"Simplicity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... snap-shots, were two "kodak fiends," two city girls who pointed the thing at you, bungled over it, reset it, pressed the button, and giggled as they flew off. They fairly bubbled over with delight as they saw Job, and debated how much to offer to get him to sit for a scene of rustic simplicity ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... many reputations were pricked like bubbles so far as he was concerned. The mask of greatness was like the false faces children wear to conceal their own. In the one or two really big men he met Jeff discovered a humility and simplicity that came from self-forgetfulness. They were too busy with their vision of truth to pose for the ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... cooking, weaving, dyeing, carpentry, metallurgy, glass-, brick-, and paper-making, printing, and book-binding were in a more or less primitive stage, the mechanical arts showing much servile imitation and simplicity in design; but pottery, carving, and lacquer-work were in an exceptionally high state of development, the articles produced being surpassed in quality and beauty by ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... Juliet explained. "Doesn't he give distinction to the room? And isn't the room—well—just a little bit distinguished-looking itself, in spite of its simplicity?—because of it, perhaps. The tables and most of the chairs are what Anthony found left in the old Kentucky homestead after the sale last year, and bought in with—the last of his money." Her eyes were very bright, ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... blood decays! Or that persuasion could but thus convince me That my integrity and truth to you Might be affronted with the match and weight Of such a winnowed purity in love. How were I then uplifted! but, alas, I am as true as truth's simplicity, And simpler than the ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... was Mrs. Porter's niece. That she might also be somebody's daughter or sister had not struck him. The look on Bailey's face somehow brought it home to him that the world was about to step in and complicate the idyllic simplicity of his wooing. ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... place to describe or criticise at length so new an attempt at classic restoration. The author follows the admirable fable of antiquity with a directness and simplicity worthy of his Greek model. The story of Dejanira and Hercules is too familiar to be repeated here. The hero’s infidelity and the passion of a neglected woman are related through five acts logically ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... soft, the still, the beautiful in the world and humankind, attract me. I would have seclusion rather than bustle and turmoil, the pen rather than the sword, the sweet whispers from a woman's lips and not the shouts of warriors. Thou dost not understand me, but I understand thee, and love thee for thy simplicity and directness. Thou art a better man than I, Frank, and the world will honour thee more than me. But let us quit this self-analysis. How art thou faring in thy mission to prevent ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... piece of boiled beef, a minestra (a soup thickened with vegetables, tripe, and rice), a vegetable dish of some kind, and the wine of the country. The failings of the repast among all classes lean to the side of simplicity, and the abstemious character of the Venetian finds sufficient comment in his familiar invitation to dinner: "Venga a mangiar quattro risi con me." (Come eat four ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... over-exposure, and the vermeil tinting of their cheeks darkened by the fumes of tobacco. There was a shepherdess, with her taper crook, whose large, languishing eyes, ripe pouting lips, ready to melt into kisses, and air of voluptuous abandonment, scarcely suited the innocent simplicity of her costume. She was portrayed tending a flock of downy sheep, with azure ribbons round their necks, accompanied by one of those invaluable little dogs whose length of ear and silkiness of skin evinced him perfect in his breeding, but whose large-eyed indifference ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... is different, and is designed for greater simplicity and the avoidance of back ignitions. It also consists of two cylinders, motor cylinder and the displace or charging cylinder. There is no intermediate reservoir. The displace crank leads the motor by a right angle, and takes into it the mixed charge of gas and air, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various
... governments and local authorities, but by robber bands, by insurgent committees, by every type of private person. The peculiar social destructiveness of the Butteridge machine lay in its complete simplicity. It was nearly as simple as a motor-bicycle. The broad outlines of the earlier stages of the war disappeared under its influence, the spacious antagonism of nations and empires and races vanished in a ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... thereof, lately given and granted to us and our heirs for ever.... We, being influenced by divine goodness, and desiring above all things, that true religion, and the true worship of God may not only not be abolished, but entirely restored to the primitive and genuine rule of simplicity; and that all those enormities may be corrected into which the lives and profession of the monks for a long time had deplorably lapsed, have, as far as human frailty will permit, endeavoured to the utmost that for the future the pure ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... he had thought often of those marshals of Napoleon who had risen from obscurity to such heights, and of them all, the republican and steadfast Lannes had been his favorite. Her spirit was the same. He found in it a like simplicity and courage. They seldom talked of the war, but when they did she expressed unbounded faith in the final triumph of her nation and of ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... formed for themselves a high and exacting code of honor, which may be regarded as the first steps toward what in later times and other countries became known as "chivalry"; save that there is in the acts of the Irish heroes a simplicity and sincerity which puts them on a higher level than the obligatory courtesies of more artificial ages. Generosity between enemies was carried to an extraordinary pitch. Twice over in fights with different foes, Conall Cernach binds his right ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... under the deepest obligations to Mr. Darwin's works; and it was with the greatest reluctance, not to say repugnance, that I became one of his opponents. I have partaken of his hospitality, and have had too much experience of the charming simplicity of his manner not to be among the readiest to at once admire and envy it. It is unfortunately true that I believe Mr. Darwin to have behaved badly to me; this is too notorious to be denied; but at the same time I ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... there was none in higher favour with the queen and the king himself than the young Lord Auberley. His dress was like a sweet enchantment, and his tongue was finer still, and his grace and beauty were as if no earth existed. Frida was a new thing to him, in her pure simplicity. He to her was such a marvel, such a mirror of the skies, as a maid can only dream of in the full ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... condition. Locke ruled the thought of his own and the coming period because he interpreted so completely the fundamental beliefs which had been worked out at his time. He ruled, that is, by obeying. Locke represents the very essence of the common sense of the intelligent classes. I do not ask whether his simplicity covered really profound thought or embodied superficial crudities; but it was most admirably adapted to the society of which I have been speaking. The excellent Addison, for example, who was no metaphysician, can adopt Locke when he wishes to give a philosophical air to his amiable ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... cubical capacity than 62 cubic inches, the smallest cranium observed in any race of men, by Morton, measuring 63 cubic inches; while on the other hand, the most capacious gorilla skull yet measured has a content of not more than 34 1/2 cubic inches. Let us assume for simplicity's sake, that the lowest man's skull has twice the capacity of the highest gorilla's. No doubt this is a very striking difference, but it loses much of its apparent systematic value, when viewed by the light of certain other equally ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... speechless and motionless, while I was informed that it was a common-place trick for gangs of pickpockets to throw unwary passengers down with violence, pretend to pity and give them aid, pick their pockets while helping them up, and then decamp with all possible expedition. But said I, with great simplicity, to my informer, 'Will not the gentleman come back?'—'What! The man who ran off?'—'Yes.'—'Back! No, no: you will never see his face more, I promise you, Sir; unless you will take the trouble to visit Newgate, or attend ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... exciting lust, so I fetched it. We had luncheon and champagne, she laughed,. talked, objected to sit down with me, but at last was thoroughly at home with me, and for the first time talked freely of her mistress, whom she feared. She disclosed a deal of simplicity and a very great deal of vulgarity, for she was an utter vulgar peasant girl; but I didn't mind anything ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... bearing himself. In short, the principle of vicarious suffering is commonly understood and practised by races who stand on a low level of social and intellectual culture. In the following pages I shall illustrate the theory and the practice as they are found among savages in all their naked simplicity, undisguised by the refinements of metaphysics and the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... for a piece of old Sevres than for a bit of kitchen crockery; he had no faith in wonderful bargains, and believed that one got in life just what one was willing to pay for. He had no mind to dispute the taste of those who preferred the rustic simplicity of the earthen crock; but his own fancy inclined to the piece of pate tendre which must be kept in a glass case and handled ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... by Major Le Boulenge, Belgian Artillery. It is intended to record the mean velocity between any two points, and from its simplicity and accuracy is largely employed. Other forms have been invented by Capt. Breger, French Artillerie de la ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... in generous honesty are but pale in goodness and faint-hued in sincerity. But be thou what thou virtuously art, and let not the ocean wash away thy tincture. Stand majestically upon that axis where prudent simplicity hath fixed thee; and at no temptation invert the poles of thy honesty that vice may be uneasy and even monstrous unto thee; let iterated good acts and long confirmed habits make virtue natural or a second nature in thee; and since few or none prove eminently virtuous but from some advantageous foundations ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... divine simplicity in the English mind that one may lay one's plans with mathematical precision, and rely upon the Nayland Smiths and Dr. Petries to play their allotted parts. Excepting two faithful followers, my friends are long since departed. But here, in these vaults which time has overlooked and which ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... improper to notice it here. When first brought under consideration, she was a miserable and forlorn object; squalid in attire, haggard in looks, and emaciated in frame. Now, she was the very reverse of all this. Her dress, it has just been said, was neatness and simplicity itself. Her figure, though slight, had all the fulness of health; and her complexion—still pale, but without its former sickly cast,—contrasted agreeably, by its extreme fairness, with the dark brows and darker lashes that shaded eyes ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... communication which led into the further suite of offices, but it was too late to think of escape. Sybil had already entered, bringing into the room a delicious odor of violets, herself almost bewilderingly beautiful. She was dressed with extreme simplicity, but with a delicate fastidiousness which Mary at any rate was quick to appreciate. Her lips were slightly parted in a natural and perfectly dazzling smile. She came across to Brooks with outstretched hand and laughter ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... profoundly. On Sundays and festivals we went to Mass together, and spent our leisure in excursions in the fields and pleasant groves with which Lucca is engirdled. We never ventured outside the territory of the Republic, but felt secure within it, trusting to our honest intentions, our simplicity and complete insignificance. Ah, blessed content! Blessed, thrice blessed obscurity! Would to God that you had been assured to us for ever! On rare occasions one or other of us had sight of the Cavaliere Aquamorta, who maintained ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... uneasiness, for the officers of the force thus for a moment driven off thought that because of their retiring within so narrow a place they speedily must surrender for dread of being starved there; and it was held to be but a sign of their still greater simplicity—since thus would there be more hungry mouths to fill—that they carried their women and children with them into the stronghold ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... pathways. The only artificial embellishments were two flights of stone steps leading to simple fountains with large stone basins, where the water gurgled and splashed lazily. 'Frisoni, build the house not in the new style, I pray you,' she had said, 'some graceful Italian simplicity were better here'; and he built a very pleasant mansion, unturreted, without tortured elegancies—a long, low, broad-windowed country retreat, each proportion perfect, each line harmonious. What a wealth of flowers bloomed in the Freudenthal ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... figure, with its neat, quiet simplicity, was his embodiment of elegance, for somehow Joe had detected the delicate perfume of a sweet nature and a loving heart—a heart full of Christian charity ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... landscape has in the exact sense such charm as one in which Nature manifests herself in a large and simple way: one feels with a thrill that she is about to tell the secret. The earth lay almost in its nakedness beneath the inane dome of the sky. But over the large simplicity of form one was soon aware of an exquisite play of hues. The easy undulations, as they ran off to the unattainable horizon, were so many waves of delicate and varying color. There were great sweeps of ochre, of gray, of fresh, light green, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... said Dr. Leete, when I had expressed my admiration, "what I said to you in our first conversation, when you were looking out over the city, as to the splendor of our public and common life as compared with the simplicity of our private and home life, and the contrast which, in this respect, the twentieth bears to the nineteenth century. To save ourselves useless burdens, we have as little gear about us at home as is consistent ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... work, to think His own ideal Mary-smile should stand So very near him,—he, within the brink Of all that glory, let in by his hand With too divine a rashness! Yet none shrink Who come to gaze here now; albeit 't was planned Sublimely in the thought's simplicity: The Lady, throned in empyreal state, Minds only the young Babe upon her knee, While sidelong angels bear the royal weight, Prostrated meekly, smiling tenderly Oblivion of their wings; the Child thereat Stretching its hand like God. If any should, Because of some stiff draperies ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... sincerity. A perusal of the secret correspondence leaves no doubt whatever on that point. She was seriously and fervently desirous of peace with Spain. On the part of Farnese and his master, there was the most unscrupulous mendacity, while the confiding simplicity and truthfulness of the Queen in these negotiations was almost pathetic. Especially she declared her trust in the loyal and upright character of Parma, in which she was sure of never being disappointed. It is only doing justice ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... considered almost obsolete,—but let any reflecting mind inquire how decay has begun in all republics, and then let them calmly ask themselves whether we are in no danger, in departing thus rapidly from the simplicity and ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... the twelfth century, when a singular change began to take place: this was no other than the introduction of the pointed arch, the origin of which has never yet been satisfactorily explained, or the precise period clearly ascertained in which it first appeared; but as the lightness and simplicity of design to which the Early Pointed style was found to be afterwards convertible was in its incipient state unknown, it retained to the close of the twelfth century the heavy concomitants of the semicircular arch, with which indeed it was often intermixed: and from such intermixture ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... might sharply realize the past, as the anaesthete realizes his return to agony from insensibility. The quality of her mind was as different from the thing called culture as her manner from convention. A simplicity beyond the simplicity of childhood was one with a poetic color in her absolute ideas. But this must cease with her restoration to the strength in which she could alone come into full and clear self-consciousness. So far as Lanfear could give reality to his occupation with ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... be afraid I have come here to criticize," explained he with appealing simplicity. "I'm green as grass and have ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... would combine efficiency with light weight and economy of space and cost. The trade demanded compressors at inaccessible localities, and in many cases it was preferred to sacrifice isothermal results to simplicity ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various
... ranks among the most ancient of all human sciences. In the infant state of society, when simplicity of manners characterised the pursuits of mankind, medical assistance was little wanted; but when the nature of man degenerated, and vice and luxury corrupted his habits of innocence and temperance, diseases sprung up which those aids alone could check or eradicate. ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... be to vaudeville much what Uncle Remus is to literature: there was virtue in his very simplicity. His artistry itself was native and natural. He loved a good story, and he told it from his own sense of the gleeful morsel upon his tongue as no training could have made him. He always enjoyed his story and himself in the telling. Tales never lost their savor, no matter how ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... He likes to escape from these, and talk with the elderly widow of the gardener whom he has known from his boyhood, and to pity himself in her presence and smoke himself free from, his rancor and trouble. He is such a prelate as we know historically in enough instances; but he is pathetic in that simplicity which survives in him and almost makes good the loss of innocence in Latin souls. He keeps with him the young girl who is the daughter of his youth, and whom it cuts him to the soul to have those opprobrious canons imagine his mistress. He is one out of the many figures that ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... ancient sagas and fairy-tales were real beings, probably the Phoenician miners, who, working the coal, iron, copper, gold, and tin mines of England, Norway, Sweden, etc., took advantage of the simplicity and credulity of the early inhabitants to make them believe that they belonged to a supernatural race and always dwelt underground, in a region which was called Svart-alfa-heim, or the ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... structure of an oration is determined by its object. There should be, in large measure, simplicity, unity, and progress. The language should be within the comprehension of the average hearer; the sentences, as a rule, should be brief and forcible; and the general style should be concrete rather than abstract. All parts of the oration should be bound together by the ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... there nothing else, would determine his value as a composer. He was divinely conscious of the enthusiasm of Nature, the emotion of her rhythms and the harmony of her solitude. In this consciousness he sang of the submission to Nature, the religion of contemplation, and the freedom of simplicity—a philosophy distinguishing between the complexity of Nature which teaches freedom, and the complexity of materialism which teaches slavery. In music, in poetry, in all art, the truth as one sees it must ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... is sometimes asked, Do the new lights on Variation and Heredity make the process of Evolution easier to understand? On the whole the answer may be given that they do. There is some appearance of loss of simplicity, but the gain is real. As was said above, the time is not ripe for the discussion of the origin of species. With faith in Evolution unshaken—if indeed the word faith can be used in application to that which is certain—we ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... may remain, my dear, but not the simplicity. I don't want him to sell his country to Germany, or to turn it into an American republic in order that he may be president. But when he gets the reins in his hands, I want him to keep them there. If he's so much honester ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... denied, so neither can the reality of it be affirmed. We possess nothing but the ancient epic itself, without any independent evidence: had it been an age of records, indeed, the Homeric epic, in its exquisite and unsuspecting simplicity, would probably never have come into existence. Whoever, therefore, ventures to dissect Homer, Arctinus, and Lesches, and to pick out certain portions as matters of fact, while he sets aside the rest as fiction, must do so in full reliance on his own powers of historical ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... bearing were haughty, dignified, and queen-like. Her complexion was very dark, but perfectly clear; her forehead broad and high; her brows heavy, but gracefully arched; her eyes large, black and flashing; her hair dark as night, and arranged with great simplicity in glossy bands; and her mouth large, but filled with teeth of pearl-like whiteness, contrasted by lips of coral wet with the spray. The entire outline of her face was Roman, and exhibited in its contour and lineaments even more than Roman sternness and decision; and its effect ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... triplets on a descending scale. But while retaining the relative position of these few notes he varied the effect almost infinitely, by changing both the key and the pitch constantly, with such skill that I was astonished to discover the remarkable simplicity of the song. A striking quality of it was an attempt which he frequently made to utter his clause higher on the scale than he could reach, so that the triplets became a sort of trill or tremolo, at the very extreme of his register. Sometimes ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... building was for the accommodation of Congress; and in the balcony upon which the Senate Chamber opened, the first President of the United States was inaugurated. A ceremony which I witnessed, and which for its simplicity, the persons concerned in it, the effect produced upon my country and the world, in giving stability to the Federal Constitution, by calling Washington to administer its blessings, remains on my mind unrivaled ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... works will be found 1826 instead of 1829. This, however, is a misprint, not a correction.]would be a notable item; in that of Chopin it counts for little. Whatever the shortcomings of this composition are, the quiet simplicity and sweet melancholy which pervade it must touch the hearer. But the master stands in his own. light; the famous Funeral March in B flat minor, from the Sonata in B flat minor, Op. 35, composed about ten years later, eclipses the more modest one in C minor. Beside the former, with its sublime force ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... lad is not a prig, nor is he forward or presumptuous. True, he has a keen sense of his own dignity, but it takes the form of an extreme simplicity, and of an absolute lack of affectation, since he is intelligent enough to realize that his rank and position are sufficiently assured to render it unnecessary that he should call attention thereto either by his manner or by his speech. He is modest too, very frank, particularly courteous to ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... know I have been the prey of sharpers. That is to say, I have every reason to believe so, and I have had a hint to that effect. I have a spice of the devil in me, accordingly—a mocking, mortifying devil, that jeers me with my d—-d simplicity; and I propose to go and let the swindlers know, in a way as little circuitous as possible, that I am not blind to the fact that they have made an ass of me. There will be some satisfaction, in that. I will write myself down an ass, for their benefit, only to enjoy the satisfaction ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... what my dear little brother suffered during those long months when we could not hear if he were dead or alive. He kept the secret until he no longer needed either friends or money; and now he tells it with a simplicity that made me cry fit to break my heart when I was left alone in the twilight with no one to see.... George comforts me with hopes of Peace, and a speedy return. If ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... fashionable tradesmen of the day. He also sold vests or waistcoats, lace-edged neck cloths, gloves, sword scarfs and girdles, generally of his own design; yet though his shop was regularly crowded with gallants and courtiers, the man himself managed to preserve much of the honesty and simplicity which had been his making in the days gone by. Everybody liked and trusted Master Cale, and he was said to be the best-informed man in London town on matters connected with the court and its fashionable throng ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... limited estimate of his abilities. That is a method of reasoning—an enthymeme—which rouses the bitterest feelings of sullen and rancorous hatred. And so Gracian is quite right in saying that the only way to win affection from people is to show the most animal-like simplicity of demeanor—para ser bien quisto, el unico medio vestirse la piel del mas ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... primary need for character, and independence can only be learnt by doing without pleasant things, even unnecessarily. Simplicity of life is an essential for greatness of life, and the very meaning of the simple life is the laying aside of many things which tend to grow by habit into necessities. The habit of work is another necessity in any life worth living, and this is only learnt by refraining again and again from ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... bounds; the constant exercise of severe and prompt justice maintained the awe of the royal power. Finally, Charles was born in the Netherlands, and loved the nation in whose lap he had grown up. Their manners pleased him, the simplicity of their character and social intercourse formed for him a pleasing recreation from the severe Spanish gravity. He spoke their language, and followed their customs in his private life. The burdensome ceremonies ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... touch; I could also see the struggle which he made to master and repress these feelings. I saw well his deep appreciation of the pure and unsullied truth of Rosa's character. When her eyes were fixed upon him with the bold simplicity and ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... with quite well, Rosa Tilofsky Oswald says that Hainfeld bores him to death and that he shall get a friend to invite him somewhere. Nothing will induce him to spend the whole holidays here. His name for Ada is: "Country Simplicity." If he only knew how much she knows. Rosa T. he calls a "Pimple Complex" because she has two or three pimples. Oswald has some fault to find with every girl he comes across. He says of Dora: She is a green frog, for she always looks so pale and has cold hands, and he ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... are the volunteers of honour; and, without detracting from their merits, this title adds to ours all that a pure and disinterested idea adds to the noblest acts of courage. There is not a doubt but that in our place you would have done precisely what we did. You would have done it with the same simplicity, the same calm and confident ardour, the same good faith. You would have thrown yourselves into the breach as whole-heartedly, with the same scorn of useless phrases and the same stubborn conscientiousness. And the reason why I do not shrink from singing in your presence the praises of ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... While his money lasted, he had no end of friends. He was a universal referee—everybody's bondsman. "Just sign me this little bit of paper," was a request often made to him by particular friends, "What is it?" he would mildly ask; for, with all his simplicity, he prided himself upon his caution! Yet he never refused. Three months after, a bill for a rather heavy amount would fall due, and who should be called upon to make it good but everybody's friend—the man who couldn't ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... have aroused more interest in the child than the toy knitting; due, perhaps, to its simplicity and his power to ...
— Spool Knitting • Mary A. McCormack
... little moment that Garth had made no conventional avowal of his love. She did not, on that account, pretend, even to herself, as many women would have done, that her own heart was untouched, but recognized and accepted the fact that love had come to her with absolute simplicity. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... work all this out for ourselves; we must make our own place in society; we must frame our own creeds; we must live our own religion; for no longer can one man's religion be taken unquestionably by any other. As the world has been unified, so is the individual unit exalted. With all this, the simplicity of life is passing away. Our front doors are wide open as the trains go by. The caravan traverses our front yard. We speak to millions, millions speak to us; and we must cultivate the social tact, the gentleness, the adroitness, the firmness necessary to carry out our ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... Atmospheric Scalp-lifter.' Here it is. The device consists of a disk of thin leather about six inches in diameter. In the centre is a hole through which runs a string. When the Indian desires to deal with a man with a bald head, he proceeds as follows—observe the simplicity of the operation: He wets the leather, stamps it carefully down upon the surface of the scalp, slides his knife around over the ears, gives the string a jerk, and off comes the scalp as nicely as if it had been Absalom's. In fact, you will see at once that it is an ingenious application ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... glowing with radiance from the higher realms of bliss. Without this idea of singing, and more than this, of a pure spirit singing, the Mozart adagios are open to the charge often made against them in these later days by the unthinking, who find in them only the external peculiarities of simplicity and diatonic quality, with the ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... Mr. Norris has composed little, and that little is done on simple lines, but the simplicity is deep, and the harmonies, without being bizarre, are ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... other foreign fashions and inventions of luxury. They neither felt a true want of poetry, nor had any relish for it; they merely wished to be entertained in a brilliant and light manner. The theatre, which in its former simplicity had attracted the spectators solely by the excellence of the dramatic works and the actors, was now furnished out with all the appendages with which we are at this day familiar; but what is gained in external decoration is ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... that day be come, as I have told, you to know how that there went alway with me in this mine own story which I tell, the simplicity of Truth; and how that I did be minded only that you to know, and thereby that you have gentle wisdom that you lay not up pain for that day. Yet, if you do lack to go with me, you to need that developing which shall then ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... her eyes from this revelation of the possible mysteries in her own existence, mysteries which for the first time seemed to have come so near as to over-shadow her face, now suddenly turned to Wharton and said with irresistible simplicity: ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... and pleased by the state of discipline he found them in.... I like all this sort of thing, and I admire my uncle most particularly when surrounded with a tribe of military attendants. But what is all this pageantry compared with the unaffected simplicity of real greatness! ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the old name—was the lavish luxury, the increased pace of living, on this side of the ocean. The years he had spent in Italy had been the richest period of our industrial renaissance. In the rising tide of wealth the signs of the old order—the simplicity of the ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... while dinner was getting ready; so, not without a deep sense of pleasure, and a delighted look of surprise from the two hostesses, we started, William and I, as if both of us felt much younger than we looked. Such was the innocence and simplicity of the moment that when I heard Mrs. Todd laughing behind us in the kitchen I laughed too, but William did not even blush. I think he was a little deaf, and he stepped along before me most businesslike and intent upon ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... nought of such rubbish to know how to love, and accusing books of stealing away the time which should be devoted to prayer. He even succeeded in forgetting his years of college life. He no longer knew anything, but was simplicity itself, a child brought back to the ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... into the presence of the chief, he narrated his dismal tale with a simplicity and pathos which would have instantly drawn the retributive sword of Wallace, had he had no kinsman to avenge, no friend to release from the Southron dungeons. But as the case stood, his bleeding grandfather ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... gentleman of the North Sea coast in the ninth or tenth century differs from one of the companions of St. Louis. The latter has something fantastic in his ideas which the other has not. The Crusader may indeed be natural and brutal enough in most of his ways, but he has lost the sobriety and simplicity of the earlier type of rover. If nothing else, his way of fighting—the undisciplined cavalry charge—would convict him of extravagance as compared with men of business, like the settlers of ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... poetry, until that tragedy of the egoist is no longer a play but a part of you, so many years of living, almost, added to one's life. Yes, it is all here, along with the forty-two-centimetre shells—good music and good beer and good love of both; simplicity, homely kindness, ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous." 12 "And shall not be able." The ability here intended is not that which standeth in carnal power or fleshly subtlety, but in the truth and simplicity of those things for the sake of which God giveth the kingdom of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... our hands every man of us, and carry you home in a chariot and four see if we don't, you perverse prima donna!" threatened Steve, not at all satisfied with the simplicity of ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... standing on a high hill which overlooked the city, showed in the moonlight the grotesque outlines of a composite architecture. Originally it had been a square substantial edifice of Colonial simplicity. A later and less restrained taste had aimed at a castellated effect, and certain peaks and turrets had been added. Three of these turrets were excrescences stuck on, evidently, with an idea of adornment. The fourth ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... drapery, with a musical instrument in each hand; she is in the sepulchral chamber of her husband, whose stone urn appears in the background. I possess the antique urn which my brother procured, and which he used for the painting. For graceful simplicity, and for depth of earnest but not strained sentiment, he never, I think, exceeded ‘The Roman Widow.’ The two instruments seem to repeat the two mottoes on the urn, ‘Ave Domine—Vale Domine.’ The head was painted ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... with their frowning brows Condemn a work of fresh simplicity'? A cheerful kindness my pure speech endows; What people do, I write, to my capacity. For who knows not the pleasures Venus gives? Who will not in a warm bed tease his members? Great Epicurus taught a truth that lives; Love and enjoy life! All ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... with now and again in the French army; natures that show themselves to be wholly great at need, and relapse into their ordinary simplicity when the action is over; men that are little mindful of fame and reputation, and utterly forgetful of danger. Perhaps there are many more of them than the shortcomings of our own characters will allow us to imagine. Yet, for all that, any one who believed that Genestas was perfect would ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... cosmopolitan, as both now resumed their seats; "you roguishly took advantage of my simplicity; you archly played upon my enthusiasm. But never mind; the offense, if any, was so charming, I almost wish you would offend again. As for certain poetic left-handers in your panegyric, those I cheerfully concede to the indefinite privileges of the poet. Upon the whole, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... eloquent, and the narrative glowed with the living fire of the hero. Julia was quite as much interested as Desdemona in the story of the swarthy Moor. His "round, unvarnished tale," adorned only with the flowers of youthful simplicity, enchained her attention, and she "loved him for the dangers he had passed;" loved him, not as Desdemona loved, but as a child loves. She was sure now that he was not a bad boy; that even a good boy might do such a thing as run away from ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... intended they should, drawn Darrell's thoughts from himself. Under his graphic description, accompanied by the powerful magnetism of his voice and presence, Darrell seemed to see the Oriental festival which he had depicted and to feel a soothing influence from the very simplicity and beauty ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... shoulders went up and down, and he shook like a bowl of jelly. He seemed to be overcome by the simplicity of the problem over which his son had been racking ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... which the Divine tenderness, the Divine justice, which I can never presume to doubt, was yet undiscernible to my bounded vision, it is in the instance of the very life you refer to. I see a man of admirable virtues—of a childlike simplicity of character, which makes him almost unconscious of the grandeur of his own soul—involved by a sublime self-sacrifice—by a virtue, not by a fault—in the most dreadful of human calamities—ignominious degradation;—hurled in the midday of life from the sphere of honest men—a ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... first railway engine, and for six months the first tramway engine of this new construction, have been introduced into regular public service, and been open to public inspection as well as to the criticism of the scientific world. They are worked with greater ease and simplicity than ordinary locomotive engines; the economy of their working appears, allowing for shortcomings unavoidably attached to small establishments, to be at least equally great: they do not emit either steam or smoke, and their action is as noiseless as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... story or only commented on some ordinary topic, he was always quaint, often humorous.... It was at Oulton that the author of The Bible in Spain spent his happiest days. The menage in his Suffolk home was conducted with great simplicity, but he always had for his friends a bottle or two of wine of rare vintage, and no man was more hearty than he over the glass. He passed his mornings in his summer-house, writing on small scraps of paper, and these he handed to his wife who copied them on foolscap. It was in this way and ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... family worship was daily practised in the Gurney household, and appearing suddenly in the dining-room one morning, just as the family were about to "take books," Dexie stayed to prayers, and was so impressed with the charm and simplicity of the devotions, that she asked permission to ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... the 16 H's or hydrogen atoms of the formula for simplicity's sake. They simply hook on wherever they can. You will see that the isoprene consists of a chain of four carbon atoms (represented by the C's) with an extra carbon on the side. In the transformation of this colorless liquid into soft rubber two ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... Milton in his time, they would now appear incredible;—so when the misconceptions arising from slander shall have ceased, the name of Coleridge will be enrolled among those of our most illustrious men. The poet has said of Gay, "in wit, a 'man'; simplicity, ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... is popular throughout France, but he has hardly strength enough with the people to become a great leader. A few months ago he won enthusiastic approval by the skill with which he arranged his visit to the Emperor of Russia, and by the dignity and simplicity which ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 10, March 10, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... who represents that God, that he still pays his tithes and forfeitures and keeps his hands from our throats. By Diana," cried the Bishop, taking snuff, "I have no patience with those of my calling who go about whining for apostolic simplicity, and would rob the churches of their ornaments and the faithful ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... his absent, courteous way. There was about him a simplicity entirely winning as he seated ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... retired life, Constance, haunted as she was by her fixed idea, had no other occupation than that of watching the factory, and ascertaining what went on there day by day. Morange, whom she had made her confidant, gave her information in all simplicity almost every evening, when he came to speak to her for a moment after leaving his office. She learnt everything from his lips—the successive sales of the shares into which the property had been divided, their gradual acquisition by Denis, and ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... look after him until you come back again," cried the innocent Bimbo, raising his dirty face from the team, and gazing at us with an air of simplicity ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... given to the beggar. The master of the servant overhearing this, called Abou Neeut up stairs; and having seated him, inquired his story, which he faithfully related to his host, who was a capital merchant, and was so much pleased at his pious simplicity, that he resolved to befriend him, and desired him to abide for the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... not have much love for him. Sam soon found this out. At Mr Ross's request Kinesasis skillfully threw a lasso over him and brought him out of the kennels. This undignified procedure considerably ruffled his temper, and so when Sam, in sweet simplicity, took up a harness and endeavoured to put it on him the dog viciously sprang at him and buried his teeth in the heavy mooseskin mitten of the hand which Sam was fortunately able to quickly throw up, thus saving his face ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... ostensibly to put aside her hat—really to warn Miss Payne—De Burgh strolled into the drawing-room. How cool and fresh and sweet with abundant flowers it was! An air of refined homeliness about it, the work and books and music on the open piano, spoke of well-occupied repose. Its simplicity was graceful, and indicated the presence ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... merit of simplicity, Gottlieb, but it does not fall in with the scheme of the Empress, who is anxious that everything be accomplished legally and without bloodshed. But if we can burn them, we can capture them, imprisonment being probably more to the taste of the vermin, as you call them, than cremation, and ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... of deprecating his friends, with the annexed modest statement that the 'Critical Spelling-book' would be found superior to any other work of the kind, past, present, or future, Mr. Lowe proceeded to give his own rules, distinguished 'by the greatest simplicity. Through the first chapter, treating of 'monosyllables,' John Clare made his way, with some trouble; but the second, entering the field of 'polysyllables,' brought him to a stop. Read as he might, poor John could not understand the ever-changing value ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... he had a sort of dignity in handling the hoe or crow-bar, which shows him to be the chief. In the evening he sits under the stoop, silent and observant from under the brim of his hat; but, occasion suiting, he holds an argument about the benefit or otherwise of manufactories or other things. A simplicity characterizes him more than appertains to ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... and artless, have gradually become corrupt and degenerate, since their frequent intercourse with the whale-fishers. Among the female portion of the population, depravity of morals and unbecoming boldness of manners have in a great degree superseded the natural simplicity which formerly prevailed. All the vices of the lowest class of sailors, of which the crews of the South Sea Whalers are composed, have quickly taken root in San Carlos, and the inseparable consequences of those ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... vegetables, fruits, preserves, &c., are served in abundance, and of the very best quality. Here you may see tradesmen, "nigger traders," farmers, "congress men," captains, generals, and judges, all seated at the same table, in true republican simplicity. There is no appearance of awkwardness in the behaviour of the humblest person you see seated at those tables; and indeed their general good conduct is remarkable—I mean when contrasted with that of the same class in England. The truth is, the ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... feel its equal. It is courtesy without condescension; affability without familiarity; self-sufficiency without selfishness; simplicity without snide. It weighs sixteen ounces to the pound without the package, and it doesn't need a four-colored label to make ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... their character, their doings, their beliefs, and their views of life and death. They furnish us a simple and direct record of the life and the aspirations of the average man, the record of a life not interpreted for us by the biographer, historian, or novelist, but set down in all its simplicity by one of the common ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... was the making of the creche: a representation with odd little figures and accessories of the personages and scene of the Nativity—the whole at once so naive and so tender as to be possible only among a people blessed with rare sweetness and rare simplicity of soul. ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... at once so droll and so sad about this child, with her precocious knowledge and ignorant simplicity, that the lad's honest tender heart was touched with a sudden pity as he listened to her artless chatter. He was almost glad when her confidences drifted away to more childlike subjects of interest, and she told him about her toys, and books, and pictures, and ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... reader a clear impression of the simplicity, and yet the greatness, of his hero, and the broad result of his life's work is very plainly and carefully set forth. A short appreciation of his scientific labours, from the competent pen of Sir Archibald Geikie, and a useful bibliography of his works, complete ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... more than twenty," said Beaton, amused and touched through his curiosity as to what the old man was driving at by the quaint simplicity of his speculations. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... allowed to public officers, though so low[60] as not to afford a decent maintenance to those who resided at the seat of government, were declared to be so enormously high, as clearly to manifest a total disregard of that simplicity and economy which were the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... replied Gregory with simplicity. "You see, there are seven members of the Central Anarchist Council, and they are named after days of the week. He is called Sunday, by some of his admirers Bloody Sunday. It is curious you should ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... upon the whole narrative as being an allegory. Adam is the rational part of man; Eve, the sensual; the serpent, external excitements to evil. But the simplicity and artlessness of the narrative militates ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... The style is ingeniously tasteless and feeble. He who has read it through can do or dare any thing. Mr. MATHEWS suffers from several erroneous opinions. He seems to think that literary elegance consists in the very qualities which make elegance impossible. Simplicity and directness of language he abominates. When he has an idea to express, he aims, apparently, to convert it into a riddle, by inventing the most forced, unnatural, and distorted expressions. If the thing can be obscured, he is sure to obscure it. He seems to say to the reader, 'Can you guess? ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... to enthusiasm. Psyche, another opera by Shadwell, perhaps adapted from Moliere's Court spectacle, had succeeded the Tempest. St. Andre and his French dancers were probably engaged in Shadwell's piece. The king, whose taste and good sense the poet praises, had recommended simplicity of dress and frugality of ornament. This Dryden took care to ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... vegetarian diet, and at this time I chanced to read Pater's beautiful "Denys L'Auxerrois," the imaginary portrait of a young vine-dresser, who was attractive beyond ordinary mortals and lived, until his fall and deterioration, on fruit and water. The words, "a natural simplicity in living" remained in my memory. I resolved to read more carefully the book on scientific diet. Who can say, I thought, what changes for the better may come to me if I live on a ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... works, and Wordsworth holds that the instincts and pleasures of a healthy childhood sufficiently indicate the lines on which our maturer character should be formed. The joy which began in the mere sense of existence should be maintained by hopeful faith; the simplicity which began in inexperience should be recovered by meditation; the love which originated in the family circle should expand itself over the race of men. And the calming and elevating influence of Nature—which to Wordsworth's memory seemed the inseparable concomitant of childish ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... Gerolstein, an extinct grand duchy, among the number. On the south it marched with the comparatively powerful kingdom of Seaboard Bohemia, celebrated for its flowers and mountain bears, and inhabited by a people of singular simplicity and tenderness of heart. Several intermarriages had, in the course of centuries, united the crowned families of Gruenewald and Maritime Bohemia; and the last Prince of Gruenewald, whose history I purpose ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... piece of wood on which was cut the image of a dwarf like to that of Zikali himself. Then and not before they must fight and conquer the People of Rezu. Now this story came down among them and you who may have thought the first tale magical, will understand it in its simplicity: is it ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... in our land grows older, and departs from primitive simplicity, as many are becoming rich, but more poor, the changes that I have sought to warn against become more threatening. The ordinary avenues of industry are growing thronged, and it daily involves a more fearful risk for a woman to be thrown out upon the ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... is. Generally speaking, to be naive is to be attractive; while lack of naturalness is everywhere repulsive. As a matter of fact we find that every really great writer tries to express his thoughts as purely, clearly, definitely and shortly as possible. Simplicity has always been held to be a mark of truth; it is also a mark of genius. Style receives its beauty from the thought it expresses; but with sham-thinkers the thoughts are supposed to be fine because of the style. Style is nothing but the mere silhouette ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... wealthy young Viking, capable of strong affections and disaffections, foremost in games and fights requiring physical force, and with a vast number of habits and customs. It is a history that interests through its simplicity." ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu |
