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More "Downright" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an admirable Olivia. She was particularly excellent in her unbending scenes in conversation with the Clown. I have seen some Olivias—and those very sensible actresses too—who in these interlocutions have seemed to set their wits at the jester, and to vie conceits with him in downright emulation. But she used him for her sport, like what he was, to trifle a leisure sentence or two with, and then to be dismissed, and she to be the Great Lady still. She touched the imperious fantastic humour of the character with nicety. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... full, intense, strong, sound, passing, heavy, plenary, deep, high; signal, at its height, in the zenith. world-wide, widespread, far-famed, extensive; wholesale; many &c. 102. goodly, noble, precious, mighty; sad, grave, heavy, serious; far gone, arrant, downright; utter, uttermost; crass, gross, arch, profound, intense, consummate; rank, uninitiated, red-hot, desperate; glaring, flagrant, stark staring; thorough-paced, thoroughgoing; roaring, thumping; extraordinary.; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... hope of Gruenewald," cried Fritz. "He doesn't suit some of your high-and-dry, old, ancient ideas; but he's a downright modern man—a man of the new lights and the progress of the age. He does some things wrong; so they all do; but he has the people's interests next his heart; and you mark me—you, sir, who are ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and Curtis entered the vehicle, which whirled out of sight in the peculiarly downright ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... clothing, no effort to make himself presentable for New York or her. In a way, it amused her—it was so characteristic of his forgetfulness, and it made him seem doubly familiar. He waved a hand toward the luxury of the interior. "This," he declared, "is downright impressive, and lifted, I'm sure, out of a novel ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... that moment, condoned the sharpness of her words, which hardly reached him. The failure of the missionaries to see the merit in his work showed ignorance, but was their own affair; the omission to say "thank you" for his gift was downright rudeness. Their open contempt of his little masterpiece rankled hot in his mind. He vowed before Allah never again to seek to please a Frank and risk such insult. Henceforth he would cleanse his mouth whenever ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... smile, "an alarming personage." He was a young-looking man, in spite of his perplexities and his very gray hair, and his manner seemed quite natural. I use the word natural, in the sense of its being unaffected; there was something comic in his distraught way, as though it would have been downright ludicrous but for his own perception that it was very near being so. When he had talked with me a little, he said to Mrs. Pocket, with a rather anxious contraction of his eyebrows, which were black and handsome, "Belinda, I hope you have welcomed Mr. Pip?" And she looked ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... very complex structure and very delicate function. Here it is impossible to identify changes that are simply solidary with changes which are also complementary. The two senses of the word "correlation" must be carefully distinguished; it would be a downright paralogism to adopt one of them in the premisses of the reasoning, and the other in the conclusion. And this is just what is done when the principle of correlation is invoked in explanations of detail in order to account for complementary variations, and then ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... instincts is downright wicked. I will not look at the "Fortnightly" article lest I succumb to temptation. At least not yet. The truth is that these cursed irons of mine, that have always given me so much trouble, will put themselves in ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... find the fruit ripe enough, or to speak plainly, I do not consider that you have sufficient grounds to justify your petition for a judicial separation. Let us not forget that the French law is a very downright kind of thing, totally devoid of delicate feeling for nice distinctions. It recognizes only acts, serious, brutal acts, and unfortunately it is these acts we lack. Most assuredly I have been deeply touched while reading the account of the first year of your ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... habit. He may be trusted without hesitation upon every other subject, but on this he almost always speaks evasively, and though about any thing else he would cut his hand off rather than say the thing that is not, will sometimes tell a downright falsehood. In most cases he has been led to this course by witnessing the agony or suffering the reproach with which the knowledge of his habit is received by his friends. He lies either in mercy to them or because the pangs which their rebuke inflicts would become still more intolerable ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... subsequently allayed to some extent, had been revived. There might be nothing in it, he said to himself, over and over again; everything that seemed strange might be easily explained; the evidence of Pratt at the inquest had appeared absolutely truthful and straightforward, and yet the blunt, rough, downright question of the blacksmith, crudely voiced as it was, found a ready agreement in Collingwood's mind. As he drew near the house he found himself repeating Stringer's broad Yorkshire—"What wor that lawyer-clerk chap fro' Barford—Pratt—doin' about theer? What reight had he to be prowlin' round ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... you ain't a real, deyvlish, downright, thorough-paced friend,' said the young lord, on whom this speech had ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... returned Godfrey, evading, whilst at the same moment he confirmed the question. "He always admired her from a boy. We have had many disputes, nay downright quarrels, about her beauty. She was never a great favorite of mine. I admire gentle, ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... always styled them "Brothers"; and yet the assumption of paternal authority on the part of Frontenac was not only taken in good part, but was received with apparent gratitude. The martial nature of the man, his clear decisive speech, and his frank and downright manner, backed as they were by a display of force which in their eyes was formidable, struck them with admiration, and gave tenfold effect to his words of kindness. They thanked him for that which from another they would not ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... assumed towards me, and which it is difficult to describe by any other word than "heighty-teighty," and also by dark hints of changes which she hoped (but seemed far from believing) would be for my good, and finally, by downright lamentations and tragic inquiries as to what she had done to be parted from her boy, and "could her chickabiddy have the heart to drive away his loving and faithful nursey," that I learned that it was contemplated to supersede her by some one else, and that if she did not know that ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... frigid reception seemed only to tickle Lawyer Ed's sense of amusement. He leaned back in his seat, shut up his eyes, and laughed loudly. "Well, for downright pigheadedness and idiotic pertinacity, commend me to a Scotchman every time," he ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... the stage nearly all human passions which lend themselves to comedy or farce. Sordid avarice, lavish prodigality, shameless vice, womanly resignation, artless coquetry, greed for money, downright hypocrisy, would-be gentility, self-sufficient vanity, fashionable swindling, misanthropy, heartlessness, plain common-sense, knowledge of the world, coarse jealousy, irresolution, impudence, pride of birth, egotism, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... they worked so tirelessly and earnestly, it was not all plain sailing with the girl campaigners. Yet though they met with many rebuffs, they met very little downright impertinence. Twice Louise was asked to leave a house where she had attempted to make a proselyte, and once a dog was set upon Beth by an irate farmer, who resented her automobile as much as he ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... a cur on such a stormy night as this? Yet he felt angry with himself for softening. He never had anything to do with women; he treated them all as if ignorant of their existence, with a painful timidity which he disguised under a mask of bravado. And that girl must really think him a downright fool, to bamboozle him with that story of adventure—only fit for a farce. Nevertheless, he ended by saying, 'That's enough. You had better come in out of the wet. You can sleep in ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... our words and actions, how little do all these things indicate a sound mind! What can make a worse appearance than Homer's Achilles, or Agamemnon, during the quarrel? And as to Ajax, anger drove him into downright madness, and was the occasion of his death. Courage, therefore, does not want the assistance of anger; it is sufficiently provided, armed, and prepared of itself. We may as well say that drunkenness or madness is of service to courage, because those who are mad or drunk often ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... very marked trait, which might promise well for the future, or otherwise, according to circumstances, and that was a certain wilful persistence, which often degenerated into downright obstinacy. Frequently, when his mother thought that she had coaxed or wheedled him into giving up something of which she did not approve, he would quietly approach his object in some other way, and gain his point, or sulk till he did. When he set his heart upon anything he was not as "unstable as ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... princes took alarm. If they had viewed with composure the failure of Frederick's foolhardy efforts in Bohemia, they beheld with downright dismay the expansion of Bavaria and the destruction of a balance of power long maintained between Catholic and Protestant Germany. And so long as the ill-disciplined remnants of Frederick's armies were behaving like highwaymen, ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... us to row," he said, "but if I were you I'd go a little easy with Gertie. She's all right and a good sort at bottom, you can take it from me. Yesterday, I admit she was downright nasty. I guess you rile her up more than she's used to. But I want to ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... favourable to the besieged. By a chance ball from the enemy, one of the galleys which brought relief was sunk downright with 40 men and goods to the value of 40,000 ducats. But, next day, Ferdinand Tellez made a sally with 400 men, and gained a victory equal to that of Gonzalez de Camara, and brought away one piece of cannon with some ammunition, arms, and other booty. This action was seen by the Nizam in person, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... chronic absent-mindedness or an overworked brain, or downright bad physical health or insufficient knowledge of the system, you failed to see 47 in any of the foregoing cases, you would try Concurrence. Considering that the State of New York is largely agricultural, you would find that the implement of farming known as a "{R}a{k}e" ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... over wild and bloodthirsty passions with a pleasing exterior—never clothed crime and want of principle with a false show of greatness of soul; and in that respect he is every way deserving of praise. Twice he has portrayed downright villains, and the masterly way in which he has contrived to elude impressions of too painful a nature may be seen in Iago and Richard the Third. I allow that the reading, and still more the sight, of some of his pieces, is not advisable to weak ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... dishonor of his mother, Had straight declined, drooped, took it deeply, Fastened and fixed the shame on't in himself, Threw off his spirit, appetite, and sleep, And downright languished. ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... had been downright disappointed at not having the boat for Ann when he came home. Was he meaning to deliver that lecture on the army? She hoped that whatever he talked about it would bring Ann home without that ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... Deerslayer," he answered, in a deprecating manner, "and hope you'll forget what I've said. If you're not downright handsome, you've a sartain look that says, plainer than any words, that all's right within. Then you set no value by looks, and will the sooner forgive any little slight to your appearance. I will not say that Jude will greatly admire you, for that might raise hopes ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... by that I knew that all the boats must have got away. And as I realized that I was forsaken, and felt sure from what I had heard that the ship would float for only a few minutes longer, I gave a cry of downright despair—and then I lost track of the whole bad business by tumbling to the floor in the darkness in a ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... battle-field; and, demoralized by this belief, the Union commands, by a common impulse, gave up the fight as lost, and half marched, half ran from the field. Before reaching Centreville, the retreat at one point degenerated into a downright panic among army teamsters and a considerable crowd of miscellaneous camp-followers; and here a charge or two by the Confederate cavalry companies captured thirteen Union guns and quite a harvest ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... that they were never put into practice. The fiercest reformers grow calm, and are faire to put up with things as they are: the loudest Radical orators become dumb, quiescent placemen: the most fervent Liberals when out of power, become humdrum Conservatives or downright tyrants or despots in office. Look at the Thiers, look at Guizot, in opposition and in place! Look at the Whigs appealing to the country, and the Whigs in power! Would you say that the conduct of these men is an act of treason, as the Radicals bawl,—who ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in guessing quite accurately how he stood in her thoughts, and he was often much depressed. As he had said to Clara Bute, he had a downright dislike to contend against, and this might not change with his success. And now it was his misfortune to become associated in her mind with another painful event—perhaps a fatal one. She might thank him sincerely for his kindness and the trouble he had taken in their ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... in a way, but it wasn't much of a way. She liked the fine clothes and the trinkets he gave her, but, after he went blind, she could hardly tolerate him. Lots of times, she would have been downright cruel to him if I hadn't made her ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... like the musk-rose?"—How perplexing to the cunning is straightforward simplicity! "Now," thought Lady Frances, "one of the court waiting-maids would have comprehended my meaning in a moment; and this wench, with ten times their zeal and real sense, thinks it downright wicked to pry into her lady's secrets. I wonder my women have not taught her the court fashions.—You may go to bed, Barbara; light my night lamp, and give me a book; I do ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... Moore, I was confirmed in one or two points which I had always laid down in considering poor Byron. One was, that like Rousseau he was apt to be very suspicious, and a plain downright steadiness of manner was the true mode to maintain his good opinion. Will Rose told me that once, while sitting with Byron, he fixed insensibly his eyes on his feet, one of which, it must be remembered, was deformed. Looking up suddenly, he saw Byron regarding him with a look of concentrated ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... Smith is no Atheist; at least he makes no profession of Atheism. Au contraire, he makes fine sport with those who do. Himself a Pantheist of the all-God school, he took to calling Atheists 'ugly names,' as if quite innocent that no 'thinking mind' can fail to perceive the downright lunacy, or something worse, of supposing a pin to choose on the score of piety, between universal Deity and no Deity at all. The 'Shepherd' of a new philosophic flock should have known better than to attempt the reform of 'vulgar theology' by setting forth the mystical nonsense ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... literature, and his personal recollections, as if we had been his equals, though, of course, with a width of knowledge altogether beyond our own. The risk of giving pain to a 'skinless' man was all that could cause any reserve between us; but a downright outspoken boy like my brother soon acquired and enjoyed a position on the most affectionate terms of familiarity. We knew that he loved us; that his character was not only pure but chivalrous; and that intellectually he was a most capable guide into ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... trousseau. I don't see why a gentleman isn't to have a trousseau as well as a lady. At any rate, I wanted a new black suit, fit for the hymeneal altar. And when there I made out John Gordon, and soon wormed the truth out of him. At least he did not tell me downright, but he let the cat so far out of the bag that I soon guessed the remainder. I always knew how ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... in a new light, as the willing victim of downright robbery. It seemed obvious that the Manheimers could not do without him, that he was in a position to dictate terms to them, even to make them accept him as a third partner. And once the matter ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... but most undoubtedly from some one or other of the earliest emperors, consisted, first, in the freedom of every order of citizens; secondly, in the right of property—a right which admitted no authority of the sovereign to violate by confiscation, except in cases of downright treason; thirdly, in the privilege of trial by none but native judges, and according to their national usages; fourthly, in a very narrow limitation of the military services which they owed to the king; fifthly, in the hereditary title to feudal property, in direct line, on payment of certain ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... more of variety, and a few glimpses of really good taste, along with the crumbs of comfort; and I'm willing to admit that your moves in that direction, as far as I can follow them, are all right. Still, it's a downright fact, that, unless a man is a great simpleton or a small Croesus, he is more anxious to make his house cosey and convenient, than he is to outshine his neighbors or beautify ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... be agreeable seems not to have occurred to him. Did you ever know such assurance? Assurance? My dear, it was gall, downright gall! Well, I didn't find it wormwood, and replied, with my untutored Redhorse heart in my throat, "I—I shall be pleased to do anything." Could words have been more stupid? There are depths of fatuity in me, friend o' my ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... pikemen, accompanied by several constables, were marching along, and in advance of them was a herd of animals they were driving. These creatures, in number rather more than a hundred, were of various ages, only very few were downright old: the males were downcast and silent. It was the females from whom all the outcry came. In other words, the animals thus driven along at the law's point ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... but I did," flared the man. "Miss Maggie, it's a downright shame—the way they impose on ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... or fencing-master could have parried a blow more neatly. Then the one-eyed hostler began to thrust and strike with the bar as if in downright earnest. ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... a downright fool he will straighten matters up yet," thought the woman as she put away the work-basket and began to plan work ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... at any determination, also like Lamb, to write for antiquity, there is in his anthems and odes very considerable evidence that he was ready to write what his paymaster wanted written. We must bear in mind that downright bad taste, such as our present-day taste for such artistic infamies as the "Girls of This" and the "Belles of That," had not come into existence in Purcell's time. Purcell's contemporaries preferred his music to all other for the ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... picture, certainly, but (unless perhaps it is to be taken allegorically) downright impious, and overstepping the bounds of decency. It seems to me that the strange medley of wounds, quarrels, revenges, tears, bonds, and other woes which makes up the Homeric tradition of the gods was designed by its author to degrade his deities, as far as possible, into men, ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... language this rapidity and carelessness often degenerated into downright slovenliness. It was bad enough to resort to the same expedients and to repeat the same scenes. Still from this charge few prolific novelists can be freed. But in Cooper there were often words and phrases which he worked to death. In "The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish" there is so perpetual a reference ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... who had overheard the whole of this conversation, and who now appeared with his broad figure, his gouty legs, and his gruff chuckle. "Books are very well for make-believe, but when it comes to downright earnest, use a tongue of your own—eh?" and he clapped the boy kindly on the shoulder. "Yes, yes, she'll marry you fast enough when she sees you making eyes at some other pretty girl! Don't tell me! there's ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... her downright honesty, which makes falsehood and duplicity in those she has to do with, something to be wondered over as well as scorned. Next, is her courage, so abundantly shown in the many instances in which her life has been menaced. I do not believe that a braver woman ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... death. They chose submission. That was the last mutiny under Stonewall Jackson. Both sides suffered from straggling, the Confederates as much as the Federals. But Confederate stragglers rejoined the better of the two; and in downright desertion the Federals were the worse, simply because their own peace party was by far the stronger. The final advantage brings us back to strategy, on which the whole campaign was turning. Lee and Jackson worked the Confederates ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... closed the scene. Not that she died of one downright blow on the heart. That is not the way such cases proceed. I cannot detail all the symptoms, for I was not there to watch them, and aunt Z. was neither so faithful an observer or narrator as I have shown myself in the ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... often downright glad grandfather is so fond of his books, and his creatures, and his plants. It does my heart good to see him so happy, sorting them all at home, and so ready to go in search of more, whenever he's a spare day. Look at him now! ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the beans an mug o' flip. Call it a thousand dollars, an fork over, but by gosh, I don' git caught that way again. It's downright robbery, that's wot it is. I say ain't ye got no cleaner bills ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... shown above, neither can we expect a full and final victory over any one lust, which ever we have been troubled with. It is true, believers may be kept from some gross out-breaking of a corruption, which sometime prevailed, as Peter was from relapsing into an open and downright denying his Master; yet that same corruption did afterward stir, though not so violently as to carry him to such an height of sin; yet so far as to cause him do that which was a partial denying of his Master, when Paul withstood him to the face, because he ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... resolve to moot the problem of the freedom of the seas, but when admonished by the British government that it would not even brook its mention, he at once gave it up and, presumably drawing the obvious inference from this downright refusal, applied it to the Irish, Egyptian, and other issues, which were forthwith eliminated from the category of open or international problems. But France's insistent demand, on the other hand, for the Rhine frontier met with ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... a subdued fierceness. "I'll attend to the scoundrel presently, Captain Rawlings, though he doesn't deserve it. He is a downright sweep—like all his ear-ringed kidney. He had no right to kick this man, who is one of the best and smartest men aboard. I gave him a clip on the jaw, and when I've dressed his arm and he is able to turn to again ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... She was, however, one of those girls who start by being "ugly" or "queer-looking," or downright "homely," and end by becoming "interesting" or "picturesque" or "fascinating," according to the divagations of the individual vocabulary. She had the beaute troublante. At first sight, you might have called her gipsy, Indian, Kanaka, ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... the plain much there, till it made a bight, the face whereof looked wellnigh north, instead of west, as did the more part of the wall. And in the midst of that northern-looking bight was a dark place which seemed to Walter like a downright shard in the cliff. For the face of the wall was of a bleak grey, and ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... descent of Freedom to our modern world, the first unfurling of her standard on the rocky pinnacle of Europe, is here celebrated in the style which it deserved. There is no false timsel-decoration about Tell, no sickly refinement, no declamatory sentimentality. All is downright, simple, and agreeable to Nature; yet all is adorned and purified and rendered beautiful, without losing its resemblance. An air of freshness and wholesomeness breathes over it; we are among honest, inoffensive, yet fearless peasants, untainted by the vices, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... lifting a square piano from which the legs had been taken, as usual, for convenience in removal, and a happy thought struck him. "Mamma, didn't you tell me the other day that our piano was an upright?" "Yes, dear. Why?" "Well, if ours is an upright, this must be a downright." ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... not this the dictate of common sense, as well as of Methodism? But does not Methodism cry aloud that all men are sick—sick to the very heart? 'If we say we are without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us'. This shallow-pated Barrister makes me downright piggish, and without the stratagem of that famed philosopher in pig-nature almost drives me into the Charon's hoy of Methodism by his rude and stupid tail-hauling me ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... morbidness. This unhappy characteristic had been fostered only during his early years. But he had not attempted to change it till the period of his disgrace plainly offered a choice between a resolute stifling of his pain or downright madness. Being the son of his father, he made the practical selection. And he saw now that the years of his independent poverty had done much towards the development of common-sense, and the extinction of that hypersensibility which had so marred his ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... way you please, Mr. Moore. I have told you about all that I am able. I know this game, if you will permit me, a little, just a little better than you do, Mr. Moore. I know when fun stops and downright danger begins. The moment you put your foot in China, you are putting your foot in a trap from which you can never, never so long as you are permitted to live, extricate yourself. And, believe me, seriously, that will not be for long. A day? Perhaps. An ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... Genevieve who said it, of course, though the fact that she was under water more than half the time might be advanced as her excuse for failing to say it. But who could venture to excuse the downright callous way in which she exclaimed, "Already? Why we've just got in! Come along and dive through that wave. That'll ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... chuckle over things which he had done—things which proved him base, although none of them brought him within measurable distance of the dock. But such instances are quite rare. The man whose vision is lucid, but who nevertheless goes wrong, is usually a prey to constant misery or to downright remorse. Look at Burns's epitaph, composed by himself for himself. It is a dreadful thing. It is more than verse; it is a sermon, a prophecy, a word of doom; and it tells with matchless terseness the story of many men who are at this ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... question of comparison between her married life and her stage life, she could say instantly that it was her stage life that had meant the most to her. She was happily married, too. I'm a bit like her. I can get more downright exaltation over my music when it goes right than I ever got out of any love affair. I think my talent is for friendship rather than ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... was surrounded by a wall, through which he tried to pass, and searched long in vain for an opening through it. At last he found one, very straight and narrow, through which he struggled after desperate efforts. 'It showed him,' he said, 'that none could enter into life but those who were in downright earnest, and unless they left the wicked world behind them, for here was only room for body and soul, but not for body and soul and sin.' The vision brought him no comfort, for it passed away and left him still on the wrong side: a little comfortable self-conceit ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... walked in with his uncle in tow. The minute I saw Joseph P. I knew I needn't be scared of him; he just looked real common. He was little and thin and kind of bored-looking, with grey hair and whiskers, and his clothes were next door to downright shabbiness. If it hadn't been for the thought of that chef, I wouldn't have felt a bit ashamed ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... most abrupt change. I had never seen her furiously angry. She's a typical high echelon Washington secretary, cool, extremely well-mannered, cheerful without being bumptious. But this time she was downright mad. ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... gave me an unpleasant shock. Miss Howard's evidence, unimportant as it was, had been given in such a downright straightforward manner that it had never occurred to me to doubt her sincerity. Still, I had a great respect for Poirot's sagacity—except on the occasions when he was what I described to myself as ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... the older men were not of the very gentle type. In that mad race against wind and tide, I should have expected a little of the usual cursing and fighting from a mob which included a small percentage of downright roughs. But a tall man, dressed in ordinary yachtman's clothes, stood smoking on deck, and that was the present writer. The rough Englishmen did not know that I had been used to the company of the wildest desperadoes that ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... in downright earnest, and possessed of a will as inflexible as his own, Bob made no effort to dissuade him from his purpose. On the contrary, he approved of the determination, for he was pleased at the unexpected demonstration of affection which his announcement had called forth in one who was ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... haughty. Of course, I expected him to say something about our rights, failing Harry's, and he treated them as if they did not exist. Even when I introduced them in the most delicate way, he was what I call downright rude. 'Julius,' he said, 'I will not discuss any ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... and I wish to Heaven I was mair worthy of the name; but let that be a pass-over.—I have stretched the duties of a serving-man as far as my northern conscience will permit. I can give my gude word to my master, or to my native country, when I am in a foreign land, even though I should leave downright truth a wee bit behind me. Ay, and I will take or give a slash with ony man that speaks to the derogation of either. But this chambering, dicing, and play-haunting, is not my element—I cannot draw breath in it—and when I hear of ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... &c. 946; Arcadian[obs3]; undesigning, straightforward, unreserved, aboveboard; simple-minded, single-minded; frank-hearted, open-hearted, single-hearted, simple-hearted. free-spoken, plain-spoken, outspoken; blunt, downright, direct, matter of fact, unpoetical[obs3]; unflattering. Adv. in plain words, in plain English; without mincing the matter; not to mince the matter &c. (affirmation) 535. Phr. Davus sum non Oedipus [Terence]; liberavi animam meam[Lat]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... residents in its immediate neighbourhood had, many of them, but little enjoyment of the exquisite sunny days and the calm nights of August and September. To several of the older people—Dr. Ayloff, among others, as we have seen—the summer proved downright fatal, but even among the younger, few escaped either a sojourn in bed for a matter of weeks, or at the least, a brooding sense of oppression, accompanied by hateful nightmares. Gradually there formulated itself a suspicion—which ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... for me!" says Kit, enthusiastically. "No giving in, no shilly-shallying, but downright determination. He's an honest man, and we all know what an honest man is,—'the noblest work of God.' I'm certain he will keep his word, and I do hope I shall be with you when next you meet him, as I should like to ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... for he threw his lance away as soon as the horses were free of each other. Both drew their swords. Then followed a bout of wheeling and darting in, at which Prosper had clear advantage as the lighter horseman on the handier horse. Galors' strength was in downright carving; Prosper's in his wrist-play and lightning recovery. He, moreover, was cool, Galors hot. At this work he got home thrice to the other's once, but that once was for a memory, starred the shoulder-piece and bit to the bone. Left arm luckily. ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... Patrick," said his lady, facing him, "you are becoming downright vulgar. I wish you wouldn't talk in that way. If you have no respect for yourself and your ancient family, you ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... disappointed. The schoolma'am was sitting unconventionally upon the doorstep, her shoulder turned to him and her face turned to the trail by which a man naturally would be supposed to approach the place. Her hair was shining darkly in the sun and the shorter locks were blowing about her face in a downright tantalizing fashion; they made a man want to brush them back and kiss the spot they were caressing so wantonly. She was humming a tune softly to herself. Weary caught the words, sung ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... 'What! has the carline got into my very bed?' he cried, and went to drive her out of the bed and out of the house. But when he came close, he saw it was himself lying there, and knew that at least he was out of the body, if not downright dead. The next moment he found himself on the moor, following the woman, some distance before him, with her unlighted candle still in her hand. He walked as fast as he could to get up with her, hut could not; he called after her, but she did not ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... effect on the moral condition of the people. 'The desire for wealth being considerably blunted, it was not the same actuating, engrossing principle of human action, the spring of much that was evil and immoral being thus removed.' Only one case of downright drunkenness—that of a Laplander—had come under his personal observation, and it was only on special occasions that the yeoman farmer could be seen a little elated. His theory, however (we may remark in passing), ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... for it stood to reason when folks talked serious-like they didn't always stop to measure what they said, and if a text or two o' Scripture sounded seemly, 'twas fitted in to help their speech out with, not to be pulled abroad to seek the downright meanin' o' ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... power. Schools for the study of sacred books, rites, and traditions.] The Brahmanas are very poor, both in thought and expression. They have hardly their match in any literature for "pedantry and downright absurdity."[10] Poetical feeling and even religious feeling seem gone; all is dead and dry as dust. By this time the Sanskrit language had ceased to be generally understood. The original texts could ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... Vice-Chancellor of the University of London who sits upon my left. But I do not think the charter gives him very much power over me; moreover, I shall soon come to an end of my examinership, and therefore I am not afraid, but shall go on to say what I was going to say, and that is, that in my belief it is a downright cruelty—I have no other word for it—to require from gentlemen who are engaged in medical studies, the pretence—for it is nothing else, and can be nothing else, than a pretence—of a knowledge of comparative anatomy as part of their medical ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... justify the town For three days past; wit that might warrant be For the whole city to talk foolishly Till that were cancell'd; and when that was gone, We left an air behind us, which alone Was able to make the two next companies Eight witty; though but downright fools were wise. When I remember this, * * * I needs must cry I see my days of ballading grow nigh; I can already riddle, and can sing Catches, sell bargains, and I fear shall bring Myself to speak the hardest words I find Over as oft as any with one wind, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... resting on his in a wise gaze, "and that is love—the genuine article. At one time I thought it was a fine house, and things to wear, and comfort for them I love and protect that I needed, but it was downright, unselfish love for somebody. Alfred, to my dying day I shall shudder over all that parade yesterday. The man or woman who attempts to get pleasure out of sitting in a finer seat, or living in a finer house, or wearing ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... three of his main units grounded during the approach and were of little service. There was no effort at concentration, the British when in position engaging the whole southern part of the Danish line. "Here," in the words of Nelson's later description, "was no maneuvering; it was downright fighting"—a hotly contested action against ships and shore batteries lasting from 10 a. m., when the Elephant led into position on the bow of Commodore Fischer's ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... a certain class of boisterous holiday-maker who might annoy you—not by downright ill-behavior, but by exercising a crude humor which is deemed peculiarly suitable to the seaside, though it would be none the less distressing ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... regard to justice, religion, or honour. His own interest is the only guide of his actions, and becomes the very soul of his existence. He came out to make a fortune, if possible, and he thinks himself justified in using every means to this end. Do not suppose that he is a downright villain who would commit highway robbery. He would be greatly shocked at such an imputation, for his conscience is still too timid for so flagrant a crime. He merely follows the golden maxim of 'caveat emptor', and, like the petty shopkeeper, thinks he is justified in cheating those who ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... who know how to spin a yarn with due effect; some are musical, and others can sing. Concerts, lectures, theatricals, and dances are got up; while, as there is generally a due admixture of the sexes, not a little flirting and downright courting is carried on; and, lastly, if there is any quarrelling and bickering, the differences of those who engage in it afford ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... "Downright sure of it," I declared, in solemn earnest. After a few moments of silence, I asked gently: "Do you ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... arm and lungs, of which he died in a few hours, having been carried off the field by the bravery of lieutenant-colonel Gage, another of his officers. When he dropped, the confusion of the few that remained turned it into a downright and very disorderly flight across a river which they had just passed, though no enemy appeared, or attempted to attack them. All the artillery, ammunition, and baggage of the army were left to the enemy, and, among the rest, the general's cabinet, with all his letters and instructions, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... much nowadays of the black population having equal rights with the white inhabitants, that it is well to remember how ferociously their lack of civilization occasionally comes out. Doubtless there are cruel men both white and black, but for downright brutality the nigger is hard to beat, and it is also quite certain that whom the latter does not fear he will not love. I have personally experienced great devotion and most attentive service on the part of natives, and they are deserving ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... and your neighbour's clover field—"He's no juist the man for an elder." If it deepened into deceit—running a "greasy" horse for an hour before selling—"He wud be the better o' anither dip." And in the case of downright fraud—finding out what a man had offered for his farm and taking it over his head—the offender was "an ill gettit wratch." The two latter phrases were dark with theology, and even the positive degree of ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... friend, without impeachment of one's sagacity or integrity; but it is such a dreadful indorsement of a man to marry him! Her own consciousness must be sufficiently grievous; pray do not irritate it into downright madness. Nay, what, after all, are the so heinous faults upon which you animadvert? She cannot earn a cent: that may be her misfortune, it need not be her fault. Perhaps Clement, like Albano, and all good husbands, "never loved to see the sweet form anywhere else ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... mostly opposed to the president politically, thought we were carrying the principle of neutrality too far; that the violation of Belgium was a crime against humanity in general and that if we did not at least protest against it, we would be guilty of national stultification if not downright cowardice. Against this view was invoked the time-honored principles of the Monroe Doctrine and its great corollary, Washington's advice against becoming entangled in European affairs. Our first president, in his farewell address, established a precept ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... they went on, ad infinitum, with ceaseless arguments that proved nothing and convinced nobody, and a continual stream of contradiction that just fell short of downright quarreling. ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... a dazzling skin and glorious shimmering hair wound around a shapely head. Both were in aprons, but the younger wore a dull green that set off her fair beauty to perfection, while the checked gingham of the other proclaimed a hopelessly downright taste. ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... anybody else connected with him, should take a single step in life without previously receiving his orders; and Mr. Fitch, a baronet's son, having expressed an admiration of Lucy, Sir George had determined that his suit should be accepted, and really considered Lucy's preference of another as downright treason. ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... but no other ten days of his life had seemed so eventful or passed so swiftly. For at last he stood before his goal, had actually fastened his eyes upon so much of it as might be seen through its gate. Never had he achieved so much downright actuality. ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... a beauty in her youth," said my new guide in her shy voice, "but always fluent, always a wit. Kings Port has at times thought her tongue too downright. We think that wit runs in her family, for young John Mayrant has it; and her first-cousin-once-removed put the Earl of Mainridge in his place at her father's ball in 1840. Miss Beaufain (as she was then) asked the Earl how he liked America; and he replied, very ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... a seat beside her, it would be certain to attract the papa or chaperon, to the spot, to see what was going on, as their most likely subject of conversation would have a strong leaning towards a flirtation, or downright love-making, at which nearly all the Spaniards are great adepts; the flowery expressions of their language being peculiarly ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... reply, but seemed hesitating what to say. But here Walter broke in again. "I call it downright mean!" he exclaimed bitterly; "but he's getting meaner and meaner, that he is. What he does with his money nobody knows. I suppose he spends it in religious pocket-handkerchiefs and pious bed-quilts for the little ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... would be a kill-joy at any feast. When it comes to plain, downright pessimism, you take the cake. Your equal does ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... swift of speech shows a man to be downright foolish, or at best but a very vain wit. A stammering tongue, or one that stumbles in the mouth, signifies a man of a weak understanding, and of a wavering mind, quickly in a rage, and soon pacified. A very ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... alternate sunshine and showers; but the subtle blending of shadows and lights, of murmurs and movements, in April, gives us not mere shocks of sensation, but unity of joy as does music. Therefore when a poet sees the vision of a girl in April, even a downright materialist is in sympathy with him. But we know that the same individual would be menacingly angry if the law of heredity or a geometrical problem were described as a girl or a rose—or even as a cat or a camel. For these intellectual abstractions have no magical touch for our lute-strings of imagination. ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... the recognition gave him pause, and he almost wished he had not taken so much trouble to meet Miss Van Tuyn and her companion. For he could say nothing he wanted to say while Garstin was there. And the man was so damnably unconventional, in fact, so downright rude, and so totally devoid of all delicacy, all insight in social matters, that even if he saw that Braybrooke wanted a quiet word with Miss Van Tuyn he would probably not let him have it. However, it was too late now to avoid the steadily advancing couple. Miss Van Tuyn had seen Braybrooke, and ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... I'm working for you. He broke me flat. It was downright robbery. I bought the wreck of the Cascade, down in Sydney, out of a first instalment of ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... gentlemen towards others, who differed in opinion from them on a subject of so much difficulty as the present. He protested against a debate, in which he could trace nothing like reason; but, on the contrary, downright phrensy, raised perhaps by the most extraordinary eloquence. The abolition, as proposed, was impracticable. He denied the right of the legislature to pass a law for it. He warned the Chancellor of the Exchequer to beware of the day, on which ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... and the appointment at the place where pepper grows if you are to become pale and nervous on its account! Promise me now next post-day to be reasonable, and not to look like the waning moon, else I promise you that I shall be downright angry, and will keep the ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... her pipe, the old woman continued to gaze with almost motherly affection at the figure in the corner. To say the truth, whether it were chance, or skill, or downright witchcraft, there was something wonderfully human in this ridiculous shape, bedizened with its tattered finery; and as for the countenance, it appeared to shrivel its yellow surface into a grin—a funny kind of expression, betwixt scorn ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... again. Altered circumstances made a new man of him; and few things are more strange than the change wrought in his whole bearing and look by that week of energy in climbing his brother's throne. The great article in Nicholas's creed was a complete, downright faith in despotism, and in himself as despotism's apostle. Hence he hated, above all things, a limited monarchy. He told De Custine that a pure monarchy or pure republic he could understand; but that anything between these he could not understand. Of his former rule of Poland, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... by the most despairing looks and despondent sighs, to attract her attention and entice her to an interview. Away from Adam's side—or, Adam absent, from Joan's company—Eve would not stir, until Jerrem, driven into downright ill-humor, was forced to take refuge ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... relations in the first four acts; and, at the last, be actually burned at the stake, to which she comes shuddering, ghastly, barefooted, and in a white sheet. Sweet excitement of tender sympathies! Such tragedies are not so good as a real, downright execution; but, in point of interest, the next thing to it: with what a number of moral emotions do they fill the breast; with what a hatred for vice, and yet a true pity and respect for that grain of virtue that is to be found in us all: our bloody, daughter-loving Brinvilliers; our ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 'Only downright nonsense,' said Rupert, looking down, and unconsciously drawing very strange devices on the blotting paper, 'unworthy the attention ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... proportion. She was so hollow in the back that she seemed to have been bent in a machine. She had neither tail nor mane, and her neck, as long as a man, stuck straight up into the air, supporting a head without ears. Her eyes had an expression in them of downright insanity, and the muscles of her face were afflicted with periodical convulsions that drew back the corners of the mouth and wrinkled the upper lip so as to produce a ghastly grin every two or three seconds. In color ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... make such a present to an English grand jury, where the party never could be more than 23, he would infallibly order a service of 24: though he must be certain that the 24th cup-and-saucer was a mere Irish bull—an empty piece of impertinence—a disgusting pleonasm—and a downright logical absurdity. For a 24th grand jury man is as much a metaphysical chimaera as an "abstract Lord Mayor," or a 30th of February. Not only, therefore, without reason, but even against reason, people have a superstitious ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... was on pleasant terms with Mr. Palliser and Mr. Gresham. And as for Mr. Kennedy,—he and Mr. Kennedy were almost bosom friends. It seemed to him that he had quite surpassed the Ratlers, Fitzgibbons, and Bonteens in that politico-social success which goes so far towards downright political success, and which in itself is so pleasant. He had surpassed these men in spite of their offices and their acquired positions, and could not but think that even Mr. Low, if he knew it all, would confess that he had ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... could not honestly dissent; Mr. Sawyer's looks were not, in a sense, in his favour. It was not so much that he was downright ugly—perhaps that would have mattered less—but he was poor looking. He had no presence, no self-assertion, and his very anxiety to conciliate gave his manner a nervous indecision, in which the boys saw nothing but cause for ridicule. ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... portion of caricature," said Mincingait. "You are downright scurrilous, and ought not to be tolerated in civilized society. Sink me, if you 239are not quite a bore, and not fit company for a Gentleman. so I shall wish ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... people have to strong measures! They see around them, amongst those under their influence, a great deal going on which is downright evil. You call upon them to put a stop to it, and to do all in their power ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... Mrs. Hicks, Mr. Piper and wife, Joseph Fuller and wife, Tho. Fuller and wife, Dame Durrant, myself and wife, and Mr. French's family. After supper our behaviour was far from that of serious, harmless mirth; it was downright obstreperious, mixed with a great deal of folly and stupidity. Our diversion was dancing or jumping about, without a violin or any musick, singing of foolish healths, and drinking all the time as fast as it could be well poured down; and the parson of the parish was one among the ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... replied Tom, "how can you say so. I am downright chilly; but as there is to be dancing, it is better it ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... over my way," he said, frowning. "These old lunatics your uncle left here are simply hipped; that's all. Mr. Bashford made a mistake in turning the place over to them; it was silly, downright silly. It's a wonder you didn't think of upsetting his will on the ground of mental unsoundness. It's not up to me to suggest such a thing, but I believe you could ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... type of mind—here as always I use "realist" in its proper sense as the opposite of nominalist—to the old-fashioned, over-exact and over-accentuating type of mind, such ways of thinking seem vague and unsatisfying. Just as it distresses the more downright kind of intelligence with a feeling of disloyalty to admit that God is not Almighty, so it troubles the same sort of intelligence to hear that there is no clear line to be drawn between the saved ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... damages, and plyed me hotly: But Tryphoena having my heart, I could not lend him an ear. The refusal set him the sharper; he follow'd me where-ever I went, and getting into my chamber at night, when entreaty did no good, he fell to downright violence; but I rais'd such an outcry that I wak'd the whole house, and, by the help of Lycurgus, got rid of him ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... dear. I'm your man, for, to tell 'ee the downright truth, I've taken a great fancy to these two sisters, an' would steer a long way out o' my course ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... acquiesces in the correctness of this remark, but desires to inform the practitioner what a sad loss he has met with. He is sure the gentleman will scarcely believe his word when he tells him what it is. "I saw how ye felt downright affected when that nigger o' mine prayed with so much that seemed like honesty and christianity, last ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... and unbiased persons held the same view of the religion of their people as we do. In reality both assumptions are erroneous: our "atheism" in regard to ancient paganism is of recent date, and in antiquity itself downright denial of the existence of the gods was a comparatively rare phenomenon. The demonstration of this fact, rather than a consideration of the various intermediate positions taken up by the thinkers of antiquity in their desire to avoid a complete rupture ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... strong For early stomachs, to prove wholesome food; I can't help thinking Juvenal was wrong, Although no doubt his real intent was good, For speaking out so plainly in his song, So much indeed as to be downright rude; And then what proper person can be partial To all those nauseous ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... will be one of the incidental benefits of an efficient system of taxation, that it will induce greater care in the expenditure of the public money. Fraudulent contracts are not the only, nor even the chief cause of our financial embarrassments. It may be hoped that what is extracted from it by downright swindling, however considerable in amount, does not cause the great drain upon the Treasury. But if money can be obtained by the simple issue of evidences of debt, and without any provision to sustain the credit of the Government by taxation, the process of supply ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... rather good set in town. About a month ago Caspar Ardmore, the young man, met me at a church affair. Ever since then he has all but waylaid me. Several times he has tried to walk with me when we met, and has often tried to see me home from church or elsewhere. I've been almost downright rude to him, and have shown him in every way I can that I don't wish to continue acquaintance. But ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... into diction, none that cannot suck up feeding juices from the mother-earth of a rich common-folk-talk, can bring forth a sound and lusty book. True vigor of expression does not pass from page to page, but from man to man, where the brain is kindled and the lips are limbered by downright living interests and by passions in the very throe. Language is the soil of thought; and our own especially is a rich leaf-mould, the slow growth of ages, the shed foliage of feeling, fancy, and imagination, which has suffered an earth-change, that the vocal forest, as Howell ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... took Teddy to it. I thought it would do him good; and so it would if I could only have kept him awake. Georgina came too; and you should have heard the way she went on about it. She said it was downright immoral, and that she knew the sort of woman that encourages boys to sit on the hearthrug and make love to her. She was just preparing Teddy's mind to poison ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... anything wonderful in the dark, deep eyes at all,—they looked downright wicked to him. He took Carol away hurriedly, and questioned her feverishly to find out if Mrs. Waldemar had put any fresh nonsense into her ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... caused him some difficulty as he was not prepared to relegate Carrick to such servile rank. It might be of some significance to note that both Josef and Sobieska displayed a covert interest in this hesitation in the usually downright Chancellor. ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... prospect of losing her. Should Lady Sheerness, he urged, reject his proposal, she might then be extremely offended with their marrying, after they knew her disapprobation; but if they did it without her knowledge, she would not have room to complain of downright disobedience, and if it was displeasing to her, yet being done, and past remedy, she would be inclined to make the best of what was unavoidable, and forgive ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... occur, by practising against an imaginary foe by hammering with a mace at a corn-sack swinging from a beam. Methinks I hit it as hard as of old, but in truth I know but little of the tricks of these Frenchmen. They availed nothing at Poictiers against our crushing downright blows. Still, I would gladly see what ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... of the wonderful in natural history, and their existence was unknown to the learned men of Europe till within the last sixty years. The most extraordinary of the two is the Ornithorhynchus, or, to translate the hard Greek word into English, the Duck-bill. Its mouth is a true duck's bill, a downright horny beak, and its short paws sprawling sideways with a membrane joining the toes together below, and coming a good deal beyond them in front, seem intermediate between the flippers of the seal and the webbed feet of a water-bird. The first naturalist who had anything to do ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... hero, when Palmer played it at least, was Joseph Surface. When I remember the gay boldness, the graceful solemn plausibility, the measured step, the insinuating voice—to express it in a word—the downright acted villany of the part, so different from the pressure of conscious actual wickedness,—the hypocritical assumption of hypocrisy,—which made Jack so deservedly a favourite in that character, I must needs conclude ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... stitches in vogue during the first era of needlework pictures. A single glance at one of the early specimens, though it may not charm, fills one with amazement at the amount of toil, ingenuity, patience, and downright love for the work the ancient needlewoman must have possessed. Not only pictures, however, were made in petit point. Many dainty little accessories of the toilet gave scope to the delicate fancy and ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... were always very bitter against any thing like sogering, as they called it; that is, any thing that savored of a desire to get rid of downright hard work; yet, I observed that, though this Jackson was a notorious old soger the whole voyage (I mean, in all things not perilous to do, from which he was far from hanging back), and in truth was a great veteran that way, and one who ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... Little Russian, warming up. "It's so plainly evident that it's downright ridiculous—simply because men don't stand on an equal footing. Then let's equalize them, put them all in one row! Let's divide equally all that's produced by the brains and all that's made by the hands. Let's not keep one another in the slavery ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... Of course, I expected him to say something about our rights, failing Harry's, and he treated them as if they did not exist. Even when I introduced them in the most delicate way, he was what I call downright rude. 'Julius,' he said, 'I will not discuss any ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... to march from very pleasant quarters in Devonshire to the north-west of Ireland. The change at any time would have been unpleasant, but the service they were entering upon was particularly irksome and jarring to the feelings. Grumbling, in a military man, is, however, downright folly, and they soon made themselves tolerably at home in their new quarters. It is needless to dwell upon the disturbed and distracted state of the country, or on the military movements of the time. After the regiment had been quartered at the town of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... at an Inn and stepped within The Bar and read the "Times;" And never such a treat, as—the epistle of one "Vetus,"[42] Had he found save in downright crimes: "Though I doubt if this drivelling encomiast of War Ever saw a field fought, or felt a scar, Yet his fame shall go farther than he can guess, For I'll keep him a place in my hottest Press; 130 And his works shall be bound in Morocco d'Enfer, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... among the people, which no party could satisfy; while their measures has reduced the people to a state in which the disappointment of those expectations seemed to excuse, if not justify, even downright rebellion. They arrayed the agricultural and manufacturing interests in deadly hostility against each other; they sought to make the one responsible for the consequences springing only from the reckless misconduct of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... came without delay— Young Doctor Green and shrewd old Doctor Gray— They heard the story—"Bleed!" says Doctor Green, "That's downright murder! cut his throat, you mean Leeches! the reptiles! Why, for pity's sake, Not try an adder or a rattlesnake? Blisters! Why bless you, they 're against the law— It's rank assault and battery if they draw Tartrate of Antimony! shade of Luke, Stomachs ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... breath of its pres—ence, till emerging suddenly upon its plane, they had to struggle with it for very foot-hold upon the round earth. In such contests Lady Joan delighted. It was so nice, she said, to have a downright good fight, and nobody out of temper! She would come home from the windy war with her face glowing, her eyes flashing, her hair challenging storm from every point of the compass, and her heart merry ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... that they may obtain for it the highest as well as the most stable price; but not at the expense of corn, cotton, and wheat; and it is to be hoped, if any have debts to meet now or hereafter, that they may meet them with the least inconvenience consistent with plain, downright, integrity; but, from being led astray by the loud declamations of those who earn nothing themselves and know no trade but spoliation of the earnings of others, let them heartily say, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... "Oh, how deliciously downright you are, Miss Lambert. Well, do you know I have not the faintest notion why Neville asked me to marry him, any more than I know why I listened to him. I tell him sometimes that it was the most ridiculous mistake ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... demanded it; but Clavering, with his graceful insolence, ironical contempt of them, and thinly-veiled pride, was a type of all their democracy anathematized. More than one of them had winced under his soft laugh and lightly spoken jibes, which rankled more than a downright injury. ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... our Saint, while He Wou'd seem downright Humility, Some honest Features cry'd aloud, "Our Master is of Spirit proud." Pass him with Bonnet on, his Lip Will hang as low as to his Hip; His bloated Eye its Venom darts, And from its gloomy Socket starts; And if the Body's frame we scan, ...
— The Methodist - A Poem • Evan Lloyd
... things that young people are ignorant of, they were yet almost totally unacquainted with the ordinary attributes of social life—unsophisticated and naive to an extreme degree, they would have appeared in a fashionable drawing-room downright fools. On the other hand, they possessed great clearness of perception, presence of mind in danger, promptitude in action, and the utmost coolness in the face of apparently insurmountable obstacles—qualities that would have utterly confounded the young men who shine in the saloons of Europe, ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... details of New England history were essentially dry and unpoetic. Everything is near, authentic, and petty. There is no mist of distance to soften outlines, no mirage of tradition to give characters and events an imaginative loom. So much downright work was perhaps never wrought on the earth's surface in the same space of time as during the first forty years after the settlement. But mere work is unpicturesque, and void of sentiment. Irving instinctively divined and admirably illustrated in his "Knickerbocker" ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... State, had been notoriously Loyalist—that is, pro-British—ever since the troubles between the Colonists and the British grew angry. Governor Tryon, the Governor of the State, made no secret of his British preferences; indeed, they were not preferences at all, but downright British acts. ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... weather so that the grazing in the Basin itself would be held in reserve for storms. It was a very grave error, said Holman Sommers, to exhaust the pasturage immediately contiguous to the home corral. It might almost be defined as downright improvidence. Then he forestalled any resentment she might feel by apologizing for his seeming presumption. But he apprehended the fact that she and her brother were both inexperienced, and he would be sorry indeed to see them suffer any loss because of that inexperience. ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... "I am downright famished," the sailor said as he came up. "I would not have believed it if I had not seen it. How on earth did ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... me rich, Signor Mask, are pleased to joke with the unhappy child of a luckless race. That I might have been above want—nay, that I am not downright needy, may be true; but when they speak of a thousand ducats, they speak of affairs too weighty for my burdened shoulders. Were it your pleasure to purchase an amethyst or a ruby, gallant Signore, there might possibly be dealings ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... "how can you say so. I am downright chilly; but as there is to be dancing, it is better ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... next week," says the professor, troubled in somewise by the meaning in her eyes. What is it? Simple loneliness, or misery downright? How young she looks—what a child! That tragic air does not belong to her of right. She should be all ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... whatever, either in N(orth) America or in the W(est) Indies, remain under the British Empire. Our affairs in Ireland go on pretty well, and that is the only place where they do. (The) Lord Advocate made a downright, open speech, but Lord Geo(rge) did not understand it; though parts of it, by what the Advocate has said in debate, were most probably ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... all right," said Dan. "Cheer up, lad. There's fellers worse off than you!" An inspiration lit up his honest and downright brain for a moment. "Why," he said, "it's better to be you than be a feller like Bill that never had a fancy in his life. You've lost a lot, maybe; but you can't lose a ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... own it, but I was frightened, downright frightened. I quailed and I quaked. The sight of Sir Charles stepping out of the study window filled me with abject rapture. Metaphorically speaking, my craven soul squirmed at his heels. He was to me as a strong tower and house of defence.—But look here, Damaris, joking apart, tell ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... he thought mechanically. But not disgraceful—for the first time he was glad to discover a case of strike-breaking. She had also begun to take in sewing—and she looked thoroughly overworked. This gave him downright pleasure. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... warningly, "or no good 'ull come of it; and be foreright in all you do, and spake the truth to un. I've many a time wished I could, but with this to hide o' that one's and that to hush up o' t'other's, I know he holds me for a downright liard; and so I am by his measure, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... figurative truth. But now I'll shew you sunthin' in this town, that's as false as parjury, sunthin that's a disgrace to this country and an insult to our great nation, and there is no jeest in it nother, but a downright lie; and, since you go for to throw up to me our naval button with its 'eagle and anchor,' I'll point out to you sunthin' a hundred thousand million times wus. What was the name o' that English admiral folks made such a touss about; that cripple-gaited, one-eyed, ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... I cannot believe that any man is a downright villain who is fortunate enough to have such ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... drew closer. Beasley always had a knack of so blending truth with his personal venom that it stung far more than downright insult. He wondered what the Padre's generosity had been, and wherein lay its connection with their present purpose. The explanation was not long in coming, for Montana Ike took up the challenge amidst a storm of ominous ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... born in the camp and his mother died when he was a baby. God knows how he pulled through! You know what those mining places are. His father, Frank Lee, was killed in a drunken row while I was there, and Abe showed so much cool nerve and downright manliness that I offered him a place with my party. He has been with ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... looking troubled. "I be afeared 'twill make him a downright enemy to you, lad. But you'll grow, and captain will learn you how to ply your fists, and when it comes to a fight, mind of my ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... phenomena of sound, we travel a very little way from downright sensible experience. Still the imagination is to some extent exercised. The bodily eye, for example, cannot see the condensations and rarefactions of the waves of sound. We construct them in thought, and we believe as firmly ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... keeps within the Degrees of Probability; But Mr. de la Bruyere gives us Characters of Men, who are not to be found in Nature; and, out of a false Affectation of the Wonderful, he carries almost every thing to Excess; represents the Irregularities of Life as downright Madness, and by his false Colours ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... and Grainger put his hand on the big man's shoulder, with a kindly light shining in his quiet, grey eyes. "I'll write and tell him all about it. And I'll tell him what a real, downright, ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... minutes before he had been swearing by all his gods—and they appeared to be numerous and mixed—that there were half a dozen fortunes left in the claim, and that he was only giving it up because he was downright weary of shovelling the ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... his thought from his heart like his sword from its scabbard, holding it aloft in his ermined hand, as on his scutcheon, shining with sincerity. That secret once penetrated, all is clear. We can comprehend the depth of convictions that are not thoughts, but living principles,—clear, distinct, downright, and as immaculate as the ermine itself. We understand that sale made to his sister before the war; which provided for all, and faced all, death, confiscation, exile. The beauty of the character of these two old people (for ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... not happen to call himself a salesman. Therefore he has never studied with personal interest the fine art of selling. He does not realize that ignorance of salesmanship, and consequent non-use of the selling process, almost always are responsible for the merely partial success or the downright failure in life of the man who deserves to win, but ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... "were always like that—downright and outspoken. It is an Aiken trait. No Aiken could ever help blurting out the truth if he knew he were to die for ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... veined with humour; she watches a roof-shingler with active delight, discovering poetry in cheerful manual toil. One day life seems to her depressing; another day, beautiful; another, inspiring; another, downright funny. ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... from the consequences of imprudence; and there was something in Mervale's voice alone that damped his enthusiasm, and often made him yet more ashamed of noble impulses than weak conduct. For Mervale, though a downright honest man, could not sympathise with the extravagance of generosity any more than with that of presumption and credulity. He walked the straight line of life, and felt an equal contempt for the man who wandered up the hill-sides, no matter ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... a folly still to twirl, And smirk and promenade and querl About the town? I'll put this down: A man becomes downright blast Before he knows that he is either That, or what I am—call ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... was too fully occupied in defending himself to be able to pay much attention to any thing else. At the commencement of the attack I was standing next to Browne, who being evidently singled out by his former opponent, advanced a step or two to meet him. He skilfully parried several downright blows from the heavy club of the latter, who in his turn dodged a swinging stroke which Browne aimed at his head, and instantly closed with him. The next moment they went whirling past me towards the ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... the hope of Grunewald,' cried Fritz. 'He doesn't suit some of your high-and-dry, old, ancient ideas; but he's a downright modern man - a man of the new lights and the progress of the age. He does some things wrong; so they all do; but he has the people's interests next his heart; and you mark me - you, sir, who are a Liberal, and the enemy of all their governments, you please to mark my words ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... perpetual fidget; endeavoring vainly to say Yes and No to all questions, Foreign and Domestic, that may rise. Whereby, in the Affairs of England, there has, as it were, universal St.-Vitus's dance supervened, at an important crisis: and the Preparations for America, and for a downright Life-and-Death Wrestle with France on the JENKINS'S-EAR QUESTION, are quite in a bad way. In an ominously bad. Why cannot we draw a ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... often fight without animosity. After the contest is over, you may commonly see the combatants walking and talking very sociably together: but as this circumstance makes them a little suspected by the public, they affect the greater rage when in conflict, and occasionally quarrel and fight in downright earnest. No," he continued, "I am told it is a very rare thing to see one of these prize-fighters who is a Glonglim; but most of their employers belong to ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... landlord's cunning and the perversion of the machinery of the law to serve his interests could devise was thrown in the way. It was a new doctrine to that day that any power should intervene between him and the tenants who represented his income, and it was held to be a hardship if not downright robbery. The builder took the same view. Every tenement house plan was the subject of hot debate between the Health Board and the builder, or his architect. The smallest air-shaft had to be wrung out of him, as it were, by main strength. The church itself was too often on the side of ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... money), that is to say, hay, straw, oats for the winter, bread, corn, cattle, horses, even men to recruit our foreign troops. The war must not be prolonged; and perhaps it may be necessary, according to the events which may happen between this time and the end of September, to make a downright desert before the line of the quarters which it may be thought proper to keep during the winter, in order that the enemy may be under a real impossibility of approaching us: at the same time reserving for ourselves a bare subsistence on the route ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... of Dolores, though nothing on the part of the landlord could have astonished him. In the brief space of three weeks that worthy had been in the habit of telling him on an average about four hundred and seventy-seven downright lies per day. ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... you may end in it. But if he gave Violet a home of her own that was a home at the very start, she'd soon settle down in it. He needn't worry about the hard work it meant. The only thing that would keep Violet steadylike was downright hard work. No; she didn't mean anything cruel. They could have a char once a fortnight for a scrub-down ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... Miss Letitia's plumper shoulders, "your Aunt 'Titia has decided that so long as this is nearly August, there's no earthly use in your going to visit them until fall. So I'm going to write your father that. He may not like it, because he wants you right away, his letter says. But it would be downright foolishness to get you more summer clothes this late in the season; and you haven't near enough now, nor the right kind, to visit in a city. It's just like him, for all the world, this whole affair. Letting you alone for this ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... fast. Why, he was the darndest crape-hanger I ever met till you got him gingered up; he didn't have no more spirit than a sick kitten. Of course, he ain't what you'd call genial and expansive yet, but he's developed a remarkable burst of speed, and seems downright hopeful at times." ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... bright tusk whetting in his crooked jaws: They press him on all sides, and from beneath Loud gnashings hear, yet firm, his threats defy; Like them the Trojans on all sides assail'd Ulysses dear to Jove. First with his spear 510 He sprang impetuous on a valiant chief, Whose shoulder with a downright point he pierced, Deiopites; Thooen next he slew, And Ennomus, and from his coursers' backs Alighting quick, Chersidamas; beneath 515 His bossy shield the gliding weapon pass'd Right through his navel; on the plain he fell Expiring, and with both ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... the union of two such lines. Again, time can only be measured by space, space by time; they are true universals and contraries; their synthesis is motion, a conception which requires them both and is completed by them. Or again, the philosophical extremes of downright materialism and idealism are each wholly true, yet but half the truth. The insoluble enigmas that either meets in standing alone are kindred to those which puzzled the old philosophers in the sophisms ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... ergo:—"Therefore we may know that those who will not learn such sciences as they might get their living by, or do not fall into husbandry, are either downright fools, or else propose to get their living by robbery or by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... that this mode of preparation of soil would meet with favor among all farmers. There is a parsimonious class of cultivators who would consider it a downright loss of time, seed, and labor; but any one who will take the trouble to investigate, will find that these same parsimonious men never produced four hundred bushels of potatoes per acre; and that the few bushels of small tubers that they do dig from an ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... same words were lately spoken in England proving the eternal truth of The Nights which the ignorant call "downright lies." ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... adjoining parishes. The church was full, the Sunday-school well attended, the Sabbath was kept holy, the women were one and all sober and thrifty, the men were fairly satisfactory except on Saturday nights, there was no want, little sickness, and very seldom downright sin. The expression downright sin is Mrs. Morrison's own,—heaven forbid that I should have anything to do with such an expression—and I suppose she meant by it thieving, murder, and other grossnesses that would bring the sinner, ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... the marble image of death or weariness. So the concomitants should be distinctly marble, severe and monumental in their lines, not shroud, not bedclothes, not actual armor nor brocade, not a real soft pillow, not a downright hard stuffed mattress, but the mere type and suggestion of these: a certain rudeness and incompletion of finish is very noble in all. Not that they are to be unnatural, such lines as are given should be pure and true, and clear of the hardness and mannered rigidity of the strictly Gothic types, ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... fellows for this work—a work wholly anomalous, unlike all other work that they have thought of in many respects—they will think that what I say is reasonable, and like the prospect all the better (I think) because they see that it means downright work in a cheery, happy, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you've worked with a camel in a bad temper, Mr. Jim," said Dave Boone darkly; he had put in a weary time in Egypt. "For downright wickedness them snake-headed ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... and while examining these proofs, and arguing upon them rationally, he overlooked the light attacks of his adversary, when not to the point, appeared insensible to his sarcasms and wit, and remained always cool and serious. Voltaire's vivacity at last turned to downright anger; his eyes flashed fire whenever they met the benign and placid countenance of the quaker, and the dispute went so far at last, that the latter, getting up, said, "Friend Voltaire! perhaps thou mayst come to understand these matters rightly; in the meantime, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... see fit to enlighten him. I was not sure of her motive in maintaining the alias, though I was certain it was more than a mere whim. How great it was I could not know. Should she persist in it I would help her up to the point of telling Max a downright falsehood. There I ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... with his feelings at that moment, condoned the sharpness of her words, which hardly reached him. The failure of the missionaries to see the merit in his work showed ignorance, but was their own affair; the omission to say "thank you" for his gift was downright rudeness. Their open contempt of his little masterpiece rankled hot in his mind. He vowed before Allah never again to seek to please a Frank and risk such insult. Henceforth he would cleanse his mouth whenever he so much as passed in the street near ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... it is only an insult to their miserable understandings. It arises from a total want of charity, or a total want of thought. Want of one kind was never relieved by want of any other kind. Patience, labour, sobriety, frugality, and religion, should be recommended to them; all the rest is downright FRAUD. It is horrible to call them "The ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... the right arm and lungs, of which he died in a few hours, having been carried off the field by the bravery of lieutenant-colonel Gage, another of his officers. When he dropped, the confusion of the few that remained turned it into a downright and very disorderly flight across a river which they had just passed, though no enemy appeared, or attempted to attack them. All the artillery, ammunition, and baggage of the army were left to the enemy, and, among the rest, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... you earn, if I were you. You needn't spend much, but have a good time out of hours. You'll find yourself working side by side with other sons of rich men. And you can bet your bottom dollar they don't live on what they can earn. Unless you make a display of downright wealth you'll be judged on your merits. That's what you're driving ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... my dear fellow, to what the habit of bombasticising in newspapers brings you to. Here am I writing a downright article. Does the mind have its ruts, like a road? I stop; for I rob the mail, and I rob myself, and you may be yawning—to be continued in our next; I hear the second bell, which summons me to one of those abundant breakfasts the fashion of which has long passed away, in the dining-rooms ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... don't see why a gentleman isn't to have a trousseau as well as a lady. At any rate, I wanted a new black suit, fit for the hymeneal altar. And when there I made out John Gordon, and soon wormed the truth out of him. At least he did not tell me downright, but he let the cat so far out of the bag that I soon guessed the remainder. I always knew how it ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... Catt was not well-mannered, but he was good-hearted and stout-hearted. He was one of those rough young gentlemen who pride themselves upon "having no nonsense about them." He was downright in all things, even in love-making. He took, therefore, a very early opportunity of asking his betrothed "what this all meant about Monsieur de Gars?" and of observing, "She had only to say the word, and he was ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... friend. Formed on the good old plan, A true and brave and downright honest man He blew no trumpet in the market-place, Nor in the church with hypocritic face Supplied with cant the lack of Christian grace; Loathing pretence, he did with cheerful will What others talked of while their hands were still; And, while "Lord, Lord!" the pious tyrants ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... prepared to accept the statement of his trainers, Mr. and Mrs. McArdle, that Peter's proficiency is not so much the result of training as of downright self-education." ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... Brian was forced to acknowledge, though for many days afterward he was still angry at Turlough for torturing and hanging those men. He had no scruples about a downright hanging, but torturing was a very different matter, and one of which ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... He's a regular fellow. You can have a great deal of respect and downright admiration for a Chinaman, ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... which he seems to be swallowing it himself. This story of the Abbess and Novice almost impels us to turn back to certain earlier chapters, or former volumes, and re-examine some of the subtler passages of humour to be found there—in downright apprehension lest we should turn out to have read these "good things," not "in," but "into," our author. The bad wine is so very bad, that we catch ourselves wondering whether the finer brands were genuine, when ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... seem severe, but I cannot bear a noise. I am so worn out when I come from the office. It seems each day my head aches worse than it did the day before." Miss Dorcas sighed. "And if it isn't a downright ache when I come home, it begins to pound as soon as I look at this book—" she eyed the account-book open before her—"I hoped you could have some new shoes this month. Those are downright shabby. But there isn't any money for them. I don't see how I am going to pay the gas bill ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... For downright, tantalizing cheerfulness there was no one to equal the night-watchman. While others strove to collect their befuddled senses, this individual prated of "wind eighty miles per hour with moderate drift and brilliant St. Elmo's fire." He boasted of the number ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... were often fatally gored and not a few men lost their lives. Notwithstanding the fact that it was such a downright desperate task, the men became so expert that they did not even hesitate to tackle, alone and single-handed, great bulls of twice the weight of their small ponies; they roped, held, threw, and branded them. The least accident or mistake, a slip of the foot, a stumble by one's horse, ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... whether he was surprised at Waterloo, he replied, "No. I was not surprised then, but I am now." We are indebted to Lady Shelley for letting us know what the Duke really thought on this much-debated question. In a letter written to her on March 22, 1820, he stated, with his usual downright common sense, all that there is to be said on this subject. "Supposing I was surprised; I won the battle; and what could you have had more, even if ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... into getting them little bags for collections now, all because he was jealous at the clerk's putting the plate inside my pew reg'lar for me to hold. It isn't that I care about 'olding a plate, but to see 'Umpage smirking round with one of them red velvet bags makes me downright sick—they'll drive me to go over and be a Baptist one of ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... related to me; for, after much panegyric on my understanding, and saying he was unworthy of such a daughter, she considered his match not only as the highest indiscretion as it related to himself, but as a downright act of injustice to me. One expression in it I shall never forget. 'You have placed,' said she, 'a woman above your daughter, who, in understanding, the only valuable gift of nature, is the lowest in the whole class of pretty idiots.' After much more of this kind, it concluded ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... time was something more than an annoyance—it was a downright grief to my blind Lucilla. On the morning of my departure, she clung to me as if she was determined not to ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... day he received a reply granting him nearly six months' leave, and with that message the question of his alleged insubordination may be treated as finally settled. There can be no doubt that among his many remarkable achievements not the least creditable was this mission to China, when by downright candour, and unswerving resolution in doing the right thing, he not merely preserved peace, but baffled the intrigues of unscrupulous diplomatists and ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... apparently enjoying the complete confidence of the father. What, that would be effective, could one say, without proofs, without ... This Mr de Barral must be, Mrs Fyne pronounced, either a very stupid or a downright bad man, to neglect his child so. You will notice that perhaps because of Fyne's solemn view of our transient life and Mrs Fyne's natural capacity for responsibility, it had never occurred to them that the simplest way out of the difficulty ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... minimum of necessities. They calculated that, by careful saving, they could pay off the debt in a year or so—unless one or the other fell ill or lost work. "That means," said Etta, eyeing their flimsy and all but downright worthless purchases, "that means we'll still be paying when this furniture'll be gone to pieces ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... the life of a lying scoundrel, he was, he says (p. 192), 'happily restrained by Divine Grace,' so that 'all sense of remorse was not extinguished,' and there was no fall into 'downright infidelity.' At length he picked up Law's Serious Call, which moved him, as later on it moved better men (ante, i. 68). Step by step he got into a way of steady work, and lived henceforth a laborious and honest life. It was in ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... R's 4th would be much stronger, the importance of halting the advancing Rook Pawn duly considered. Going from bad to worse, the downright blunder two moves later caps the climax—and more need ...
— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"
... some boys to whom Alene's timidity would have appealed, but he was not one of that kind. He was the most outspoken and the least gentle of all the boys with whom the Happy-Go-Luckys associated. But his downright honesty and fearlessness, his renown among the boys as an athlete, and especially his devotion to his little sister which Laura dilated upon, and of which new proofs were daily shown, had awakened Alene's admiration, and made her the more resent his calling ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... have thought, and have been afraid to say. Downright, straightforward, he told the Emperor truths as to Rome, as to man, and as to his vices, which I have longed to tell him. He has done what I am afraid to do. He has dared this, which I have dallied with, and left undone. What is ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... of study with which he is surrounded. Before undertaking the study of any thing, a man decides for what purpose he is studying this subject, and not the others. But to study every thing, as the men of scientific science in our day preach, without any idea of what is to come out of such study, is downright impossible, because the number of subjects of study is endless; and hence, no matter how many branches we may acquire, their acquisition can possess no significance or reason. And, therefore, in ancient times, down to even a very recent date, until the appearance ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... apparent by merely calling attention to the fact that the original argument has been garbled but in no wise refuted, An opponent can convict the one who has "answered himself" either of unpardonable ignorance about the subject or of downright dishonesty. ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... of his outcries and sulky resistance Trina had induced her husband to consent to such a move, bewildering him with a torrent of phrases and marvellous columns of figures by which she proved conclusively that they were in a condition but one remove from downright destitution. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... together unless they are attracted by a little honey; and the rich are made to supply the honey, of which the demagogues keep the greater part themselves, giving a taste only to the mob. Their victims attempt to resist; they are driven mad by the stings of the drones, and so become downright oligarchs in self-defence. Then follow informations and convictions for treason. The people have some protector whom they nurse into greatness, and from this root the tree of tyranny springs. The nature ...
— The Republic • Plato
... needful to regenerate the earth and cause the wilderness to become as Eden and the desert to blossom as the rose. Reversed, love and discord have broken more hearts, caused more sorrow, estrangement, and downright death than war, pestilence, and all other causes combined. It palsies energy and ambition, engenders gloom and despair, and transforms manhood into an icicle. Statistics prove that the married live longer, on the average, by several years than the ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... enough. Fate was downright cruel to us. Not a dozen feet away was liberty; and now we were back at the beginning again, with the ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... 'Ere, don't you talk rot. Working a miracle, indeed! Miracle! Well, that's downright funny! Why, you's the chap that don't believe in miracles.... Fact is, this is another of your silly conjuring tricks—that's what this is. Now, ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... no more. She carried Dora home with a heavy heart. Her joy at finding the child safe and sound was drowned out in the pain caused by Davy's behavior. The freak of shutting Dora up might easily have been pardoned. But Davy had told falsehoods . . . downright coldblooded falsehoods about it. That was the ugly fact and Anne could not shut her eyes to it. She could have sat down and cried with sheer disappointment. She had grown to love Davy dearly . . . how dearly she had not known until this minute . . . and it hurt her unbearably to discover ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a nest unlike the robin's nest. Each is qualified in its own work. We know that these birds would be sorely handicapped, and would probably be downright failures in providing nests in season for eggs, if each were required to work to plans and specifications of ...
— Industrial Progress and Human Economics • James Hartness
... follows: "Whether it be the relation of cause and effect, or only what logicians call a "mere coincidence," the fact remains that in Rome, Russia, France, and England, political corruption, cruelty of government, sexual immorality—nay, downright, impudent, open, boastful indecency—have culminated, for the most part, in the eras of the influence of viragints on ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... cat, so nimble were the boy's springs, and so fierce his attacks. Lucinus fairly lost his temper at last, and I stopped the fight, for although they fought with blunted weapons, he might well have injured the lad badly with a downright cut, and that would have meant ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... words were reassuring, although I still felt there was something behind her light manner which intimately concerned me. But I had learned to count on her downright honesty, and her words, "Nothing that cannot be helped, my dear," steadied me, gave me hope that no matter what trouble she had to tell me, she had also a panacea ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... work. I know better, because I am making a collection of such criticisms, showing the rating of our several painters. These summings up of mine will be extremely valuable as marking the changing taste of the public; for I have never supposed that either ill will or downright ignorance formed the basis of current criticism. The critics are merely expressing the trend of public opinion. It is not new to our age. Diaz, so one story goes, once came stumping (he had lost one leg) into Millet's cottage ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... manner that was enough to provoke a saint, if it were not for the man's well known character. "It will do I see," said my friend, "depend upon it, it will do—dont mind his sayings; but when you come to business, be plain, downright and firm, and you'll have his heart." When W. returned, he again surveyed me from head to foot, and again grinned and tittered. I was almost as tall as I am now, and as thin perhaps as you ever saw any one of the same height. My face too ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... to do with leather—but it was extremely profitable, and as I looked forward to one day sharing all Jack's worldly goods I did not grumble at the leather. Not that Jack had ever yet said a word to me which I could construe into a downright offer. He had looked, certainly, but then with eyes like his there is no knowing what they may imply. They were dark blue eyes, and his hair was bright brown, with a touch of yellow in it, and his moustache was tawny, and ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... sighed softly. Oakes was entitled to a certain amount of gloating, but there could be no doubt that his way of telling a story was downright infuriating. ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... an open space all around the point where the boy stood gazing at his fallen game. He fired, almost at random, at the nearest of the flying buffalo; but the buckshot whistled hurtlessly among the herd, and Sandy thought to himself that it was downright cruelty to shoot among them, for the scattering shot would only wound ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... you can be so silly as to waste your time like that I can't think. It isn't as if you really could write poetry, and I call it downright conceited for a girl to pretend she can. So, do leave off, there's a dear, and come and have a game. I want to try my new cannon, and you shall have first ...
— Laugh and Play - A Collection of Original stories • Various
... in a window. For a moment he wondered whence it shone; then he remembered that the glebe lands lay in that direction. The parish was building a house for its new minister, when he left Virginia, those many years ago. Suddenly he recalled that the minister—who had seemed to him a bluff, downright, honest fellow—had told him of a little room looking out upon an orchard, and had said that it ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... what he proceeds to argue is that the effect must be discernible in the cause, which is a different statement altogether. When he says that an effect cannot be greater than its cause, what he means is that an effect cannot be different from its cause, which is downright nonsense. He asks, How can that which has not life produce life? as though the question were on all fours with the necessity for a man to possess twenty shillings before he can give change ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... that Jonas Harding, who was as quick on the trail and as good a woodsman as myself, should be worsted by a mad buck; it seems downright impossible, Nuck." ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... suppose," went on Max, unable to hide his annoyance, "that if I were to tell you it was not a joke at all, but that I spoke in downright earnest, ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... tobacco-leaves to the dancers and musical ladies: both sexes eagerly seized the favourite refreshment, and crammed their mouths with it, then recommencing the music and dancing with renewed alacrity. When at length downright exhaustion put an end to the spectacle, the Kalushes were entertained with a favourite mess of rice boiled with treacle. They lay down round the wooden dishes, and helped themselves greedily with their dirty hands. During the meal, the women were much inconvenienced by their lip-troughs; ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... with disportive wit, Rally his friend, and tickle while he bit; Winning access, he play'd around the heart, And, gently touching, prick'd the tainted part. The crowd he sneer'd; but sneer'd with such a grace, It pass'd for downright ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... any difference to you, of course, and it can't make any difference—really—to him; but it's a downright dishonourable thing to do, and that makes a jolly lot of difference to me. You see, I haven't any business to go and ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... humble opinion, it would be downright stupid for you two girls to fool yourselves into disliking Lydia Orr. She'd like to be friends with everybody; why ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... Molloy! You look downright purty!" Mrs. Snawdor exclaimed, when she came up after assisting Mr. Demry with his refreshments. "I never would 'a' ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... guarded gate had been his, but no other ten days of his life had seemed so eventful or passed so swiftly. For at last he stood before his goal, had actually fastened his eyes upon so much of it as might be seen through its gate. Never had he achieved so much downright actuality. ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... don't believe I can say that I downright believed that he'd make a world's champion. Don't believe's I could truthfully state that I thought that. But I guess there isn't anybody in this town that would ever deny but what I did say more than once that he'd make the best of 'em hustle—ye-e-s, ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... sort. It is the basis on which society rests, the conventional agreement. If society is about to be overturned, it is on this point. Women are beginning to tell men what they really think of them; and to insist that the same relations of downright sincerity and independence that exist between men shall exist between women and men. Absolute truth between souls, without regard to sex, has always been the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... a drought has lasted a long time, people drop the usual hocus-pocus of imitative magic altogether, and being far too angry to waste their breath in prayer they seek by threats and curses or even downright physical force to extort the waters of heaven from the supernatural being who has, so to say, cut them off at the main. In a Japanese village, when the guardian divinity had long been deaf to the peasants' prayers for rain, they at last threw down ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... piqued herself more upon her principles, or allowed love to be made to her more profusely. There was a habit of courtship practised by the fine gentlemen of those days, which is little understood in our coarse downright times: and young and old fellows would pour out floods of compliments in letters and madrigals, such as would make a sober lady stare were they addressed to her nowadays: so entirely has the gallantry of the last century ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... shocked with Pope's false reading of phenomena, where not the circumstances so much as the construction of the circumstances may be challenged, what must he think of those cases in which downright facts, and incidents the most notorious, have been outrageously falsified only in obedience to a vulgar craving for effect in the dramatic situations, or by way of pointing a moral for the stimulation of torpid sensibilities? Take, for instance, the death of the second Villiers, Duke of ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... o' them that argues. He maks downright assertions; every one o' them hits a body's conscience like a sledge-hammer. He said that to me as we walked the moor last night that didna let me sleep ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... "defects of his qualities,'' which I freely recognized, I regarded him as a fearless, upright, downright, straightforward man of the sort who must always play a great ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... listened patiently enough, but this was too summary. Westley Keyts is our butcher, a good, honest, energetic, downright business man with a square forehead and a blunt jaw and red hair that bristles with challenges. But he seems compelled to say too nearly what he means to render him useful in negotiations requiring any ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... said one day. "I took half a dozen over to the minister's wife this mornin', and she was so pleased! She said it was sich a blessin' to have fresh eggs again. She was gittin' sick o' them she's been buyin' at Billings'. She was downright thankful." ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... you know," said Mr. Tulliver, "what I want is to give Tom a good eddication—an eddication as'll be a bread to him. I mean to put him to a downright good school at midsummer. The two years at th' academy 'ud ha' done well enough if I'd meant to make a miller and farmer of him, but I should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard. It 'ud be a help to me wi' these lawsuits, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the facts. They have read essays on the uses of adversity in developing genius, and they are not sufficiently afraid to administer a dose of adversity beyond what the forces of the patient can bear. Laudanum in drops is useful as a medicine, but a cupful kills downright. ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the job, and so I took it, and I flatter myself that I made a pretty good job of it. The Germans have an inhuman way of cutting up their verbs. Now a verb has a hard time enough of it in this world when it's all together. It's downright inhuman to split it up. But that's just what those Germans do. They take part of a verb and put it down here, like a stake, and they take the other part of it and put it away over yonder like another stake, and between ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in this book, of a man who couldn't change his mind because his intellectual wardrobe was not sufficient to warrant a change. I was feeling downright sorry for the poor fellow till I got to wondering how many people are feeling sorry for me for the same reason. That reflection changed the situation greatly, and I began to feel some resentment against the blunt statement in the book as being ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... ante-room. It was a way they had. They were all there. Grand fellows, too, most of them—tall, broad-shouldered, and silky-haired, and as good as gold. That gets tiresome after a time, but everything can be set right with one downright rascally villain—a villain, mind you, that poor, weak women, know nothing about. GAVOR was that kind of man. Of course that was why he was to break his neck, and get smashed up generally. But I am anticipating, and a man should never anticipate. EMILY, for instance, never ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 8, 1890 • Various
... during the night and things were complicated for some of us by sea-sickness. I have lively recollections of being aloft for two hours in the morning watch on Friday and being sick at intervals all the time. For sheer downright misery give me a hurricane, not too warm, the yard of a sailing ship, a wet sail and a bout ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... him of being an amiable aristocratic stick who failed to frighten the Junkers from their plan of war. Now, it is not in the least a question of whether we happen to like this quality or that: Mr. Shaw, I rather fancy, would dislike such verbose compromise more than downright plotting. It is simply the fact that Englishmen like Grey are open to Mr. Shaw's attack and are not open to yours. It is not true that the English were sufficiently clearheaded or self-controlled to conspire for the destruction ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... gradual in its development. The suggestion that a book, especially a novel, was translated from the English was an assurance of its receiving consideration, and many original German novels were published under the guise of English translations. Hermes roguishly avoids downright falsehood, and yet avails himself of this popular trend by describing his "Miss Fanny Wilkes" upon the title page as "So gut als aus dem Englischen bersetzt," and printing "so gut als" in very small type. Mller in a letter[3] ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... declare that of all the books I have seen only the Hindoo K[a]masutr[a]m, the literal version of the Arabian Nights, and the American Indian stories collected by Dr. Boas, can compare with this "sweet and beautiful" romance of Longus in downright obscenity or deliberate laciviousness. I have been able, without going beyond the latitude permissible to anthropologists, to give a fairly accurate idea of the love-affairs of savages and barbarians; but I find it impossible, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... he again wipes his spectacles and feels he has been sold! This life on the other side of Jordan he finds to be what his American cousins would call a "humbug," a downright swindle upon the sympathies and good taste of those who wear long streamers of crape, and groan and sob over his funeral rites! He feels in duty bound (out of consideration for those mourners who expect nothing else) to go scudding through the ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... accomplished his mission. Once again, without recourse to violence, he had maintained his reputation as the worst man in San Pasqual, for his power lay, not in a clever bluff, but in his all-too-evident downright honesty of purpose. Had Doc Taylor presumed to fly in the face of Providence, after that warning, Mr. Hennage felt that the responsibility must very properly rest on the doctor, for the gambler would have killed him as surely as he had the strength ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... into his body, till the blood streamed to his girdle, and the soil of the ford was crimson with the blood that fell from the body of that warrior so valiant in fight. And Cuchulain's endurance was at an end, for Ferdia continually struck at him, not attempting to guard, and his downright blows, and quick thrusts, and crushing strokes fell constantly upon him, till Cuchulain demanded of Laeg the son of Riangabra to deliver to him the Gae-Bulg. Now the manner of using the Gae-Bulg was ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... wish Sniatynski had given me a downright scolding, instead of larding his letter with sentences like this "In spite of all your good qualities it will come to this, that you will always be a cause of suffering and anxiety to those who love you." He brings it home with ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... trickiness—neglecting the paling between your cattle and your neighbour's clover field—"He's no juist the man for an elder." If it deepened into deceit—running a "greasy" horse for an hour before selling—"He wud be the better o' anither dip." And in the case of downright fraud—finding out what a man had offered for his farm and taking it over his head—the offender was "an ill gettit wratch." The two latter phrases were dark with theology, and even the positive degree of ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... Miss ——— in a little upper room. She has a small, brisk, wide-awake figure, not ungraceful; frank, simple, straightforward, and downright. She had on a robe, I think, but I did not look so low, my attention being chiefly drawn to a sort of man's sack of purple or plum-colored broadcloth, into the side-pockets of which her hands were thrust as she came forward ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ears. Ask, my dear boy, ask! Look, There is young Hexarly with six years' service and half your talents. He asked for what he wanted, and he got it. See, down by the Convent! There's McArthurson who has come to his present position by asking—sheer, downright asking—after he had pushed himself out of the rank and file. One man is as good as another in your service—believe me. I've seen Simla for more seasons than I care to think about. Do you suppose men are ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... like those which Sheridan puts forward (unconsciously, most likely), for those brilliant blackguards who are the chief characters of his comedies. Vice is never to be mistaken for virtue in Fielding's honest downright books; it goes by its name, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... But—give you my word—a cadaverous spectacle like that poor chap, bones stickin' out of his hide, and breathin' as if he was stuffed with dry shavin's, or husks like the Prodigal Son, gives me the downright horrors!" ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... said Cutler, "it's the most indecent thing I ever beard of. It is downright profanity; it ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... joke in this campaign was had at the expense of Captain Nance, of the Third. It must be remembered that the privates played many practical jokes upon their officers in camps, when at other times and on other occasions such would be no joke at all, but a bit of downright rascality and meanness—but in the army such was called fun. A nice chicken, but too old to fry, so it must be stewed. As the wagons were not up, cooking utensils were scarce—about one oven to twenty-five men. Captain Nance ordered Jess to bake ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... musket shot through the right arm and lungs, of which he died in a few hours, having been carried off the field by the bravery of lieutenant-colonel Gage, another of his officers. When he dropped, the confusion of the few that remained turned it into a downright and very disorderly flight across a river which they had just passed, though no enemy appeared, or attempted to attack them. All the artillery, ammunition, and baggage of the army were left to the enemy, and, among the rest, the general's cabinet, with all his letters and instructions, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... round on the grass. Outside the villa walls, beneath the over-crowding orange-boughs, straggled old Italy as well—but not in Boccaccio's velvet: a row of ragged and livid contadini, some simply stupid in their squalor, but some downright brigands of romance, or of reality, with matted ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... marry a second wife without repudiating the first. And when the Landgrave Philip asked for leave to do the same thing, Luther gave it on condition that it was denied. He insisted on what he called a downright lie. The great fact which we have to recognise is that with all the intensity of his passion for authority he did more than any single man to make modern ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... adventures, with the detail of which he amused me during our voyage. His character, however, deserves some mention. If there is an honest man under the canopy of Heaven, it was Captain Eliab; but his honesty was so plain and downright, so simple and unqualified, that I know not how to describe it than by the plain terms, that he was a strictly just and upright man. He had a sense of honour—a natural feeling of what was right—which seemed extraordinary, when compared with the irregular course of his life. ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... accompts, Weights, measures, larder, cellar, buttery, Where all men take their prey; as also in Postage of letters, gathering of rents, Purveying feasts, and understanding with The honest trades who furnish noble masters[cq]; But for your petty, picking, downright thievery, We scorn it as we do board wages. Then 50 Had one of our folks done it, he would not Have been so poor a spirit as to hazard His neck for one rouleau, but have swooped all; Also ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... what's here? as I live, [Takes it. Nothing but downright bawdry: Sirrah, rascal, Is this an age for ribaldry in verse; When every gentleman in town speaks it With so much better grace, than thou canst write it? I'll beat thee with a stave ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... interested in the outlaw. Miss Terry," he observed, as if by chance the thought had just occurred to him, when, in reality, he was downright jealous. ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... unless Krasnojabkin were promptly released, there would be no bribing whatever next year. The judge, with his usual legal acumen, perceived the cogency of his friend's argument. He met Mr. Keith's wishes more than half-way. On an impulse of downright good-nature—there was no other interpretation to be put on it—he released all the Russians, including the Messiah. They were excarcerated then and there on a decree of "provisional liberty," which looked well in the records of the Court and, being ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... heart to your best Friend ye have by takin' his dear name in vain,' and then he said a little more about it. I was so taken aback, Grace, I could hardly believe my own ears. It must have required a lot of downright courage to speak like that; there isn't a mid in all our crew who would have ventured to do so. And yet I dare say I'm in for something of the same kind when I go back again to the ship. For you know I must be a 'good soldier,' Grace," added Walter, with a gentle, fearless look in his eyes that ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... should be the marble image of death or weariness. So the concomitants should be distinctly marble, severe and monumental in their lines, not shroud, not bedclothes, not actual armor nor brocade, not a real soft pillow, not a downright hard stuffed mattress, but the mere type and suggestion of these: a certain rudeness and incompletion of finish is very noble in all. Not that they are to be unnatural, such lines as are given should be pure and true, and clear of the hardness and mannered rigidity of the strictly ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... making a round voyage from Cardiff to Hong Kong and the Philippines, back to London, in ten months, and during the whole of that time we did not have a downright gale. The worst weather we encountered was between Beachy Head and Portland, going round from London ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... Atryahnamaskarta is Durvasas who was the son of Atri's wife, got by the lady through a boon of Mahadeva. Daksha's Sacrifice sought to fly away from Siva, but the latter pursued it and shot his arrow at it for destroying it downright. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... scene. How much less romantic the town looked now than when I saw it floating, as it seemed, upon the sky-blue water in a haze of gold-dust fired by the slanting rays! It was then like the Castillon of some troubadour's song; now it was a mean-looking little sun-baked town modernized to downright plainness, with no remnant of its ramparts remaining save a sombre old Gothic gateway near the river, and no ecclesiastical architecture deserving notice. Its site, however, is the same as that which it occupied in the Middle Ages, namely, close to the Dordogne, ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... incidents of lawlessness with which I had to deal affected an entire State. The State of Nevada in the year 1907 was gradually drifting into utter governmental impotence and downright anarchy. The people were at heart all right; but the forces of evil had been permitted to get the upper hand, and for the time being the decent citizens had become helpless to assert themselves either by ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... of this noble youth there was nothing false—there could be nothing false! And she, who was accustomed never to hear a word from the men who surrounded her without asking herself with what aim it was spoken, and how much of it was dissimulation or downright falsehood, trusted the Roman, and was so happy in her trust that, full of gracious gaiety, she herself invited Publius to give her the recluse's petition to read. The Roman at once gave her the roll, saying that since it contained so much that was sad, much as he hoped she would make herself ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... brought the two girls nearer and nearer together; and Peggy found herself yielding more and more—often against her own judgment—to the fascination of the lawless girl, who on her part seemed curiously drawn to the simple, downright, law-abiding freshman. ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... expectations among the people, which no party could satisfy; while their measures has reduced the people to a state in which the disappointment of those expectations seemed to excuse, if not justify, even downright rebellion. They arrayed the agricultural and manufacturing interests in deadly hostility against each other; they sought to make the one responsible for the consequences springing only from the reckless misconduct of the other. The farmers must be run down and ruined in order to repair ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... it. The whole tendency of his mind and disposition was opposed to any contra-assumption of grandeur on his own part, and he hadn't the worldly spirit or quickness necessary to put down insolent pretensions by downright and open rebuke, as the archdeacon would have done. There was nothing for Mr. Harding but to submit, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... meeting of the Apostles." Now it appears to me that a little child, with the simple rules of addition and subtraction, could have refuted this man. I feel astonished that men who profess to be ambassadors for God do not expose such downright perversions of scripture, but it may look clear to those who want to have it so. Not many months since, in conversation with the Second Advent lecturer in New Bedford, I brought up this subject. He told me I did not understand ...
— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign - 1847 edition • Joseph Bates
... to hear her cousins talk in this cool and hardened manner. To her mind a lie was of all things the most mean and wicked. She had just shown her hatred of it, by her penitence for merely acting a lie in fun. But this proposal to tell a downright lie, for the purpose of escaping the consequences of an unlucky accident, looked like asking her to commit a very shocking crime. She felt a shudder creep over her, and shrinking from her cousins, as if they had been deadly serpents, she pushed her ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... true, which I do not doubt, would go far to prove my theory correct; but it is not easy to arrive at absolute certainty, for if I am right, during that period birds are to be found no where in abundance, and a man must be a downright Audubon to be willing to go mountain-stalking—the hardest walking in the world, by the way—purely for the sake of learning the habits of friend Scolopax, with no hope of getting a good bag ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... glad to see you. We never forget old friends.' Then again there was silence. 'Never,' she repeated, as she rose from her chair slowly and went out of the room. Though he had fluttered flamewards now and again, though he had shown some moth-like aptitudes, he had not shown himself to be a downright, foolish, blind-eyed moth, determined to burn himself to a cinder as a moth should do. And she;—she was weak. Having her opportunity at command, she went away and left him, because she did not know what more to say. She went away to her own bedroom, and cried, and had a headache, during ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... as Dulcie expressed it, "rather a dear, quaint thing." But she was more than that, I thought. She had such a pungent wit, her sayings were at times so downright—not to say acrid—that many stood in terror of her and positively dreaded her quick tongue. I rather liked Aunt Hannah myself, perhaps because, by the greatest of good luck, I happened not to have done anything so ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... but nobody answered. After knocking three or four times, I tried kicking, and the second kick raised, from somewheres inside, a groan that was as lonesome a sound as ever I heard. No human noise in my experience come within a mile of it for dead, downright misery—unless, maybe, it's Cap'n Jonadab trying ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... compunction, 'I'm downright sorry for that, Lady Bridget. I'd have gone away if I'd only guessed your ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... the northern cause. In 1887 it even became necessary for him to withdraw his acceptance of an invitation to attend a meeting of the Grand Army in St. Louis, because of danger that he might be subjected to downright insult.[4] ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... on every second page. This fact constitutes one of the counts in the orthodox indictment of him: it is cited as proof that his capacity for consecutive thought was limited, and that he was thus deficient mentally, and perhaps a downright moron. The argument, it must be obvious, is fundamentally nonsensical. What deceives the professors is the traditional prolixity of philosophers. Because the average philosophical writer, when he essays to ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... with downright Duplicity I wronged you, nor do I hesitate to atone for an Injury which I feel I have committed, or add to my Fault by the Vindication of an expression dictated by Resentment, an expression which deserves Censure, and demands the apology I now ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... was fifteen that Kathleen's aunt, a maiden lady from Dublin, who rejoiced in the truly Irish name of O'Flynn, came to see them, remarked on Kathleen's wild, unkempt appearance, declared that the girl would be a downright beauty when she was eighteen, said that no one would tolerate such a want of knowledge in the present day, and advised that she should go to school. Mrs. O'Hara took Miss O'Flynn's hint very much to heart. Kathleen ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... in other people since the time when it so puzzled and troubled me in Jenny. It marred the pleasure of the visit most miserably. I was continually fearing the displeasure of my father and the discomfort of my mother. The whole household were disturbed by what seemed to them downright rudeness. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... Opinions gave, but gave his reasons too. Our great Dictators take a shorter way— Who shall dispute what the Reviewers say? Their word's sufficient; and to ask a reason, In such a state as theirs, is downright treason. True judgment now with them alone can dwell; Like Church of Rome, they're grown infallible. Dull superstitious readers they deceive, Who pin their easy faith on critic's sleeve, 100 And knowing nothing, everything ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... see that you do not have so much work—man's work, to do. Yes, regular downright drudgery it was. Why, I hardly blame you for running away, that is, taking a brief vacation." He went on talking, she looking silently into the fire. "But now," he said finally, "you have had a good rest, and you are ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... I'm only afraid of being late home,' and came up after us. And perhaps, though not downright manly truthfulness, this was as much as you could expect ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... accounting for certain stories, not very creditable to the priesthood, that had too inconvenient a basis of evidence to be dismissed as fabricatious. But the honest lay public seem to have thought, with downright old Chaucer, that there was more in the matter than the priests chose to admit. This feeling we, as usual, find reflected in the dramatic literature of our period. In "The Troublesome Raigne of King John," an old play upon the basis of which Shakspere constructed ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... other servants of the Crown. The openly avowed design of these letters was, that they should be exhibited to the Ministry, to excite them to prompt, vigorous and hostile measures. They teemed with misrepresentations, and often with downright falsehoods. The perusal of these infamous productions elicited from Franklin first a burst of indignation. The second effect was greatly to mitigate his resentment against the British government. The ministry, it seemed, were acting in accordance ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... sometimes, or whether he would lie, which he never did. Holt instructing the boy on this point, however, that if to keep silence is not to lie, as it certainly is not, yet silence is, after all, equivalent to a negation—and therefore a downright No, in the interest of justice or your friend, and in reply to a question that may be prejudicial to either, is not criminal, but, on the contrary, praiseworthy; and as lawful a way as the other of eluding a wrongful demand. For instance (says he), suppose a good citizen, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... what had happened this morning left an aftermath of bitterness in Mrs. Otway's kind heart. It was only too true that it would sometimes be awkward; in saying so downright Miss Forsyth had been right! She told herself, however, that after a few days they surely would all get accustomed to this strange, unpleasant, new state of things. Why, during the long Napoleonic wars Witanbury had always been on the qui vive, expecting a French landing on the coast—that ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... plyed me hotly: But Tryphoena having my heart, I could not lend him an ear. The refusal set him the sharper; he follow'd me where-ever I went, and getting into my chamber at night, when entreaty did no good, he fell to downright violence; but I rais'd such an outcry that I wak'd the whole house, and, by the help of Lycurgus, got rid of ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... always act so—though he will in five cases out of six, or oftener. Hence very erroneous views are held in relation to the courage of this animal. Some naturalists, led away by what appears to be a feeling of envy or anger, accuse the lion of downright cowardice, denying him a single noble quality of all those that have from earliest times been ascribed to him! Others, on the contrary, assert that he knows no fear, either of man or beast; and these ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... water, cooking, or else picking cotton. All the males, I imagine, at some seasons of the year, find occupation, when the ghaseb is sown and when reaped. But, nevertheless, what powerfully solicits the observation of the European in looking into these villages is the downright livelong idleness ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... fond of her that it's making me downright silly," she said to her mother; "but it seems as if I can't help it. I feel as if I'd like to know everything she does, and go over the ground to make sure of it before she goes anywhere. I'm so proud of her, mother; I'm just as proud ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... which he bore with exemplary patience, only snatching the very earliest opportunity to take to his heels. Where a sharp tongue will not serve the purpose, they trust to the sharpness of their finger-nails, or incarnate a whole vocabulary of vituperative words in a resounding slap, or the downright blow of a doubled fist. All English people, I imagine, are influenced in a far greater degree than ourselves by this simple and honest tendency, in cases of disagreement, to batter one another's persons; and whoever has seen a crowd of English ladies (for instance, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... upon any pretence whatever, and are so ready to usurp upon dominion, every one does so naturally aspire to liberty and power, that no utility whatever derived from the wit or valour of those he employs ought to be so dear to a superior as a downright and sincere obedience. To obey more upon the account of understanding than of subjection, is to corrupt the office of command —[Taken from Aulus Gellius, i. 13.]—; insomuch that P. Crassus, the same whom the Romans reputed five times happy, at ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the very thing I complain of. You do degrade yourself. Your economy, my life, is downright parsimony: your vigilance is suspicion; your management is meanness; and you fidget your servants till you make them fretful, and then prudently discharge them because they will live with you no longer. Hey! ods life, I must sooth her: for if company comes, and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... heart. Her joy at finding the child safe and sound was drowned out in the pain caused by Davy's behavior. The freak of shutting Dora up might easily have been pardoned. But Davy had told falsehoods . . . downright coldblooded falsehoods about it. That was the ugly fact and Anne could not shut her eyes to it. She could have sat down and cried with sheer disappointment. She had grown to love Davy dearly . . . how dearly she had not known until this minute . . . and it hurt her unbearably ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... every upright and honourable mind in the kingdom." If Mr. Bowles limits the perusal of his defence to the "upright and honourable" only, I greatly fear that it will not be extensively circulated. I should rather hope that some of the downright and dishonest will read and be converted, or convicted. But the whole of his reasoning is here superfluous—"an author is justified in appealing," &c. when and why he pleases. Let him make out a tolerable case, and few of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... with the modest precaution of wearing her under petticoat, which is always fastened at the bottom—not unfrequently, I am told, by a sliding knot. It may astonish a London gallant to be told that this extraordinary experiment often ends in downright wedlock—the knot which cannot slide. A gentleman of respectability also assured me that he was obliged to indulge his female servants in these nocturnal interviews, and that too at all hours of the night, otherwise his whole family would be thrown into disorder ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... compensating quality, a truer source of household wealth than beauty."—"Well spoken! Deign to keep it in heart, for the neighbours' tongues wag as to Iemon and O'Hana. Malice can cause as much unhappiness as downright wickedness. Besides, Kwaiba is no man to trifle with." Iemon was a little put out and alarmed at the directness of Kondo[u]'s reference. "Be sure there is nothing in such talk. A slight service, rendered in earlier days, makes O'Hana San ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... sets, the earth doth drizzle deaw But for the Sunset of my Brothers Sonne, It raines downright. How now? A Conduit Gyrle, what still in teares? Euermore showring in one little body? Thou counterfaits a Barke, a Sea, a Wind: For still thy eyes, which I may call the Sea, Do ebbe and flow with teares, the ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the largest town in Worcester County, the royalist party was an eminently respectable minority. At first, indeed, not only those naturally conservative by reason of wealth, or pride of birthright, but nearly all the intellectual leaders, both ecclesiastic and civilian, deprecated revolt as downright suicide. They denounced the Stamp Act as earnestly, they loved their country in which their all was at stake as sincerely, as did their radical neighbors. Some of them, after the bloody nineteenth of April, acquiesced with such grace as they could in ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... may end in it. But if he gave Violet a home of her own that was a home at the very start, she'd soon settle down in it. He needn't worry about the hard work it meant. The only thing that would keep Violet steadylike was downright hard work. No; she didn't mean anything cruel. They could have a char once a fortnight for a scrub-down and ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... way to God the Father. But forasmuch as the passage was wonderful narrow, even so narrow that I could not but with great difficulty enter in thereat, it showed me that none could enter into life but those that were in downright earnest, and unless also they left that wicked world behind them; for here was only room for body and soul, but not for body ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... also respected when he is either a true friend or a downright enemy, that is to say, when, without any reservation, he declares himself in favour of one party against the other; which course will always be more advantageous than standing neutral; because if two of your powerful neighbours ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... bad enemy, and often a downright unscrupulous one. If it's only politics, I'll have a chat with him myself. You pump the newspapers. You leave it to me to swing the boys into ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... wouldn't hev ennythin' else but a real marriage, an' so he giv in, an' we hed a couple o' rooms in a real respectable house an' hed it fine till he had to go away on business, he said. I never 'b'leeved that. Why he was downright rich. He's a real swell, you know. What kind o' business cud he have?" Lizzie straightened herself proudly and held her ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... soul up yonder could not know how it hurt. How could she understand, for instance, what it meant to go back and face the deadly dull routine of a life from which all zest, all interest, had fled? A routine broken only by moments of downright torture. Yes, and the effort it would take to smile! God! If there were only some way to break his fetters, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... come next week," says the professor, troubled in somewise by the meaning in her eyes. What is it? Simple loneliness, or misery downright? How young she looks—what a child! That tragic air does not belong to her of right. She should be all laughter, and ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... intellect as any of those opposite so called heroisms which we are generally so unthinking as to allow to monopolise the name. Cunning is the only resource of the feeble; and why may we not feel for victorious cunning as strong a sympathy as for the bold, downright, open bearing of the strong? That there may be no mistake in the essayist's meaning, that he may drive the nail home into the English understanding, he takes an illustration which shall be familiar to all of us in the characters of Iago ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... a member from Maine) that the policy was contrary to the constitution. The discovery was soon welcomed by many of the politicians of the South, and it has since been so cordially embraced by them, that the opposite opinion is now looked upon as downright ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... bound with iron bands, and delivered them to sixty knights, who were good in fight, fast to hold over the weald. And he himself drove him forth, and made much din, and Gorlois the fair, forth on the other side, and all their knights ever forth-right slew downright all that they came nigh. Some they crept to the wood on their bare knees, and they were on the morrow most miserable of all folk. Octa was bound, and led to London, and Ebissa, and Ossa—was never to them ...
— Brut • Layamon
... widowed duchess, born a princess of Aragon, her brothers murdered her and her children and caused the physician to be assassinated by hired bravos.[2275] In the comedies marriage was derided and marital honor treated with contempt. Downright obscenity was not rare. Some of the comedies would not now be tolerated anywhere before an audience of men only.[2276] It seems trifling that objection was made to the nakedness of some figures in Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment." "As society ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... to his girdle, and the soil of the ford was crimson with the blood that fell from the body of that warrior so valiant in fight. And Cuchulain's endurance was at an end, for Ferdia continually struck at him, not attempting to guard, and his downright blows, and quick thrusts, and crushing strokes fell constantly upon him, till Cuchulain demanded of Laeg the son of Riangabra to deliver to him the Gae-Bulg. Now the manner of using the Gae-Bulg was this: ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... late that night, and when he left, the kisses of the two girls moist on his cheeks, he had no doubt of his life-work. But next day, Saturday—the last day—was downright black. Things went wrong, and the men steered ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... hundred men. This war raged with great fierceness, and with almost uninterrupted success for the knights, till the final battle which took place near Pillerent, in 1456. A Nuremberg painter, Hans Rosenpluel, celebrated this in verses like Veit Weber's, with equal vigor, but downright prosaic street-touches. Another poem describes the rout of the Archbishop of Cologne, who attempted to get possession of the city, in 1444. All these Low-German poems are full of popular scorn and satire: they do not hate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... tried bringing in Bertha as entertainment for both, but it was a downright failure. Bertha was far too sharp and pert for an elder brother devoid both of wit and temper, and the only consequence was that she fathomed his shallow acquirements in literature and the natural sciences, and he pronounced her to be eaten up with conceit, and the ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... groans, and a very few motions of head and hands, make up the sum of its variety: but an excess of joy, a surprise of joy, has a thousand extravagances in it; there were some in tears, some raging and tearing themselves, as if they had been in the greatest agonies of sorrow; some stark raving and downright lunatic; some ran about the ship stamping with their feet, others wringing their hands; some were dancing, several singing, some laughing, more crying; many quite dumb, not able to speak a word; others sick and vomiting, several swooning, and ready to faint; ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... for pike what the artificial fly is for salmon, the most scientific method, and followed perseveringly it is downright hard work, bringing, as the use of the salmon rod does, all the muscles of the body into play. The degree of exercise depends upon the style adopted. Casting direct from the Nottingham winch is less trying than the ordinary ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... have disbursed, To be with peace and too much plenty cursed: Who their old monarch eagerly undo, And yet uneasily obey the new? Search, satire, search; a deep incision make; The poison's strong, the antidote's too weak. 'Tis pointed truth must manage this dispute, And downright English, Englishmen confute. Whet thy just anger at the nation's pride, And with keen phrase repel the vicious tide; To Englishmen their own beginnings show, And ask them why they slight their neighbours so. Go back to elder times and ages past, And nations ...
— English Satires • Various
... of clothing, belonging to our old mistress; they were presented to her in years gone by, by members of our family on her birthdays and various festivals; her ladyship never wears anything made by people outside; yet to hoard these would be a downright pity! Indeed, she hasn't worn them even once. It was yesterday that she told me to get out two costumes and hand them to you to take along with you, either to give as presents, or to be worn by some one in your ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... that the gods themselves depend upon the fruits of action.[20] The Pitris, that support (by rain) the lives of even all disbelievers, observing the ordinances (of the Creator as declared in the Vedas), are, O king, engaged in action.[21] Know them for downright atheists that reject the declaration of the Vedas (which inculcate action). The person that is learned in the Vedas, by following their declarations in all his acts, attains, O Bharata, to the highest region of heaven by the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... from those which are suitable to them, and it will be quite hopeless to attempt to induce the general body of a purely artistic class to make louder and more fussy professions of virtue and religion than other people. In fact, it is a downright insult to the dramatic profession to exact or to expect any such thing. Equally objectionable, and equally impracticable, are the attempts of Quixotic "dramatic reformers" to exercise a sort of goody-goody censorship ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... year together in India it was evident that downright antagonism had existed between Hugo Tancred and his little son. Tony had weighed his father and found him wanting; and it was clear that he had tried to insert his small personality as a buffer between his ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... Flirting I take to be the excitement of love, without its reality, and without its ordinary result in marriage. This playing at caring has none of the excitement, but it often leads to the result, and sometimes ends in downright affection." ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... of things," Kitty said to herself; "but on the whole I rather like it. I knew I should be good in emergencies; I felt that it was in me. I am afraid poor Elma is going to be downright ill. I suppose I did wrong to run away—perhaps I did; but I am so relieved about Laurie that nothing else seems to matter now. I will telegraph immediately to the dear old dad and ask him to come right away here at once. When I see him and know that Laurie is really saved, ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... him pause, and he almost wished he had not taken so much trouble to meet Miss Van Tuyn and her companion. For he could say nothing he wanted to say while Garstin was there. And the man was so damnably unconventional, in fact, so downright rude, and so totally devoid of all delicacy, all insight in social matters, that even if he saw that Braybrooke wanted a quiet word with Miss Van Tuyn he would probably not let him have it. However, it was too late now to avoid the steadily advancing ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... paid three shillings for my seat if I had known the thing was so poor," she said. "Why, my husband was here last week and said it was downright splendid. But I suppose that was owing to ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... that she was grown fat of a sudden; and when she lay in of a dropsy, persuaded her she was reported to be in labour. The devil's in't, if an old woman is to be flattered further, unless a man should endeavour downright personally to debauch her: and that my virtue forbade me. But for the discovery of this amour, I am indebted to your friend, or your wife's ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... A man who could propose, even playfully, to quench old McNab's thirst must have been a utopist, a pursuer of chimeras; for of downright irony Heyst was not prodigal. And, may be, this was the reason why he was generally liked. At that epoch in his life, in the fulness of his physical development, of a broad, martial presence, with his bald head and long moustaches, he resembled the portraits of Charles XII., of ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... Ramblin' Kid interposed; "you don't need to have no white shirt—of course it would be better but it ain't downright necessary—women don't fall in love with shirts, it's what's inside ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... would bump the rider's leg in a way that would make him remember the difference of opinion between them. His was not a fiery, hot-headed spirit, with object or reason for its guide, but just a regular downright pig-headed sort of stupidity, that nobody could account for. He had a mouth like a bull, and would walk clean through a gate sometimes rather than be at the trouble of rising to leap it; at other times he would hop ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... the dining-room, while Frances and Mildred took hold and helped Amy and Laura finish the closet. Everybody meant mamma, Mildred, Frances, Elbert, Lawrence, Sammy and Jessie. Somehow, a downright rainy day in autumn, with a bit of a blaze on the hearth, makes you feel like dropping into talk and staying in one place, and discussing eventful things, such as Grace Wainwright's return, and what her effect would ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... vigorous, and straightforward. He had entered Harvard in the middle of the college course, and been graduated with honors. He had then studied and practiced law. He was Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard from 1806 to 1809, and was well drilled in the use of language, but was too downright in his temper and purposes to spend much labor upon artistic effects. He kept an elaborate diary during the greater part of his life,—since published in twelve volumes of "Memoirs" by his son Charles Francis Adams; a vast storehouse of material relating to the political history of the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... things in general, I guess you're goin' to maroon me, eh? Well, this here island looks a durn sight purtier than the spot that you took me off of; I won't gainsay that. And are all these here things in the boat mine? What's this here—a tent? You don't say! Well now, that's downright handsome of you, Squire, and no mistake. And here's fishin'-lines, and—" He went on to enumerate the various articles, until he had gone through ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... were in the field, surrounded by a brilliant staff. A gun was fired near them, by way of signal, I suppose, when two brigades of artillery galloped through the intervals of the line, unlimbered, and went to work as if they were in downright earnest. The cannonade continued a short time, when the infantry advanced in line, and delivered its fire by companies, or battalions, I could not discern which, in the smoke. This lasted some ten minutes, when I observed a strong column of troops, dressed in ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of the ideal of chastity. The great Buffon refused to recognize chastity as an ideal and referred scornfully to "that kind of insanity which has turned a girl's virginity into a thing with a real existence," while William Morris, in his downright manner, once declared at a meeting of the Fellowship of the New Life, that asceticism is "the most disgusting vice that afflicted human nature." Blake, though he seems always to have been a strictly moral man ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Rhatore, set up a good local paper, organise a board of trade, and let the world know what is here, and we'd have a boom in six months that would shake the empire. But what's the use? They're dead. They're mummies. They're wooden images. There isn't enough real, old-fashioned, downright rustle and razzle-dazzle and 'git up and git' in Gokral Seetaram to run ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... at the head of the steps. Standing to one side, he offered his hand to assist Marta. But she seemed not to see it. Her aspect was that of downright antagonism. ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... to the constable. I perform some of the duties of the town-clerk by promulgating public notices when they are posted on my front. To speak within bounds, I am the chief person of the municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother-officers by the cool, steady, upright, downright and impartial discharge of my business and the constancy with which I stand to my post. Summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain, for all day long I am seen at the busiest corner, just above the market, stretching out my arms to rich and ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... lands lay in that direction. The parish was building a house for its new minister, when he left Virginia, those many years ago. Suddenly he recalled that the minister—who had seemed to him a bluff, downright, honest fellow—had told him of a little room looking out upon an orchard, and had said that it should ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... Bashful was I in youth, Now somewhat am I altered. Well, what I like myself ... Must know that my one delight ... Is a merry damsel,—and small, I do not ask a whale, nor a world-map to study, Nor, like a full moon, A face round and ruddy; But leanness, downright leanness, No! No! Lean women's claws oftentimes are scratchy, Their temper somewhat catchy, Full of aches, too, and mourning, As my wife ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... against their parents' consent is to puzzle him, and make him believe Carlyle's saying about Americans without having heard it. If a man who marries against his parents' wish is not a triple-dyed ingrate, he must be a downright fool. Beyond this idea the normal Japanese cannot go; and you might as well try to make a blind man understand that "celestial rosy red" was "Love's proper hue" as to convince him that a good man ever marries against his parents' wishes. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... away; his odd answer became the subject of our talk. We agreed that perhaps distance of place and time had the effect of weakening all the feelings more or less, and stifling the voice of conscience even in cases of downright crime. The assassin transported to the shores of China is too far off to perceive the corpse that he has left bleeding on the banks ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... all that have yet been presented to the public of Great Britain. The press has been prolific in fabulous writings upon these times, which have been devoured with avidity. I hope John Bull is not so devoted to gilded foreign fictions as to spurn the unadorned truth from one of his downright countrywomen: and let me advise him en passant, not to treat us beauties of native growth with indifference at home; for we readily find compensation in the regard, patronage, and admiration of every nation in Europe. I am old now, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... book, especially a novel, was translated from the English was an assurance of its receiving consideration, and many original German novels were published under the guise of English translations. Hermes roguishly avoids downright falsehood, and yet avails himself of this popular trend by describing his "Miss Fanny Wilkes" upon the title page as "So gut als aus dem Englischen bersetzt," and printing "so gut als" in very small type. Mller in a letter[3] to Gleim, dated at Cassel, May ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... external voluntary actions which depend on the will, it is in some respect more improperly said, that he is unable to exert the acts of the will themselves; because it is more evidently false, with respect to these, that he cannot if he will; for to say so is a downright contradiction: it is to say he cannot will if he does will. And in this case, not only is it true, that it is easy for a man to do the thing if he will, but the very willing is the doing; when once he has willed, the thing is performed; and nothing else remains to be done. Therefore, in ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... want to seem severe, but I cannot bear a noise. I am so worn out when I come from the office. It seems each day my head aches worse than it did the day before." Miss Dorcas sighed. "And if it isn't a downright ache when I come home, it begins to pound as soon as I look at this book—" she eyed the account-book open before her—"I hoped you could have some new shoes this month. Those are downright shabby. But there isn't any money for them. I don't see how I am going ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... Tom, 'but a little time ago you were singing a Gypsy song—a downright heathen Gypsy song. I heard it about half an hour ago when I ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... arrangement; as, if a young male acquaintance of any damsel took a seat beside her, it would be certain to attract the papa or chaperon, to the spot, to see what was going on, as their most likely subject of conversation would have a strong leaning towards a flirtation, or downright love-making, at which nearly all the Spaniards are great adepts; the flowery expressions of their language being peculiarly suitable ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... that she is a small, slender woman with rather quick, decided movements and that her voice is that of a refined person. He is sure she is a young woman, but he can furnish no better description of her than this. He claims he was very nervous at the time of their meeting. I figure he was downright excited, filled as he was with guilty apprehensions, and no doubt because of his excitement he took less notice of her than he otherwise might. Besides, you must remember that the place of rendezvous was a fairly dark spot on rather a ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... and Gus are in our class at school." This from the girl who had joyfully greeted the Professor and the boys, yodeling a school yell from the hillside. Then she shot an aside at the slim youth: "You're a regular, downright simpleton, Thad, and forever looking for trouble. Don't ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... but the grande maitresse, who is generally a widow of the first quality, always very old, and is at the same time groom of the stole, and mother of the maids. The dressers are not, at all, in the figure they pretend to in England, being looked upon no otherwise than as downright chambermaids. I had an audience next day Of the empress mother, a princess of great virtue and goodness, but who picques herself too much on a violent devotion. She is perpetually performing extraordinary acts of penance, without having ever ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... Scotsman speaks of the writer as being "throughout in downright almost pathetic earnestness." While The National Reformer seems to be in doubt whether the book is a covert attack upon Christianity or a serious defence of it, but declares that both orthodox and unorthodox will find matter requiring ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... a pond look like the ocean! Well, Magnet, that from a girl who has had real seamen in her family is downright nonsense. What is there about it, pray, that has even the outline of a sea ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... announced that he was in Number Two. It was Giovanni now, and not his brother, the unhappy woman was sure of that, and every instinct in her nature bade her go to him at once. But the unconscious volition of those long trained to duty is stronger than almost any impulse except that of downright fear, and Sister Giovanna stayed where she was, for there was ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... say that before the judge! for you'll have to go before a judge. I tell you, Lizzie Greystock, or Eustace, or whatever your name is, it's downright picking and stealing. I suppose you want ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... said Mr. Prohack. "But that was neither more nor less than a downright lie. You see I was in such a state that I had to pretend, to both you and myself, that things aren't what they are.... And then, without the slightest warning, you suddenly arrive without a scratch on you. You aren't hurt. You aren't even dead. ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... occupying himself chiefly with observing the effect of his dog on the various janitors. Some were frankly hostile; some covertly so. Some didn't mind dogs—but there was rules. And some defeated themselves by a display of over-enthusiasm that manifestly veiled indifference, or perhaps downright dislike. ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... divine service in a church at Langley in Bucks, and hearing there a psalm sung, whose wretched expression, far from conveying the meaning of the Royal Psalmist, not only marred devotion, but turned what was excellent in the original into downright burlesque; he tried that evening if he could not easily, and with plainness suitable to the lowest understanding, deliver it from that garb which rendered it ridiculous. He finished one psalm, and then another, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... in smoking a pipe of tobacco, and a certain other proportion in looking at the sky, or the clock, or trying to recall an air, or in meditation on his own past adventures, and only the remainder in downright work such as he is paid to do, is he, because the theft is one of time and not of money,—is he any the less a thief? The one gave a bad shilling, the other an imperfect hour; but both broke the bargain, and each is a thief. In piecework, which is what most of us do, the case is none the less ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "'She's downright wasteful,' I went on. 'She fills every hour with information, and then throws on some more. It keeps coming. Your seams open, and then it's every hand to the pumps! Dora Perkins and Rebecca Ford are just as extravagant. They toss out gems of thought and chunks of knowledge as if they ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... understandings. It arises from a total want of charity, or a total want of thought. Want of one kind was never relieved by want of any other kind. Patience, labour, sobriety, frugality, and religion, should be recommended to them; all the rest is downright FRAUD. It is horrible to call them "The ONCE ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... on deck: blowing of whistles, roaring of steam, playing of bands, bumping of trunks and boxes, and finally the steady pulsation of the engines as the big ship stood out to sea. After nine days of discomfort in the stuffy steerage and thirty-six hours of downright misery while crossing the stormy North Sea, Inga found herself once more in the land of her birth. Full of humiliation and shame she met her husband at the railroad station, and prepared herself for ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... drawn or described in any of the otherwise comprehensive architectural works, which appear from time to time, is the rarest of experiences. The Hollanders are accused of mere apishness in employing the Gothic style, and of downright dulness in apprehending its import and beauty. Yet a man who has found that bit of Rotterdam which beats Venice; who has seen, from under Delft's lindens on a summer evening, the image of the Oude Kerk's leaning tower in the still canal, and has gone ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... up to his, in sudden and strong approval. "I like that," she said. "It always gives me a sense of security and safety when I meet downright honesty. In no way can you better strengthen our faith than by being perfectly true. You give me a good example of sincerity," she added slowly, "and perhaps my hymn will teach submission more than faith. While I am singing it you may find something that will not ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... he exclaimed; "what will I do? I can't lose him, an' I won't lose him! Lose him! oh God, oh God, it is to lose the best son and only child that ever man had! Wouldn't it be downright murdher in me to let him be lost if I could prevint it? Oh, if I was in his place, what wouldn't he do for me, for the ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... another well-imagined and well-executed character, with his downright impetuous honesty, his hatred of "raskills," and his disposition to see rascality everywhere; his resolution to stand on his rights, his good-natured contempt for his wife, his very justifiable dislike of her sisters, his love for his children, and his determination that they shall have a ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... sit up all night sewing clothes to wear to your school-teaching when you can buy better ones already made that have real style. It tickles me that some women have learned that it's weak-minded to massage and paraffine their wrinkles out—those things, Sylvia, strike me as downright immoral. What I've been wondering is whether I can do anything for the kind of girls we have at Elizabeth House beyond giving them a place to sleep, and I guess you've struck the idea with that word efficiency. No girl born to-day, particularly ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... with Clara. He would have been so delighted to welcome Owen as his brother-in-law. And as he strode along over the ground, and landed himself knowingly over the crabbed fences, he began to think how much pleasanter the country would be for him if he had a downright good fellow and crack sportsman as his fast friend at Castle Richmond. Sir Owen Fitzgerald of Castle Richmond! He would be the man to whom he would be delighted to give ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... few fleeting glimpses of him in the East, and also in the neighborhood of Duluth, Minnesota. In the Sunflower state his conduct was just about as inconsistent as it could have been without being downright absurd. What do I mean by that? Why, while he was as wild as a deer, he still came to town, flitting about in the bushes of a vacant lot near my house, and even visiting the fence between my yard and the adjoining one, hopping about on the ground with one eye on the lookout for nits and ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... is lost, is sufficiently apparent from a statement like the following, actually addressed to a miscellaneous audience: "If there is an eternal throne, you are on it now; there has never been a moment when you were not on it." Such downright extravagance is most suitably met with a bald contradiction: man is not on the eternal throne, and there has never been a moment when he was on it. It is this fact which makes worship so much as possible; it is, in short, the transcendent God with whom we are concerned ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... Minister Whittle, too conscientious to tell a Downright lie, though sorely tempted so to do. "But a man may promise indirectly, as well as directly. When I have a thing much at heart, and converse often about it with a person who can grant all I wish, and that person, listens as attentively as I could wish him to do, I regard that as a promise; ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Street, he went off to Mr. Moggs senior. Of the interview between Mr. Neefit and Mr. Moggs senior sufficient has already been told. Then it was, after his return to his own shop, that he so behaved as to drive the German artist into downright mutiny and unlimited beer. Through the whole afternoon he snarled at Waddle; but Waddle sat silent, bending over the ledger. One question ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... "He's downright ill!" observed Nastasya, not taking her eyes off him. The porter turned his head for a moment. "He's been in a fever ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Goodwood, ye see, the turf was very slippery and my poor Larkspur got a fall, and I broke my knee, and so of course I was of no more use there. But I could not live without horses, of course I couldn't, so I took to the hotels. And I can tell ye it is a downright pleasure to handle an animal like this, well-bred, well-mannered, well-cared-for; bless ye! I can tell how a horse is treated. Give me the handling of a horse for twenty minutes, and I'll tell you what sort ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... yer never mind, sir, when you've been laying out for some great pull, you feel as if you'd got fixed fustrate, and was sure ter win, till the minute comes; and then, all ter once, your gitting-ready seems no account somehow, and you feel downright shamed uv what, a minute before, made ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... the most forlorn dilemma. This is palpable fraud in monsieur le tems, to hold out such lures merely to draw one into jeopardy. Having neither wife nor daughter near me on whom to vent my spleen, renders the case more deplorable. It is downright desperation. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... vaudevilles twice a week, stand with their eye-glasses to their eyes, before such a play, which, without more ado, would swamp all their critical ideas and inkstands, and show them death and horror in real downright earnest. ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... saying his prayers than would a man who had taken God Almighty by the horn, patted Him on the rump, and sold Him, and let some strange boy urge Him on with a bit of strap. He felt that he was an evil man, a downright ungodly man, and he asked his wife what the devil she ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... made them a positive nuisance. She's not a happy way of inculcating a moral economic lesson, hasn't Louisa. But I own I'm fond of this boy. He's far the best of the whole lot—gentlemanlike, and a sportsman, and good-looking—unusually so for one of that family—and, my dear, he's downright honestly in love with Kathleen. I've watched him—did so when he was down at Ranelagh one day last month with her and Victoria Sokeington—and I know the real ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... attention to the fact that the original argument has been garbled but in no wise refuted, An opponent can convict the one who has "answered himself" either of unpardonable ignorance about the subject or of downright dishonesty. ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... there had been thrown Wit able enough to justify the town For three days past; wit that might warrant be For the whole city to talk foolishly Till that were cancell'd; and when that was gone, We left an air behind us, which alone Was able to make the two next companies Eight witty; though but downright fools were wise. When I remember this, * * * I needs must cry I see my days of ballading grow nigh; I can already riddle, and can sing Catches, sell bargains, and I fear shall bring Myself to speak the ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... my feelings. You see, I'm not quite old enough to be serious with the big boys, and he looked so brave and handsome with that ugly scar on the edge of his forehead, and everybody was so proud of him. I was just dying to kiss him, and I thought it downright mean in him ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... indeed probable, yet if they are the right fellows for this work—a work wholly anomalous, unlike all other work that they have thought of in many respects—they will think that what I say is reasonable, and like the prospect all the better (I think) because they see that it means downright work in a cheery, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he's downright mean; and you've often enough said Mrs. Dagworthy spent more money than pleased him. I know very well I shouldn't like ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... of a comparatively small number of whites by immense masses of mounted horsemen. When their weapons were inferior, as on the first occasions when they were brought into contact with troops carrying breech-loading arms of precision, or when they tried the tactics of downright fighting, and of charging fairly in the open, they were often themselves beaten or repulsed with fearful slaughter by mere handfuls of whites. In the years 1867-68, all the horse Indians of the plains were at ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... any way you please, Mr. Moore. I have told you about all that I am able. I know this game, if you will permit me, a little, just a little better than you do, Mr. Moore. I know when fun stops and downright danger begins. The moment you put your foot in China, you are putting your foot in a trap from which you can never, never so long as you are permitted to live, extricate yourself. And, believe me, seriously, that will not be for long. A day? Perhaps. An hour? Very likely not ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... downright doctor. "It's a barroom murder and you cannot get around it; and I, for one, don't try. But now you're in for it, and you've got ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... weather. And after all the greatest men, even, want much more the sympathy which every honest fellow can give, than that which the great only can impart. If he is not the most upright, let us allow him this praise, that he is the most downright of men. He has a hand to shake and to be shaken, and takes a sturdy and unquestionable interest in you, as if he had assumed the care of you, but if you will break your neck, he will even give you the best advice as ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... three by-standers, a blow which has cost many a brave man his life. He struck right down on Hereward's head. Hereward raised his shield, warding the stroke, and threw in that coup de jarret, which there is no guarding, after the downright blow has been given. The stranger dropped upon his ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... are unable to conceal from ourselves is, that the common opinion of better men than the Prince of Wales leaned in the same direction. His violence in the course of the Regency debates had produced strong disapproval in the public, and downright consternation in his own party. On one occasion he is described by a respectable observer as having "been wilder than ever, and laid himself and his party more open than ever speaker did. He is folly personified, but shaking his cap ...
— Burke • John Morley
... by all means," Dick replied. "We can come very close to thrashing Fred Ripley and his crew. And they can be scared away, too. But Mr. Fits is downright dangerous." ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... him with a subdued fierceness. "I'll attend to the scoundrel presently, Captain Rawlings, though he doesn't deserve it. He is a downright sweep—like all his ear-ringed kidney. He had no right to kick this man, who is one of the best and smartest men aboard. I gave him a clip on the jaw, and when I've dressed his arm and he is able to turn ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... unless he be a downright coxcomb, will ever admit to one woman that another woman has loved him. To his wife—perhaps. But how much Fanny Meyrick cared for me I had never sought to know. After the dismal ending of that moonlight boat-row—I had been ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... stable, and very sad and full of care he was. Then Dapplegrim inquired why he was so troubled, and the youth told him, and said that he did not know what to do, 'for as to setting the Princess free, that was downright impossible.' ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... my dear boy, ask! Look! There is young Hexarly with six years' service and half your talents. He asked for what he wanted, and he got it. See, down by the Convent! There's McArthurson, who has come to his present position by asking sheer, downright asking after he had pushed himself out of the rank and file. One man is as good as another in your service believe me. I've seen Simla for more seasons than I care to think about. Do you suppose men are chosen for appointments because of their special fitness ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... "vanity" of Junot, Napoleon's general. For reasons connected with its manufacture, and best not inquired into, the Italian vellum enjoyed the greatest reputation for smooth and silky whiteness. Dibdin calls "our modern books on vellum little short of downright wretched." But the editor of this series could, I think, show examples that would have made ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... he's the hope of Gruenewald," cried Fritz. "He doesn't suit some of your high-and-dry, old, ancient ideas; but he's a downright modern man—a man of the new lights and the progress of the age. He does some things wrong; so they all do; but he has the people's interests next his heart; and you mark me—you, sir, who are ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to her and say, 'Katya, I've done wrong, I've squandered your three thousand,' well, is that right? No, it's not right—it's dishonest and cowardly, I'm a beast, with no more self-control than a beast, that's so, isn't it? But still I'm not a thief? Not a downright thief, you'll admit! I squandered it, but I didn't steal it. Now a second, rather more favorable alternative: follow me carefully, or I may get confused again—my head's going round—and so, for the second ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... had promoted hopes of an hour or two of unwonted idleness. Now those poor, little hopes were summarily blighted. Lazy, pinched with cold by the raw morning air, still a bit hungry, sick even, or downright frightened, they must mount and away—the long line of race-horses streaming, in single file, up the hillside to the exercising ground—with as short delay as possible, or Mr. Chifney and his ash stick would know the ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... how this business is conducted. If a man has no connection with those in authority, or cannot obtain powerful intercession, or is unable to give heavy bribes, his property is valued at perhaps five per cent, or is set at so low a figure as to make the appraisal differ little from downright robbery. We, however, are used to such measures, for when they banished us some time past from certain districts of the city of Brest-Litovsk, where for centuries celebrated scholars of our people dwelt, nothing better was done by the crown to compensate us ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... I'm often downright glad grandfather is so fond of his books, and his creatures, and his plants. It does my heart good to see him so happy, sorting them all at home, and so ready to go in search of more, whenever he's a spare day. Look at him now! he's gone ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... her maid; "and she has not a word for herself, though she has been abroad. My papa may well call her Simple Susan; for simple she is, and simple she will be, all the world over. For my part, I think she's little better than a downright simpleton. But, however, simple or not, I'll get what I want out of her. She'll be able to speak, maybe, when she has settled the grand matter of the broth. I'll step in and ask to see her mother, that will put her in a good ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... of downright frauds and vicious food adulteration in the times of Apicius. The old rascal himself is not above giving directions for rose wine without roses, or how to make a spoiled honey marketable, and other similar adulterations. Those of our readers with ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... "This is downright maddening!" Captain Clinton exclaimed, pacing up and down the room. "And is there no mark nor anything by which they can be recognized? Why, bless me, woman, surely you as a mother ought to ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... that Esquire Bickerstaff is of all authors the most ingenuous. There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake, though all the World sees them to be in downright nonsense. You'll be pleased, Sir, to pardon this expression, for the same reason for which you once desired us to excuse you when you seemed anything dull. Most writers, like the generality of Paul Lorrain's[2] saints, seem to place a peculiar vanity ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... creation. Love in the family is the one thing needful to regenerate the earth and cause the wilderness to become as Eden and the desert to blossom as the rose. Reversed, love and discord have broken more hearts, caused more sorrow, estrangement, and downright death than war, pestilence, and all other causes combined. It palsies energy and ambition, engenders gloom and despair, and transforms manhood into an icicle. Statistics prove that the married live longer, on the average, by several ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... the lookout for cheaper quarters. In spite of his outcries and sulky resistance Trina had induced her husband to consent to such a move, bewildering him with a torrent of phrases and marvellous columns of figures by which she proved conclusively that they were in a condition but one remove from downright destitution. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... Ashamed!—It needn't have been downright feats, Such as the braving men, the like of Shale, Do easily, and smile, keeping them up. If I could look back to one manful hour Of romping in the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... of Captain Eliab's adventures, with the detail of which he amused me during our voyage. His character, however, deserves some mention. If there is an honest man under the canopy of Heaven, it was Captain Eliab; but his honesty was so plain and downright, so simple and unqualified, that I know not how to describe it than by the plain terms, that he was a strictly just and upright man. He had a sense of honour—a natural feeling of what was right—which seemed extraordinary, when compared with the irregular ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... made by browning and crushing the crusts of bread and then rolling them down into a coarse meal. A bowl of this, with sweet, rich, yellow milk (for they kept their own cow), made one of the most appetizing dishes that ever I ate. It was downright good: it gave one the unalloyed aroma of the sweet new milk and the satisfying ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... don't know much about the occupations of the place; I'm not posted; there is nothing about it laid down in our geography; and, in fact, the people who seem to be expecting to spend their lives there are unaccountably mum about it. I don't at this moment remember hearing any one ever express a downright opinion, and I have always thought it rather queer. I asked Nellie Wheden about it one day when she was going on about her expected tour in Europe. She had bored me to death, making me produce all my geographic and historic lore ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... same time there is hint enough to put me on the right track. And now, O'Gorman," continued I, throwing all the impressiveness I could muster into my manner, "I want you to listen to me, and mark well what I say, for I am in downright earnest, and no mistake. I gather, from the whole drift of this adventure, that your object in coming here is to hunt for a certain buried treasure, the hiding-place of which is indicated on that paper in your hand. Now, I have brought you to this spot, and it is exceedingly ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... diabolical jangle of it when all is done. For this law of unity, which is written on the soul of man, this law of CONSCIENCE within, is written without also; and to erase it within is to get the lesson from without in that universal and downright speech and language which the axioms of nature are taught in—it is to get it in that fearful school in which nature repeats the doctrine of her violated law, for those who are not able to solve and comprehend the science of it as it is written—written ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... himself with a feeling of downright misery, was already down the drain. He'd been dipping into personal savings to keep up his front as a big spender, but that couldn't go on forever—even though he saved money on the front by gambling very ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... careful all through not to tell a direct falsehood," said Master Joseph; "it is bad enough to deceive people, without being guilty of downright lying." ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... is he cannot help knowing that he has a wide and lively intelligence, and it pleases him to know it, and to be reminded of it, especially in an oblique and tangential sort of way, so as not to look like downright flattery. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... to the relief of my headache and general misery, that I began to hold myself up, and drink in the life-giving freshness of the salt breezes with something that came quite close to hope, and was not far off enjoyment. As to the stanchions, I was downright proud of them, and was rubbing away, brightening the brass, and getting the blood comfortably circulated through my body, when, with the usual running and shouting, a crowd of men poured on to the poop with long-handled scrubbing-brushes and big tubs, &c., followed by others dragging a fire-hose. ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... in a hearty, downright fashion, for he always made himself as disagreeable as possible to them, and certainly seemed ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... this place, and here he is in the midst of the most forlorn dilemma. This is palpable fraud in monsieur le tems, to hold out such lures merely to draw one into jeopardy. Having neither wife nor daughter near me on whom to vent my spleen, renders the case more deplorable. It is downright desperation. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... the sudden change. McDowell found it impossible to stem the tide once set in, and gave orders to fall back across Bull Run to Centreville, where his reserves were stationed. As the retreat went on it turned to a downright rout. The Confederates made only a feeble pursuit, but fear of pursuit spread alarm through the flying ranks, demoralized by long marching and hard fighting. Baggage and ammunition-wagons, ambulances, private vehicles which had been standing in the rear, joined the sweeping ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... evidently had no idea that a time would come when women would ask this question in downright seriousness. Meanwhile the preference for the words "male person" in the new enactments still continued. It was employed in the Municipal Corporation Reform act, 1835; and in the Irish poor-law act of 1838, women, as well as clergymen, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the dominant idea with pianoforte-makers, and to this day, although less insisted upon, engrosses time and attention that might be more usefully directed. Some great players, from their point of view of touch, have been downright opposed to repetition actions. I will name Kalkbrenner, Chopin, and, in our own day, Dr. Hans von Buelow. Yet the Erard's repetition, in the form of Hertz's reduction, is at present in greater favor in America and Germany, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... got out well," said Jerry. "I tell you it looked downright ugly, and I wouldn't have given a continental for our chances. As for the rapids, I guess we shall generally find rocks one side or the other where we can make our way along, and we can let down the canoes by the ropes. Anyhow, we need not get skeery over them. After getting out of that ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... men shoulden serve with me, Thus at noon, and my meynie. Say him, it shall him nought avail, Though he for-bar us our vitail, Bread, wine, fish, flesh, salmon, and conger; Of us none shall die with hunger, While we may wenden to fight, And slay the Saracens downright, Wash the flesh, and roast the head. With OO [One] Saracen I may well feed Well a nine or a ten Of my good Christian men. King Richard shall warrant, There is no flesh so nourissant Unto an English man, Partridge, plover, heron, ne swan, Cow ne ox, ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... gentle, dreamy soul up yonder could not know how it hurt. How could she understand, for instance, what it meant to go back and face the deadly dull routine of a life from which all zest, all interest, had fled? A routine broken only by moments of downright torture. Yes, and the effort it would take to smile! God! If there were only some way to break ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... our mental faculties, so little understood, helped me at any rate to find in my own excitement some living proofs of my theories. There was something exceedingly odd in this combination of lover and man of science, of downright idolatry of a woman with the love of knowledge. The causes of the lover's despair were highly interesting to the man of science; and the exultant lover, on the other hand, put science far away from him in his joy. Foedora saw me, and grew grave: I annoyed her. I went to her box during the first ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... depend upon the fruits of action.[20] The Pitris, that support (by rain) the lives of even all disbelievers, observing the ordinances (of the Creator as declared in the Vedas), are, O king, engaged in action.[21] Know them for downright atheists that reject the declaration of the Vedas (which inculcate action). The person that is learned in the Vedas, by following their declarations in all his acts, attains, O Bharata, to the highest region of heaven by ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... numbers of respectable relations in the first four acts; and, at the last, be actually burned at the stake, to which she comes shuddering, ghastly, barefooted, and in a white sheet. Sweet excitement of tender sympathies! Such tragedies are not so good as a real, downright execution; but, in point of interest, the next thing to it: with what a number of moral emotions do they fill the breast; with what a hatred for vice, and yet a true pity and respect for that grain of virtue that is ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... by this downright declaration, but gradually she took it more seriously. She would see the world, be elegant, rich, well dressed. She would have her future secured and no more bother with the police. But, on the other hand, it might become terribly boring after the exciting life she had ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... Clara's side, and carefully studied her face, with his hand on her pulse. There was no sympathy here between the dreamy mystical temperament of the patient and the downright practical character of the doctor. Clara secretly disliked her medical attendant. She submitted impatiently to the close investigation of which he made her the object. He questioned her—and she answered irritably. Advancing a step ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... the expense to each (exclusive of the dress, which every man finds for himself) will not exceed two guineas. Forster plays, and Stone plays, and I play, and some of the Punch people play. Stanfield, having the scenery and carpenters to attend to, cannot manage his part also. It is Downright, in "Every Man in his Humour," not at all long, but very good; he wants you to take it. And so help me. We shall have a brilliant audience. The uphill part of the thing is already done, our next rehearsal is next Tuesday, and if you will come in you will find everything ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... his question. While the explanation might seem to be fairly plausible, he felt positive the man was telling a downright lie; and Max believed he knew an easy way to ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... in a Christian country, and himself, we hope, a Christian) who gives the following lines, portraying the fervour of solitary devotion excited by the magnificent display of the Almighty's works, as a proof and example of an author's tendency to downright ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Waited in ranks the wished command to fire; Then all together, when the signal came, Discharged their a-b abs against the dame, Who, 'mid the volleyed learning, firm and calm, Patted the furloughed ferule on her palm, And, to our wonder, could detect at once, Who flashed the pan, and who was downright dunce. ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... superiors, and of saying what they think Signori like. This habit, while it smoothes the surface of existence, raises up a barrier of compliment and partial insincerity, against which the more downright natures of us Northern folk break in vain efforts. Our advances are met with an imperceptible but impermeable resistance by the very people who are bent on making the world pleasant to us. It is the very reverse of that dour opposition which a Lowland Scot or a North English ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... to speak to her ... she's never been like that before—indeed, when Cherry broke her arm she used to welcome me quite demonstratively." He smiled, then grew grave again. "Of course the woman was in pain to-day—she was a queer colour, too—looked downright ill. I expect the affair has been a shock to her as well as ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... prayers than would a man who had taken God Almighty by the horn, patted Him on the rump, and sold Him, and let some strange boy urge Him on with a bit of strap. He felt that he was an evil man, a downright ungodly man, and he asked his wife what the ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... too conscientious to tell a Downright lie, though sorely tempted so to do. "But a man may promise indirectly, as well as directly. When I have a thing much at heart, and converse often about it with a person who can grant all I wish, and that ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... compliment. it is very weak to be pleased with flattery; the stupidest of 'all delusions to beg it. From You I should take it ill. We have known one another almost fifty years—to very little purpose, indeed, if any ceremony is necessary, or downright sincerity not established between us. tell me that you are recovered, and that I shall see you some time or other. I have finished the catalogue of my collection; but you shall never have it without fetching, nor, though a less ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... a second-hearing (for I never met with downright second-sight in the East) fell once under my own observation. On my third journey to Cape Colonna, early in 1811, as we passed through the defile that leads from the hamlet between Keratia and Colonna, I observed Dervish Tahiri riding rather out ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... sake. It may be that Jeanne may, after all, look to what you call the simple life for happiness. Well, if she does that after a year or so, well and good. But she shall not do so with my consent, without indeed my downright opposition, until she has had an opportunity of testing both sides, of weighing the matter thoroughly from every point of view. Do you not agree with me, Mr. ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of farming in good earnest, with success and profit, is not fun, but downright work. It is work, but no more persistent, constant, studious, or thoughtful than that which is demanded by any of the other callings in life, none of which has or can have such delightful compensations as this. Careful experiments should be made in chemistry, analyzing thereby ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Bement crossly, "thar's the beans an mug o' flip. Call it a thousand dollars, an fork over, but by gosh, I don' git caught that way again. It's downright robbery, that's wot it is. I say ain't ye got no cleaner bills ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... be great; but I shall work as hard as any of them," he continued. "To tell you the honest truth, however, this would be the happiest Christmas Eve of my life if I had a downright suit on my hands. Why can't I be frank with you and say I'd like to begin the chief suit of my life now and here—a suit for this little hand? I'd plead for it as no lawyer ever pleaded before. I settled that much ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... given excellent advice; but it is just the way to bring us all to the gallows. The rogue has given us devilish advice, indeed, to go a-thieving, till from a little vessel we came to a great ship, and so we shall turn downright pirates, the end of which is to ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... are you doing?" ejaculated Bonaparte, angrily. "Will not the princess tell the Count de Provence that the Tuileries are now inhabited by a downright bourgeois and hen-pecked husband, who treats his wife sentimentally even in the presence of other persons, and in return for her caresses has always to comply with her wishes? And shall we not be ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... attending divine service in a church at Langley in Bucks, and hearing there a psalm sung, whose wretched expression, far from conveying the meaning of the Royal Psalmist, not only marred devotion, but turned what was excellent in the original into downright burlesque; he tried that evening if he could not easily, and with plainness suitable to the lowest understanding, deliver it from that garb which rendered it ridiculous. He finished one psalm, and then another, and found the work so agreeable ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... "She's getting downright mean, is that old Deb!" grumbled he; "especially if Jan happens to be out. Wasn't it different in West's time! He knew what was good, he did. Catch her daring to put bread and cheese on the table for supper then. I shall be quite exhausted before ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... articles of clothing, belonging to our old mistress; they were presented to her in years gone by, by members of our family on her birthdays and various festivals; her ladyship never wears anything made by people outside; yet to hoard these would be a downright pity! Indeed, she hasn't worn them even once. It was yesterday that she told me to get out two costumes and hand them to you to take along with you, either to give as presents, or to be worn by some one in your ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... say this, which you erroneously attribute to me, but you yourself, and what you said was very true. For indeed, my dear fellow, the design which you meditate of teaching what you do not know, and have not taken any pains to learn, is downright insanity. ...
— Alcibiades I • (may be spurious) Plato
... of regimentation were enforced upon the natives; but it was to be found still more in the assumption that the native had no rights as against his white lord. His land might be confiscated; his cattle driven away; even downright slavery was not unknown, not merely in the form of forced labour, which has been common in German colonies, but in the form of the actual sale and purchase of negroes. Herr Dernburg, who became Colonial ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... sank into his body, till the blood streamed to his girdle, and the soil of the ford was crimson with the blood that fell from the body of that warrior so valiant in fight. And Cuchulain's endurance was at an end, for Ferdia continually struck at him, not attempting to guard, and his downright blows, and quick thrusts, and crushing strokes fell constantly upon him, till Cuchulain demanded of Laeg the son of Riangabra to deliver to him the Gae-Bulg. Now the manner of using the Gae-Bulg was this: it was set with its end pointing down a stream, and was cast ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... Loud gnashings hear, yet firm, his threats defy; Like them the Trojans on all sides assail'd Ulysses dear to Jove. First with his spear 510 He sprang impetuous on a valiant chief, Whose shoulder with a downright point he pierced, Deiopites; Thooen next he slew, And Ennomus, and from his coursers' backs Alighting quick, Chersidamas; beneath 515 His bossy shield the gliding weapon pass'd Right through his navel; on the plain he fell Expiring, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... needn't take people at their own estimate," replied Maisie, whose downright nature much disliked Flossie's habit ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... reputable hour of three in the afternoon, by pretending to start a coach at five o'clock in the morning, was an imposition "tolerable" only in Dogberry's sense of the word—it was "not to be endured." And then, the downright absurdity of the undertaking! for admitting that the proprietors might prevail on some poor idiot to act as coachman, where were they to entrap a dozen mad people for passengers? We often experience an irresistible impulse to interfere, in some matter, simply because it happens to be no business ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various
... can't say that I pay very much attention to sermons as a rule, but Pilcher gave us a regular downright, no-mistake-about-it, rouser at the Watch-night ...
— Dolly Reforming Herself - A Comedy in Four Acts • Henry Arthur Jones
... when there had been thrown Wit able enough to justify the town For three days past; wit that might warrant be For the whole city to talk foolishly Till that were cancell'd; and when that was gone, We left an air behind us, which alone Was able to make the two next companies Eight witty; though but downright fools were wise. When I remember this, * * * I needs must cry I see my days of ballading grow nigh; I can already riddle, and can sing Catches, sell bargains, and I fear shall bring Myself to speak the hardest words I find Over as oft ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... hesitation upon every other subject, but on this he almost always speaks evasively, and though about any thing else he would cut his hand off rather than say the thing that is not, will sometimes tell a downright falsehood. In most cases he has been led to this course by witnessing the agony or suffering the reproach with which the knowledge of his habit is received by his friends. He lies either in mercy to them or because the pangs which their rebuke inflicts would become still more intolerable if they ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... the two girls nearer and nearer together; and Peggy found herself yielding more and more—often against her own judgment—to the fascination of the lawless girl, who on her part seemed curiously drawn to the simple, downright, law-abiding freshman. ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... died the other day. I met him at Nakada when I was out excavating some years ago. He was something of a collector in his way, though he knew very little about it, and, of course, was taken in right and left. Most of his things are downright rubbish, but there are just a few lots that are worth securing, at a reasonable figure, by some one who knew what ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... wroth with Don Blas Nasarre for the assertion, that Naharro first taught the Italians to write comedy, taxing him with downright mendacity; and he stoutly denies the probability of Naharro's comedies ever having been performed on the Italian boards. The critic seems to be in the right, as far as regards the influence of the Spanish dramatist; but he might ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... you didn't, but I did," flared the man. "Miss Maggie, it's a downright shame—the way they impose on ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... novel-readers. His intrinsic merits, in sober retrospect, seem very feeble. For all his concern with current questions, his accurate news instinct, he is fundamentally a romantic of the last century, with more than one plain touch of the downright operatic. ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... day. My word, what weather we've been having!" she exclaimed. "I was telling Astor only last night that if we had much more of that sort I'd have to keep him on sawdust puddings and pine-cone soup. That fetched a long face on to him, I can tell you; for it is downright fond of his food he is, and a rare ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... lady, facing him, "you are becoming downright vulgar. I wish you wouldn't talk in that way. If you have no respect for yourself and your ancient family, you ought to remember ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... that neither might be agreeable seems not to have occurred to him. Did you ever know such assurance? Assurance? My dear, it was gall, downright GALL! Well, I didn't find it wormwood, and replied, with my untutored Redhorse heart in my throat: "I—I shall be pleased to do ANYTHING." Could words have been more stupid? There are depths of fatuity in me, friend o' my soul, ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... the tradition of six hundred years to give them a corporate self-confidence, the judgment of outsiders is more severe than anywhere in the world, unless it might be in the New Hebrides. Added to their critical regard was a chilling politeness which would have made downright insolence appear cordial in comparison. Mark felt like Gulliver in the presence of the Houyhnms. These noble animals, so graceful, so clean, so condescending, appalled him. Yet he had found the Silchester ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... had missed, because she hated to go above him. And at the tennis tournament you wouldn't leave till I had finished the match, though you shivered and shook in the frosty October air. You do a lot for me, and I am downright ashamed sometimes. See, ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... you can not pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your creditor; you will be in fear when you speak to him; you will make poor, pitiful, sneaking excuses, and, by degrees, come to lose your veracity, and sink into base downright lying; for 'The second vice is lying, the first is running in debt,' as Poor Richard says; and again, to the same purpose, 'Lying rides upon debt's back;' whereas a freeborn Englishman ought not to be ashamed nor afraid to see or speak to any man living. But poverty often deprives ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... were to be wished) I would rather have a plain downright wisdom, than a foolish and affected eloquence. For what is so furious and Bedlam like as a vain sound of chosen and excellent words, without any subject of sentence ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... white sword, and some of the others cried that they saw it too. I should like to have been a gunner's mate with a stout rattan, and to have laid it over their shoulders, to give them something else to think about for a few hours. It is downright pitiful to see such cowards. At the corner of one street there was a quack, vending pills and perfumes that he warranted to keep away the Plague, and the people ran up and bought his nostrums by the score; I hear there are a dozen such in the City, making a fortune out of the people's fears. ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... "It's downright disgusting," said Hoopdriver, falling back upon his speech. "A lady can't ride a bicycle in a country road, or wear a dress a little out of the ordinary, but every dirty little greaser ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... one. In her desire to reclaim Marmaduke also, she entrusted the letter to George, who undertook to deliver it, and further Julia's project by personal persuasion. George described the interview to me, and shewed me, I am sorry to say, how much downright ferocity may exist beneath an apparently frank, ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... swoop down to worldly topics, 'and then,' as her auditor frankly observes, 'I was interested.' She described her life in the Arab camps, and explained that her influence over the tribes was partly due to her long sight, a quality held in high esteem in the desert, and partly to a brusque, downright manner, which is always effective with Orientals. She professed to have fasted physically and mentally for years, living only on milk, and reading neither books nor newspapers. Her unholy claim to supremacy ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... it himself. This story of the Abbess and Novice almost impels us to turn back to certain earlier chapters, or former volumes, and re-examine some of the subtler passages of humour to be found there—in downright apprehension lest we should turn out to have read these "good things," not "in," but "into," our author. The bad wine is so very bad, that we catch ourselves wondering whether the finer brands were genuine, when we see the same palate equally satisfied ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... apothegms, and sometimes the subject changes on every second page. This fact constitutes one of the counts in the orthodox indictment of him: it is cited as proof that his capacity for consecutive thought was limited, and that he was thus deficient mentally, and perhaps a downright moron. The argument, it must be obvious, is fundamentally nonsensical. What deceives the professors is the traditional prolixity of philosophers. Because the average philosophical writer, when he essays to expose his ideas, makes such inordinate drafts upon the parts of speech that the ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... failed to search his deep and treasures heart. The cause was, since they wanted the fit key Of Nature, in their downright strength of art, With Poesy to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... no less depressed, we formed the escort to the litter whereon lay the dying man. Doctor Craik came to us from time to time, but the general was far beyond human aid. I had never respected him so much as in this hour, for of his downright valor I had had every proof. If only his pride had been a little less, that his valor might have counted! It was while I was riding thus, absorbed in melancholy thought, that a horse cantered up beside me, and looking up, ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... exclaimed Schwarzenberg warmly; "that is putting himself in downright opposition to ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... in Hero's heart, Greater than they could make, and scorn'd their smart. She bow'd herself so low out of her tower, That wonder 'twas she fell not ere her hour, With searching the lamenting waves for him: Like a poor snail, her gentle supple limb Hung on her turret's top, so most downright, As she would dive beneath the darkness quite, To find her jewel;—jewel!—her Leander, 250 A name of all earth's jewels pleas'd not her Like his dear name: "Leander, still my choice, Come naught but my Leander! O my voice, Turn to Leander! henceforth be all sounds, Accents and phrases, ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... which is here spoken of, Dr. Blair discovers in a passage of Addison's Spectator. It is, in fact, as here "brought out" by the critic, a bald and downright absurdity. Dr. Campbell has criticised, under the name of marvellous nonsense, a different display of the same "idea," cited from De Piles's Principles of Painting. The passage ends thus: "In this sense it may be asserted, that in ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... a pond by a farm-house. Clare had been observing with pity how wretched Tommy's clothes were; but when he looked into the pond he saw that his own shabbiness was worse than Tommy's downright miserableness. Nobody would leave either of them within reach of anything worth stealing! What he wore had been his Sunday suit, and it ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... sentiment. With something of the rough tone and temper of the great peasant who initiated the German Reformation, a man who had himself sprung from the people, and who knew of what he was speaking, here set down in downright fashion the actual facts as to the position of women in Germany, as well as what he conceived to be the claims of justice in regard to that position, slashing with equal vigour alike at the absurdities ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... speak with qualification and exception. There are Indians whose word may be taken as unhesitatingly as the word of any white man, and there are white men in the country whose word carries no more assurance than the word of any Indian. The Indian is prone to evasion and quibbling rather than to downright lying, though there are many who are utterly ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
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