"Frankness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... answered with humorous frankness, "and I'm plain with you, that stands for something in it. For it's a weary way west ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... occasion, to the Nuncio, that he might be compelled to follow the example Henry the Eighth, of England, had set him, and permit the spread of the "Lutheran" religion in France, the astute prelate replied: "Sire, to speak with all frankness, you would be the first to repent your rash step. Your loss would be greater than the Pope's; for a new religion established in the midst of a people involves nothing short of a change of prince."[219] And the same author that records this incident tells us ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... passing word or gesture, its haste to repel insinuation, the alternate contraction and dilatation of the soul, and all 'the dazzling fence of controversy' in this mortal combat with poisoned weapons, aimed at the heart, where each wound is fatal. We have seen in OTHELLO, how the unsuspecting frankness and impetuous passions of the Moor are played upon and exasperated by the artful dexterity of Iago. In the present play, that which aggravates the sense of sympathy in the reader, and of uncontrollable anguish in the swollen heart of Lear, is the petrifying indifference, ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... which he practises in all his transactions. The clergy give him credit for the highest zeal for the doctrines of religion, and a corresponding respect for the Church and its dignitaries. Justice, liberality, and frankness, have equally attached to this Godfrey the lower class of the people. His general attention to moral obligations is a pledge to them that his religion is real; and, gifted with so much that is excellent, he is already, although inferior in rank, birth, and power to many chiefs of the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... a grand engagement; Mrs. Polkington could not pretend that her son-in-law elect had aristocratic or influential connections; she said so frankly—and her frankness, which was overstrained, was one of ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... there was a frankness and a directness about her almost boyishly clear-cut face which inspired confidence, and the girls who brought their difficulties to her found in her a wise and sympathetic counsellor. Eleanor was not beautiful like Catherine, not brilliant like Patricia—in ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... body. She essayed crude patchwork with strips of deerskin and pins of wood, but these efforts were rendered futile by wear and tear and the rotting of the cloth itself. She began to be embarrassed when her flesh showed through the rents in her garments; but Haig, with a mingling of frankness and tact that might indeed have been less easy in other circumstances, effectually helped her to banish all false modesty from a situation in which they were reduced to primitive habits and almost ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... thou wilt, either of a public or a private person, of a rich man or a beggar.'"[845] "Show those qualities," says Marcus Aurelius, "which God hath put in thy power—sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... shoulder and completed his costume. The man himself was of middle size, athletic yet slender, with straight and regular features, sunburnt, but not swarthy; and an expression of countenance which, though reckless and bold, had in it frankness rather than ferocity, and, if defying, was ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... thoughts and deeds might lie, as the "open secrets" of Nature, free to all who are able to understand them. I have no reserves, except intellectual reserves; for to speak of things to those who cannot receive them is stupidity, rather than frankness. But in this case, I alone am not concerned. Therefore, dear James, give heed to the subject. You have received a key to what was before unknown of your friend; you have made use of it, now let it be buried with the past, over whose ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... because he was born a servant in Lord De Aldithely's father's house, and was ten years older than the mistress of the castle, whose master was now gone. He had already told Lady De Aldithely all that he knew of the strange lad, and had advised her, with his accustomed frankness, to put lad, horse, and hound at once without the castle walls. Lady De Aldithely had listened, and when he had finished, without any comment, she had commanded him to send the two ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... "Your generous frankness, General Toussaint," said he, "induces me to remind you of one more duty which, in case of the desired pacification, you will owe to the Captain-General. You will hold yourself indebted to France for all such treasure as, in an hour of alarm, you ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... guest in a very summary manner, or to treat him with haughty reserve, the graceful dignity of Mr. Humphreys' manners made either expedient impossible. Mr. Lindsay felt constrained to meet him on his own ground the ground of high-bred frankness, and grew secretly still more afraid that his real feelings ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... circumstances. In some cases there may be some doubt and it is necessary to know the opinion of the other party concerned, and whether this party is also affected in a similar way, etc. The first duty of the doctor is to demand absolute frankness and to say, "under this or that condition and in such and such circumstances, you may perhaps marry, but under no pretext have you the right to conceal the truth from your betrothed. It is to your own interest to be frank, for no marriage founded on ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... at this frankness, and then proceeded to show him how the shake was done. Josef after a few trials was able to perform the shake to the entire satisfaction of his teacher. After testing him on a portion of a mass the Capellmeister was willing to take him to the Cantorei or Choir school of ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... paraphernalia of fashion are required to make them appear fresh and blooming. Man is equally to blame. A devotee to all the absurd devices of fashion, he practically asserts that "dress makes the man." But physical deformities are of far less importance than moral imperfections. Frankness is indispensable in love. Each should know the other's faults and virtues. Marriage will certainly disclose them; the idol falls and the deceived lover is transformed into a cold, unloving husband or wife. By far the greater number of unhappy marriages are attributable ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... was a frankness in my Uncle Toby, not the effect of familiarity, but the cause of it, which let you at once into his soul, and showed you the goodness of his nature. To this there was something in his looks, and voice, and manner, superadded, which eternally ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... Preliminary Enquiries, which had Viscount Miura and his assistants before it after the murder, reported all the facts up to this point with great frankness. I have used its account solely in the above description. The Court having gone so far, then added a final finding which probably ranks as the most extraordinary statement ever presented by a responsible Court of law. "Notwithstanding these ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... communicated itself from the face of the widow to that of the sensitive Mr. Crabtree, Mrs. Rucker descended the steps of the store, taking Mrs. Plunkett with her, for to Mrs. Rucker the state of matrimony, though holy, was still an institution in the realm of realism and to be treated with according frankness. ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... replies Tom, evidently touched by the frankness and generosity of the old sailor. Indeed there was something so whole-hearted about old Spunyarn, that he was held in universal esteem by every one in jail, with the single exception ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... full of the lust of criticism, which is civilisation's substitute for cruelty, would answer more in frankness than in friendship. Then he who had written would flush angrily, ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... married in a month. That is settled. I never linger over business. We may shake hands on it." They did so with great cordiality. "It is not that I am overjoyed at the match," she explained, with great frankness. "I think Sarah is a fool to marry a boy. But I have observed she is a fool who always knows her own mind. The fancies of some girls of that age are not ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... Islands showed that uninterrupted subsidence could not have been going on in that region. Dr. Semper's objections were very carefully considered by Mr. Darwin, and a reply to them appeared in the second and revised edition of his "Coral-Reefs," which was published in 1874. With characteristic frankness and freedom from prejudice, Darwin admitted that the facts brought forward by Dr. Semper proved that in certain specified cases, subsidence could not have played the chief part in originating the peculiar forms of the coral-islands. But while making this admission, he firmly ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... out the objections so fully as here stated, I freely disclosed my thoughts to the friend last named, and to his wife, towards whom he encouraged me to exercise the fullest frankness. I confess, I said nothing about the Unitarian book; for something told me that I had violated Evangelical decorum in opening it, and that I could not calculate how it would affect my friend. Certainly no Romish hierarchy can so successfully exclude heretical books, as social enactment excludes ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... presence of the objectionable Michael Finsbury, who at the other end of the table, I learned afterwards, was overwhelming his neighbours with a worse embarrassment than mine by finding me every bit as objectionable as I found him, and saying so with a frankness it was ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... extra quart of wine. The hero of the books called for a third. Schaunard treated to salad, the other to dessert. At eight o'clock there were six empty bottles on the table. As they talked, their natural frankness, assisted by their libations, had urged them to interchange biographies, and they knew each other as well as if they had always lived together. He of the books, after hearing the confidential disclosures of Schaunard, had informed him that his name was Gustave Colline; he was a philosopher by ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... delighted to have some one with us. I told Mr. Calcraft only this morning that we should go out to dinner if he came home alone. Don't ask for which paper he writes until you meet him. Nothing in the world could make me tell you." She was all frankness and animation, and her guest told himself that she was of a great charm. They fell into professional talk. She spoke of her husband's talents; how he had played the viola in quartet parties; of his successful lecture, "The Inutility of Wagner," ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... to. We stated that if it would embarrass him in promoting the earliest settlement of the question, we would desist from publishing anything on the subject. He expressed himself as highly gratified at our frankness, courtesy, and general views, and said that if his high-church friends had treated him with the same liberality and courtesy he would have been saved from much difficulty and embarrassment, which he had experienced in his previous exertions; but that he thought there could ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... if there be anything good about my poetry or prose either," Scott wrote, in a passage that has often been quoted, "it is a hurried frankness of composition which pleases soldiers, sailors and young people of bold and active disposition."[383] I have tried to show that this quality was one which he not only enjoyed, in his own work and in that of other writers, but that as ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... barn. (It was Milton the Glen supposed at first to be a Mormon, but I can't go into that now.) He offered MacLure a pound less than he asked, and two tracts, whereupon MacLure expressed his opinion of Milton, both from a theological and social standpoint, with such vigour and frankness that an attentive audience of Drumtochty men ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... human rights, and the consent of the governed as the only just basis of all government. The presence of the inferior races on our own soil, and our new problems connected with them in our dependencies, have led to much questioning of the correctness of those principles, which, for its outspoken frankness, at least, is greatly to be commended. It is argued that these, as principles, in the light of modern knowledge and conditions, are of doubtful general truth and limited application. True, when confined and carefully applied to citizens of the same blood and nationality; questionable, when ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams
... historical work printed in Poland. Martin Kromer, bishop of Ermeland or Warmia, called the Livy of Poland, Wapowski, Guagnini, an Italian, but naturalized and ennobled in Poland, and Piasecki, a Protestant, distinguished for his frankness, wrote works on Polish history; Koialowicz, on that of Lithuania. They all wrote in Latin. The first who published an historical work in Polish was Martin Bielski, ob. 1576. His chronicle of Poland, which is of value in every respect, is written ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... have the money between us, we three," replied Dotty, with refreshing frankness, "and buy anything we please except ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... good sort of man, and a gentleman; but he was not capable of meeting Donal on the ground on which he approached him: on that level he had never set foot. There is nothing more disappointing to the generous man than the way in which his absolute frankness is met by the man of the world—always looking out for motives, and imagining them after ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... sunken eyes are selfish, while eyes in which the whole iris shows indicate erraticism, if not lunacy. Round eyes are indicative of innocence; strongly protuberant eyes of weakness of both mind and body. Eyes small and close together typify cunning, while those far apart and open indicate frankness. The normal distance between the eyes is the width of one eye; a distance greater or less than this intensifies the character supposed to be symbolized. Sharp angles, turning down at the corners of the eyes, are seen in persons of acute judgment and penetration. ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... missus had twins, followed by typhoid fever." His admissions came with hopeless frankness. "And I couldn't pay for all that luxury. So ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... a man in his position would have shrugged his shoulders and coldly sneered at the words, "I love him," but he did not, for his nature was sufficiently noble to sympathize with hers. He admired her courage and frankness, which disdaining all subterfuges, went straight and unhesitatingly to the point she desired to reach. She might be imprudent and reckless, but in his eyes these seemed hardly to be faults, for it is seldom that convent-bred young ladies err in ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... with a family like this, in which the frankness and simplicity of rural and colonial life were united with European refinement, could not but have a beneficial effect in moulding the character and manners of a somewhat homebred schoolboy. It was probably his intercourse with them, and his ambition to acquit himself well in their society, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... story simply, with boyish frankness, interlarding the narrative with humorous little anecdotes that robbed the tale of the stigma of failure and clothed it in the charm of achievement. She laughed in perfect understanding when he described how some desert ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... enough that she is cooped up within boundaries which are intolerable—that she is an "imprisoned Power." She argues, still with perfect frankness, that it was a mere accident that, to her misfortune, she came into being as a great Power too late to be able to get her proper share of the earth's surface, wherein her people might expand and put forth their surplus energy. The time when there was earth's surface ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... us talk any more in that way, Verty, please," says the young girl, with the most beautiful frankness and ingenuousness; "we are friends and playmates, you know; and we ought not to act toward each other as if we were grown gentleman and lady. Please do not; it will make us feel badly, I am sure. I am only Redbud, you know, and you are Verty, my friend and playmate. Shall I sing you ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... this you will find in the enclosed paper, which will be sworn to, in due legal form, whenever it is necessary. Even when you see them, you will scarcely believe these 'damning proofs' of Wharton's baseness. But I always knew, I always told you, that this pretence to honour and candour, frankness and friendship, with this avowed contempt of all principle and all virtue, could not be safe, could not he sincere, would not stand the test.—No—nothing should make me trust to the private honour of a man so corrupt in public life as Mr. Wharton. A man who sells ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... His frankness extended even farther. When he recalled that it was the bishop and not his daughter who had shown humanity at the wedding, he was impressed by her curious insensibility. It seemed to him peculiarly feminine ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... like to be your last,' he remarked, with soldierly frankness. 'I hear that the Privy Council intend to make such an example as will take the heart out of the Whigs for twenty years to come. They have a lawyer coming from London whose wig is more to be feared ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a very different temper was manifested among members of Congress, and from them spread forth and found support among the people. Two reasons promoted this. One, which was avowed with the frankness of indignation, was a jealousy of seeing so important a business preempted by the executive department. The other was a natural feeling of mingled hostility and distrust towards rebels, who had caused so much blood to be shed, so much cost to be incurred. ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... her. They were followed by Lord Mark and by the other men, but two or three things happened before any dispersal of the company began. One of these was that Kate found time to say to him with furtive emphasis: "You must go now!" Another was that she next addressed herself in all frankness to Lord Mark, drew near to him with an almost reproachful "Come and talk to me!"—a challenge resulting after a minute for Densher in a consciousness of their installation together in an out-of-the-way corner, though not the same he himself had just occupied with her. Still another ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... this noble frankness on the General, was to raise him from his chair in a sitting posture as if he had ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... answered him with a frankness which even Merrington grudgingly realized left nothing to be desired. She was, apparently, only too anxious to help the police investigations to the best of her ability. But what she had to tell amounted to very little. Her first knowledge of her nephew's intention to marry was contained ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... said. He started to inconspicuously key his pocket recorder, but caught himself. "May I record your remarks, Admiral?" he said. Frankness all ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... appeared too wild and high-reaching to be easy of accomplishment; beheld how readily the paternal hand was stretched out to soften the ordeals through which the neophyte must inevitably pass, and was moved by the touching frankness with which the noble-minded parent repeatedly congratulated himself that he had not permitted his own predilections to force Ronald into a field of action ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... "Such frankness as yours is repulsive, forbidding, demoniac! You speak of woman as being the noblest subject of contemplation for man, but interpreted by your book and your experiences this seems in the last analysis to lead you right into sensuality, and what I should call ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... slow to believe. Sheer pride had driven her to reluctance, to shyness, to unbelief. But that was long ago, months ago. Norma knew now that he truly liked her, that the very freshness and unconventionality of her viewpoint delighted him, and that he gave her a frankness, a simpleness, and an ardour, in his confidences, that ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... Albrecht Duerer in her sad and somewhat constrained gracefulness, with her tired features, interesting rather than beautiful, her air of a matron rather than a Virgin, her German and bourgeoise frankness, her tight garments and her symmetrically broken folds, almost always accompanied by a rabbit, an owl, or an ape, through some vague memory of Germanic pantheism, may she not be the woman whom he would have loved and preferred ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... tumble of a favourite charioteer than for the sinking state of the nation. The ready employment of ridicule in the place of argument, of wit instead of graver reason, of nicknames as their most powerful weapon, was one of the worst points in the Alexandrian character. Frankness and manliness are hardly to be looked for under a despotic government where men are forbidden to speak their minds openly; and the Alexandrians made use of such checks upon their rulers as the law allowed them. They lived under an absolute monarchy ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... sacredness of treaties Malta was too important a post to be left in the hands of England. Napoleon at last resolved to have a personal interview himself with Lord Whitworth, and explain to him, with all frankness, his ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... Will tried to take advantage of Maga's youth and savagery. Fred and I had shared a dozen lively adventures with him without more than beginning yet to plumb the depths of his respect for Woman. Only an American in all the world knows how to meet Young Woman eye to eye with totally unpatronizing frankness, and he was without guile in the matter. But not so she. We did not know whether or not she was Gregor Jhaere's daughter; whether or not she was truly the gipsy that she hardly seemed. But she was certainly daughter of the Near East that does not ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... dear madam, for my frankness. I have loved you from my earliest days—everything grand and beautiful hath borne the image of Ambulinia; while precipices on every hand surrounded me, your GUARDIAN ANGEL stood and beckoned me away from the deep abyss. In every trial, ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... at being Gawd,' he said, with an engaging frankness. 'And I've sent Fergus and Janet to the bad place. That's in the shrubbery. And they're never to come out any more. And they're ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... read an interview in a New York paper with the Chief of Staff of the German Army opposite the British in which he must have been correctly quoted, as his remarks passed the censorship. He said that the loss of Pozieres was a blunder. I liked his frankness in laying the blame on a subordinate who, if he also had spoken, might have mentioned the presence of the Australians as an excuse, which, personally, I think ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... qualities in his father that he had, deep down in his nature, admired. He had seemed to be without doubt a man on whom one could rely in a tight corner, and in spite of himself he had liked his father's frankness. It was unusual. There was always another meaning in everything that Robin's friends said, but there was never any doubt about Harry. He missed the fine shades, of course, and was lamentably lacking in discrimination, ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... the smouldering eyes of that woman, and she wondered if they were what suggested something very impassioned to Maxwell; but with all the frankness between them, she ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... your frankness, Mr. Hallock, it is because my early education was neglected. But I'll say this: I appreciate your disappointment; I know what it means to a man situated as you are. Notwithstanding, I want you to stay with me. I'll say more; ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... Idiot." How the "E. E." came to her knowledge was never made plain. Before three months were past, she had quarreled with every one in the house except Mrs. Mason and myself; though, to her credit be it said, she always apologized for her temper when they were over, with a frankness that disarmed resentment. Nevertheless, she was so frequently in a hostile attitude toward one or another in the family, that the mere mention of Miss Jorgensen's name was sure to arrest attention and excite expectations. Thus, when I only chanced to whisper to Mrs. Mason at breakfast one morning, ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... his bottle a second frequenter entered the cabaret. This was a man of thirty or thirty-five, with strong features and the frame of a Hercules. An expression of frankness and gayety overspread his sunburnt face. Cottonade pantaloons, stuffed into a pair of dirty boots, and a vareuse of the same stuff made up his dress. His vareuse, unbuttoned, showed his breast, brown and hairy; and a horrid cap with long hair covered, without concealing, a mass ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... been to wish her good-morning. My poor wife has no husband; I am not with her even when our hands touch. Sometimes I have an acute feeling that I am making their lives very sad, and I feel very remorseful, for happiness is solely composed of kindness, frankness and gaiety in one's home; but how can I escape from the claws of the monster? I at once relapse into the somnambulism of my working hours, into the indifference and moroseness of my fixed idea. If the pages I have written during the ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... his estate. His mansion is pleasantly situated on a small eminence, in one of the coolest and most inviting retreats which is to be seen in this clime, and we were received by its master with all the cordiality and frankness for which Barbados is famed. He introduced us to his family, consisting of three daughters and two sons, and invited us to stop to dinner. One of his daughters, now here on a visit, is married to an American, a native of New York, but now a merchant in one of the southern ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... mother, and I know well enough what it is to lose one's beloved Dad, but you see Hilda had shown me her family photographs only the other day, for we are making friends in a sort of flabby, hesitating way, and when she got to the one of her father she said with perfect frankness that she hadn't liked him, and that it had been an immense relief when he died. "He prevented my doing anything," she said, frowning at the photograph, "except that which ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... would sink to its proper and relative place, and become a mere 'thank you' for your good opinion—which I assure you is far too generous—for I really believe you to be my superior in many respects, and feel uncomfortable till you see that, too—since I hope for your sympathy and assistance, and 'frankness is everything in such a case.' I do assure you, that had you read my note, only having 'known' so much of me as is implied in having inspected, for instance, the contents, merely, of that fatal and often-referred-to 'portfolio' there (Dii meliora piis!), you would see in it, (the note ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... separately, and when they met again they did not harmonize as they had done. His sisters were more aristocratic in all their tastes and feelings than the Australian squatter; they had scarcely mixed at all with children, and had no patience with his wild bush children, whose frankness and audacity were so terribly embarrassing; and they had shown their disappointment at his MESALLIANCE ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... with a feeling of satisfaction at this protection, blushed and waved his hands in protest against the frankness of the rude fellow with his threats for ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... are precocious, but untruthful, cruel, and vicious; the despair of relatives, friends, and teachers. They combine unusual frankness with an audacity and impulsiveness that is very misleading, for below this show of fire and power there is ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... dear lady!" he exclaimed, "I can't tell you how I feel for you! You charm me, you overwhelm me, you touch me to the heart. What can I say? What can I do? I can only imitate your admirable frankness, your fearless candor. You have told me what your position is. Let me tell you, in my turn, how I am placed. Compose yourself—pray compose yourself! I have a smelling-bottle here at the service of the ladies. Permit me to ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... and for a moment hesitated to declare himself one of the despised. Then mustering up his courage, he told her how new and green he was, and all with a frankness which made her blue eyes open very wide and her lips part in ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... again she looked back at the sleeping but unbeautiful baroness; then she said with a truly German frankness: ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... her audience were perfectly distinguishable. Kendal's explanation of it to himself was that it was based upon an exceptional natural endowment of physical perfection, informed and spiritualised by certain moral qualities, by simplicity, frankness, truth of nature. There was a kind of effluence of youth, of purity, of strength, about her which it was impossible not to feel, and which evidently roused the enthusiastic sympathy of the great majority of those who ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Chronicle. I received it with every demonstration of respect—and entreated the Abbot to inscribe a "dono dedit" in the fly leaf, which would render it yet more valuable in my estimation.[108] He cheerfully complied with this request. The courtesy, the frankness, the downright heartiness of feeling with which all this was done—together with the value of the present—rendered it one of the most delightful moments of my existence. I instinctively caught the Abbot's arm, pressed ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the first thing she had asked him; and when he had found the frankness to be cheerful about it in spite of the meaning he knew her to attach to Miss Gostrey's absence, she had gone on to enquire if he didn't tremendously miss her. There were reasons that made him by no means sure, yet he nevertheless answered ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... you for your frankness; and now let me tell you that, while I can see nothing in either case that would be any disgrace to me, the story does not happen to be true. I have known what it is to be poor, for my parents died eight years ago, leaving us only a great lawsuit, but my ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... addressed him as king. His ministers Escoiquiz and Cavallos declare, in their justificatory writings, that in addition to the impression produced by his conduct, Savary actually said, as if in a burst of military frankness, that the Emperor was already on his way to assure himself whether Ferdinand's dispositions toward the French system were as sincere as his father's had been, and would of course be favorably impressed if a personal ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... my frankness, I have protected his daughter against Count Marlanx. He understands. And yet he would not betray a trust imposed upon him even by the Count. He has only told me what any one else might have seen with his own eyes. Wait! The new servant is in the hall ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the intelligence of a trained and experienced physician, with the thoroughness and frankness of an expert teacher and with the delicacy and motive of a Christian gentleman, he presents the "Young Man's Problem" in such a way as to make him, in my judgment, one of the most helpful counselors of young men on the American ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... Mr. David's actual position. He begged to send his love to his mother, and to say that he hoped to pay her a dutiful visit by and by; but, at present, his business and near prospect of marriage made it difficult for him to leave home. His brother replied with much frankness. ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... himself only a poor student, and humbly ask pardon for the thoughtless freedom with which he had enjoyed their too confiding hospitality. If he had any doubts of Frau Schomburg's motives and desires, they were speedily set at rest by the frankness with which she showed her disappointment, the vigour with which she scolded him, and the scorn with which she cast him off when her splendid castles in ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... couple are the most prim, cold, immovable, and unsatisfactory people on the face of the earth. Their faces, voices, dress, house, furniture, walk, and manner, are all the essence of formality, unrelieved by one redeeming touch of frankness, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... that first night as to the effects of her exceeding frankness. Her pride in the first place was somewhat wounded; she had dreamed of a knight who would worship her as his queen, hang on her smile, die at her frown; and she had meant to bring Hereward to her feet as such a slave, in boundless gratitude; ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... the old soldier, a little mollified by his young master's frankness, "that don't make it quite so bad. Now then, just you answer right out. Where were you a-going ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... good time. She would soon acquire the habits and ways of her friends and acquaintances, without his trying to force upon her a series of affectations, which would only embarrass her and cloud the perfect frankness and spontaneity of her nature. Of one thing he was quite assured—that whatever mistakes Sheila might make in society they would never render her ridiculous. Strangers might not know the absolute ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... many a noble heart, (and such remain In all the South, like Lot in Siddim's plain, Who watch and wait, and from the wrong's control Keep white and pure their chastity of soul,) Now sick to loathing of your weak complaints, Your tricks as sinners, and your prayers as saints, Would half-way meet the frankness of your tone, And feel their pulses ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... characteristic, however, as it seemed to me, was her perfect frankness. As we whirled along on our way across England, she told us everything about herself, her family, her friends, her neighbours, and the population of Kansas City in general. Not obtrusively or egotistically,—of egotism Melissa ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... bent into the sun-bonnet and sealed his capture of the virginal fortress by a passionate kiss on the tremulous little lips. And she, with the frankness of a child, reached up and kissed him ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... a handsome boy came to him, craving permission to retain the sword his father had won, a favour which the General, pleased by the boy's frankness and manliness, granted. The next day the young rebel's mother presented herself to thank him with gracious words for his kindness to her son—a creature of another world than his, with a beauty, grace and refinement which were a new ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... with the tale that he had been approached by a man in one of the corridors of the pickle rooms of Durham's, and asked what he would pay to get a job. He had not known what to make of this at first; but the man had gone on with matter-of-fact frankness to say that he could get him a job, provided that he were willing to pay one-third of his wages for it. Was he a boss? Antanas had asked; to which the man had replied that that was nobody's business, but that he could ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... or other, I must confess to a sort of admiration for Murtha and his stamp—if for nothing else than because of the frankness with which he did what he sought to do. Neither Kennedy nor I could be accused of undue sympathy with the System, yet, like many who had been brought in close contact with it, it had earned our respect in ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... a free, and, in some tense, a confidential dialogue. Her manner towards me had entirely changed; for, while it maintained the modesty and retenue of her sex and station, it displayed much of that frankness which was the natural consequence of her great intimacy at the Nest, and; as I have since ascertained, of her own ingenuous nature. The circumstance, too, that she now felt she was with one of her own class, who had opinions, habits, tastes ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... you will pardon my habitual frankness, friend, that query with so constant repetition becomes a trifle monotonous. No, it does not dishearten me, I am past that. No, I once opened a window, the more clearly to appraise the most dear rewards of my endeavors—That moment was ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... expected this question, and felt sure that the earl, who was, when not inflamed by anger, a cool and cautious man, would highly disapprove of Hotspur's frankness; and might possibly detain him, if he knew that he possessed so important ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... was, the man was much impressed with the sincerity and honesty of Nat before he got half through his explanation. He admired his frankness, and his manly, straight-forward way of telling his story. He went into the house and brought out the caps, just as he took them from the ground, full of cherries, and gave them caps, cherries, ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... meant to take the course he had announced, and his frankness in giving previous notice was not without calculation. He argued thus: If Tweddle was free from all complicity, nothing was lost by delaying the search for a day; if he were guilty, he would be more than mortal if he did not attempt, after such a warning, either ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... been to the mail to secure, for Charlotte watched him break the seal as he approached; and when he suddenly raised his head, and saw her look of amazement, he made a little bravado of the affair, and said, with an air of frankness, "It is a letter from Harry. I thought it was best for his letters not to come to the house. The mail-bag might be taken to the squire's room, and who knows what would happen if he should see one of these," ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Mr. Hoyt," said Indiman, with an air of engaging frankness, "I have never, until this moment, even heard of the Utinam Club. But for all that I am convinced that I am about to become a member of it, and I may say the same for my friend, Mr. Thorp. Now, possibly you may be inclined to ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... delightful frankness about the address submitted to the electors by a candidate who solicited their support for the position of sheriff in one of the provinces of the United States, but its honesty ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... at her again. All her confusion had passed away; she had the light of enjoyment in her eyes, and returned his look with a frankness hitherto lacking. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... her almost stupidly—for a man in the comic mask does not readily attune himself to tragedy. She answered with the desolate frankness of a lost soul. And then the whole meaning—or the lack of meaning—of their inanimate lives was revealed to him. Absolute estrangement had followed the birth of their child nearly twenty years ago. The child had died after a ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... at the mouth of the Tavda, an officer of Kutchum's, named Tausak, he, desirous of saving his life, communicated to them important information regarding the country. As the price of his frankness, his liberty was given him, and he hastened to announce to his master that the predictions of the soothsayers of Siberia were being realized, for according to some accounts these pretended sorcerers had for a long time proclaimed the near ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... well before dawn with a favorable wind and tide, in the small launch the wizened Welshman placed at their disposal. His air was one of dour piety, but he accepted Bell's offer of money with an obvious relief, and criticized his Paraguayan currency with an acid frankness until Jamison produced Argentine pesos sufficient to pay for the boat ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... of affection and intimacy in the first few weeks of Cynthia's residence in her father's house; and if she had been of a nature prone to analyse the character of one whom she loved dearly, she might have perceived that, with all Cynthia's apparent frankness, there were certain limits beyond which her confidence did not go; where her reserve began, and her real self was shrouded in mystery. For instance, her relations with Mr. Preston were often very puzzling ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... adds Dickens, "the King was in extreme good humor; and not only heard with attention all the considerations I offered, but was not the least offended at any objections I made to what he said. It is undoubtedly the best way to behave with frankness to him." These last are Dickens's own words; let them modestly be a memorandum to your Lordship. This King goes himself direct to the point; and straightforwardness, as a primary condition, will profit your Lordship with him. [Dickens (in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... that she was tired, and that the brightness with which she welcomed his advance was a trifle taught and perfunctory. Not the frankness though, or the touch of "Now we are getting to business," that stood in her expression. She looked alert ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... mean that a friend should always be what is called plain-spoken. Many take advantage of what they call a true interest in our welfare, in order to rub gall into our wounds. The man who boasts of his frankness and of his hatred of flattery, is usually not frank—but only brutal. A true friend will never needlessly hurt, but also will never let slip occasions through cowardice. To speak the truth in love takes off the edge of unpleasantness, which so often is found in truth-speaking. ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... in Betty's character that bothered Calumet more than another, it was her frankness. More than once during the days that followed Neal Taggart's visit Calumet was made to feel the absence of guile in her treatment of him. The glances she gave him were as straightforward and direct as her words, and it became plain to him ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... with nothing such good counsel Can repay, except the frankness Of accepting it, which is The reward yourself would ask for. And since I a mean must choose Between two extremes of action, From his cell, to-day, my son Shall go forth, but in a manner That will leave his seeming freedom Circumscribed and safely guarded. ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... empire. The generals, who assumed the title of Augustus, were either respected by their troops for their able conduct and severe discipline, or admired for valor and success in war, or beloved for frankness and generosity. The field of victory was often the scene of their election; and even the armorer Marius, the most contemptible of all the candidates for the purple, was distinguished, however by intrepid courage, matchless strength, and blunt honesty. [160] His mean and recent ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... dim perception that when he is sick it is because he has eaten too much, and he must take medicine, and feed on heartless dry toast, while, when you are sick, you have the dyspepsia, and go to Europe. But the beauty and sweetness of children are entirely wasted on themselves, and their frankness is a source of infinite annoyance to each other. A man enjoys himself. If he is handsome, or wise, or witty, he generally knows it, and takes great satisfaction in it; but a child does not. He loses half his happiness because he does not know that he is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... all volunteers from Northwich. Everybody has done or is doing something in the great struggle. The young ladies in this neighborhood have no use for a man who is not in khaki, and with customary north of England frankness ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... than this of Wales, or any other tongue, whatever may hereafter come to pass, shall on the day of the great reckoning before the Most High Judge, answer for this corner of the earth." Prone to discuss with his "Britannic frankness" the faults of his countrymen, he cannot bear that any one else should do so. In the "Description of Wales" he breaks off in the middle of a most unflattering passage concerning the character of the ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... myself, and will resent it accordingly. I trust, therefore, that you will treat them with the same friendship that you have always manifested for me, doing everything in your power to serve them and to help them on their way. The speech of Lisa, delivered with an air of frankness and sincerity, agreeably surprised and disappointed ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... life engenders artificial thought, and a speech little sure of itself. Normal habits, deep impressions, the ordinary contact with reality, bring frankness with them. Falsehood is the vice of a slave, the refuge of the cowardly and weak. He who is free and strong is unflinching in speech. We should encourage in our children the hardihood to speak frankly. What do we ordinarily do? We trample on ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... indeed, was hardly the hero of the occasion either—a fact that he became aware of when on our way home we met grandmother Ruth, anxious and red in the face from her long walk. She expressed herself to him with great frankness. "Didn't you promise to be careful where you sent that boy!" she exclaimed. "Hugh Glinds, you are a palavering ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... have, I hope, good men, and great men, and noble men, in time to come, but I do not think we shall see again a Sir William Heathcote. That most charming mixture of dignified self respect, with unfailing gracious courtesy to others, those manners in which frankness and refinement mingled with and set off each other, that perfect purity of thought and utterance, and yet that thorough enjoyment of all that was good and racy in wit or humour—this has passed away with him. So beautiful ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... at least in the prime of his life caused him to battle bravely and hopefully for great ideas, a clearness of perception and integrity of purpose that abhor shams and narrow prejudices and with reckless frankness denounce evils and abuses, a disposition tending at times to brooding and melancholy, all these elements, combined in Tegnr, have made him the idealized type of the Swedish people. He was cast in a heroic mold and his countrymen continue to regard him as the completed embodiment of ...
— Fritiofs Saga • Esaias Tegner
... beloved writer in Scandinavia? She entered Swedish literature at a period when the cold gray star of realism was in the ascendant, when the trenchant pen of Strindberg had swept away the cobwebs of unreality, and people were accustomed to plays and novels almost brutal in their frankness. Wrapped in the mantle of a latter-day romanticism, her soul filled with idealism, on the one hand she transformed the crisp actualities of human experience by throwing about them the glamour of the unknown, and on the other hand gave to the unreal—to folk tale and fairy lore and local ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... Though Trescorre was still the Duchess's accredited lover, it was clear that the tie between them was no longer such as to make him resent her kindness to her young kinsman. He seemed indeed anxious to draw Odo into her Highness's circle, and surprised him by a frankness and affability of which his demeanour at Turin had given no promise. As leader of the anti-clericals he stood for such liberalism as dared show its head in Pianura; and he seemed disposed to invite Odo's confidence in political ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... fragment of fictitious history.[1] The 'Memoirs of a Cavalier' is a very amusing book, though it is less fiction than history, interspersed with a few personal anecdotes. In it there are some exquisite little bits of genuine Defoe. The Cavalier tells us, with such admirable frankness, that he once left the army a day or two before a battle, in order to visit some relatives at Bath, and excuses himself so modestly for his apparent neglect of military duty, that we cannot refuse to believe in him. A novelist, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... overflows our rigid conventionalisms with the buoyancy of nature, plays into this dusty and angular life like the jets of a fountain, like floods of sunshine, upsets our miserable dignity, meets us with a love that contains no deceit, a frankness that rebukes our quibbling compliments, nourishes the poetry of the soul, and, perpetually descending from the threshold of the Infinite, keeps open an arch-way ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... down in silence to their evening meal. While the servants were in attendance neither chose to say anything on the circumstances which occupied their minds, and neither felt it easy to speak upon any other. The youth and apparent frankness of Waverley stood in strong contrast to the shades of suspicion which darkened around him, and he had a sort of naivete and openness of demeanour that seemed to belong to one unhackneyed in the ways of intrigue, and which ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you for that. If you would conjure in her, you must make a circle; if conjure up Love in her in his true likeness, he must appear naked and blind. Can you blame her then, being a maid yet ros'd over with the virgin crimson of modesty, if she deny the ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... about stealing the lumber, and he frankly said yes, he had stolen it. That is, he had bossed the job, and made the other bucks do all the packing. He explained that he had to steal it, because he could n't buy it, and they would n't give it to him, and he had to have that schoolhouse. His frankness amused them, and they told him, all right, go ahead, and if he needed any more lumber ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... little more; he took the keys of his house out of his bureau, gave them to me—and, thanking him cordially for his frankness, and his urbane concession to my wish, ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various |
