"Guileless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... delusive, fallacious, deceitful, specious, insidious, sophistical. Antonyms: guileless, candid, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... watch him with great eyes. What meant this change? the guileless philosopher would ask himself, and wonder if he had judged his brother too harshly all through life; or if it was his plain speaking in their last quarrel which had put things in their true light to him, and awakened some innate generosity ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... however, a long-desired opportunity presented itself, and he did not neglect it. He was well aware that Jefferson had complained to Virginia that he had been made to hold a candle to the wily Secretary of the Treasury in the matter of assumption, in other words, that his guileless understanding, absorbed in matters of State, had been duped into a bargain of which Virginia did not approve, despite ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... the writing-table and laying the press-cuttings upon it.] Guileless youth! Wait till you've breathed the air of this establishment a ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... deaconess spoke with pious gravity. He could see that she was a woman of middle age, and he asked himself with rising fury whether the gods were not guilty who had lent mean wretches like these such winning graces as to enable them to lay traps for the guileless? For, in fact, the woman's face was well-favored, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... one thing necessary to make Maddemwaselle's tournoor exactly perfect," Mme. Boyle told Mrs. Emery. Out of a sense of what was due her loyal Endbury customers, Mme. Boyle assumed a guileless coloring of Frenchiness, which was evidently a symbol, and no more intended for a pretense of reality than the honestly false brown front that surmounted ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... were unable to distinguish between their right hand and their left. Many, doubtless, were deceived by their own guilelessness; but God's wrath does not discriminate, it falls upon and destroys alike adults and infants, the crafty and the guileless. ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... either, when second thoughts wisely came. "Ah! who was I that I should quarrel with the town for being changed to me, when I myself had come back, so changed, to it? All my early readings and early imaginations dated from this place, and I took them away so full of innocent construction and guileless belief, and I brought them back so worn and torn, so much the wiser ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Koldo, breathing deeply, brought from his pocket a sheet of paper, while Mr. Pike propped himself deliberately against the door and tried to mold his features into that expression of guileless innocence which he had observed on the face of a ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... the Deserted Village; his father's establishment, a mixture of farm and parsonage, furnished hints, it is said, for the rural economy of the Vicar of Wakefield; and his father himself, with his learned simplicity, his guileless wisdom, his amiable piety, and utter ignorance of the world, has been exquisitely portrayed in the worthy Dr. Primrose. Let us pause for a moment, and draw from Goldsmith's writings one or two of those pictures which, under ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... The rocks are no longer lit up with the red glow; they resound no longer with the shouts and splashing of the yeomen. You might almost as readily find a hart on Harthope, or a wild cat at Catslack, or a wolf at Wolf-Cleugh, as catch three stone-weight of trout in Meggat-water. {6} The days of guileless fish and fabulous draughts of trout are over. No sportsman need take three large baskets to the Gala now, as Lauder did, and actually filled them with thirty-six dozen of trout. The modern angler must not allow his expectations ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... her completely. She hunted through her memory among the Grimms' fairy-tales. She could recall nothing that seemed sweet and guileless enough for ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... not leave her all the evening. She watched the pretty, gentle Amy, flitting about among her father's guests, with a feeling which, but for the guileless sweetness of the girl's face, the innocent unconsciousness of every look and movement, might have grown to bitterness at last. She watched her ways and words with Mr Millar, wishing, in her look or manner, to see some demand for his admiration and attention, that might excuse ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... should prefer any one to Marion, but he learned that the stranger was talented, handsome, wealthy, everything that a lady would desire in her favored suitor. If he did not release her, she was not free, and could he be adamant to the captivating charms of guileless, spiritual, ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... even a little bit. I'm afraid trouble is ahead for that little girl. Oh, if her father could only be with her all the time. Outsiders can do so little because their authority is so limited and those who HAVE the authority are either too guileless or debarred by their stations. Dr. Llewellyn, Harrison and Mammy are the only ones who have the least right to ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... seen her turn pale at a word, a gesture, on her part. I have seen her embrace Maud Gorka, and play tennis with that same friend so gayly, so innocently. I have seen that she could not bear the presence of Maitland in a room, and yet she asked the American to take her portrait.... Is she guileless?... Is she a hypocrite? Or is she tormented by doubt-divining, not divining-believing, not believing in-her mother? Is she underhand in any case, with her eyes the color of the sea? Has she the ambiguous mind at once of a Russian and ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... scruples which women raise to have them battered down. When a woman begins to talk about her duty, regard for appearances or religion, the objections she raises are so many redoubts which she loves to have carried by storm. But on the guileless Lucien these coquetries were thrown away; he would have advanced of his ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... $500,000 to four land companies. In the following year, the people of Georgia rose in their wrath, turned out the corrupt legislators, and forced the passage of a rescinding act. Meantime, sales had been made by the Yazoo speculators to guileless purchasers, who now appealed to Congress for relief. In 1798, Congress enacted a law providing for commissioners who should confer with Georgia regarding these conflicting claims. At the same time the Territory of Mississippi ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... as we read of in Grammont's memoirs, which generally aimed at making an ugly woman ridiculous, or an injured husband the sport and victim of wicked lover and heartless wife. No sense of the fitness of things constrained her ladyship from communicating these Court scandals to her guileless sister. Did they not comprise the only news worth anybody's attention, and relate to the only class of people who had any tangible existence for Lady Fareham? There were millions of human beings, no doubt, living and acting and suffering on the surface of the earth, outside the stellary circles ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... subjects, and would doubt more than ever their reality, and it made me very unhappy. I feel grateful that you have listened to me so patiently. I hope you won't let my weakness hurt my cause. Now you see what a frank, guileless conspirator I am," she added, trying to smile at him through ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... was not the consequence of any constitutional timidity, for Rose was much the reverse from timid, but it was the fruit of a newly-awakened and painful, though still vague, suspicion. Happy, thrice happy was it for one of her naturally confiding and guileless nature, that distrust was thus opportunely awakened, for she was without a guardian competent to advise and guide her youth, as ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... An' the harebell an' the violet adorn'd ilk bonnie shaw; 'Twas then my love cam courtin' me, and wan my youthfu' heart, An' mony a tear it cost my love ere he could frae me part; But though he 's in a foreign land far, far across the sea, I ken my Jamie's guileless heart is ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... perceive, my dear sir," so ran the lines, "that this step will embarrass me in my project of the Wachita settlement, and will deprive me of the pleasure of seeing you at your own house." Graham smiled gravely at the guileless simplicity of the man who had not hesitated to take a stranger into his ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... his dog Tray are much the same honest, simple-hearted, faithful, affectionate creatures—if Tray could but read! His mind cannot take the impression of vice: but the gentleness of his nature turns gall to milk. He would not hurt a fly. He draws the picture of mankind from the guileless simplicity of his own heart: and when he dies, his spirit will take its smiling leave, without having ever had an ill thought of others, or the ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Spunkville could boast, all within a short period of this writing. Like most Western hotels, it had been ably supported by a large floating population, known as "New York Drummers," and many a time had its old walls re-echoed with their guileless hilarity and moral tales; and, if the ancient and time-honored spittoon in the bar-room could speak, it could relate wonderful stories concerning the Sample Gentry; relating, perhaps, to a Spunkville merchant, who, having ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... of this vote on our little committee was most marked. Constraint took the place of cordiality, polite reserve replaced that guileless and open-hearted courtesy with which our ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... the trail. In the fresh, open face of the new-comer Mr. Oakhurst recognized Tom Simson, otherwise known as "The Innocent" of Sandy Bar. He had met him some months before over a "little game," and had, with perfect equanimity, won the entire fortune—amounting to some forty dollars—of that guileless youth. After the game was finished, Mr. Oakhurst drew the youthful speculator behind the door and thus addressed him: "Tommy, you're a good little man, but you can't gamble worth a cent. Don't try it over again." He then handed him his money back, pushed him gently from the room, and ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... truly generous, for the relinquishment of any cherished object always costs a battle, and I too often find I am worsted. For the first time I dared not meet your eyes till you dived into mine with that expression wistful and guileless, which has often made me feel as if we stood divested of our ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... committed, the earl, while more fully convinced of his innocence, easily conceived how the queen's sentiments for him might have gone no further than a childish admiration, very pardonable in a guileless creature hardly ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... said that he stoutly and repeatedly denied the whole story, with many oaths and imprecations of horrible calamities upon himself if he were lying in the smallest particular. And this with reiteration so steady, and a countenance so guileless and unmoved, as to contrast favorably with the face of the other man, whose voice trembled and whose forehead flushed, either with overwhelming indignation or with a guilty consciousness that he ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... examination. I was touched to the quick with pity; for the rest of the class answered up brightly and handsomely, while he—why, dear me, he didn't know anything, so to speak. He was evidently good, and sweet, and lovable, and guileless; and so it was exceedingly painful to see him stand there, as serene as a graven image, and deliver himself of answers which were veritably miraculous for stupidity and ignorance. All the compassion in me was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... but this proved nothing as to their being soldiers. One of them, a mere boy, was captured at his own door, with gun in hand. It was a fowling-piece, which he used only, as his mother plaintively assured me, "to shoot little birds with." As the guileless youth had for this purpose loaded the gun with eighteen buck-shot, we thought it justifiable to confiscate both the weapon and the owner, in mercy ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the innocent Cass with the ring in his hand, and a general impression on his mind that he was already an object of suspicion to his comrades,—an impression, it is hardly necessary to say, they fully intended should be left to rankle in his guileless bosom. ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... to the girl crouching on the floor. She had moved into the light from a window and Hinpoha could see that fear was written all over her face. It was a girl about eighteen years old with a round cherubic countenance, framed in fluffy light hair, wide open guileless blue eyes, with an expression as innocent as a baby's. Just now the ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... "my innocent lamb, who turns from the shepherd because she will not be guided, and yet is all unfit to guide herself! Do not even you, Dora, guileless and unworldly as you are, see how impossible it would be for a young and beautiful girl to live with a man who admires and loves her openly, without such scandal, as should ruin both in the world's eyes, even if they saved their ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... debarred me from happiness. Ah! if I had only confided in her, and trusted her faithful love, how much wretchedness would have been averted! But she appeared to me such an impulsive child that I shrank from unburdening my heart to her, while she acquainted me with every thought and aim of her pure, guileless life. She was singularly, almost idolatrously fond of me, and I loved her very sincerely, for her character was certainly the most ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... its first representation in Hamburg. The pleasant impression then made by its agreeable and lovely melodies has not faded the less that, after hearing many of our stormy and exciting modern operas, one often and ardently {11} longs for the restful charm and guileless pleasure ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... ardently attached. Our greatest favourite, if we loved one more than the other, was our sister Nina, for she was the youngest. She was the most fascinating and lovely, though we confessed that if she had a fault, her disposition was too yielding and confiding—guileless herself, she could not credit that guile existed in others. Hers was one of those characters which, from its very innocence, would be held more sacred in the eyes of an upright, honourable man, though it exposes its possessor to be made ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... threefold. The body possesses the earth, man the clouds, the spirit the stars. The white and carved stone means the chaste and wise; the whiteness is modesty, the carving dogma. By the effigy of marble, smooth, shining, dark, the bride is figured, guileless, well conducted, working. The smoothness very rightly means guilelessness, the splendour good conduct, the blackness work. The noble cohort of the clergy lightening the world with light divine is expressed by the clear ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... society and fashionable position. I kept saying to you that I envied you your tastes, and let you see that I considered myself your real inferior in my determination to attract attention and oblige society to notice us. I was guileless and simpleton enough to tell you of my progress—things I would have blushed to tell another woman like myself—because I considered you the embodiment of high aims and spiritual ideas, as far superior to mine as the poetic ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... let his wise and guileless sway Win every recreant today, And sorrow's vast and holy wave Blend all our hearts around his grave! Let the faithful bondmen's tears, Let the traitor's craven fears, And the people's grief and pride, Plead against the parricide! Let us throng to pledge and pray O'er ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... up his berth on the bonny ship, and his chance of a voyage after his own heart—given it up, too, for Isaac Dent, a fellow whom he was quite sure was more or less a bit of a scoundrel. Will was honest, unsuspicious, and guileless; but even he could not quite think the best of a man ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... toper, guileless though thou keep thy soul: Certain 'tis that sins of others none shall write upon ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... husbandry has completely cleansed souls, how guileless and how pure they may be! Nor am I speaking of the Elect, such as I saw at La Trappe—merely of young novices, little priestlings whom I have known. They had eyes like clear glass, undimmed by the haze of a single sin; and, looking ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... what a change to the cottage hearth! The song of the wheel's no more— The song that gladdened with guileless mirth The hearths and ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... prevented him from entirely sinking the man in the politician. He had some enemies in the little court, whose Duke and Duchess were personally so attached to him. A prosperous life such as his could not fail to attract envy, and his frank, guileless character gave plenty of occasion for suspicion. But the only answer which he vouchsafed to ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... upon his gun, attracted ever and anon by the twinkling host above, a throng of unwonted memories crowded upon him. He thought of his guileless youth; the uncontaminated days of enjoyment ere he had mingled with the designing and heartless associates who strove to entice him from the path of virtue; of the hopes of budding manhood; of ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... pierce complacent humbugs, that lurked behind these Oriental situations. He made the most of his chance for a quaint parable, applicable to the courts, the church and science of Europe. As the story runs on, midst many and sudden adventures, the Babylonian reads causes from events in guileless fashion, enthusiastic as Sherlock Holmes, and no less efficient—and all the while, behind this innocent mask, Voltaire is insinuating a comparison between the practical results of Zadig's common sense and the futile mental cobwebs spun by the ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... behold my native country, I would seek the good of all its people along with that of my nearest and dearest of kin. But how to do it was a matter I could not arrange. I felt reluctant to ask either Wauna or her mother. The guileless frankness of Wauna's nature was an impassable barrier to the confidence of crimes and wretchedness. One glance of horror from her dark, sweet eyes, would have chilled me into painful silence ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... fixed! The die is cast! For me home hath no joy! Oh, pardon then all follies past, And bless your wayward boy! And thou, from whom for aye to part Grieves more than tongue can tell, May Heaven preserve thy guileless heart, Sweet ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... practise on those who were pious and observant of truth, as imbeciles. 26. As another might take a pride in religion, and truth, and justice, so Menon took a pride in being able to deceive, in devising falsehoods, in sneering at friends; and thought the man who was guileless was to be regarded as deficient in knowledge of the world. He believed that he must conciliate those, in whose friendship he wished to stand first, by calumniating such as already held the chief place in their favour. 27. The soldiers he tried to render obedient to him by being an accomplice ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... I sing, in simple Scottish lays, The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways." ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... unable to resist the opportunity, and, affecting considerable surprise, interrupted him with the apparently guileless query: ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... she was not wise; but such guileless, warm-hearted lack of wisdom as hers, often supplied the place of those mental qualifications which are too seldom united to a perfect singleness of heart ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... you." Raising her guileless eyes. "When I think of the provocation, I do not blame ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... finished roll call before dark-haired Perry Alford, her brightest and most guileless scholar, waved his hand excitedly to attract attention. His eyes hurt terribly as teacher could see. Wouldn't it be well for him to go to the school physician? Miss ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... Worcester lawyers of this time like best to remember was Peter C. Bacon. He was the Dominie Sampson of the Worcester Bar. I suppose he was the most learned man we ever had in Worcester, and probably, in Massachusetts. He was simple and guileless as a child; of a most inflexible honesty, devoted to the interest of his clients, and an enthusiastic lover of the science of the law. When, in rare cases, he thoroughly believed in the righteousness of his case, he was irresistible. But in general he was full of doubts and hesitation. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... were they to snap, to give a desperate bite, the Pompilus would not dare to expose the tip of her abdomen to their deadly scratch. The shamming of death is exactly what enables the huntress to succeed in her dangerous operation. They say, O guileless Epeirae, that the struggle for life has taught you to adopt this inert attitude for purposes of defence. Well, the struggle for life was a very bad counsellor. Trust rather to common sense and learn, by degrees, ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... a morbid dread of being thought a gushing girl, this guileless woman too well concealed from the world under a manner of carelessness the warm depths of her strong emotions. But now there was no reserve. In her distraction, instead of advancing further she walked up and down, beating the air with ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... something of Emile's feelings in the matter. That is the only question that concerns us." With this she swept out of the room, leaving the major at first speechless with honest indignation, and then after the fashion of all guileless natures, a little uneasy and suspicious of his own guilelessness. For a day or two after, he found himself, not without a sensation of meanness, watching Rose when in Emile's presence, but he could distinguish nothing ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... a born intriguer, and he instinctively watched for signs of understanding between Mr. Strathmore and the other. He could detect nothing of the sort. The Rev. Rutherford Strathmore bore a countenance as beneficent, as kindly, as guileless as ever; responding to the challenge of his colleague's eyes by no evidence of understanding or connivance. It was not until the talkers ceased and there fell a silence which indicated that the first force of admiration and enthusiasm had ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... before that best of sages living according to the Unchha mode; yet that Muni could not perceive any agitation in Mudgala's heart; and he found the pure heart of the pure-souled ascetic always pure. Thereupon, well-pleased, the sage addressed Mudgala, saying, There is not another guileless and charitable being like thee on earth. The pangs of hunger drive away to a distance the sense of righteousness and deprive people of all patience. The tongue, loving delicacies, attracteth men towards them. Life is sustained by food. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Brunton! thou the blushing-wreath refuse, Though harsh her notes, yet guileless is my Muse. Unwont at Flattery's Voice to plume her wings, A Child of Nature, as ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... was Richard's lion-soul, And guileless Godfrey's patient mind— Like waves on shore, they reach'd the goal, To die, and ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... From heaven above, from earth below— The mighty lords who rule the skies, The market's lesser deities, To each and all the altars glow, Piled for the sacrifice! And here and there, anear, afar, Streams skyward many a beacon-star, Conjur'd and charm'd and kindled well By pure oil's soft and guileless spell, Hid now no more Within ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... shown a humility as deep as it was unusual; he had sat on a pile of wood alone, not even romping with Dick and Harry till he felt the Hour of Judgment had passed. And then, deciding that there was no punishment forthcoming, he had leaped and frisked, and seemed so guileless that Baldy's contempt for his own kind made ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... story. There was Simeon, righteous and devout, unto whom it had been revealed by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ; and Anna, the prophetess, who departed not from the temple, worshipping with fastings and supplications night and day; and the guileless Nathanael, an Israelite indeed, who had perhaps already commenced to sit at the foot of the ladder which bound his fig-tree to the highest heaven; and the peasant maiden Mary, the descendant of a noble house, though with fallen fortunes, who, ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... dance five times with Captain Quin?' said I; and oh! strange delicious charm of coquetry, I do believe Miss Nora Brady at twenty-three years of age felt a pang of delight in thinking that she had so much power over a guileless lad of fifteen. Of course she replied that she did not care a fig for Captain Quin: that he danced prettily, to be sure, and was a pleasant rattle of a man; that he looked well in his regimentals too; and if he ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... natural tears and simple pains, For tender recollections, cherished long, For guileless griefs, which no compunction stains, We blush; as if we wore these earthly chains ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... climbed the noblest mountain height In all his little world, and gazed on scenes As beautiful as rest beneath the sun. I trust he will remember all his life That to his best achievement, and the spot Nearest to heaven his youthful feet have trod, He has been guided by a guileless lamb. It is an omen which his mother's heart Will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... innocent fineness of her feeling for Lord Walderhurst. In the midst of her bewildered awe and pleasure at the material splendours looming up in her horizon, her soul was filled with a tenderness as exquisite as the religion of a child. It was a combination of intense gratitude and the guileless passion of a hitherto wholly unawakened woman—a woman who had not hoped for love or allowed her thoughts to dwell upon it, and who therefore had no clear understanding of its full meaning. She could not have ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... far! She little knew, Your guileless Aunt Lavinia, Those evenings when she slumbered through "The Prince of Abyssinia," That there were two beside her chair Who both had quite decided To see things in a rosier air Than ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... to Nature's heart so near That all her voices in his ear Of beast or bird had meanings clear, Like Apollonius of old, Who knew the tales the sparrows told, Or Hermes, who interpreted What the sage cranes of Nilus said; A simple, guileless, childlike man, Content to live where life began; Strong only on his native grounds, The little world of sights and sounds Whose girdle was the parish bounds, Whereof his fondly partial pride The common features magnified, As Surrey hills to ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... the blood-sucking bat has won a mantle of deceit from the hands of Nature—a garb that gives him a modest and not unpleasing appearance, and makes it a difficult matter to distinguish him from his guileless confreres of ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... Praxiteles' Psyche when she looks down. Why did I not meet her long ago? I believe I ought not to stay now—something tells me I shall fall deeply into this. And what a voice!—as gentle and caressing as a tender dove. A man would give his soul for such a woman. As guileless as an infant saint, too—and sensitive and human and understanding. I wish to God I had the strength of mind to get up and go this minute—but I ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... doubtful, but that he saw more than would have impressed an ordinary man or woman with suspicion is unquestionable, and the best that can be said for his attitude is that he was so mentally constituted that he could only see or preferred to see in Nelson's extravagant attentions to his wife a guileless symbol of high friendship for her, which he took as a compliment to himself. On the other hand, if he not only suspected but knew that he was being betrayed, and bitterly resented the passion which no ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... drawing which shows more in his large than in his small pictures, are those of a want of human knowledge, power, and freedom. His wicked—even his more earthly-souled characters, are weak and faulty in action. What should the reverent and guileless dreamer know, unless indeed by inspiration of the rude conflicts, the fire and fury of human passions intensified in the malice and anguish of devils? But Fra Angelico's singular successes far transcend his failures. ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... behind the guileless innocence of her eyes, but they came to the surface only after the foreman ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... whole being of the Greek there reigned supreme a quick susceptibility, out of which sprang a gladsome serenity of temper, and a keen enjoyment of life; acute sense, and nimbleness of apprehension; a guileless and child-like feeling, full of trust and faith, combined with prudence and forecast. These peculiarities lay so deeply imbedded in the inmost nature of the Greeks that no revolutions of time and circumstances have ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... doctrines, even the most minute. As a further precaution against the suspicions of doubting Thomases, great care was exerted in the selection of priests and of their assistants. In nearly every case the persons selected were active, popular, and, apparently at least, guileless young men. I myself was shocked on discovering to what length these young fellows, in all other respects attractive and popular, went in their propagation of the fraud and of their insidious utilization of ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... the house detective—Donahue the leisurely. Donahue the keen-eyed, Donahue the guileless—looking in his evening clothes for all the world like a prosperous diner-out. He smiled benignly upon Sadie Corn, and Sadie Corn had the bravery to smile back in spite of her neuralgia, knowing well that men have no sympathy ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... When we remember that it is only since 1811 that they have emerged from numerical insignificance, we find their contribution to the planting of the church in the new settlements to be a highly honorable one. By a suicidal compact the guileless Evangelical party agreed, in 1835, to take direction of the foreign missions of the church, and leave the home field under the direction of the aggressive High-church party. It surrendered its part in the future of the church, and determined the type of Episcopalianism that was to be planted ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... different a year To what has been; the summer's guileless play Not all a jest, comes back to me to-day In added sweetness, and provokes a tear. Strange pictures rise, pass on, and disappear. Drawn from your tender words of yesterday When, looking in my eyes in the old way You ...
— Poems • Sophia M. Almon
... be empty without the seeing eye, That form and color, movement and rhythm Are not true elements of heaven Till passed through transforming power of thought; For eye seeth only what soul hath wrought. Ah! Beauty, thou the flowering art Of the upright mind and guileless heart. ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... you could but have known that what time he laughed and talked with your guests and feasted at your board, with its tasty viands and its cake with lighted candles, and bent his furtive glance upon the beauty of your guileless Virginia—if you could but have known that in his black heart the canker jealousy was gnawing and that, behind the smile he wore as a mask, the brainy man was ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... came a stranger to Walgett town, To Walgett town when the sun was low, And he carried a thirst that was worth a crown, Yet how to quench it he did not know; But he thought he might take those yokels down, The guileless ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... enough the fur had been taken to some other tilt, for when he arrived here early in the afternoon his first care was to look for it, but not a skin had he found, and he was disappointed, for it was the purpose of his visit. Bob, absolutely honest and guileless himself, in spite of Dick's constant assertion that Micmac was a thief and worse, was easily deceived by the half-breed's bland manner. Unfortunately he had not learned that every one else was not as honest and straightforward as himself. Micmac's attempt upon his life ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... have read, when a guileless little chap in roundabouts, "The Children of the Abbey," and other tales of like kidney. They were romantic and sentimental, weren't they? Well, old fellow, not one of them was half so romantic or sentimental as this marriage of mine. There were villains ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... along seeming inclined to let the veil of modesty drop before me. And while, with - the exception of Emmy, the most beautiful, sweetest and noblest women did not exercise the slightest alluring power over me and Emmy's guileless trust in me and her absolute want of jealousy in that respect were entirely justified, a coarse, low-born, sensual and good-natured woman could seduce me to things that neither Emmy nor any of the persons who knew me would have deemed possible. Thus you see, dear ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... obsolescent mellerdrammer or of the ubiquitous moving-picture reel. So much must at least be said for these great educators: they have broken the villain of his open-face attire; to-day he knows better, and when prowling to devour, disguises himself in the guileless if nobby "sack suit" of the ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... and "sael" meant prosperity or health of the best. It is the "sel" in the German "Selig" and the "sil" in our "silly," which once represented in the best sense well-being of the innocent. So our old poets talk of "seely sheep;" but as the guileless are apt prey to the guileful, silliness came to mean what "blessed innocence" itself now stands for in the language of men who, poor fellows, are very much more foolish. So Selborne has a happy old pastoral name. The fresh, full spring, called the "Well Head," which gives ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... her. She despised herself for her weakness; but she loved Leon. The sentiment was too deeply implanted in her bosom to be eradicated; too strong to be resisted. It was the first love of a young and guileless heart, and had grown in silence ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... in the direction of the river, I met a guileless man who gave me some information of the name and locality of a ferryman, who had formerly acted in that capacity, though now no one was allowed to cross. Carefully noting all the facts I could draw out of this man, ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... known anyone who combined so many qualities, far asunder as the poles, in one single disposition. He was placid and turbulent, yet always majestic. He was inexplicable and entirely lovable—a stupid old dear, and as wise as Solomon! He seemed guileless, and yet had moments of suspicion and craftiness worthy of the wisdom of the serpent. One moment he would call me "dearest child"; the next, ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... down within me, and I prayed earnestly, earnestly to God. I talked to the dear dear lad of his danger, night and day we prayed and read. A dear guileless spirit indeed. I never saw in so young a person such a thorough conscientiousness as for two years I witnessed in his daily life, and I had long not ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Guarantee garantio. Guarantee garantii. Guard gardi. Guard (milit.) gvardio. Guardian gardanto, zorganto. Gudgeon gobio. Guess diveni. Guest gasto. Guide gvidi. Guide gvidisto. Guile artifiko. Guileless senartifika. Guillotine gilotino. Guilt kulpo. Guilty, to be kulpigxi. Guinea gineo. Guitar gitaro. Gulf golfo. Gull trompi. Gullet faringo, ezofago. Gully valeto. Gulp engluti. Gum gumo. Gum gumi. Gun pafilo. Gun (cannon) pafilego. Gun-carriage subpafilego. Gunpowder ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... caught Johnny's eye—a keen and vigorous-looking elderly gentleman, and Springtime come among them in the pink and white of apple blossoms—sweet and fresh and smiling; as guileless as the ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... now,' he says once, 'with what fierce, deep-breathed doggedness the poor English Nation, drawn by their instincts, held fast upon it [the Spanish War of Walpole's time, in Jenkins' Ear Question], and would take no denial of it, as if they had surmised and seen. For the instincts of simple, guileless persons (liable to be counted stupid by the unwary) are sometimes of prophetic nature, and spring from the deep places of this universe!'[16] If the writer of this had only thought it out to the end, and applied the conclusions thereof to history ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... himself an adept at intrigue, and his methods were often a cause of anxiety to those he befriended. His nods and gestures and meaning glances as he emerged would have been enough to arouse suspicion in the most guileless. ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... natural. Cordelia has penetrated the vile characters of her sisters. Is it not obvious, that, in proportion as her own mind is pure and guileless, she must be disgusted with their gross hypocrisy and exaggeration, their empty protestations, their "plaited cunning;" and would retire from all competition with what she so disdains and abhors,—even into the opposite extreme? In such a case, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... Jamie could withdraw every sign of intelligence from his face, as when shutters close upon a shop window. Our visitor fell at once into the trap, and made things plain to the meanest capacity, until Jamie elicited from the guileless Southron that he had never heard of the Act of Union; that Adam Smith was a new book he hoped to buy; that he did not know the difference between an Arminian and a Calvinist, and that he supposed the Confession of Faith was invented ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... I was led before domestic altars. I was taken to gatherings of native Christians. I planted commemorative trees until more persimmons than I can ever gather await my return to Japan. I wrote so many gaku[5] for school walls and for my kind hosts that my memory was drained of maxims. I attended guileless horse-races. I was present at agricultural shows, fairs, wrestling matches, Bon dances, village and county councils and the strangest of public meetings. I talked not only with farmers and their families but with all kinds of landlords, with schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, policemen, ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... inaudible to cigarette smokers in the foyer) gives notice of the resumption of the play, while at the end of the Acts the curtain flutters up and down at a feverish pace as if the idea was to get in as many "calls" as possible before the applause stops. Are we as guileless as all that, I wonder? And, anyway, no such manoeuvre was necessary. The applause was hearty, the laughter spontaneous, and anybody who cares for plays made and played with brains should go and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... a guileless look, A still word,—strings of sand! And yet they made my wild, wild heart Fly down to ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... implacable one from his purpose and yet feeling that he would have his will. She sealed her note and put it upon his desk hesitatingly; then, as Kitty turned away, she dropped her handkerchief beside it. It was a time-worn strategy, such as only the innocent and guileless think of in their hour of adversity. When she ran back to recover it Lucy drew a dainty book from her bosom—Mrs. Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese"—and placed it across her note as if to save it from the wind, and between two leaves she slipped the forget-me-nots which he ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... stopped dead and stared me in the eye—but not coldly, you must know; just in mild wonder, in which, it may be, was mixed some admiration, as though he, too, deep in his guileless old heart, had had some doubt which he ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... the ends He was seeking; but His followers are constantly confident that he can, and are therefore his constant and ready tools for this or that party or interest. They sell themselves to monarchy or democracy, to capital or labour, with the same guileless innocence of what is happening to them, with the same simple-minded incapacity to learn anything from the lessons of the past. There are no short cuts to spiritual ends, and those ends can never be accomplished by secular ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... characteristics, he is these two single gentlemen rolled into one, while physically, his exterior rather conjures up the picture of Harold Skimpole, though his eyes beam with the youthful impetuosity of old Martin Chuzzlewit when he caned Pecksniff. To this delightfully guileless good Samaritan, the rough, nay brutal, Uncle Gregory from Sheffield, with a heart apparently as hard as his own ware, is a contrast most skilfully brought out by Mr. CHARLES GROVE. Though the part of Uncle Gregory does not require the delicate ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... Monarch's navy. This lady resided with her son and daughter near what was then the pretty village of La Pontoise. Her children were making their debut in the informal society of the country-side, and their grace, beauty and guileless charms were heralded to the general before they were permitted to take part in the festivities incident to his return. A fox-hunt in the Forest of Fontainebleau was the occasion of their first meeting. Mademoiselle de la Peyronie and her brother, magnificently mounted, dashed up ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... looked searchingly down into the lovely, flushed little face; but the deep-blue, guileless-looking eyes met his questioning gaze very frankly. He said slowly, "Very well, I will go and tell Madame Poulain that you will be waiting ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... composedly up the path between the sunflowers and the overloaded rose-bushes was already within hearing distance. She was a heavy, well-developed young person upon closer view, with light-lashed eyes of a guileless, childlike blue, rosy cheeks, and a mass of bright, shining hair, protected now only by a parasol. Through the embroidery insertion of her fresh, stiff dress she showed glimpses of a snowy bosom, and under her crisp ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... the eyes he makes at you, and you've got assurance twice assured. You ought to have guessed it from the first syllable he uttered. And when he went on about her exalted station and her fabulous wealth! Oh, my ingenue! Oh, my guileless lambkin! And you Trixie Belfont! Where's your famous wit? ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... near Montreal in safety. She said the "select men" of the town would protect me, if they were made acquainted with my peculiar situation. Dear lady! she little knew the character of a Romish priest! Her guileless heart did not suspect the cunning artifice by which they accomplish whatever they undertake. And those worthy "select men," I imagine, were not much better informed than herself. Sure I am, that any protection ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... if artful, and moreover she was not of the dark and deceptive class of brunettes, but a blonde, with eyes as open and guileless as the blue of the June day. She had solved the problem of the classification which as naturally marks the feminine progress as long trousers indicates the man, by bobbing her hair; and, though the subterfuge ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... of handling the shining cigarette-case Mrs. Pittaway rubbed her hands on her apron; then the look of favor with which her eyes had rested on the fair guileless face of the Terror, changed to a frown; and she said: "Bother the thing! It's sure to be stuck somewhere out of sight. And ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... really, do you think you COULD be a father to it? Consider this well. You are young, thoughtless, well-meaning enough; but dare you take upon yourself the functions of guide, genius, or guardian to one so young and guileless? Could you be the Mentor to this Telemachus? Think of the temptations of a metropolis. Look at the question well, and let me know speedily; for I've got him as far as this place, and he's kicking up an awful row in the hotel-yard, and rattling his chain like a maniac. Let me know by telegraph ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... indifferently, as when a scoundrel fails to be punished according to his deserts. There is no poetic fitness without justice—retribution, pound for pound, and measure for measure. Set any audience that can be gathered to watching a play in which criminal and crafty art is made to meet and master a guileless spirit and pollute a spotless womanhood, and the sympathies of the vilest will follow the victim, and, in the end, demand the punishment of the victor. Nothing will seem to any audience so entirely out of place as kind and gentle treatment ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... thinking—and not wholly sorry to think—that suicide must necessarily be postponed for that day, at least; for I could not, of course, harrow the old gentleman's feelings by plunging into the Little Sea before his very eyes. He seemed so guileless, too, and so wholly ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... asked the operative, with a sheepishly guileless air. "It was just a bit from an English musical comedy of two or three years back, I think. It's got a silly-sounding name—something like 'There's a ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... bring Dora forward to explain, and Dora had a wonderful cleverness in presenting her own side of any question. Ethel shrunk from her innuendoes concerning Fred, and she knew that Basil would be made to consider her a meddling, jealous girl who willingly saw evil in Dora's guileless enjoyment of ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... between my mother and The Cleeve. Why was there that strange proposition as to her marriage; and why, when it was once made, was it abandoned? I know that my mother has been not only guiltless, but guileless, in these matters as to which she is accused; but nevertheless her affairs will have been so managed that it will be almost impossible for her ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... antecedents and to his deficient training. She did not know that Bud, whom she called Henry, and whose music on the mouth-organ seemed to come from a shy and gentle soul, was the Terror of the South End. Her guileless mind held no place for the important fact that North End boys generally travelled by her door in pairs for safety. Such is the blindness of women. Cupid probably got his defective vision from his ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... heedless breast, And cherished him who works thee woe, No husband but a deadly foe. For like a snake, unconscious Queen, Or enemy who stabs unseen, King Dasaratha all untrue Has dealt with thee and Bharat too. Ah, simple lady, long beguiled By his soft words who falsely smiled! Poor victim of the guileless breast, A happier fate thou meritest. For thee and thine destruction waits When he Prince Rama consecrates. Up, lady, while there yet is time; Preserve thyself, prevent the crime. Up, from thy careless ease, and free Thyself, O Queen, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... darlings," inwardly delighted that the Maluka's simple trust seemed as guileless as ever, smugly professed themselves willing to fall in with any arrangement that was pleasing to the white folk, and as they mounted their horses Dan heaved a sigh ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... thing itself?" Marion asked, coolly. "I tell you, girls, it is impossible to know whether the man who dresses well, and calls on you at stated intervals, looking and talking like a gentleman, is not a very Satan, who will lead away the pretty guileless, unsuspecting young girl who is worth his trouble; and the leading often and often commences with a dance; and the young girl may never have been allowed to dance with him at all had not stately and entirely ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... Mabel; ay, and a comely," returned the guileless guide, looking earnestly at the girl, as if he distrusted her judgment in speaking slightingly of his friend. "Were I only half as comely as Jasper Western, my misgivings in this affair would not have been so great, and they might ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... dreams with a vision of happiness, he called up the guileless face of Mademoiselle Angelique Bontems, the companion of his childhood. Until he came to boyhood his father and mother had made no objection to his intimacy with their neighbor's pretty little daughter; but when, during his brief holiday visits to Bayeux, ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... nature, the restrained torrent of affections that had so long lain dormant, were poured forth upon the little heiress, as she was already called; and captious and determined she was, as ever heiress could be; but withal of so loving a nature, and so guileless a heart, so confiding, so generous, and so playful, and overflowing with mirth and mischief, that it would have been impossible to fancy any living creature who had felt the sunshine of fourteen summers ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... not true that guileless people are the most easily deceived. S. G. is not sharp-witted, but she is transparent as a pool of rain on meadow grass, and consequently it is impossible to deceive her, and ridiculous to attempt it: her eyes forbid it. She does not infer ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... The guileless child blushed and smiled, and sidled slyly up to where she could catch a sidelong glance at herself in a scratched mirror that ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... if we were to meet we might come to an understanding?' We're ashamed that it should be so, but it is the law that is over us. And that night at my dinner-party, while talking to wise mammas and their more or less guileless daughters, I thought of the disgrace if it were found out that I had picked up a girl in the street and put her in ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... ten-roomed, stone-built house of rather mournful aspect in Deadham village—able to rest from their ineffectual labours, support the Church, patronize their poorer and adulate their richer neighbours to their guileless hearts' content. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... roseate shadows of fading light Softly clear steal over the sweet young face, Where a woman's tenderness blends to-night With the guileless ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... which every now and then surmounted their mutual good-will. "Maggie is not the sort of woman Stephen admires, and she is irritated by something in him which she interprets as conceit," was the silent observation that accounted for everything to guileless Lucy. Stephen and Maggie had no sooner completed this studied greeting than each felt hurt by the other's coldness. And Stephen, while rattling on in questions to Philip about his recent sketching expedition, was thinking all ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... the crews are satisfied. The whole is conducted with the strictest integrity, for neither will one touch the gold till they have left an adequate value in merchandize, nor will the other remove the goods, till the Carthaginians have taken away the gold." This story, unhappily for the guileless simplicity of our merchants here, is too good to be true, like most artless stories of this sort. I made inquiries of merchants who had lived nearly all their lifetimes in Timbuctoo, and not far from the ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... as though she had stolen into Vera's bedroom and dressed up in her things. Then, with her fair tousled hair and large blue eyes, open as a rule with a startled expression as though she had only just awakened into an astonishingly exciting world, she was altogether as unprotected and as guileless and as honest as any human being alive. I don't know whether Semyonov felt her innocence and youth—I expect he considered very little beside the plans that he had then in view.... and innocence had never been very interesting to him. ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... feet trampling the slush. Her eyes were shut, her mouth open; she breathed, like a child, the half-suffocated breath that comes after long crying. He stood looking at her, tongue-tied with pity. Every now and then her throat shook like a child's with guileless ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair |
