and ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... at him once or twice as they walked along, and her face glowed with happy pride. "I'd just like to have Addie Porter see me now!" she exclaimed, and gave Tom a straightforward look to which he ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett

... very well, if it had been uttered with a straightforward air and in a clear tone. But it was not. I who loved him felt that it was not, and consequently was more or less prepared for the change which now took place in the inspector's manner. Yet it pierced me to the heart to observe this change, and I instinctively dropped my face into my hands when ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green

... sacred history or mythology. A peculiar feature by which his pictures may be known is the invariable and apparently intentional hiding of the feet of his figures, for which purpose sheep and cattle and household utensils are introduced. He confines himself to a bold, straightforward imitation of familiar objects, united, however, with pleasing composition, colour, and chiaroscuro. His colours, indeed, sparkle like gems, particularly the greens, in which he displays a brilliancy quite peculiar to himself. His lights are boldly infringed on the objects, and ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies









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